2012 - Open Access Presentation (UMN Libraries)

Open Access Week (Oct 26, 2011)
Open Content and
Comparative
Educational
Development

Alfonso Sintjago
UMN PhD Student
Comparative and International
Development Education

Knowledge

By Mark Hill – Flickr (Brick Wall) – CC-BY
By Janine Nelson – Flickr (Metal Bars) – CC-BY

From The Personal
Only Some Have Access
Growth in Internet Access
To Academic Journal Articles

By Matsuyuki – Flickr (Dice) – CC-BY-SA (both)
By DamienHR – Flickr (Barrios de Caracas II)

Definitions
Merriam-Webster.com

• College: A part of a university offering a
specialized group of courses
• Education: the knowledge and development
resulting from an educational process
• Human: susceptible to or representative of
the sympathies and frailties of human nature
• Development: the state of being developed <a
project in development>

http://www.righttoresearch.org/

Objectives of This Presentation
• Overview of Reconsidering Development
• Focus Group Data – CEHD Graduate Student
Perspective on Open Access
• Discussion of Importance of OC and Paths to
Follow

http://journal.ipid-umn.org/ejournal/show/1/_/3

History of Reconsidering
Development
• The journal has published two issues (8 articles).
• They are expecting to receive submissions by Oct 31,
2011. – (Submissions exceeded expectations)
• The journal users a peer review system that is mostly
traditional (3 or 4 tiers).
• Students decided to create a system where scholars
from anywhere could publish.
• The journal is run by students but it has a general
audience
• Organizers make extensive use of web tools for
communication
– Pbworks, Skype.
• Knowledge is seen as a dynamic entity.

How is RD Open?
• Anyone Can Access
– Redefining Access
• Anyone Can Contribute
– Redefining Knowledge Construction

Finances
• Obtained a significant grant
• They do not want to include ads
• Will perhaps link to Amazon books
• Web hosting – 7 dollars a month
• Most labor is by volunteers
• Concerns from faculty about their
sustainability if they because Open Access

Casey Stafford
• What is the Value of Knowledge
– Knowledge is valuable but it should be free
– RD is helping to translate knowledge. We help
translating a paper and make it academic.
– If you are going to have that philosophy you have
to be open access.

Tryggvi Thayer
• There are some things that we don't feel we should pay
for.
• If there is resistance to expectations, then individuals
work themselves around those who resist the change,
and those that resist become irrelevant.
• OSS uses concurrent versioning systems…This is used
by newcomers use a learning tool… CVS made perfect
sense to me
• Today there is so much stuff out there
• A reason for creating an open access journal is not
simply to increase the readership but also so that the
information within it stays dynamic.

Methodology
• Reconsidering Development Interviews
– Two founding members of an Open Access Journal
• Focus Groups (4 Focus Groups) (Krueger and Casey, 2009)
– 3 Face to Face
– CEHD Graduate Students
– 1 Online Focus Group
– Goal – To Reach a Saturation Point

A Few Terms
• Free Culture
• Open Access
• Open Source Software
• Open Data
• Open Education Resources
• Open Content
• Open Course Ware

?
CEHD
Graduate
Student
opinions.

Open
• What do you think those terms mean?
– if stuff is openly available then it would get reused.
– The journal would be available from a computer and a mobile phone.
We wanted people to be able to access it from anywhere.
– With a broader audience you will have more feedback.. With that
feedback you can improve your research
– Helping individuals who are not academics to publish
– Distinction between open education and open access… to me its all
about access
– I can access it anywhere.
– Ability to be a knowledge dispenser, as well as a knowledge receiver
– Some sort of transparency in the knowledge development process

Influence
• To what extent is the ability to access information freely
on the internet influencing the type of information you
consume? (not at all, some (little), a lot, a great deal)?
– The article said exactly what I wanted to know but I had to
redesign my project.
– Looking for research for my “plan b” topic I found an
article and couldn’t access it
– Students usually make do with whatever they have
because there may be a deadline
– without my UMN sign in, I would not be able to do the
research.
– If I cant access the information then I will shift my research
slightly
– If they require subscription, I don’t even bother examining
them

Access
• To what extent is the lack of access to information a
problem? (not at all, some (little), a lot, a great deal)?
– We [at UMN] have more access than smaller schools
– I get very frustrated when I try to access something from
off-site and [because of access problems] it sucks up the
twenty minutes that I had
– Most of the time I find something else [to use for my
research], no big deal.
– They can read more authors, more studies. Whatever they
needed. If it is open available… The more you have, the
more difficult it is to sort things out.
– The majority of the HE journals are subscription-based.
The Chronicle of Higher Education is also subscription only.
I would find one of my friends and use their log in.

Outside Academia
• What is the impact of Open Access Journals outside academia?
– My dad was able to find a lot of stuff online. I know that he was
able to find. If something was not there it would have been
frustrating.
– You do whatever you can. But if you get a hold of one article or two
that are very good for your students, ah you share… An article
becomes a very valuable thing that you have to share with the
students in the class.
– I think it can be very helpful for those organizations (non-profit).
Having access to current research can be very important.
– It would be received with gratefulness. They have a small budget
and staff, and they have a lot of things to do, and they may not be
trained in the academic area of that topic.
– There are electronic boards where people post asking for the
papers that they want. It’s a black market open access. When I was
back in china... there is no way that you can pay for them.

Outside Academia Continuation
• What is a priority.. the access to information to
satisfy my curiosity or obey the laws of the
economy, of money, and ethics. I don’t really care
about these laws when I am thinking of my
curiosity... to access knowledge. Specially when
you think of people who don’t have access, and
are not affiliated with any formal institutions
especially outside of the states…. Long term,
open access is definitely for the whole
advancement of humanity. That’s the long term
choice.

Generational
• To what extent do you think there is a generational
difference in the support for openness, and open access
journals?
– I remember one of my professors saying, “open access articles
are not reliable so be careful”.
– I wonder if today’s kids who known the internet the entire life
are going to put up with this structure.
– I think it just depends on who is around you. Who is pushing you
to do it where.
– A lot of professors do not know about open access stuff. I been
to workshops that are taking about publishing in the humanities
and social sciences and people who were presenting were asked
well what about open access, and the presenter said you cant
do that, you have to publish traditionally, you have to sign away
all of your copy right.

Sustainability
• To what extent do you consider Open Access Journals
to be sustainable? What do you think needs to
happen for them to be sustainable?
– Maybe there is a transition where your readership will
increase ten times and 1% donates something, and mixed
with another business model, you can sustain it.
– Can you sustain a system where everyone asks for 5
dollars?
– Money has to come from somewhere. If they are not
securing the funding through subscription, they have to
find it somewhere else.
– The funding is going to have to shift from subscription and
its going to have to come from somewhere. The
transaction is going to have to happen between somebody.

Voices
• Journals that are run by big organizations, like the
UN or the World Bank, they give access. But in
the process to me is that you have one view of
things. Is a good way to guiding you into
something. You cant be very critical because you
don't know what others have said on it.
• You don’t know what others have said. Open
Access is an advantage to propagating an agenda.
• But I think there would actually be people, who
might know what you are talking about and might
actually read it.

By Riza Nugraha – Flickr CC-BY (Kuta Beach People)

Public vs. Private
• Is there a difference between privately
sponsored research and publically sponsored
research in terms of access by the public?
– form personal experience, I think the medical field is
doing a good job about it and it should be as open as
possible.
– In terms of access should anything be private?
– Is there anything that shouldn’t be public
– It only makes sense that if the taxpayers paid for the
research, then it should be available…. But if it is
private they would have more freedom to choose
whether they want to or not.

Quality
• To what extent do you feel openness increases the quality of
scholarship? (strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly
disagree)
– Found an older article that I found, but as I was reading
through, it seemed that it had not been accurately
translated.
– If everybody was doing it, then there would be a quality
control. You want your stuff to look good anyway.
– I heard of other open access journals that have the same
multiple line reviewers.
– If it’s open access, will “structures” be put in place that
ensure the validity, reliability, and integrity of the material?
Can you be open access and peer-reviewed at the same
time?
– There a lot of [open] sites but the credibility is an issue. I
think the main journals in my field are all subscription

Moral Obligation
• To what extent do you feel opening or increasing access to
information is a moral obligation for educators, for the
CEHD?
– “We have to keep our secrets about teaching and learning
nobody can know”
– Access to education and knowledge should be a basic human
right. … Information piracy sometimes is warranted because we
all have a responsibility to serve the common good.
– If people feel that they need to follow unethical avenues, then
we need to restructure the way information is accessed.
Information piracy is a social ill not an individual ill. We need to
make it possible for anyone who is seeking information to do so
ethically… reworking the way we think…
– Academic institution, human, we have a moral obligation to
connect with each other and tell our stories.

Innovation
• To what extent do you think open access encourages
or discourages innovation?
– Everything should be there. You see, we are doing
something funny, we are trying to discover really good
things, but then we put them in a box and lock them up.
There are very wonderful things that haven’t been read…. I
tried to access this article, and could access it. I thought
this guy did a very good job, but what does that mean, I
just forget it. I can’t pay the 39 dollars.
– I think it would increase competition maybe.. they may
want to create a business out of windmills. That’s
apparently what businesses want, more competition.
– If authors aren’t innovative (and if publishers aren’t
innovative), readers will gravitate to other
authors/publishers

Future
• Projecting yourself two, five and ten years into the future
what role do you see open access playing for academia
and society?
– [natural] sciences are leading the movement, humanities are
way behind.
– Overtime there will be quality. How are other journals doing it. I
just don’t know but its doable
– if everyone is invested in it, there would be a quality control.
You want your stuff to look good anyway. Academia is
notoriously slow.
– I just did a presentation for one of my courses and I used three
articles from that journal alone (IRRODL)
– Open access will develop layers – some layers are important to
be accessible to all. Some part of it will need to be complex.

Choices
• Which one of these three journals would you choose as the site through
which to submit your article and what are some of the reasons you
would chose this journal (please indicate what would be the most
important aspect in making this decision)?
– I probably chose the last one, because I am doing a PhD, there is a
pressure… When we are looking for a job... Maybe after 10, 20 years of
being a professor then I can do that because I wouldn’t not care… then
I can just share ideas.
– Top thing is creating a strong professional image. making a name for
myself in the academy.
– A hierarchy of journal prestige always exists. Researchers are always
trying to get their articles accepted by the most prestigious journal
they can.
– I would look at whatever is usually being done in that area. As sad as it
sound, if the procedures are pretty well established then everyone has
to go through it and I would publish were other publish.
– in the end because I would like to support the open access movement
(and potentially have more people read my work
– The first consideration is going to be about quality, journal or site.

Impact
• Publishing has become a central question in
my career decision. I can choose to stop and
find a job or go into a PhD track. I hate to say
this, but when I look at the reward structure,
it’s a game to me. My choice could be to ditch
a system of doing work to publish something
that teachers are never going to see.

Copyright
• To what extent are you aware of who owns
the copyright for an article that you publish
and the author’s right to retain copyright?
– Copyright is not a common discussion in graduate
school, perhaps in the sense of plagiarism.
– I definitely do not want to fully sign away my
copyright.

What Does This Mean for CEHD, UMN

By Andrew Bowden – Flickr CC-BY- SA (All Roads Lead)

“Openness” is
growing and it can
have a positive
impact for
academia, but
without the support
of faculty members
students are
apprehensive about
contributing more to
the movement

Flickr – CC-BY-SA (All)
Sarah Reid – “Thumbs Up”
Jason Rodgers – “Coins”
Ben+Sam W – “Change Flask”

A Few Stats

SOAP Symposium, Berlin - January, 2011

The Tower Meets The Cloud (Katz, 2010)

Flickr CC-BY – “Tower “- Amber de Bruin
Flickr CC BY – “Cloud” – Karin Dalziel

Digital = No Tragedy of Commons
• Do not lose their quality when replicated!
• Can be replicated an infinite number of times.
• How do we harness this capability for the
benefit of society UMN

Minnesota

USA

World

Greater Copyright Awareness
• Traditional Copyright
• What Does Creative Commons Allow For?
– CC-BY
– CC-BY-SA
– CC-BY-ND
– CC-BY-NC
– CC-BY-NC-ND-SA
– Any Other Combination

Open ….. Closed
Open – Allows Access Closed – Denies Access
And Perhaps Modification Or Perhaps Modification

4 Rs of OC - reuse, revise, remix, redistribute Flickr – CC-BY
John Martinez Pavliga - “Open”
http://opencontent.org/definition/

How do We Open Up?
First
– By publishing in Open Access Journals
Second
– By using the Creative Commons licenses under
certain circumstances.
– By joining the Open Courseware Movement
– Encourage the government to fund Open Research
– Along with many other possibilities!

Why Open!
• Because it decreases cost for students
• Because it’s a historical component of knowledge
transfer.
• Because it flattens access worldwide
• Because it can help establish an Open Meritocracy
• Because it accelerates innovation
• Because it goes in line with the mission or goal of
education
“The University of Minnesota, founded in the belief that all people are
enriched by understanding, is dedicated to the advancement of learning and
the search for truth; to the sharing of this knowledge through education for a
diverse community; and to the application of this knowledge to benefit the
people of the state, the nation, and the world.“

2012 - Open Access Presentation (UMN Libraries)

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