Open Access at UNCC 1

Open Access at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte:

A Study of Participation and Promotion

Meredith L. Reardon
University of North Carolina Greensboro








Open Access at UNCC 2
Open-Access at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte:
A Study of Participation and Promotion
Introduction
Open access has been a hot button topic in the world of scholarly publishing in the past
decade. With every argument that supported OA there was one that opposed. However it seems
that the tides may be turning as many universities now seem to be embracing the concept. Most
recently Princeton University implemented an open-access policy for faculty publications. While
top universities are making efforts to promote OA stand at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte and what is being done to support it?
Based on preliminary research it seems that the future of open-access at UNCC
seems dim. There were only a few references to open access within the UNCC website. There
were OA brochures offered in the Resources for Copyright and Teaching section of the library
website and a blog post about OA on the Center for Teaching and Learning page. UNCC also
maintains an institutional repository named eScholar@UNC Charlotte. While eScholar
contained information promoting OA it seemed to be an underutilized tool with no new files
being added in over a year. Also most files seemed to be thesis and dissertations. In addition, I
attempted to determine how many OA articles were published by UNCC faculty members by
searching the Directory of Open Access Journals. My results yielded only three articles which
featured an author from UNCC. However the most telling sign was that they are not a member
of SPARC( The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition).

Open Access at UNCC 3
Research Questions
The primary purpose of this study was to determine the current status of open-access
publishing at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Not only will this study analyze OA
publishing habits at UNCC but also the usage of OA resources. This study seeks to answer the
following questions.
The level of OA awareness on campus?
What is the current usage of open-access resources?
What is UNCC doing to promote the usage of OA resources?
Are UNCC faculty participating in OA publishing?
Is UNCC promoting OA publishing by faculty?
Literature Review
There is a great deal of literature available on the topic of open-access. It was this
variety of literature that I learned the ins and outs OA, its pros and cons, and what can be done to
promote it. So what exactly is open-access? Open Access (OA), in the context of scholarly
publishing, is a term widely used to refer to unrestricted online access to articles published in
scholarly journals. (Laasko et al., 2011) Open Access can be divided into two distinct types,
Green OA and Gold OA.
Green Open Access occurs when the author self-archives his or her work at the time of
submission to a publication. The types of publications may vary and include non-peer reviewed
internal publication, peer reviewed journals or even peer reviewed conference proceedings. The
green route makes publications available freely in parallel with any publication system but is
not, itself, publishing.(Jeffery 2006 p. 16)
Open Access at UNCC 4
Gold Open Access occurs when the publisher receives a document and then makes it
freely available. It means that the content of the actual journal publishing the article is, either
totally or to some extent freely accessible to the public. (Laakso et al., 2011 p. 2) The Gold
Open Access category can be divided into three sub types: Direct OA, Delayed OA and Hybrid
OA. Direct OA occurs if the full journal is published as Open Access. Delayed OA occurs when
you must subscribe to a journal in order to receive the more recent content. Over time the
embargo is lifted and the content becomes freely accessible. Sometimes it is possible for the
author to pay a fee to a subscription based journal in order to have his or her article made freely
available; this is called Hybrid OA. (Laakso et al., 2011)
A 2008 study by Bjrk et al. estimated the overall percentage of Open Access and its
subtypes. Overall OA accounted for 20.4% of all scholarly articles published that year. We can
break this down into Green OA and Gold OA. Green OA accounted for 11.9% of total articles
while Gold OA accounted for 8.5%. We can then break down Gold OA into its three types:
Direct OA, Delayed OA and Hybrid OA. Direct OA accounted for 62% of all Gold OA. Hybrid
OA accounted for 24% while Delayed OA accounted for only 14%. (2010)
The emergence of digital content delivery has not the only force behind the recent push
towards Open Access. The aptly named serials crisis also had a significant impact. The rising
costs of maintaining journal collections began putting budgetary pressure on libraries. (Parks
2002) Annual statistics compiled by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) truly show the
shocking price increases. Between the years 1986-2003 the price per subscription of serials rose
by 215% at ARL member libraries. Keep in mind that the Consumer Price Index for the same
period only rose 68%. (Panitch, Michalak, 2005)
Open Access at UNCC 5
This journal-affordability problem exposed another very serious issue. Because libraries could
no longer afford all of their journal subscriptions potential research impact was being lost.
Harand et al. (2004) explains why this is important:
An articles research impact is the degree to which its findings are read, used, applied,
built-upon, and cited by users in their own further research and applications. Research
impact is a measure of the progress and productivity of research. That is the reason why
researchers careers (their salaries, promotions, tenure, funding, prestige, and prizes)
depend on their impact. (p. 310-311)
This is what Harand et al., calls the article access/impact problem. It is not simply enough to
do the research and keep it to yourself. Research needs to be peer-reviewed and published so
that others may use it and ultimately cite it. However, to be able to cite it they must first be able
to access it. (2004)
Being cited by others is important to the careers of researchers. So what impact does
Open Access have on citations? Several studies have been done in this area. In a study
published in 2006 Eysenbach stated [T]hat OA articles are cited earlier and are, on average,
cited more often than non-OA articles. (p. 0692) A study by Lawrence in the field of computer
science showed a 336% increase in the citation impact of OA articles over non-OA articles.
Others studies in areas such as astrophysics and mathematics have shown similar effects.
(Harand et al., 2004)
While these results may sound great they do have their critics. Davis and Walters
contend:
Open Access at UNCC 6
While free access leads to greater readership, its overall impact on citations is still under
investigation. The large access-citation effects found in many early studies appear to be
artifacts of improper analysis and not the result of a causal relationship. (2011 p. 213)
Obviously the jury is still out on impact of OA on citations; it appears that further research
should be done regarding this subject.
Now that we have explored the ins and outs of the Open Access movement we can look
at what scientists think about it. The SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing) project survey
was a large-scale survey on researchers attitudes and experiences of OA publishing. An
astounding 89% of respondents believed that OA publishing is beneficial to their field. Also
52% of them had published at least one OA article themselves. Interestingly over 60% believed
that OA articles are more likely to be read and cited than non OA articles. (Dallmeier-Tiessen et
al., 2011)
Although Open Access is no longer in its infancy it is still a controversially subject. It is
clear that it is growing in both scale and acceptance. But what can be done at the university level
to promote it? Peter Suber, an open access advocate, created a list just to address this subject.
While the list is very extensive these are a few of the highlights. For faculty: submit both
preprints and postprints to an OA archive, ask journals to let you retain the rights needed to
consent to OA, make sure your works are indexed by Google Scholar and educate the next
generation of scientist and scholars on OA. For Librarians: Launch an OA institutional eprint
archive, help faculty deposit their research articles in the institutional archive, include OA
journals in the library catalog, annotate OA articles and books with their metadata, join SPARC,
a consortium of academic libraries actively promoting OA. For Administrators: Adopt policies
Open Access at UNCC 7
encourage or requiring faculty self-archive institutionally, adopt a policy that requires faculty
who publish to retain copyrights, help faculty pay fees involved in OA publishing. (2007)
Methodology
To gather data for this survey I first separated the UNCC population into three distinct
users groups: librarians, faculty and students. These three groups all play an important role in the
world of open access. After determining these groups I developed a set of ten questions to be
asked through informational interview, each group having their own set of questions. The
questions for each of these groups were created with a couple assumptions in mind. First, for
faculty and librarians it was assumed that they would already be familiar with the concept of
open access because of their educations and work experience. This assumption was not made for
the student user group, however because the student body at UNCC ranges from undergraduates
to Ph.D candidates I kept in mind that some may be familiar and may even already be published.
Also for each user group I included a question concerning their area of research/study/position in
hopes of detecting patterns related to them and their involvement in OA. See appendix A for the
list of questions.
After I developed the questions I then began to make requests for informational
interviews. Based on contact information from the UNCC website I chose a small random
sample of both librarians and faculty to request an informational interview via email. For the
student user group I approached, at random, a small sample of students on campus. I feel that
choosing to perform informational interviews to gather my data was the best method because it is
very flexible. They could be conducted via email, phone or in person. Also, I felt that this may be
Open Access at UNCC 8
my best chance to illicit a response because many people might ignore a survey from someone
they did not know.
Findings
The Faculty User Group
I received one response from the faculty user group. While one response does not
constitute a sample it did provide some insight. This faculty while having a positive attitude
towards open access, even calling it a good thing had never published in an OA journal nor
had he truly participated in self-archiving. While he did answer yes to question that asked if he
participated in self-archiving when asked where he archived his work he answered his hard-
drive. This led me to believe that he was not familiar with OA self-archiving and that my
assumption that he would be was a within the study. When answering the question about if he
believed that open access publishing was being promoted at UNCC he answered no opinion. I
believe that this may have been a political answer in order not to offend. For this type of
question an anonymous survey may have been a better choice.
The Librarian User Group
I did not receive any responses from the librarian user group. I can only assume that
either they were too busy to take time to responds to a request for an informational interview or
that were not interested in its the subject matter. Without out any data I cannot make any
conclusions on this user group.

The Student User Group
Open Access at UNCC 9
The student user group provided the most response, presumably because it is the largest
group and the method of approach for the interview. Half of the students I approached agreed to
the interview. While I strived to provide a random sample it was not representative of the UNCC
population, with all respondents being undergraduates. Possibly a change in location to the
research side of campus would have yielded more representative results. While the area of study
of these students varied greatly there was no familiarity of with open access. Because of this lack
of knowledge of OA they were unable to provide any other relevant data.
With the lack of responses I believe that my approach to gathering this data was not
effective. A more effective approach could have been to create anonymous surveys from the
question lists and have them sent through targeted listservs to each user group. However this
method would have taken much more time and would require relationships within the UNCC
administration, something I currently do not have.
Conclusion
While I do not believe that the responses I received were truly representative of UNCC as
a whole they do provide some insight. When you couple them with the preliminary research
preformed online it is clear that the awareness and promotion of open access is not a priority at
UNCC. This is not to say that individuals do not support and participate in OA but that in general
the university is not doing the same.



Open Access at UNCC 10
Appendix A
Questions for Faculty
1. What is your field of research?
2. What is your general attitude toward open access publishing?
3. Have you ever submitted articles to open access journals?
4. If so have these journals required a fee?
5. If you have paid a fee for submission how was it paid for? Personal funds, a research
grant, library or institutional funds, by a commercial sponsor etc.
6. Do you self-archive your work?
7. If yes, where did you self-archive them? Your own website, institutional repository, etc?
8. If yes are they Preprints (draft articles that have not been peer-reviewed or edited) or
Postprints (final edited versions of peer-reviewed articles)?
9. Do you feel that open access publishing is encouraged at UNCC?
10. Do you have any other comments you would like to make about open access publishing?

Questions for Librarians

1. What is your position in the library?
2. Do you support open access publishing and resources?
3. Do you encourage students to use OA resources?
4. Do you encourage faculty to publish in OA journals?
5. Are open access sources included in the library catalogue?
6. Does UNCC have any official open access policy?
7. Does UNCC provide any type of assistance to help authors pay for OA publications fees?
8. Do you feel that UNCC promotes the use of open access resources?
9. Do you feel that open access publishing is encouraged at UNCC?
10. Do you have any other comments you would like to make about open access publishing?

Questions for Students

1. Are you an undergraduate or graduate student?
2. What is your area of study/major?
3. Are you familiar with the concept of open access?
4. Have you ever used open access resources?
5. If yes, were they from OA journals or were they author self-archived works?
6. Have you ever been published?
7. If so did you publish in a traditional journal or OA journal?
8. Do you feel that UNCC promotes the use of open access resources?
9. Do you feel that open access publishing is encouraged at UNCC?
10. Do you have any other comments your would like to make about open access publishing?


Open Access at UNCC 11
References
Baum, R.A., (2004, February 23). The Open-Access Myth. Chemical and Engenering
News, 82(8), 3.
Bjrk, B., Welling, P., Laakso, M., Majlender, P., Hedlund, T. & Guonason, G. (2010 June).
Open Access to the Scientific Jounal Literature: Situation 2009. PLoS One,
5 (6), 1-9. doi: 10.1371/[Link].0011273
Dallmeier-Tiessen, S., Darby, R., Goerner, B., Hyppoelae, J., Igo-Kemenes, P. Kahn, D.,Van
der Stelt, W. (2011). Highlights from the SOAP project survey. What Scientists Think
about Open Access Publishing. Retrieved September 8, 2011, from
[Link]
Davis, P.M., & Walters, W. H. (2011) The impact of free access to scientific literature: a review
Of recent research. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 99(3), 208-217.
doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.99.3.008
Disraeli, B. (1880). Endymion. Retrieved September 15, 2011, from
[Link]
Eysenbach, G. (2006 May). Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles. PLoS Biology, 4(5).
Doi: 10.1371/[Link].0040157
Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallieres, F., Carr, L. Hitchcock, S. Gingras, Y.,Hilf, E.R. (2004)
The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access. Serials
Review, 30, 310-314. doi: 10.1016/[Link].2004.09.013
Jeffery, K.G. (2006) Open Access: An Introduction. ERCIM News, 64, 16-17, Retrieved
Open Access at UNCC 12
September 9,

2011 from, [Link]
Laakso, M., Welling, P., Bukvova, H., Nyman, L., Bjork, B., & Hedlund, T. (2011 June).
The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to 2009. PLos ONE
6(6), 1-10. doi: 10.1371/[Link].0020961
Panitch, J.M. & Michalak, S. (2005) The Serials Crisis: A White Paper for UNC-Chapel Hill
Scholarly Communications Convocation. Retrieved September 10, 2011, from
[Link]
Parks, R.P. (2002). The Faustian Grip of Academic Publishing. Journal of Economic
Methodology, 9(3), 317-335. doi: 10.1080/135017802200001512 2
Suber, P. (2007, April 16). What you can do to promote open access.
[Link]
Willinsky, J. (2006). The Access Pinciple: The Case for Open Access to Research and
Scholarship. Cambrige: MIT Press.







Open Access at UNCC 13
What I have Learned
This action research project has been a great learning experience for me and I have
learned so much from it. The reason I was able to learn so much from conducting this study was
because it was so unsuccessful. Obviously I am not happy that it was an unsuccessful study,
however the mistakes and missteps have provided me with insight I wouldnt have gained
otherwise.
The first thing I learned is there is no reason to be afraid or anxious about the research
process. At first I was very intimidated about cold calling librarians and faculty to request an
interview. It took some time but I finally did and it didnt even hurt. After two days of constantly
refreshing my email inbox my fear of rejection had been realized. I only got one response for
request for interviews with faculty, no responses from the librarians. After talking with my peers
and teachers I learned it was all part of the research process. You cant let that defeat you, pick
up, move on and try it a little different next time.
I also learned never to make assumptions about those you are interviewing/surveying. I
made the assumption that librarians and faculty would already have knowledge of open access
just because of their involvement in the scholarly publishing world. In my interview with a
faculty member he indicated that he did participate in self-archiving. However what he believed
to be self-archiving did not fit the true definition. If it had not been for a following up question
that asked where he self-archived I would have never known that his answer was incorrect. This
situation could have led to me analyzing incorrect data if I had not caught the discrepancy. In
the future I will include clarify all concepts to insure that responses are as accurate as possible.
Open Access at UNCC 14
Last but not least I learned to enjoy qualitative research as much as I enjoyed the
quantitative kind. The idea of qualitative research and I did not get along at first, all I could think
of was how to turn the information into numbers, my inner economist was driving me crazy. As
the project progressed I found that the interview process could be just as enjoyable and fulfilling
as sifting through giant excel spreadsheets of statistics.
Overall this experience has been rewarding. I feel that the lessons I have learned during
this study will serve me well in my future endeavors.