Open Access Perceptions, Strategies, and Digital Literacies: A Case Study of a Scholarly-Led Journal
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- (1)
- Data collected at two workshops conducted with members of this scholarly community, held at two international conferences (CeDEM, Conference for e-Democracy and Open Government, in 2016 in Austria and subsequently in South Korea). The CeDEM conferences draw an audience interested in aspects of the digital, open society and, there, three different stakeholder groups discussed motivational aspects of OA publishing [5,6,7]. In order to gain more detailed insights from a scholarly community familiar with OA
- (2)
- an online survey was sent to all registered users of the JeDEM in 2019. JeDEM is a unique access point to authors in the sense that it gathers this international scholarly community, a community that is interested in publishing OA. Thus, a diverse target group could be reached.
2. Literature Review
2.1. OA in Academia, the Private and the Public Sector
2.2. Research Cultures, Attitudes, and Personal Strategies
3. Methods
3.1. Research Design
- RQ1: What arguments of open scholarship can be found by different stakeholders?
- What are the enablers and barriers of OA?
- Where do they differ in their arguments?
- RQ2: How do authors choose a publication venue?
- What is the role of publishing cultures, institutional context, policies, and support?
- What is the role of digital literacy?
3.2. Case Selected: OA Journal of E-Democracy and Open Government
3.3. Workshops
3.4. Online Survey
- Demographic data
- Strengths and weakness of academic publishing and open access
- Reasons for publishing or not publishing with JeDEM
- Institutional support for publishing OA
4. Results
4.1. Workshop Results
4.2. Survey Results
- Demographic data
- Strengths and weakness of academic publishing and OA
- Reasons for publishing or not publishing with JeDEM
- Institutional support for publishing OA.
4.2.1. Quantitative Measures
Demographic Data
Strengths and Weakness of Academic Publishing and OA
Reasons for Publishing or not Publishing with JeDEM
Institutional Support for publishing OA
4.2.2. Qualitative Measures
Strengths and Weakness of Academic Publishing and OA
“distribute research and new ideas internationally; receive recognition in the field”
“I can contribute to the public and academic debate around issues that today plague democracy and its governance institutions.”
“It allows me to share in-depth research with a broader audience, seeking to advance ways of thinking on the topic.”
“It can be accessed by those interested in it, and/or who work in fields where it can make an impact.”
“It contributes to the existing body of knowledge and engages with the scholarly community with different schools of thoughts, hence a great learning opportunity. Also, it increases visibility and high citation.”
“It helps you to go higher in rank also it helps to extend knowledge to many people.”
“Publishing my work gives me moral standing to discuss what I believe in and also share my knowledge with the people whom I can not reach thus contributing to the world of academics.”
“Provides an opportunity to share and promote my research, and, more importantly, for this research to have some wider professional and societal impact.”
“(commonly) insanely long publication procedures, with multiple delays—and a corresponding massive delay of any public resonance”
“too long for the majority of journals and special books”
“reviews take sometimes way to long, up to 1 year for first decision (personal experience). This is unacceptable, especially for Ph.D. students that fight the clock.”
Reasons for Publishing or not Publishing with JeDEM
“The indexing of the journal is very important, particularly the acquisition of the Impact Factor (or a path toward one) and indexing with CORE. In [my country], researchers are not really free to publish where they want.”
Institutional Support for publishing OA
“There is general acceptance but no actual support in terms of tangible funding.”
“Open research approaches such as scholarly blogs and open datasets.”
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Dimensions | Practitioners | Policy-Makers | Academics |
---|---|---|---|
Aim | Getting the most out of a paper. | Getting the most out of a paper. | |
Quality | Importance of journal rankings. Tension between quality and reputation. | No evidence of added value in developing OA for the benefit of progress of knowledge in the scientific community. Unknown correlation of quality/numbers of OA publications and scientific progress (improvement within research field). Unknown correlation between quantity and quality in the sense of developing a domain. Criticism of impact factor (some low-quality papers are often cited). | Importance of ranking, reputation, and impact factors. Tension between importance of reputation and distribution of work. Personal resources are also tied to reputation of a journal (reviewing is done for free). Reputation of other researchers and their publishing venues as important factors. Better visibility of established journals (non-OA journals are not better quality but better known). Free publishing is associated with lower quality. |
Costs | Advantage of OA publishing for students due to crucial role of fees. | OA as market issue: Google Scholar plays a vital role. Lacking support system for students. OA as an attractive option for no-names, students, or those with no money or organizational/university support. Focus on publishing in high-value journals and conferences: Why publish OA if costs are no issue? | |
Disciplines | Differences between research fields. | Differences between research fields. | |
Policy | Institutional policy on publishing is crucial. | This is an issue of higher education institutions. EU/EU-funded projects require OA publications. Regulations for publication do not provide much flexibility. | Organizations and institutional policies demand publishing venues. Flexibility: in some cases there are restrictions but not in all. Asia follows the U.S. model. |
Role | Lack of support for students (professors do not normally publish with students). | Role (staff or student) is crucial regarding support. | |
Other | Wishes for measures for more readability of articles. | OA activism: radical or destruction of career? |
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Edelmann, N.; Schoßböck, J. Open Access Perceptions, Strategies, and Digital Literacies: A Case Study of a Scholarly-Led Journal. Publications 2020, 8, 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8030044
Edelmann N, Schoßböck J. Open Access Perceptions, Strategies, and Digital Literacies: A Case Study of a Scholarly-Led Journal. Publications. 2020; 8(3):44. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8030044
Chicago/Turabian StyleEdelmann, Noella, and Judith Schoßböck. 2020. "Open Access Perceptions, Strategies, and Digital Literacies: A Case Study of a Scholarly-Led Journal" Publications 8, no. 3: 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8030044