Open Access #openthread

Open Access was the issue that spawned the genesis of DANG, but the scope problem of academic publishing can seem global and beyond our powers to affect. Here we imagine what we can do about it.

What is the biggest challenge to bring a higher profile to current Open Access journals in anthropology?

• Resistance from those who want money
• Inaccessibility’s of literature and copyright
• Who sets criteria and the system of journal ranking
• Pressure on library budgets
• Peer review and cost
• Sustainability of scholarly communication as things transform
• Access
• Transparency and accessibility in the academic and public realm, be it ideas or research
• Institutions adherence to ISI and other indexes that don’t index OA
• Cost: we can’t afford to keep doing what we’re doing
• How to pay for OA in all disciplines
• There isn’t enough access in general, it isn’t public
• Convincing people that OA isn’t stealing. Also organizations won’t lose money
• Structure of long articles for multilevel audiences
• Making research available to colleagues and the public
• Inequality in whose work gets published/ made accessible/ seen as legitimate
• Increasingly limited access particularly for scholars in non-elite non-US non-academic settings
• Development of references online for creator recognition
• Need to find viable financial models to enable OA
• Privatization of everything
• How do you pay for it?
• Open Access can be seen as less prestigious for tenure
• Political economy – public research generating private profits
• OA allows everyone access to knowledge. This issue is important for scholars who are not associated with universities
• The wait period to be published – topics are already past contemporary
• Human subjects
• Finding feasible financial models that support journals yet permit OA
• Sustainability
• Preservation of systematic peer review through OA transition

 
What can we do to educate the AAA membership about Open Access and persuade them to support OA principles?

• Dialogue about structures of academic knowledge production
• Rapid rate of pub timeframes is largest persuasive. Research beat by blog posts by months and years. Shorter cycle
• Give them moral insight to their work (not just attribution)
• Make it relevant to them. Author rights, access to many, more people using their research
• Show value to their peers/ profs
• Show them that they also benefit from OA
• Make work in digi-anthro a model in all respects (peer review, distribution). Make it something to emulate
• Increase the audience reach
• Show related examples
• Demonstrate impact of OA and maintained rigor
• Ask them to visualize peer review and tenure with OA pubs
• Show the quality of current OA pubs, effectively use them in classrooms
• Promote / publish in/ cite OA journals
• Blog about the problems associated with closed access
• Clarify the risks of obsolescence
• Hold information session to demonstrate the benefits of the free flow of information
• Redirect prestige
• Get them involved in joint international/ well organized boycott actions of publishers (big/ closed access)
• A governing body of OA in anthropology to keep work scholarly and discipline specific
• Aside from financial feasibility OA modes ensure everyone has the doc which makes it more powerful altogether