...[T]he University of California has independently been trying to do what the Ithaka report urged upon all academic institutions: Figure out what kind of publishing, formal and grass roots, is taking place on its campuses. In September its Office of Scholarly Communication published a report, "Faculty Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Scholarly Communication."
Now a high-level university committee has issued a complementary examination, "Publishing Needs and Opportunities at the University of California."
The authors of the new California report are well placed to catalog both traditional publishing and its homegrown experimental alternatives: Catherine H. Candee is the university's executive director of strategic publishing and broadcast initiatives. Lynne Withey directs the University of California Press....
Administrators spot problems that individual faculty members do not like to acknowledge, the report says: "Junior faculty are beginning to struggle to get the book contracts they need for tenure and promotion; faculty working in innovative fields or on nontraditional projects are constrained by a publishing model that cannot serve their needs; and campus resources are increasingly compromised by the commercial publishing culture." ...
This in-house analysis...made it easier for Ms. Candee and Ms. Withey to figure out what steps the system can take toward sustainable, university-based publishing....[T]he press and the California Digital Library have gotten together to work out how they can jointly deliver "a full spectrum of journal support services at the university," Ms. Candee says. That would include everything from classic subscription models to full open access, depending on the journal....
2. Create a system for publishing in alternative formats that would include the following components: selection criteria, editorial and technical development, criteria for determining if the project will be sold or made available on an open access basis, marketing and sales strategies, and maintenance and preservation....
Findings...
1. The majority of faculty still follows traditional publication channels, i.e., books and journals. The commercial world still dominates this model of scholarly publishing, particularly in the sciences....They often view the publication and access problems associated with the crisis in scholarly communication as external to themselves, having little bearing on their immediate scholarly activities....
4. At the same time, there is a trend toward non-traditional publication and informal communication – especially in the arts and humanities – and in both cases, there is a strong desire to formalize and validate these publications....
5. Faculty are increasingly frustrated by a tenure and review system that fails to recognize these new publishing models and, hence, constrains experimentation both in the technologies of dissemination and in the audiences addressed....In fact, the tenure and promotion process generally impedes those actions that might effectively address the scholarly communications crisis, such as publishing in open access journals, granting non-exclusive copyright to publishers, etc....
Update. Also see the article in Library Journal Academic Newswire, April 10, 2008. Excerpt:
In a wide-ranging, forward-thinking report, a University of California (UC) task force has recommended UC establish a university-based publishing program to blunt the effect of commercialization and to better serve scholars, especially in emerging disciplines....
The report cogently notes a "paradox" at the individual faculty level: "Attempts to improve scholarly communication by exciting individual faculty ire or inspiration have surfaced issues, stirred passions and illustrated boundless possibilities," the authors note, "but they have not and likely will not fundamentally change the way scholarly publishing works. UC faculty would like to see the university play a more active role in blunting the effect of the commercialization of academic publishing, but they will not and cannot risk their own academic lives to make it happen. The university must step in."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/01/2008 11:42:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
