Tag Archives: journals

Princeton bans academics from handing all copyright to journal publishers

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via theconversation.edu.au

This is good news. The dominoes are beginning to fall. Pay journals are a dying breed. Yeah!

For non-academics or for those academics at huge universities with large library budgets, this might not seem important. For guys like me on faculty at a university with very little access to international journals in my field, this is a much welcomed movement..

I would easily pay $500/yr for access to these works, but that wouldn’t even get me in the door. For an average research paper, I need access to roughly 15-30 difference journals (not just different issues). This is particularly true for me as I do research that spans the fields of Education, SLA/TESOL, and technology, not to mention other tangents that some research flows into.

As stated in the article (http://theconversation.edu.au/princeton-bans-academics-from-handing-all-copyr…, this model is built on the backs of academics doing this work for free (or as part of their university roles). Publications really could offset costs with minimal advertising on their sites. In addition, as most journals are associated with professional organizations the cost of providing journal access could go back into member services and even, perhaps, cut membership costs and increase membership. (Yes, I see the potential for those who join solely for the publication to cut and run).

Some might say that the publishers offer a platform that innovates in delivery, but this is a joke compared to what other 3rd party products could do if they were competing on service rather than content.

Open Access Does Not Equal More Citations, Study Finds (via @tonnet)

Open Access Does Not Equal More Citations, Study Finds

April 1, 2011, 4:12 pm

By Ben Wieder

A new study suggests that while open access appears to increase the readership of scholarly articles, it doesn’t increase how often they’re cited.

The study stands in contrast with earlier research that suggested open-access articles were referenced by other scholars more frequently.

Philip M. Davis, a postdoctoral associate in the department of communication at Cornell University, was given access to 36 subscription-based journals produced by seven different publishers. In 2007 and early 2008, he randomly made approximately 20 percent of their articles free.

via chronicle.com

I find this counter-intuitive, but it’s an interesting finding.

I think that one of the ways that we (academics) can push open publication is to show that it results in a greater number of citations, thus impact factor. If this is the case, authors will favor open journals; thus, open journals will have access to better articles.

If findings like this prove to be accurate, that could frustrate a move to open journals. However, I have to guess that, to a certain extent, it is going to happen regardless.

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