Talking about Open Access: SMASH and Subtler Tactics
Jill CirasellaThe Graduate Center, CUNY
Open Access Week 2014
Slides at: http://tinyurl.com/OASMASH
Brace Yourself…
But open access publishing is self-
publishing!
But open access journals charge fees, which means it’s vanity
publishing!
But I need my work to be peer reviewed!
But everyone says open access journals are predatory and
scammy!
But I have to publish in journals with an impact
factor!
But open access journals will destroy scholarly
societies!
But libraries should pay for journals! You’re trying to push the cost onto
me!
Brace Yourself… But why should I give away my work
for free?
But this university policy feels like Big
Brother!
But I give enough to the university!I’m supposed to give it my copyright
too?
But open access facilitates
plagiarism!
But I have to sign my rights over to the
journal!But I just don’t have time for
this!But I already put all my work on my personal
website!
Ha, you expect me to dig up the manuscript versions of my
articles?
Brace Yourself…
And my all-time favorite…
Brace Yourself…
You’re espousing Venezuelan economics!
*
* Yes, someone really did counter my open access arguments with that!
Why Open Access?
An Argument in Three Slides
1 Me
What Is the Problem?
university $ (taxpayer $, tuition $, etc.) + grant $
pay faculty to do research & record results in articles
faculty give articles & copyright to publishers for free(and other researchers peer review for free)
university libraries pay dearly for access to articles
publishers get articles, copyrights, and labor for free& publishers rake in all the $ (and it is BIG $)
2Me + Flickr
3 Me + Designer
Open Access Made It Better
Better content.Better for you.Better for me.
Open Access Makes It Better
For whom?For what?
How?
Who Benefits from OA?
Readers:
More content is available to everyone, regardless ofinstitutional affiliation or ability to pay
Students:
Students have access to the literature they need to master their fields, no matter what college/university they attend
Who Else Benefits?
Authors:
Increased availability More readers
More scholarly citations, impact in the field
Easy to link to More mentions/links in news, blogs, etc. Broader awareness in the world Greater control over own work No need to relinquish copyright to
publishers Publishers don't dictate copying,
sharing, etc.
The Colbert Bump“the curious phenomenon whereby anyone who appears on this program gets a huge boost in popularity”
— Stephen ColbertColbert Report, 6/21/07
Photo by David Shankbone
The Open Access Bump
Similarly, open access boosts the impact of articles:
easier to access read more cited more
It makes intuitive sense, but it’s also been studied and shown to be true.
Annotated bibliography of articles on the OA advantage:http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
What Benefits from OA?
Libraries:
As OA becomes increasingly prevalent, libraries will be no longer be hamstrung by astronomical journal prices.
Institutions:
Institutions no longer pay twice for research:researchers’ salaries + journal subscriptions
In the case of public institutions, the tax-paying public no longer pays three times for research:salaries + research grants + journal subscriptions
What Else Benefits?
Fields of Study:
Greater access to information More informed research Better research
Articles made OA before they appear in journal Ends reliance on journal publication cycles Allows others to respond more quickly Speeds innovation
And What Else?
The Public:
Greater access to information Better informed doctors, teachers, journalists, etc. Better informed individuals, voters, etc. Healthier, better educated people A cleaner, safer, more evidence-based world
Another Tack…
@openaccesshulk
SMASH!
“Closed access means people die.” — Peter Murray-Rust, University of Cambridge
Read more at:http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/10/23/
open-research-reports-what-jenny-and-i-said-and-why-i-am-angry/
SMASH?
“Elsevier disseminates and preserves STM literature to meet the information needs of the world’s present and future scientists and clinicians — linking thinkers with ideas.”
from Elsevier’s Mission Statementhttp://www.elsevier.com/about/mission
SMASH!
“Elsevier disseminates and preserves STM literature to meet the information needs of the world’s present and future scientists and clinicians — linking thinkers with ideas.”
from Elsevier’s Mission Statementhttp://www.elsevier.com/about/mission Bullsh
*
t!
Know Your Audience!
Feeling outraged?SMASH doesn’t always work.
Feeling charitable?Appeals to altruism don’t always work.
Feeling broke?Arguments about costs don’t always work.
It’s not about what convinces us.It’s about what convinces them.
Know what rhetoric works on whom!
Know Your Audience!
Students:
Improving access to information needed for assignments.
Keeping course material costs down.
Improving access after graduation, when no longer affiliated.
Know Your Audience!
Faculty:
Increasing readership and impact
Improving online presence
Seeing download statistics
Satisfying funders’ OA requirements
Furthering social justice
Know Your Audience!
Librarians:
Tackling the cost crisis
Improving access & services
Ensuring ongoing relevance of librarians
OA is no longer a niche — it’s a necessity!
Know Your Audience!
Administrators:
Maximizing institution’s visibility, prestige, etc.
Better achieving institution’s mission
Collecting and quantifying scholarly output
Assessment! Metrics! Widgets!
Cost savings, eventually…
Know Your Audience!
Administrators:
Open access institutional repositories can “serve as tangible indicators of a university’s quality” and “demonstrate the scientific, societal, and economic relevance of its research activities, thus increasing the institution’s visibility, status, and public value.”
— Raym Crow, “The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper”
http://scholarship.utm.edu/20/
Know Your Audience!
Lawmakers:
Taxpayer access to tax-funded research
Demonstrating value of tax dollars
Promoting innovation
Know Your Audience!
Revolutionaries:
Access to information
Educational opportunity
Empowerment & equality
Retaining rights to one’s own work
Stopping profiteering off unpaid labor
Know Your Audience!
Traditionalists:
Ensuring legacy
Increasing impact
Becoming a public intellectual
Know Your Audience!
“Blah blah open access blah blah.”
Learn to talk about open access without constantly saying “open access”!
There is a Far Side cartoon that perfectly suits this slide. But Gary Larson dislikes online sharing and likes cease-and-desist letters. And it’s hard to say what counts as fair use when you’re dealing with a two-panel cartoon. So you don’t get to see it. Gary Larson wants to you go buy a book instead. If you could see this cartoon, maybe you would. But since you can’t, you probably won’t.
Well under 10% of the
cartoon
Know Your Audience!
Sneak open access into related conversations:
• Retaining rights to one’s own work• Exploring the future of scholarly communication• Updating tenure & promotion practices• Improving peer review• Rethinking indicators of quality• Modernizing the university press• Accelerating scientific discoveries• Abandoning unnecessary vestiges of print publishing• Reimagining the basic unit of scholarship• Linking publications to associated data• Allowing for multi-modal and interactive scholarship
Open Access @ CUNY
• 2005: LACUNY conference about open access• 2005-2010: Incubation period (personal pledges, first
workshops, etc.)• 2011: Scholarly Communications Roundtable created • 2011: Open Access @ CUNY blog started• 2011: University Faculty Senate passed repository resolution• 2012: UFS formed OA Advisory Group to make resolution a
reality• 2012: Four CUNY libraries approved OA policies• 2014: CUNY-wide OER workshop & incentive offered• 2015: CUNY-wide Scholarly Communications Librarian to start• 2015: CUNY-wide repository to launch
Sometime soon? • Pass a Harvard/Princeton-style policy?• Create open access fund to cover article fees?• Make university grants have open access requirement?
Open Access @ CUNY
• 2005: LACUNY conference about open access• 2005-2010: Incubation period (personal pledges, first
workshops, etc.)• 2011: Scholarly Communications Roundtable created • 2011: Open Access @ CUNY blog started• 2011: University Faculty Senate passed repository resolution• 2012: UFS forms OA Advisory Group to make resolution a reality• 2012: Four libraries approve OA policies• 2014: CUNY-wide OER workshop & incentive offered• 2015: CUNY-wide Scholarly Communications Librarian to start• 2015: CUNY-wide repository to launch
Sometime soon? • Pass a Harvard/Princeton-style policy?• Create open access fund to cover article fees?• Make university grants have open access requirement?
TL;DR:
lots of evangelism +
slow, steady progress
Open Access @ CUNY
• 2005: LACUNY conference about open access• 2005-2010: Incubation period (personal pledges, first
workshops, etc.)• 2011: Scholarly Communications Roundtable created • 2011: Open Access @ CUNY blog started• 2011: University Faculty Senate passed repository resolution• 2012: UFS forms OA Advisory Group to make resolution a reality• 2012: Four libraries approve OA policies• 2014: CUNY-wide OER workshop & incentive offered• 2015: CUNY-wide Scholarly Communications Librarian to start• 2015: CUNY-wide repository to launch
Sometime soon? • Pass a Harvard/Princeton-style policy?• Create open access fund to cover article fees?• Make university grants have open access requirement?
CUNY can make
huge impact but is
bureaucratic beast
Open Access @ Graduate Center
2012: Whirlwind of OA ideas and planning2013: Head of Public Services Head of Public Services & Schol Comm2014: Graduate Center repository launched
First repository projects:• New dissertations & theses (2014+)• Older dissertations & theses (1965-2013)• Computer science technical reports (2003+)• Library faculty publications & archival finding aids• Now accepting other faculty submissions• Soon to accept graduate student submissions
Related project:• Using Archive-It to preserve and make open (via Internet
Archive’s Wayback Machine) digital/online components of dissertations & theses
Open Access @ Graduate Center
2012: Whirlwind of OA ideas and planning2013: Head of Public Services Head of Public Services & Schol Comm2014: Graduate Center repository launched
First repository projects:• New dissertations & theses (2014+)• Older dissertations & theses (1965-2013)• Computer science technical reports (2001+)• Archival finding aids• Now ready for faculty self-submissions• Soon: Graduate student self-submission
Related project:• Using Archive-It to preserve and make open (via Internet
Archive’s Wayback Machine) digital/online components of dissertations & theses
GC is more nimble
but can only do so
much without add’l
staff!
Open Access @ Graduate Center
2012: Whirlwind of OA ideas and planning2013: Head of Public Services Head of Public Services & Schol Comm2014: Graduate Center repository launched
First repository projects:• New dissertations & theses (2014+)• Older dissertations & theses (1965-2013)• Computer science technical reports (2001+)• Archival finding aids• Now ready for faculty self-submissions• Soon: Graduate student self-submission
Related project:• Using Archive-It to preserve and make open (via Internet
Archive’s Wayback Machine) digital/online components of dissertations & theses
We’re making our
case to
administrators…
Open Access @ Graduate Center
2012: Whirlwind of OA ideas and planning2013: Head of Public Services Head of Public Services & Schol Comm2014: Graduate Center repository launched
First repository projects:• New dissertations & theses (2014+)• Older dissertations & theses (1965-2013)• Computer science technical reports (2001+)• Archival finding aids• Now ready for faculty self-submissions• Soon: Graduate student self-submission
Related project:• Using Archive-It to preserve and make open (via Internet
Archive’s Wayback Machine) digital/online components of dissertations & theses
We’re making our
case to
administrators…
(SMASH?)
CreditsThis slideshow is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Specific graphics may have different licenses:
“What Is the Problem?” graphic,content by Jill Cirasella / graphic design by Les LaRue, http://www.leslarue.com/, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Octopus image is adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/luca-beanone-barcellona/4776886666/
Open access advantage graph from Gargouri Y, Hajjem C, Larivière V, Gingras Y, et al.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0013636
Open Access Hulk image from https://twitter.com/openaccesshulk
“What We Say To Dogs / What They Hear” Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson
Stephen Colbert photo by David Shankbonehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stephen_Colbert_2_by_David_Shankbone.jpg
Thank you!
Questions?
Jill [email protected]
Slideshttp://tinyurl.com/OASMASH
Open Access @ CUNY bloghttp://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/