[Open-access] Fwd: [okfn-discuss] Open Access in the Humanities and Social Sciences: the official response

Fri Oct 5 13:17:31 UTC 2012

Thought this could be of interest to the Open-Access group...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Hannah Burd <hannahxburd at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 2:14 PM
Subject: [okfn-discuss] Open Access in the Humanities and Social
Sciences: the official response
To: okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org

Really exciting to hear about the Open Access debate looking at the
nuances between OA for natural vs. social sciences. If people are
interested in hearing the official response (not one that I
necessarily agree with) to the moves toward OA in the humanities and
social sciences (HSS) in the UK, follow this link to the British
Academy website:

http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/news.cfm/newsid/786

(the British Academy is the national academy for British HSS, it has a
fellowship of illustrious academics in these disciplines and has a
reputation for being pretty conservative):

>From this you will see that the establishment's main worries are not
just about an attachment to paper copies. They are concerned about:

        'rationing of publication and corresponding damage to the UK
research base' as resources for OA publishing are tight and likely to
become tighter.
         'UK scholarship will risk becoming provincialised' and our
universities will be pushed down international rankings’ - this
doesn't seem to be based on concrete evidence or forecasting, but
rather on the observation that European and North American publishing
systems are not as far down the OA route as the UK (might they not
become the provincial ones?!), and
         HSS 'Journal articles tend to be substantially longer and to
have longer half-lives' than natural sciences, so need a different
publishing model.

They wrote this news item in response to the government's acceptance
of recommendations in the Finch Report 'Accessibility, sustainability,
excellence: how to expand access to research publications': This link
will take you to the Finch Report page - scroll down for some spirited
and innovative views on how more could be done to bring OA into
academic publishing: http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/

Hope this helps anyone interested!

Hannah

On 4 October 2012 11:31, <okfn-discuss-request at lists.okfn.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: [Open-access] Ross Mounce (Panton Fellow) on BBC about
>       Open Access (Emanuil Tolev)
>    2. Hearing more about humanities research and open   access (Dan Scott)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 11:11:01 +0100
> From: Emanuil Tolev <emanuil.tolev at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [okfn-discuss] [Open-access] Ross Mounce (Panton Fellow)
>         on BBC about Open Access
> To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list
>         <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> Cc: Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com>, Mike Taylor
>         <mike at indexdata.com>
> Message-ID:
>         <CANeG0fLK1iMOreB=mnEVtUv2XFzOiPqnfTo5Oz4qxUbYJuhLGg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On 3 October 2012 08:27, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > I'd be interested in hearing more about humanities research and open
> >> access if anyone on these lists is involved in these areas. I got the
> >> impression from talking with some of those concerned afterwards that
> >> humanities academics are very drawn to *paper* copies of journals, and this
> >> thus increases the cost of publishing for them.
> >>
> >
> > Yes - if you want to contunue with the ways of the past it costs more
> > money.
> >
> >>
> >> Paper journals are irrelevant to me and my research - they are 20th
> >> century reminders of how research used to be distributed. All I need is
> >> research distributed via the internet to be read on computers, tablets,
> >> phones, and other devices and hence I feel the cost of publishing research
> >> need only be very small. I suspect the difference of opinion encountered
> >> was based around this.
> >>
> >>
> > And the disconnection of cost from value. This is something that perhaps
> > we should try to identify and formalize. Thus eveyrone can *read* physics
> > in the archive. It then "has to be" published in paper. Why? (a) to provide
> > a formal record - but a national library could do that for a fraction of
> > the costs and (b) to give a formal label/score of approval. That's the main
> > problem.
> >
>
> I wonder if there aren't any further .. emotional (or sentimental, if you
> will) reasons for this attitude we ascribe to Humanities researchers. What
> if they just like reading from a paper and feel that their research has a
> special connection to that medium?
>
>
> > PS Since I didn't get to mention it on air: it's Open Access Week soon!
> >> 22-28 October: http://www.openaccessweek.org/    Help celebrate & raise
> >> awareness of OA!
> >
> > Yes - but what actually is it? what are we meant to do? Last time I tried
> > to contribute and got essentially zero feedback. Is it just a PR exercise
> > for the mainstream OA community.
> >
> > I do not get a feeling of Openness in the same way as I do for other Open
> > events.
> >
> >>
> >> Looks like Document Freedom Day or similar things. As in, it's not an
> *event*, it's whatever the community makes it. (And "the community" =
> whoever knows about this week and has the knowledge and inclination to
> create an event in their environment.)
>
> Greetings,
> Emanuil
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 11:31:54 +0100
> From: "Dan Scott" <dan.scott at socialsciencesdirectory.com>
> Subject: [okfn-discuss] Hearing more about humanities research and
>         open    access
> To: "'Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list'"
>         <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>, <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
> Message-ID:
>         <00a301cda21b$7967e0c0$6c37a240$@scott at socialsciencesdirectory.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Dear Peter
>
>
>
> In answer to your question, I worked in subscription publishing and became
> so infuriated with its iniquities that I set out to provide an alternative,
> as outlined below.
>
>
>
> On September 24th, the first issue of Social Sciences Directory
> <http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/index>  was
> published and it will be followed shortly by Humanities Directory
> <http://humanitiesdirectory.com/index.php/humanitiesdirectory/index> . These
> are new multi-disciplinary publications, which aim to revolutionise
> scholarly publishing by providing quality, affordable content without the
> barrier of subscription paywalls. Our approach is modern and progressive,
> whilst adhering to recognised publishing standards. I am writing to ask if
> you will help us to disseminate information by passing on details to your
> members, and by doing so benefiting the faculty, researchers, students and
> librarians of your membership?s institutions by increasing the reach and
> speed of their research output. We would also be delighted to talk to your
> association or society directly about possible publishing partnerships.
>
>
>
> We aim to
>
> ?         capture the best of international research across the disciplines
> of social sciences and arts & humanities
>
> ?         conduct peer-review and publish papers in online formats
>
> ?         facilitate discussion and information sharing through discussion
> platforms
>
> ?         augment research content with valuable additional reading
> materials such as dissertations, reviews, presentations and reports
>
>
>
> Our first issue contains papers on
>
> ?         Successful transition to retirement in Australia
> <http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/19>
>
> ?         Knowledge, attitude and belief of pregnant women towards safe
> motherhood in a rural Indian setting
> <http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/23>
>
> ?         Gender equality in the workplace: the perceptive reality
> <http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/24>
>
>
>
> Our philosophy is that research in one field can also have applications in
> areas of research beyond that intended and the inter-disciplinary nature of
> a large collection of work ? spanning the boundaries of subject and state -
> will help to cross-fertilise ideas. Open access publishing provides
> significant benefits for authors and readers alike in speeding up the time
> to publication and dissemination, author copyright retention and providing
> value-for-money for taxpayers. We aim to publish a regular schedule of
> research going forwards.
>
>
>
> We recognise the difficulty in moving from traditional journal publishing to
> new forms. You want to be able to trust that the publication maintains
> quality standards and maximises dissemination of your department?s work. We
> also firmly believe that Social Sciences Directory addresses many of the
> flaws within the scholarly publishing industry and can provide better levels
> of service. Submissions have been received from the UK, Australia, France,
> Brazil, Ethiopia, India and Kenya, whilst editors and reviewers from all
> over the world have offered their services, demonstrating an appetite and
> widespread support for the initiative. We hope that you will support our
> cause, will encourage your members to consider us when choosing where to
> publish and, if possible, mention Social Sciences Directory and Humanities
> Directory on your website.
>
>
>
> Yours sincerely
>
> Dan Scott MA, BA (Hons)
>
> Director
>
> Social Sciences Directory Limited
>
> T: +44 (0)1423 326 257
>
> M: +44 (0)770 381 2042
>
>
>
> www.socialsciencesdirectory.com
>
>  <http://www.humanitiesdirectory.com> www.humanitiesdirectory.com
>
> READ IT. WRITE IT. CITE IT.
>
>
>
> Social Sciences Directory is an affiliate member of the Open Access
> Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) <http://oaspa.org/> .
>
> Dan Scott will be a speaker at the Munin open access conference
> <http://www.ub.uit.no/baser/ocs/index.php/Munin/MC7/schedConf/program>  at
> the University of Troms?, Norway (21-23 November 2012).
>
>  <http://socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/33>
> Call for papers.
>
> Press release
> <http://socialsciencesblog.co.uk/index.php/2012/09/23/press-release-poacher-
> turns-gamekeeper-issue-gold-open-access-publisher-social-sciences-directory-
> launched/> .
>
>
>
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>
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>
>
> From: okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
> [mailto:okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Emanuil Tolev
> Sent: 04 October 2012 11:11
> To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list
> Cc: Ross Mounce; Mike Taylor
> Subject: Re: [okfn-discuss] [Open-access] Ross Mounce (Panton Fellow) on BBC
> about Open Access
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3 October 2012 08:27, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> I'd be interested in hearing more about humanities research and open access
> if anyone on these lists is involved in these areas. I got the impression
> from talking with some of those concerned afterwards that humanities
> academics are very drawn to *paper* copies of journals, and this thus
> increases the cost of publishing for them.
>
>
> Yes - if you want to contunue with the ways of the past it costs more money.
>
>
>
>
> Paper journals are irrelevant to me and my research - they are 20th century
> reminders of how research used to be distributed. All I need is research
> distributed via the internet to be read on computers, tablets, phones, and
> other devices and hence I feel the cost of publishing research need only be
> very small. I suspect the difference of opinion encountered was based around
> this.
>
>
>
>
>
> And the disconnection of cost from value. This is something that perhaps we
> should try to identify and formalize. Thus eveyrone can *read* physics in
> the archive. It then "has to be" published in paper. Why? (a) to provide a
> formal record - but a national library could do that for a fraction of the
> costs and (b) to give a formal label/score of approval. That's the main
> problem.
>
>
>
> I wonder if there aren't any further .. emotional (or sentimental, if you
> will) reasons for this attitude we ascribe to Humanities researchers. What
> if they just like reading from a paper and feel that their research has a
> special connection to that medium?
>
>
>
> PS Since I didn't get to mention it on air: it's Open Access Week soon!
> 22-28 October: http://www.openaccessweek.org/    Help celebrate & raise
> awareness of OA!
>
> Yes - but what actually is it? what are we meant to do? Last time I tried to
> contribute and got essentially zero feedback. Is it just a PR exercise for
> the mainstream OA community.
>
> I do not get a feeling of Openness in the same way as I do for other Open
> events.
>
>
>
> Looks like Document Freedom Day or similar things. As in, it's not an
> *event*, it's whatever the community makes it. (And "the community" =
> whoever knows about this week and has the knowledge and inclination to
> create an event in their environment.)
>
>
>
> Greetings,
>
> Emanuil
>
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