Nestor L Osorio

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Scholarly Communication and Engineering Education. 
 
 
Nestor L. Osorio 
Northern Illinois University 
 
 
Introduction 
 
In the last ten years, a great deal of discussion and initiatives originating from professional 
societies such as the Association of Research Libraries1 and the Association of College and 
Research Libraries2 have emerged with the purpose of finding solutions for the improvement of 
the systems of scholarly communication. In this article, the author presents some of the most 
significant ideas and changes being produced and ends by introducing the concept of creating a 
platform where engineering educators can benefit from these new approaches.  
 
Prices of serials and other publications 
 
The out-of-control increases in the cost of research publications in the last two decades continues 
to be a problem. This is not a new story. In the current issue of the Periodicals Price Survey, 
20083 the projected cost increase for publications included in the Science Citation Index 2009 is 
8.5 percent; from 2004 to 2008 the same group of publications have had similar increases year 
after year. As Lee and Van Orsdel4 have put it, researchers publish three quarters of a million 
articles every year and their own institutions can no longer afford to purchase them. Lee and van 
Orsdel see the need for changes in the market, changes in the academy, and changes in public 
policy. Their article gives a current and realistic analysis about the crisis in scholarly 
communication. The strategies proposed as solutions for this crisis are examined, the desired 
outcomes are discussed, as well as the obstacles to be overcome.    
 
Librarians have been collecting information about serials prices for many years, which is one of 
the cornerstones of understanding the crisis in scholarly communication. One excellent example 
of these efforts is Ted Bergstrom’s Serials Pricing Page < 
http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/jpricing.html  > . This collection of data and articles 
provides the reader with numerous details about how the costs of research publications have 
risen. The results of journal pricing studies in several disciplines such as economy, ecology, 
geography, mathematics, and physics are found on this page. After looking at this page, the most 
cautious readers would agree with the need for some changes in the way we have traditionally 
produced technical information. The Wellcome Trust in UK, an independent nonprofit 
foundation for research in human and animal health, has launched an extensive report about the 
economics of scientific research publishing5; this document is intended for creating a dialog with 
the idea of establishing a better system of scholarly communication that would be based on 
meeting the needs of all key players involved - researchers, academic institutions, funding 
organizations, and publishers. 
 
 
 
Copyright management for authors 
 
To better manage an author's creativity, knowledge about copyright regulations is essential. For 
researchers, common questions about their intellectual property rights are often related to: 
posting on a personal web page, posting on an institutional repository, posting on a pre-print or 
post-print discipline-oriented repository, or including sections of their work in a later publication.  
 
The widely publicized open-access requirement adopted by the Harvard University's Faculty of 
Arts and Sciences has increased the interest on how authors can better manage their intellectual 
property. Moreover, universities are providing assistance in helping scholars with the intricacies 
of copyright regulations6. 
 
A broader distribution of an author’s work depends on the publication agreement required by the 
publisher for him/her to sign7. The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition 
(SPARC) provides practical information (including a standard form) to secure the maximum 
intellectual rights for authors. Further, a very helpful resource is the Scholar's Copyright 
Addendum Engine of Science Commons < http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/ > that can help 
with the understanding of copyright agreements to ensure that the author retains certain rights.  
   
Some publishers are already adjusting to authors' requests for more flexible copyright terms. In 
Sherpa Romeo < http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ >, a web site dedicated to summarizing 
publishers copyright policies for self-archiving, researchers can find, for example, what 
limitations are imposed by a specific publisher. Moreover by using the information from SPARC 
or from Science Commons it is possible to negotiate different terms for your copyright 
agreement. It is all about the clauses in small print of the agreement which, to the surprise of 
many, are negotiable. 
 
What is Open Access? 
 
According to Peter Suber8, a Research Professor of Philosophy at Earlham College, "Open-
access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing 
restrictions. What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-
holder." Suber also indicates that "OA is entirely compatible with peer review." As for its cost, 
Suber clearly states that it is not free of cost; the key is creating new business models to make 
professional literature less costly. The fundamental principle of OA is to provide free access and 
produce publications less expensively. 
 
In its purest sense, open access journals (those publications that do not charge readers, authors or 
their institutions for access) do exist; moreover, they are subsidized by their own institutions. 
Remarkably, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) < http://www.doaj.org > lists 3,768 
of these titles (with 240,017 articles included). These journals have a peer-review process and 
their primary purpose is to report the findings of research to a scholarly community. 
 
Alma Swan9 (PhD in cell biology from Southampton University) has suggested that with the 
information technologies available in the 21st century, if scholarly communication had never 
existed and if we could invent scholarly communication today, it would not be in its 'traditional' 
form; it would be a technologically-sophisticated process, influenced by the capability of 
researchers preparing their work and communicating electronically. 
 
Researchers often question if articles published by open access publications are considered by 
their peers to be of scholarly value. This question can be examined by comparing the citation 
patterns of articles published in restricted access journals with those published in open access 
journals. Gaule and Maystre10 offer an interesting discussion of the perceived scholarly value of 
open access articles and summarize several previous studies. The results of their study suggest 
that no significant effect on citation patterns were observed among the two types of journals, 
which implies that - at least in some fields -open access journals are regarded equally by their 
respective communities. 
 
There is much written information about OA. Two recommended readings are: John 
Willinsky's11 book The Access Principle: the case for open access to research and scholarship, 
which offers an extensive discussion of the problems encountered in the system of scholarly 
communication and their potential solutions. Further, Charles W. Bailey's12 web page presents a 
good overview of some of the major topics related to scholarly communication for 
administrators, faculty, and researchers. 
 
From traditional to alternatives models of publishing 
 
For many years, scholars, researchers and educators have been dealing with an uncontrolled 
increase in the prices of publications - particularly journals.  These publications are critical for 
the diffusion of the created works of scholars. Libraries can no longer acquire many of the 
publications which their own faculty and staff are publishing. In response to this dilemma, new 
modes of publication and dissemination of research have emerged in the last decade. Some of 
these activities have been supported by professional societies; in the USA the mandatory open 
access archiving of articles from NIH-funded grants is an example of government intervention.  
There are various types of collaborations between commercial publishers and professional 
organizations, as well as non-for-profit publishers and other entities. The main purpose of these 
initiatives is to provide users with high-quality publications at an economical cost - for both the 
producer and the consumer. The following are examples of these initiatives: 
 
An Ivy Anderson13 paper entitled "The Audacity of SCOAP3" explains how SCOAP3 
(Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) is involving libraries, 
library consortia, research institutions and publishers for the purpose of controlling cost and 
expanding the dissemination of journals in the field of high energy physics. In this unique 
program, the 'contributing institutions' - those that have a major investment in the field - will 
create a financial pool that will stabilize costs and provide free access to the world. 
 
PUBMED and BIOMED CENTRAL < http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ and 
http://www.biomedcentral.com/ > represent two interesting projects for the biomedical sciences. 
PubMed Central is a free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journals maintained by 
the National Institutes of Health. It contains several hundred titles. BioMed Central is an open 
access self-sustainable model for the publication of biological and medical research. The 
financial support for BioMed Central is obtained by per article payments from authors or by 
institutional membership. There are nearly 200 journals available. BioMed Central journals are 
archived in PubMed Central. 
 
BioOne < http://www.bioone.org/ > is a collaborative publishing business model between 
scientific societies, libraries, and the academia. In the field of biomedicine and other related 
disciplines, Highwire < http://highwire.stanford.edu/ > provides access to 1,189 journals and 
over five million full-text articles to institutions with a paid subscription. With a free account, 
libraries can access more than two million free full-text science articles. HighWire Press is a 
division of the Stanford University Libraries.    
 
Project Euclid < http://projecteuclid.org/ >, JSTOR < http://www.jstor.org/ >, and Project Muse 
 < http://muse.jhu.edu/ > are three more example of alternative publishing. Project Euclid is a 
joint effort of independent and society journals in the field of theoretical and applied 
mathematics and statistics. It is jointly managed by Cornell University and the Duke University 
Press. Project Muse is a collaboration between the participating publishers and Johns Hopkins 
University Libraries. It provides coverage of scholarly humanities and social sciences journals. 
Finally, JSTOR is an archival initiative of non-current issues of high-quality scholarly journals. 
At present, it contains over one thousand titles from the humanities, social sciences, and 
sciences.  
 
Institutional and subject repositories 
 
An increasing number of academic and research institutions are building institutional repositories 
(IR) of electronic documents and objects. From the most respected universities (e.g., DSPACE at 
MIT) to smaller technical institutions, IRs have been created to display the creativity and 
productivity of faculty and students. IRs are found in many different frameworks, some are 
institutionally-oriented, while others are subject-oriented. Bailey's14  IR web page provides the 
basic information needed to understand the reasons why an institution would have an IR, the 
software available, how to self-archive documents, and the legal aspects of depositing articles. 
 
The number of IRs is continually growing, OpenDOAR – The Directory of Open Access 
Repositories < http://www.opendoar.org/  > includes 1,200 entries. Housed at the University of 
Nottingham, UK, it is recognized as an authoritative source and it is supported by the Open 
Society Institute (OSI).  
 
Two examples of academic IRs are DSPACE at MIT < http://dspace.mit.edu/  > and Deep Blue 
at the University of Michigan < http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/  >.  DSPACE (which is featured 
in the January issue of PRISM15) is composed of fifty-eight communities representing many of 
MIT's departments and research centers. It is widely known for The MIT OpenCourse Ware - 
MIT OCW Archived Courses. In Deep Blue, there are over 75 collections. At present, 50,351 
authors have contributed to 44,580 scholarly or artistry electronic objects. 
 
Subject-focused IRs are also abundant, the well-known arXiv at Cornell University < 
http://arxiv.org/ > which covers documents on physics, mathematics, non-linear science, 
computer science, quantitative biology, and statistics contains a half-million openly-accessible 
articles. Another example is E-Lis < http://eprints.rclis.org/ >, which specializes in the deposit of 
documents in the field of library and information science. While arXiv is powered by various 
software, E-Lis uses the popular open-source software Eprint. 
 
How can engineering education benefit from these new publishing trends? 
 
The literature of engineering education is covered mainly in journals and conference proceedings 
publications; which in great majority is a refereed-based publication system16 and consequently a 
part of the system of scholarly communication. Even when taking into consideration its 
international coverage, the literature of engineering education concentrates on a select number of 
publications - both journals and proceedings - published mainly by engineering societies and 
commercial publishers. Beyond that core, there are hundreds of engineering journals and 
proceedings that also publish engineering education papers on a selective basis. Other documents 
such as book chapters and reports are also part of this second layer. 
 
Engineering education publications, as in any other technical discipline, are subject to cost 
increases. In spite of efforts made in recent years by organizations such as ASEE and SEFI to 
make their publications available, some core publications began having limited access due to 
continuing price increases. 
 
Engineering education researchers should be encouraged to  
propose that alternative methods of publishing in engineering be explored. Engineering educators 
can play a major role in introducing students to new models of publishing. The technology is 
available at their labs. As Swan9 has suggested, with today's information technology, we can 
transform research communication so that it "may be at each researcher's fingertips." The idea of 
creating an Engineering EduOne or an EngineeringEdu Central can become a reality. 
 
Conclusion 
 
No significant initiatives have been put into place so far in the field of engineering to utilize 
these new models of alternative publishing. Nevertheless, it is worth recognizing that some 
engineering societies such as IEEE are maintaining cost per publication at levels significantly 
below their counterparts in the hard sciences.  Further, there is a great need for researchers and 
educators to understand their options as authors when dealing with the copyrights of their own 
intellectual products. Finally, engineering educators need to be more proactive in considering 
alternative forms of publishing. The information technology available today can be used as a tool 
for finding solutions to stabilize the cost of publishing and expand the distribution of their work. 
 
 
 
References  
 
1.  Association of Research Libraries - Scholarly Communication. 2009. [Online]. Available:   
http://www.arl.org/sc/  [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
2.  ACRL Scholarly Communication Toolkit. 2009. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.acrl.ala.org/scholcomm/ [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
3. Periodicals Price Survey 2008, Library Journal. 2009. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6547086.html [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
4.. Van Orsdel, Lee C. 2007. The State of Scholarly Communications: An Environmental Scan of Emerging Issues, 
Pitfalls and Possibilities. The Serials Librarian, Vol 52 (1-2) p. 191-209. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.haworthpress.com/store/E-Text/View_EText.asp?a=3&fn=J123v52n01_16&i=1%2F2&s=J123&v=52 
[Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
5.  Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing. 2009. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Publications/Books/Biomedical-science/WTD003181.htm 
[Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
6.  Howard, Jennifer. 2008. For Advice on Publishing in the Digital World, Scholars Turn to Campus Libraries, The 
Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol 55 (13) p. A8. [Online]. Available:  
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i13/13a00801.htm  [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
7.  SPARC Addendum. 2009. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.shtml [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
8.  Peter Suber’s Brief Introduction to Open Access. 2009. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/brief.htm [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
9.  Swan, Alma. 2007. Open Access and the Progress of Science: The power to transform research communication 
may be at each scientist's fingertips. American Scientist, Vol  95 (3) p. 198-200. [Online]. Available:  
http://amsciadmin.eresources.com/libraries/documents/2007327142636_307.pdf  [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/open-access-and-the-progress-of-science  [Accessed: January 12, 
2009]. 
 
10.  Gaule, Patrick; Maystre, Nicolas. 2008. Getting Cited: Does Open Access Help? Cemi-Working Paper, 
November 2008. [Online]. Available:  
http://ilemt.epfl.ch/repec/pdf/cemi-workingpaper-2008-007.pdf  [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
11.  Willinsky, John. 2006. The access principle: the case for open access to research and scholarship. 
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 
 
12. Bailey, Charles W. 2009. Open Access Works. 2009. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.digital-scholarship.org/cwb/oaworks.htm  [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
13.  Anderson, Ivy. 2008. The Audacity of SCOAP3." ARL: A Bimonthly Report on Research Library Issues and 
Actions from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 257 p.12-13. [Online]. Available:  
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arl-br-257-scoap3.pdf  [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
14. Bailey, Charles W. 2009. Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite. [Online]. Available: 
http://www.digital-scholarship.org/ts/irtoutsuite.pdf  [Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
15.  Boroughs, Don. 2009. Millions Log In, Prism, Vol 18 (5) p. 29-33.   
 
16. Osorio, Nestor L.2005. What Every Engineer Should Know about Engineering Education. In: Proceedings of the 
2005 Illinois/Indiana Sectional Conference, American Society for Engineering Education. DeKalb, IL: Northern 
Illinois University, Section D-T1-4, p.1-13. [Online]. Available: http://www.ceet.niu.edu/ASEE_ILIN/P155.pdf 
[Accessed: January 12, 2009]. 
 
Nestor L. Osorio is Professor and Science/Engineering Specialist at Northern Illinois University Libraries, IL, 
USA, 60115, nosorio@niu.edu. 
 
 


Scholarly Communication and Engineering Education

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