Talking about Open Access: SMASH and Subtler Tactics Jill Cirasella The Graduate Center, CUNY METRO Annual Conference 2015

Brace Yourself… But open access publishing is self-publishing! But open access journals charge fees, which means it’s vanity publishing! But I need my work to be peer reviewed! But everyone says open access journals are predatory and scammy! But I have to publish in journals with an impact factor! But open access journals will destroy scholarly societies! But libraries should pay for journals! You’re trying to push the cost onto me!

Brace Yourself… But why should I give away my work for free? But this university policy feels like Big Brother! But I give enough to the university! I’m supposed to give it my copyright too? But open access facilitates plagiarism! But I have to sign my rights over to the journal! But I just don’t have time for this! But I already put all my work on my personal website! Ha, you expect me to dig up the manuscript versions of my articles?

Brace Yourself… And my all-time favorite…

Brace Yourself… You’re espousing Venezuelan economics!* * Yes, someone really did counter my open access arguments with that!

Why Open Access? An Argument in Three Slides

1 Me

What Is the Problem? university $ (taxpayer $, tuition $, etc.) + grant $   pay faculty to do research & record results in articles   faculty give articles & copyright to publishers for free (and other researchers peer review for free)  university libraries pay dearly for access to articles  publishers get articles, copyrights, and labor for free & publishers rake in all the $ (and it is BIG $)

2 Me + Flickr

3 Me + Designer

Open Access Made It Better Better content. Better for you. Better for me.

Open Access Makes It Better For whom? For what? How?

Who Benefits from OA? Readers: More content is available to everyone, regardless of institutional affiliation or ability to pay Students: Students have access to the literature they need to master their fields, no matter what college/university they attend

Who Else Benefits? Authors: Increased availability  More readers  More scholarly citations, impact in the field Easy to link to  More mentions/links in news, blogs, etc.  Broader awareness in the world Greater control over own work  No need to relinquish copyright to publishers  Publishers don't dictate copying, sharing, etc.

The Colbert Bump “the curious phenomenon whereby anyone who appears on this program gets a huge boost in popularity” — Stephen Colbert Colbert Report, 6/21/07 Photo by David Shankbone

The Open Access Bump Similarly, open access boosts the impact of articles: easier to access  read more  cited more It makes intuitive sense, but it’s also been studied and shown to be true. Annotated bibliography of articles on the OA advantage:

What Benefits from OA? Libraries: As OA becomes increasingly prevalent, libraries will be no longer be hamstrung by astronomical journal prices. Institutions: Institutions no longer pay twice for research: researchers’ salaries + journal subscriptions In the case of public institutions, the tax-paying public no longer pays three times for research: salaries + research grants + journal subscriptions

What Else Benefits? Fields of Study: Greater access to information  More informed research  Better research Articles made OA before they appear in journal  Ends reliance on journal publication cycles  Allows others to respond more quickly  Speeds innovation

And What Else? The Public: Greater access to information  Better informed doctors, teachers, journalists, etc.  Better informed individuals, voters, etc.  Healthier, better educated people  A cleaner, safer, more evidence-based world

Another

SMASH! “Closed access means people die.” — Peter Murray-Rust, University of Cambridge Read more at: open-research-reports-what-jenny-and-i-said-and-why-i-am-angry/

SMASH? “Elsevier disseminates and preserves STM literature to meet the information needs of the world’s present and future scientists and clinicians — linking thinkers with ideas.” from Elsevier’s Mission Statement

SMASH! “Elsevier disseminates and preserves STM literature to meet the information needs of the world’s present and future scientists and clinicians — linking thinkers with ideas.” from Elsevier’s Mission Statement Bullsh*t!

Know Your Audience! Feeling outraged? SMASH doesn’t always work. Feeling charitable? Appeals to altruism don’t always work. Feeling broke? Arguments about costs don’t always work. It’s not about what convinces us. It’s about what convinces them. Know what rhetoric works on whom!

Know Your Audience! Students: Improving access to information needed for assignments Keeping course material costs down Improving access after graduation, when no longer affiliated

Know Your Audience! Faculty: Increasing readership and impact Improving online presence Seeing download statistics Satisfying funders’ OA requirements Furthering social justice

Know Your Audience! Librarians: Tackling the cost crisis Improving access & services Ensuring ongoing relevance of librarians OA is no longer a niche — it’s a necessity!

Know Your Audience! Administrators: Maximizing institution’s visibility, prestige, etc. Better achieving institution’s mission Collecting and quantifying scholarly output Assessment! Metrics! Widgets! Cost savings, eventually…

Know Your Audience! Administrators: Open access institutional repositories can “serve as tangible indicators of a university’s quality” and “demonstrate the scientific, societal, and economic relevance of its research activities, thus increasing the institution’s visibility, status, and public value.” — Raym Crow, “The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC Position Paper”

Know Your Audience! Lawmakers: Taxpayer access to tax-funded research Demonstrating value of tax dollars Promoting innovation

Know Your Audience! Revolutionaries: Access to information Educational opportunity Empowerment & equality Retaining rights to one’s own work Stopping profiteering off unpaid labor

Know Your Audience! Traditionalists: Ensuring legacy Increasing impact Becoming a public intellectual

Know Your Audience! “Blah blah open access blah blah.” Learn to talk about open access without constantly saying “open access”! There is a Far Side cartoon that perfectly suits this slide. But Gary Larson dislikes online sharing and likes cease-and-desist letters. And it’s hard to say what counts as fair use when you’re dealing with a two-panel cartoon. So you don’t get to see it. Gary Larson wants to you go buy a book instead. If you could see this cartoon, maybe you would. But since you can’t, you probably won’t. Well under 10% of the cartoon

Know Your Audience! Sneak open access into related conversations: Retaining rights to one’s own work Exploring the future of scholarly communication Updating tenure & promotion practices Improving peer review Rethinking indicators of quality Modernizing the university press Accelerating scientific discoveries Abandoning unnecessary vestiges of print publishing Reimagining the basic unit of scholarship Linking publications to associated data Allowing for multi-modal and interactive scholarship

Credits This slideshow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported LicenseCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Specific graphics may have different licenses: “What Is the Problem?” graphic, content by Jill Cirasella / graphic design by Les LaRue, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License Octopus image is adapted from Open access advantage graph from Gargouri Y, Hajjem C, Larivière V, Gingras Y, et al. Open Access Hulk image from “What We Say To Dogs / What They Hear” Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson Stephen Colbert photo by David Shankbone

Thank you! Questions? Jill Cirasella Open CUNY blog