The Open-Access Movement:Free Global Dissemination of Research

Through Online Journals

Elizabeth Swaggerty, Guili Zhang, Diane KesterEditorial Team

Concerns about commercialization and limited access of scholarly information

• Amount of research and scholarly information is increasing, but libraries are experiencing reductions in journal subscriptions

• Major publishers increasing journal prices and merging with other publishing companies

• Journal subscription prices have risen four times faster than inflation since the mid-1980’s

• Publishers are “bundling” subscriptions, resulting in higher prices and limited choice in terms of subscriptions

• Accessing free information via ERIC database, Google Scholar, Google Books

• Researchers are publishing their work in non-traditional formats, such as open-access journals

• Many publicly funded research projects are adopting open access mandates

• The National Reading Conference (prestigious literacy research organization) passed a resolution this month encouraging its members to disseminate scholarship in open-access journals. – It also encourages tenure and promotion decisions to apply

criteria uniformly and equally to online and printed outlets in assessing the quality of publications. Finally, the resolution urges universities to develop written policies ensuring that digital and printed outlets for scholarship are evaluated using the same criteria and that digital outlets are not devalued arbitrarily.

Digital Access and Dissemination of Scholarship

Open Journal Systems (OJS)

• Platform for managing and publishing peer-reviewed journals

• Free, open-source software• Developed by the Public Knowledge Project through its

federally funded efforts to expand and improve access to research (Public Knowledge Project, 2008)

• Hosts more than 900 journals (examples: International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, International Journal of Design, Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics, Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, and the Journal of Teaching and Learning)

Open Journal Systems: Developed by the Public Knowledge Project

Directory of Open Access Journals

• Currently over 3800 journals listed in the directory

• 1, 378 journals are searchable at the article level

http://www.doaj.org/

Journal of Curriculum and Instruction (JoCI)

Goals:To provide a forum for researchers to publish in a

peer-reviewed open-access journal To make research more accessible to the public,

thereby maximizing the impact of research on a global scale

To grant authors copyright permission of their work

Journal of Curriculum and Instruction Homepage

Support for the Journal of Curriclum and Instruction

• Supported by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the College of Education at ECU

• Executive Editor, 2-3 faculty co-editors, an Academic Outreach project manager, a distance education coordinator, a graduate assistant, and a student intern for programming

• University server space• Technical support

Volume 3, (1)

Articles are available in PDF and MP3 formats.

Statistics for JoCI

• From January 2008-December 2008:– 10,857 visits – 56,186 pages viewed – average of 5.18 pages per visit.

• Average of 300 more visits per month during past 12 months compared to previous 12 months

• Currently there are 536 registered readers (registration is not required)

Statistics for JoCI

• 16,932 visits with 93,333 page views and average of 54.51 pages / visit– Of those 16,932 visits, 13,333 were

from US.  – The rest were derived from 119 other

countries and territories (with Romania, Canada, and the UK and the next 3 highest volume of visits)

– There were 294 visits from UK with 93 from London

– 32% accessed with a cable connection, 29% used a T1 line.  2.23% visited using dialup connection

Google Analytics: Visitor Derivation June 2007-February 2009

Google Analytics Statistics: Traffic SourcesJune 2007-February 2009

Google Analytics: BrowsersJune 2007-February 2009

Call for Manuscripts• Teacher Retention and Recruitment

– Due June 15, 2009• Open Theme

– Due December 15, 2009• Math, Science, and Technology

Education – Due June 15, 2010

www.joci.ecu.edu

For more information about the open access movement and/or publishing in open-access

journals …

Beach, R., Carter, A., East, D., Johnston, P., Reinking, D., Smith-Burke, M.T., & Stahl, N. (2007). Resisting commercial influences on accessing scholarship: What literacy researchers need to know and do. In D. W. Rowe et al. (Eds.), Fifty-sixth yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 441-451). Oak Creek, Wisconsin: National Reading Conference.

Willinsky, J. (2006). The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

SPARC Open Access Newsletter and Forum: http://www.arl.org/sparc/publications/soan/

Journal of Curriculum and Instruction: www.joci.ecu.edu; joci@ecu.edu

Current JoCI Editorial Team: Elizabeth Swaggerty (swaggertye@ecu.edu), Diane Kester (kesterd@ecu.edu), Guili Zhang (zhangg@ecu.edu)