Preserving Open Access Journals: A Literature Review

This literature review addresses certain questions concerning the preservation of free, born-digital scholarly materials. It covers recent thinking on the current state of preservation efforts of born-digital materials; the range of actors involved in significant preservation initiatives of these artefacts; the perceived barriers preventing open access materials from benefiting from existing preservation efforts; initiatives that may enable local, small-scale preservation efforts to be undertaken; the challenges and opportunities posed to preservation by new models of scholarship such as open access datasets, reference sharing and annotation, collaborative authoring and community peer review. The review identifies representative international collaborative preservation initiatives, describes their goals and results, their specific preservation strategie, and their applicability to the preservation of born digital open access materials

The Durham Statement on Open Access One Year Later: Preservation and Access to Legal Scholarship

The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship calls for US law schools to stop publishing their journals in print format and to rely instead on electronic publication with a commitment to keep the electronic versions available in “stable, open, digital formats.” The Statement asks for two things: 1) open access publication of law school-published journals; and 2) an end to print publication of law journals. This paper was written as background for a July 2010 American Association of Law Libraries conference program on the preservation implications of the call to end print publication

Huddersfield Open Access Publishing

This paper presents the findings of the Huddersfield Open Access Publishing Project, a JISC funded project to develop a low cost, sustainable Open Access (OA) journal publishing platform using EPrints Institutional Repository software

Open Access Metadata for Journals in Directory of Open Access Journals: Who, How, and What Scheme?

Open access (OA) is a form of publication that allows some level of free access to scholarly publications. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a repository to which OA journals may apply and upload content to increase discoverability. OA also refers to metadata that is freely available for harvesting. In making metadata open access, standards for schemes and protocols are needed to facilitate interoperability. For open access journals, such as those listed in the DOAJ, providing open access metadata in a form that promotes interoperability is essential for discoverability of their content. This paper investigates what standards exist or are emerging, who within journals is creating the metadata for DOAJ journals, and how are those journals and DOAJ sharing the metadata for articles. Moreover, since creating metadata requires specialized knowledge of both librarians and programmers, it is imperative that journals wanting to publish with OA metadata formulate plans to coordinate these experts and to be sure their efforts are compatible with current standards and protocols

Open Access, scholarship and digital anthropology

This paper consists of three arguments. The first advocates the development of Open Access for anthropological books and journals and critiques the way we have ceded control of dissemination to inappropriate commercial concerns that come to stand for what should have been academic criteria. The second argues that this is best accomplished while being conservative about the process of review, selection, and the canons of scholarship. Third, the paper address the emergence of Digital Anthropology, suggesting this has considerable significance for the very conceptualization of anthropology and its future, and suggesting that it can be given definition. But, this should not be confused with the issues of Open Access and review. This is followed by ten helpful and critical comments. In the concluding discussion I respond to these and argue how these points can be taken into account in creating the conditions for a shift to Open Access while defending the concept of Digital Anthropology

Evaluating and promoting open data practices in open access journals

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in attention from the scholarly communications and research community to open access (OA) and open data practices. These are potentially related because journal publication policies and practices both signal disciplinary norms and provide direct incentives for data sharing and citation. However, there is little research evaluating the data policies of OA journals. In this study we analyse the state of data policies for OA journals by employing random sampling of the Directory of Open Access Journals and Open Journal Systems journal directories and applying a coding framework that integrates both previous studies and emerging taxonomies of data sharing and citation. This study, for the first time, reveals both the low prevalence of datasharing policies and practices in OA journals, which differs from the previous studies of commercial journals in specific disciplines

Taking stock of open access : progress and issues

Purpose - Aims at providing a broad overview of some of the issues emerging from the growth in open access publishing, with specific reference to the use of repositories and open access journals. Design/methodology/approach - A paper largely based on specific experience with institutional repositories and the internationally run E-library and information science (LIS) archive. Findings - The open access initiative is dramatically transforming the process of scholarly communication bringing great benefits to the academic world with an, as yet, uncertain outcome for commercial publishers. Practical implications - Outlines the benefits of the open access movement with reference to repositories and open access journals to authors and readers alike and gives some food for thought on potential barriers to the complete permeation of the open access model, such as copyright restrictions and version control issues. Some illustrative examples of country-specific initiatives and the international E-LIS venture are given. Originality/value - An attempt to introduce general theories and practical implications of the open access movement to those largely unfamiliar with the movement

The Durham Statement Two Years Later: Open Access in the Law School Journal Environment

The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship, drafted by a group of academic law library directors, was promulgated in February 2009. It calls for two things: (1) open access publication of law school–published journals; and (2) an end to print publication of law journals, coupled with a commitment to keeping the electronic versions available in “stable, open, digital formats.” The two years since the Statement was issued have seen increased publication of law journals in openly available electronic formats, but little movement toward all-electronic publication. This article discusses the issues raised by the Durham Statement, the current state of law journal publishing, and directions forward