Key concerns within the scholarly communications process
Report summary
A response to a Scholarly Communications Group survey that showed researchers’ top concerns about communications were accessibility, cost, copyright and quality.
The study is based on interviews, focus group sessions with researchers in the UK and further conversations with librarians, funders, and policy makers in Europe and the US.
The first section looks at the rapid uptake of digital technology in the past 20 years, but also explains that most researchers are still ill-informed about Open Access. It looks at the inevitable cultural factors arising from the fact that most senior scholars tend to be the oldest and most closely wed to the traditional way of doing things. It also takes in the current state of journal publication and purchase, introduces the word “datument” to describe digital articles which contain prose and other data elements and talk about the new possibilities opened up by digitisation as well as the problems of preservation and access. It then provides an overview of the growth and current status of Open Access publication.
Following on, there is a section on new ways of doing research, taking in e-research, cyber-research and ‘cyberscholarship’, interdisciplinary research - which is hampered by the specific requirements of traditional journals (for instance, biology journals don’t want to grapple with mathematical notation) but for which Open Access provides the obvious answer.
There is next a look at university presses and their resurgence thanks to Open Access and the benefits these offer to scholars, followed by notes on the new metrics for assessing research offered by digitisation and potential new methods of peer review - with networked consortiums and open pre and post publication discussions. The section finishes with notes on changing copyright practice (towards scholars keeping control of their own copyright), the preservation of digital material and the blurring of roles (between, say, libraries and publishers) that digitisation will bring about.
The second section addresses scholars’ concerns. These relate to access issues, difficulties relating to discovering material, the lack of material available in digital form in the arts and humanities, and the lack of availability of monographs (although the recent waves of digitisation of out of copyright books is proving very helpful).
It’s also noted that many researchers are not making their work available on Open Access due to their lack of awareness of the concept and fears about copyright.
A number of recommendations are made, including the commissioning of new studies to assess problems faced by researchers working outside traditional norms, attempts to engage senior research managers and policymakers with new developments in scholarly communications and start-up funds for new Open Access journal initiatives.
The next sub-section looks at the costs of Scholarly Communications from traditional journal purchase to article processing charges for Open Access journals - as well as data preservation costs, followed by recommendations for more surveys to discover how money is being used and how copyright costs may be hindering research.
The next looks at copyright concerns, the confusion surrounding what materials can and can’t be used and what rights researchers have – and should try to maintain. It also investigates how copyright restrictions can hamper research, the confusion surrounding web content, the issues raised by increases in collaborative works, the issues raised by the EthOSnet service and the web publication of theses (particularly the reluctance arts and humanities researchers eager to turn their theses into first books to use the service). Recommendations include more studies and the formulation of guidelines for authors on how to manage their rights with a “light touch” – that’s to say protecting their interests while maximising possibilities for the re-use of their work.
The next section looks at quality control, the problems associated with the peer review process and new developments such as open review (discussed above). Recommendations include more studies and the monitoring of any new models of peer review – such as open peer review.
Key points
The OA case for Researchers
“Open Access – the free, online provision of articles or whole journals – has the promise of providing virtually the whole primary research corpus to users without any barriers. It has not yet delivered on this promise but progress has been considerable and there is an inexorability about this change of model for scholarly communication.”
There are now over 1000 institutional repositories in existence and more than 2500 Open Access journals maintained by Lund University library.
Open Access university press journals offer a good answer to young scholars, who are just starting out, have no name for themselves, and who therefore suffer because traditional journals, tied to the profit motive, are unwilling to risk taking them on.
“JISC should reinforce existing efforts to inform and educate researchers in matters relating to Open Access for their work, explaining and emphasising the value of Open Access for themselves, their institutions and wider stakeholders.”
“Access to research monographs is a concern. Researchers in the arts and humanities, where monographs are the most important literature type, perceive that access is reducing and that this is because the purchase of monographs is suffering because the science journal budget is taking an increasing proportion of the library’s funds.”
“There is considerable uncertainty and lack of informed reflection on the issue of payment of APCs for publishing in Open Access journals. Researchers tend to believe that all OA journals require payment (when fewer than half do) and tend to dismiss this avenue for disseminating their work on the basis of that misconception. There is also uncertainty about the administration and allocation of money from funders to pay for APCs.”
“OA journal start-ups and ideas for collaboratively-produced resources for teaching and research in the arts and humanities show great promise but need support.”
“Copyright issues are causing problems for scholarship: they can prevent re-use of material for research and teaching purposes, despite the spirit of copyright legislation in the UK; they can as a consequence skew fields of study towards areas where material is not copyright-protected; and there are cost implications which in themselves can produce a skewing effect.”
Institutions
“The best use of the opportunities of an interoperable, networked information scene is not being made by any university in the world. So much more is possible, and every research-based institution can benefit.”
“University presses appear to be on the brink of a resurgence, predicated upon the values of Open Access and the university’s mission to disseminate knowledge.”
“Custom and practice mean that institutions have largely let their own interests in copyright and ownership lapse with respect to published outputs. This has resulted in a situation where most publishers require copyright in an article to be transferred to them and most authors accede to this demand because there is no habit or guidance to the contrary.”
Read the full report (Word)