Access to Information is (Not) a Universal Right in Higher Education: Librarian Ethics and Advocacy

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie M Bridges ◽  
Kelly McElroy
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Internet Access ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Research Information ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Ethical Duty ◽  
Education And Technology ◽  
The Cost

As a profession, librarians have proclaimed an ethical duty to ensure access to information for all people. However, many barriers exist to fulfilling this duty, including varying levels of education and technology around the globe, the cost of obtaining research information, and the concentration of scholarly publishing in English. This article outlines these barriers, concluding with a call to action for librarians to advocate for multilingual Open Access, to foster international scholarly communities, and to champion Internet access for all.

scholarly journals Access to Information is (Not) a Universal Right in Higher Education: Librarian Ethics and Advocacy

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie M Bridges ◽  
Kelly McElroy
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Internet Access ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Research Information ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Ethical Duty ◽  
Education And Technology ◽  
The Cost

As a profession, librarians have proclaimed an ethical duty to ensure access to information for all people. However, many barriers exist to fulfilling this duty, including varying levels of education and technology around the globe, the cost of obtaining research information, and the concentration of scholarly publishing in English. This article outlines these barriers, concluding with a call to action for librarians to advocate for multilingual Open Access, to foster international scholarly communities, and to champion Internet access for all.

Using a Tetradic Network Technique and a Transaction Cost Economic Analysis to illustrate an economic model for an open access medical journal

First Monday ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Mills ◽  
Robert J. Esterhay ◽  
Judah Thornewill
Keyword(s):  
Medical Journal ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Medical Physics ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Transaction Cost Economic ◽  
Scientific Societies ◽  
Online Journal ◽  
The Cost

There is a crisis in scholarly publishing. The value of the scholarly information is frequently much less than the cost of providing that information. Consequently, libraries are suffering and scholars do not have access to information that they need. However, certain for-profit publishers and scientific societies are benefiting substantially from the current system. The Internet has demonstrated the potential to change this structure. The Budapest, Berlin and Bethesda initiatives show there is significant worldwide interest to replace the current controlled system with one that allows open access of scholarly information to anyone with Internet access. An examination of the scholarly publishing process is offered using a Tetradic Network Technique (TNT) and a Transaction Cost Economic (TCE) analysis as applied to a traditional subscription-based, print medical journal, Medical Physics, and a Web-based, open access medical journal, the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics. The analysis identifies stakeholders and considers transaction and production costs. TCE analysis is performed between each of the following: Libraries, Scholars, Publishers and Societies, for a total of six transaction exchanges for both the traditional and the open access journal. This analysis allows costs to be compared more easily between the two types of journals, and provides the basis for a model online journal pro forma. Results demonstrate that while production costs remain approximately equivalent for the traditional and open access journal, total transaction costs are reduced by a factor of between 5 and 10 for the open access journal. While the cost of producing an eight-page article in a traditional medical journal is approximately US$2500, the cost of publishing the same article in an open access journal is less than US$500. Recommendations are offered that illustrate how an open access online journal may be produced by a university for approximately the cost of several library print journal subscriptions and physical storage of the printed material. Universities may therefore benefit through greater involvement with the scholarly publishing process. There are several considerations and recommendations that one may draw from this investigation. Universities pay for scholarly research, and then pay again to obtain access to published results. University libraries, always a significant cost center, are now in financial crisis. Scientific societies and large publishers gain under the traditional scholarly publication model. The copyright is essential; the one that holds the copyright holds the power in scholarly publishing. Modern open access initiatives state that scholars should retain copyright and publish online. Universities should require promotion and tenure committees to give equal weight to open access publications. Universities should go into the publishing business with scientific societies and control dissemination of scholarly knowledge for the public good.

scholarly journals Inventing the Electronic University

2015 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Information Services ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Fundamental Change ◽  
Research Centers ◽  
Effective Learning ◽  
Staffing Patterns ◽  
Electronic Technologies

Higher education is confronting a fundamental change. The transition from print on paper to digital and electronic technologies is transforming instruction, scholarly communication, and the storage and preservation of knowledge. What is required is not the automation of old systems, but the restructuring of institutions. The drive for autonomy, needed for effective scholarship, and the push for standardization, needed to assure easy and open access to information, will create conflicts difficult to resolve. Universities must find new ways of funding and financing information services and new staffing patterns if they are to continue as effective learning and research centers.

scholarly journals Opening the Dissertation: Overcoming Cultural Calcification and Agoraphobia

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 543-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Troll Covey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Doctoral Education ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Institutional Commitment ◽  
Phd Programs

This article places the struggle to open access to the dissertation in the context of the crisis in doctoral education and the transition from print to digital literacy. It explores the underlying cultural calcification and agoraphobia that deter engagement with openness. Solving the problems will require overhauling the curriculum and conventions of doctoral education. Opening access to dissertations is an important first step, but insufficient to end the crisis. Only opening other dimensions of the dissertation – the structure, media, notion of authorship, and methods of assessment – can foster the digital literacy needed to save PhD programs from extinction. If higher education institutions invested heavily in remedying obsolete practices, the remedies would reverberate throughout the academy, accelerate advancement in the disciplines, and revolutionize scholarly publishing. The article ends with a discussion of the significant role librarians could play in facilitating needed changes given appropriate institutional commitment.

Issues in Prison Higher Education

2018 ◽  
pp. 136-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anni Hesselink
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Communication Technology ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Internet Access ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter evaluates higher education within a correctional set-up. The relationship between education and crime, and how education can shape (facilitate) or curb crime are explored. Education as a prevailing tool in offender self-development and rehabilitation forms the focus of this chapter. Furthermore, incarcerated learners' access to Information Communication Technology - the dire need hereof, as well as the disadvantages linked to internet access - is scrutinized. Research findings that are related to incarcerated learners' perceptions, experiences and obstacles with regards to tertiary education illustrate their stark reality with education in prison. The chapter concludes with thoughts that more correctional and community financial and emotional support are needed to ease incarcerated learners' educational journey in prison.

A critical theory of open access: Libraries and electronic publishing

First Monday ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajit Pyati
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Information Society ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Academic Librarians ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Scholarly Publication ◽  
Theory Framework

The stranglehold that commercial publishers have over scholarly publishing and the high prices of their journals have led to the so–called “scholarly publication crisis.” Academic librarians and concerned scholars have had to advocate for alternative models of scholarly publishing that challenge the commercial publishers’ control, and the open access movement has taken hold. This article introduces the framework of critical theory into the discourse of open access. Critical theory contextualizes the scholarly publication crisis within the dominant information society framework of increasing commodification of information and enhanced global capitalism. While providing tools for analysis and enhanced advocacy, the critical theory framework links libraries with other advocacy movements related to freedom of access to information and opens up new democratic possibilities for engagement. In particular, electronic publishing is an area in which libraries have the potential to effect changes in a commercially dominated market, thereby contributing to greater equity of information access.

scholarly journals South Africa’s journey towards open access publishing

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 30-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed C. Bawa
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Science System

South Africa’s journey into open access publishing is not new, but it has received renewed energy and vigour. The current dominant commercial model of scholarly publishing undermines the production and dissemination of knowledge in science systems such as South Africa’s, first through a hopelessly inequitable higher education and science system with large disparities amongst institutions and because of the increasing unaffordability of the current subscription-based model. This is a description of the approach being adopted to address one part of the quest towards open access scholarly publishing.

scholarly journals Economic impacts of open access in Europe and the United States

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Houghton
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Committee Report ◽  
Economic Implications ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Cost

The release of the UK Joint Information Systems Committee report Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models (Houghton and Oppenheim et al. 2009) generated considerable interest, particularly in the methods used to explore the benefits of open access publishing models, as well as their costs. During 2009, there were a number of follow-on studies. These included national studies in The Netherlands and Denmark, and a three-country comparison, which explored the impacts of alternative scholarly publishing models on one of the larger (United Kingdom), a mid-sized (Netherlands), and one of the smaller European countries (Denmark). This year there have been three further projects. The first focuses on Germany, and brings the German National Licensing Program (NLP) into the mix of alternative scholarly communication models. The second focuses on the United Kingdom, and uses the JISC EI-ASPM model to examine the cost impacts of alternative scholarly publishing models for a sample of UK universities. The third involved further application of some of the underlying methods to exploring the cost-benefit implications of the proposed US Federal Public Research Access Act (FRPAA). This presentation will examine what the methods developed, studies conducted and debate engendered tell us about the viability and sustainability of alternative publishing models, and their potential impacts on research, research infrastructure and the communication and application of publicly funded research findings.

scholarly journals Opening the Dissertation: Overcoming Cultural Calcification and Agoraphobia

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 543-557
Author(s):  
Denise Troll Covey
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Doctoral Education ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Institutional Commitment ◽  
Phd Programs

This article places the struggle to open access to the dissertation in the context of the crisis in doctoral education and the transition from print to digital literacy. It explores the underlying cultural calcification and agoraphobia that deter engagement with openness. Solving the problems will require overhauling the curriculum and conventions of doctoral education. Opening access to dissertations is an important first step, but insufficient to end the crisis. Only opening other dimensions of the dissertation – the structure, media, notion of authorship, and methods of assessment – can foster the digital literacy needed to save PhD programs from extinction. If higher education institutions invested heavily in remedying obsolete practices, the remedies would reverberate throughout the academy, accelerate advancement in the disciplines, and revolutionize scholarly publishing. The article ends with a discussion of the significant role librarians could play in facilitating needed changes given appropriate institutional commitment.

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