The Implied Analogy of Open Access
The “Shot heard round the world” is a well known phrase that has come to represent several historical incidents throughout world history. The line is originally from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s Concord Hymn (1837), and referred to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. The most recent shot has come from the muzzle of Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), which “unanimously approved a motion that compels Harvard researchers to deposit their “scholarly articles” in an open access (OA) repository to be managed within the library and to be made freely available to anyone via the Internet.” Of course depending on your point of view this announcement can be seen either favorably (if your someone potentially consuming this content), or unfavorably (if you stand to profit from this content being made scarce). ”The Harvard motion resembles a publishing contract of sorts; it compels faculty to give Harvard non-exclusive, irrevocable permission to distribute their articles online, which Harvard intends to do, as well as permitting others to use the works as well, as long as those uses are non-profit.” This is an interesting move in comparison to other publishers, most recently Tor releasing content online for free. Of course Tor is different from Harvard in many respects, but it is worth noting a trend among content (whether scholarly articles or science fiction novels) providers who seem to acknowledge that providing content online does not equate to profit loss. In addition that the potential for greater distribution of an article that might potentially lead to a significant breakthrough or discovery is also alluring as well. ”What is clear is that the need for open access, and the failure of the traditional model of scientific publishing to make full use of the Internet’s potential in this respect, are no longer issues of interest only to librarians or to activists,” observed Matt Cockerill, president of open access publisher BioMed Central on his blog after the Harvard vote. “Open access is no longer just a nice idea,” he added, “but a concrete objective. Over the course of 2008, the key focus will be not on rhetoric, but on the practical issues necessary to make wide-scale open access a reality.” What seems to be at stake here is a classic scarcity verse abundance issue. Journals gain prestige by being selective. Saying no potentially raises the prestige of the journal, and might raise the bar of quality of submissions. In an online world with no limitations of shelf space, the limitation of space is removed. What remains is the limitation of prestige, or rather a point of view. The one-to-many distribution model that has been successful for journals may be shifting. With this shift must come new ways of thinking about quality, validity and prestige.
Writer,
ouvyt
Topics: Research, Web 2.0 | 2 Comments »
2 Responses to “The Implied Analogy of Open Access”
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
The prestige of the journals is just the beginning it struck me that you divided it into those who stood to benefit and those who would not, who had an interest in being scarce. I imagine many graduate students find themselves akwardly in the center of these two poles. As someone who consumes academic articles greater (and free) availability of papers, including those who may not get published quickly, is very beneficial to my research. As someone who needs to get hired someday I am deeply concerned regarding the incentives of journals to publish articles that are already available free. Since publication in traditional, peer-reviewed, physical journals is a major factor in hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions. For tenured Harvard profs open-source may be all well and good but if this becomes an extensive trend I wonder how/if the hiring process of the academy will shift to deal with it.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Interesting. As a phd student going on the market in a couple three years, I feel that scarcity is a bad thing all the way around. Not only is it lovely to download scholarly articles for free when working on papers or comp lists, but I feel like any papers I published in free / open source ways will ultimately be read by more people, generating more name recognition for me as a scholar, which can only be a good thing. I’ve only published one peer-reviewed scholarly article so far; it was in a free online only journal, The Journal for Marcel Duchamp Studies. I got a ton of email responses to it, much to my surprise, and I doubt that would have happened had I published in a journal that wasn’t open access. If the traditional print journal bites that dust, which it just might, universities will simply just have to scramble and come up with a method for hiring and tenure decisions that more accurately reflects what scholars do in the 21st century. Hell, if the print journal doesn’t bite the dust, they’ll probably do this anyway, simply because it’s a really good idea. I just don’t feel like open access could be a bad thing, and if nobody can get published in traditional ways, it’s not like colleges are gonna stop hiring and shut down.