Scholarly Publishing Slow To Adopt Open Distribution
It’s generally accepted that new technologies are changing the way that publishers do business. And while that’s certainly the case in many segments of the industry, a new study indicates the publishing of scholarly journals remains largely unchanged from a decade ago.
The study uncovered a gap between attitude and behavior among faculty members. While faculty expressed a desire for change to the current system, they largely conform to the traditional approach of publishing in the well-established print journals, as opposed to open-access models.
Notwithstanding their expression of concern about the present, when projecting their future behavior, about 75% of faculty indicate that their publishing activities are likely to remain largely unchanged.
Another issue that was uncovered through the study was that faculty often had little understanding of the impact of their publishing decisions. Many believed that as long as a paper was published, it will eventually become readily available online. That’s often not the case, however, as many journals are only available to those with online subscriptions and not to the general Internet community.
Interestingly, the study found that senior faculty might be most open to innovation in scholarly publishing. While one might expect younger faculty to more quickly embrace the new technologies, the study found that they were most concerned about the tenure and promotion process.
Furthermore, because senior faculty are both involved in making academic policy and serving as role models for junior faculty, their efforts at innovation are likely to have broader influence within their departments.
The full study is available for download at the OSC website.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
