CEHD Graduate Student Opinions about Open Access Journals and Open Content
October 29, 2011
Thank you for your participation in this online focus group session. Your responses are very helpful in understanding the opinions of graduate students at the University of Minnesota regarding open access journals and open content. Below there is a brief report based on your comments. If you feel this report misrepresents the group’s opinions you can email me at sintj002@umn.edu and express your concerns. The report is organized by the questions and the day in which they were posted, and it concludes with a brief synopsis as well as a list of suggestions about possible next steps to follow.
What Are Your Sources of Information? (Day 1 Summary)
In general, graduate students seem to primarily access sources of information that are available to them because they are graduate students at the University of Minnesota. While access is important to them, and most of the news sources they access are open to the public (NPR, CNN, or the open sections of the NYT), they felt that, as university students, they were able to access most of what they wanted at present. However, they are generally worried about the level of access they will have once they finish their graduate degrees. At times, when attempting to access sources outside of the university without using a VPN client, some students seem to have difficulties accessing relevant sources. One individual used their partner’s account to access sources when she was not a student of the University of Minnesota.
What are Open Access and the Open Education Movement? (Day 2 Summary)
There was a general understanding among participants that “open” implies that materials are accessible to anyone and that it is free or generally free. While “open education” used to refer to education that anyone was able to attend, rather than free education, “open” today seem to be understood as meaning more accessible or free to access to the forum participants. This new interpretation of “open” matches the changes that have been seen in the discourse of distance teaching and learning rhetoric in recent years. There was some familiarity with MIT’s open courseware movement, and the meaning of some terms seemed to be intuitive. When discussing some of “open education’s” potential, participants mentioned how, while it would be beneficial in terms of access, quality remains a major concern. Also, a journal being openly available online does not mean that anyone can access it since a user is still faced with problems of connectivity and digital literacy concerns. Increasing the quality of open access journals by strengthening their peer review system seemed a common concern. While in other fields, peer-review validity is debated, peer-review was not questioned as a quality standard by the focus group participants; rather it was seen as the goal or the level of quality to be emulated.
Opinions of Open Access Journals and Experiences (Day 3 Summary)
When discussing whether or not open access journals increase or decrease innovation, the responses of participants varied, with some support for a positive impact on innovation, particularly because there are more ideas influencing individuals. However, another student expressed how, for financially motivated individuals, open access journals might discourage innovation. In terms of quality, the responses were also divided between a belief that openness increases others’ ability to test, question and add to existing findings, but that it also increases what is out there, and the feeling that the internet has allowed for large amounts of information of limited quality to be posted. So far participants also felt that, while a person could publish in an open access journal in their field, and that there are articles that could be used to write a publishable paper, the quality and quantity of open access journal is not yet comparable to that of toll access journals.
Opinions About the Future of Open Education (Day 4 Summary)
While many of the participants saw the open access movement as a positive influence for the future of academia and felt that its quality would improve over time, when presented with the question as to where they would most likely publish in the future, in general, participants felt that publishing in a well ranked or well respected journal was more important than publishing in a journal based on its level of openness. There was general support for greater openness and change or a modification of the system. In general, the participants did not feel that they should have to pay to publish, even if they may consider doing so, but rather one participant mentioned that instead she should be paid to publish. With scholars both writing and reviewing articles, the system is seen by some as unfair. While they were generally uncertain as to whether Open Access Journals will dominate or gain ground in relation to Toll Access publishing, they were enthusiastic and openly supportive of the idea.
Conclusions and Suggestions
Open access journals and open content was a topic that seemed important to participants but one about which they had limited prior knowledge. Various times they expressed opinions supporting both of these comments. While they appeared to have a strong support for the idea or the concept of open access journals and open education, they were generally hesitant to mention whether the open access movement will transform academia or it will remain a minor arena for publication. To most of the participants open access’ potential for improving education and academia was clear, but they still questioned whether it would initially impact the quality of scholarship and innovation in a negative way. This perception is very relevant to this study as it is the researcher’s opinion that a greater awareness of the open access movement will help increase its support within the University of Minnesota. The study will hopefully continue to explore these themes, possibly contributing to greater discussion of, and support for the open access movement among University of Minnesota faculty members, students, and staff. Additional focus groups should also be carried out to ensure further saturation of responses and the improvement and relevance of the report. Visibility can improve quality.
