OPEN ACCESS & cIRcle: SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING IN CONTEXT

Barbara Sobol, Learning Services Librarian (Research) & Hilde Colenbrander, cIRcle Coordinator

Centre for Teaching and Learning Conference

UBC Okanagan, May 5, 2010

Engaging students in the scholarly publishing process Importance of evaluating online

information Role of open access and cIRcle Importance to teaching Importance to learning

What to make of information online?

How do we teach students the value of different types of information?

How do we convey that there is often a “hierarchy” of information?

How do we teach students that these evaluative skills are not only necessary for completing assignments but for interacting with the world of information?

Evaluating information is not easy

Peer Reviewed JournalNotable Publisher - SpringerJournal established in 1930

Article is about oil and cancer rates in the Amazon in an area where locals have a $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron. The authors find no indication that oil pollution is linked to cancer in the region. In the acknowledgements of the article – the study is funded by Chevron.

Evaluating information is a skill setAuthorityBias (Political, Religious, Personal)ComprehensivenessDate AppropriatenessMethodologyReliability of SourcesPublisher – Status & PrestigePeer ReviewedStatus and Prestige of Researcher/AuthorAffiliation(s)

These are the kinds of criteria that students need to be taught. Many of these criteria are highly subjective and discipline specific.

Potential approaches

Open Access provides a new/current avenue to broach the topic of information evaluation skills

Librarians can directly address these issues through course/discipline specific instruction

Faculty can integrate evaluative skills into lectures/discussions/assignments

What is Open Access?

Open access literature is: Digital information made available free-of-charge on the

web Refers particularly to peer reviewed research articles and

their preprints Not free to produce

OA started as a response to exponential journal price increases

OA is a response to growing demands for public accountability for tax dollars

OA makes scholarly information freely available around the world

What is cIRcle?

A web-based database for published and unpublished scholarly materials

Openly accessible to anyone: creators must be acknowledged and properly cited

Supports scholarship by enabling the easy sharing of research findings

Goal: To showcase UBC’s intellectual output Pilot project launched spring 2007 Full service spring 2009 cIRcle home page https://circle.ubc.ca

Are there other Open Access databases? ROAR (Registry of Open Access

Repositories) currently lists 1700+ repositories around the world Australia: 57 Brazil: 70 Canada: 56 Germany: 116 India: 55 South Africa: 22 UK: 171 USA: 331http://roar.eprints.org/

Why contribute to cIRcle?

Increased visibility and readership around the world Improved indexing and hence findability

Search engines: Google, Google Scholar, Yahoo, etc. Content harvesters: oaister.org

Multidisciplinary inquiry Serendipitous discovery and collaboration Classroom teaching tool Valuable recruiting tool Stable URLs Preservation and management of information assets Open Access mandates, e.g. CIHR

With acknowledgements to SMARTech at Georgia Tech

Public Health in the 21st Century: the Open Source Outbreak

Public Health 2.0: Jennifer Gardy @ UBC’s TED Terry Talks http://www.terry.ubc.ca/terrytalks/2009/11/03/public-health-in-the-21st-century-the-open-source-outbreak-jennifer-gardy/

Comparison of H1N1 and SARS outbreaks in terms of scientific response: Rapidly improving communications technologies Scientists’ changing attitudes: collaboration, open access to

research results, open data sharing

When scientific information about the virus spreads faster than the virus itself, we can beat the virus!

What can be contributed to cIRcle? Digital materials:

Research papers: pre- or postprints, or published versions (depending on copyright)

Conference and workshop papers Theses and dissertations Outstanding student projects (selected by academic

units) Unpublished reports and working papers Books, chapters and sections Datasets Learning Objects Multimedia and audio-visual materials Software

What about copyright?

For materials deposited in cIRcle: cIRcle requires a non-exclusive license to distribute Copyright owner retains copyright If you are not the copyright owner, you need permission

from the copyright owner/publisher to deposit your work in cIRcle

Note: Publishers’ Copyright Transfer Agreements/ Publication Agreements are critical!

Why is Open Access important to researchers? For authors – open access broadens

readership For governments – tax payer funded

research is available to public For institutions – demonstrates

output/impact/reach of university For researchers – funding agencies

and/or institutions are increasingly mandating open access of scholarly output

Source: Shearer, Kathleen. 2010. A Review of Emerging Models in Canadian Academic Publishing. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/24008

How is Open Access relevant in a classroom? Open access as a movement and as

something “new” provides an opportunity to engage students in these discussions Students develop an understanding of the

information landscape – direct evaluative skills

Students begin to view themselves as creators – as having agency within academic publishing

cIRcle can be used as a tool in this discussion

Why is this important to teaching? Evaluating information is a lifelong skill

that university students should be competent at

Within university, strong evaluative skills will improve student work; both in understanding and grades

Approaches to teaching evaluative skills Directly addressing the issue of

publishing Discussing open access and changes to

traditional publishing models – cIRcle can be used as a tool in this discussion

Discussing the different values of information

Open Access as teaching toolExamples from cIRcle:Electronic Theses & Dissertations

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/17445 http://hdl.handle.net/2429/12919

Undergraduate Honours Essays http://hdl.handle.net/2429/23908

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7852

Faculty Research Papershttp://hdl.handle.net/2429/19587

Note: Scholarly level indicator, peer review indicator

Open Access as teaching toolOther Examples:

Canadian Journal of Sociology

ACME: International Journal for Critical GeographiesDOAJ - Directory of Open Access JournalsSSRN - BusinessRePEc – Working Papers in EconomicsarXiv.org – e-prints in Physics, Math, Computer Science

Open Access as learning tool “Students write differently – and better –

when they write for other students.”Catherine Prendergast, UIUC http://www.eui.illinois.edu/methods.html

“Nothing makes me strive for excellence more than knowing that anyone in the world could see my work.” (Andre Malan, UBC Undergraduate Student)

Discussion points

Questions about open access? Would you discuss open access in your

classes? Would you prefer a librarian to

discuss/introduce these topics with your classes?

Do you think that these topics could provide a bridge to addressing evaluative skills with students?

Questions about cIRcle? What benefits do you see for your students if

they deposit outstanding projects in cIRcle?