Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Challenges of Open-access Journals

An article titled "Ten Challenges for Open-access Journals" appeared in this month's issue of The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Open Access Newsletter. In the article, Peter Suber explores what he sees as the ten greatest challenges facing open-acess journals.
Three of Suber's challenges deal with disparities between what is intended and what has been achieved, and the remaining seven have to do with doubts about open-access publications.
One of the disparities lies in the Impact Factors (IF) used to measure the impact of a particular journal. While IFs are intended to reveal the quality of the journal, a journal isn't even eligible for an IF until it has been around for 2 years. This is particularly hard on open-access journals because they are relatively new.
A second disparity is the failure of open-access journals to use a creative commons license to allow more than fair use of a journal. Many apen-access journals believe that by making their content free, they are truly open access. Suber argues that institutions are not free to exceed fair use. He suggests that until open-access journals explicitly allow for more uses (such as including the works in a database or archiving copies for preservation) they are not truly open-access.
The final disparity can be found in the gap between quality and prestige. It is impossible for a new journal to be prestigious from its start though it could be of a high quality. Subter argues that quality should matter more than prestige an until it does, open-access journals are at a disadvantage.
Subter moves on to discuss seven doubts that cause challenges for open-access publications. This include doubts about quality, preservation, honesty, publication fees, sustainability, redirection of funds, and even doubts about the strategies for addressing the challenges of open-access journals. These doubts are fairly self-explaintory and Subter proposes ways to deal with each of them. Subter suggests that an awareness and willingness to address these issues is absolutely necessary for the success of open-access journals.
We have previously discussed the need for changes in the publication process and even in the way an article's contribution is measured, but I still feel a bit doubtful that the change will happen anytime soon.

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