Post on 12-Jun-2020
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
By Michael Downing Professor of English Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Trying to capture four years and ~1,200 hours of work on launching a new literary journal in a 15-minute presentation is a challenge, but I think it’s a story worth telling, as it is a case study in the ongoing paradigm shift from print to online scholarly publishing.
I’m going to move through these slides fairly quickly,
in an attempt to capture the breadth of the project, allowing for Q&A afterwards.
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Penn State Journals: The Arthur Miller Journal The Cormac McCarthy Journal The Edgar Allan Poe Review The Steinbeck Review The Chaucer Review Journal of Bernard Shaw
Studies Source: http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_main.html
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
ALA 2015, PSU, and Pitt
Pitt Open Access Journals: Anthropology and Aging Health, Culture and Society Japanese Language and Literature Journal of Law and Commerce University of Pittsburgh Law Review
Source: https://library.pitt.edu/publications
Philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge
Senior researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication
Director of the Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Suber
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Peter Dain Suber (1951-)
Suber: “Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.”
“In removing price barriers . . . it strives toward
free availability and unrestricted use.” Source: http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Open access publishing doesn’t mean that: You, as the author, will not retain copyright Your publication will not be peer reviewed Your publication will not be indexed in scholarly
databases Your publication will not have an impact factor You will have to pay a fee to publish
Source: https://www.openaccess.nl/en/what-is-open-access/pros-and-cons
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
In 2009, there were approximately 4,800 active open access journals, publishing around 190,000 articles.
As of February 2019, over 12,500 open access
journals are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
Source (Protocol Labs and others):
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Open_access_journal.html
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
The next important step in regulating open access is negotiating the details and that typically involves Creative Commons Licensing. https://creativecommons.org/
CC offers a number of licenses that can be easily added, graphically, to any page or
website on the internet.
For example: Pitt CC License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC License for The Keystone Newspaper (which I advise) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ CC License for the August Wilson Blog
https://augustwilsonblog.wordpress.com/ CC Wiki Page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Suber
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Access to research for the underserved, poor, minorities, non- scholars, people in developing countries
Speed/ expedience Breakthroughs often come from unexpected places Scholars benefit from having the widest possible audience (in terms
of recognition, tenure, promotion) The research enterprise itself benefits when the latest techniques
can be easily accessed/ used Stimulating effects (access leads to innovation) Reach/ Impact (well beyond traditional print) Citations by other authors (often used as a criterion for tenure and
promotion) Search options and searchable texts
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Modes/ Media (text, images, video) Author and institution visibility Publishing costs Benefits students Benefits professors Facilitates communication/ avoids duplication Text mining/ searchable documents Benefits doctors and patients Benefits people in developing countries
Sources: https://sparcopen.org/open-access/ https://www.enago.com/academy/benefits-of-open-access-publications/ https://www.openaccess.nl/en/what-is-open-access/pros-and-cons
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Predatory OA journals (lacking peer review and credibility)
Many OA journals charge author fees (Author Processing Charges)
The number of OA journals varies enormously across different disciplines
High impact journals still mostly follow traditional publishing models
Administration for OA is typically more involved (ask me about the AWJ website)
Determining legitimacy of OA journals (catching up but not there yet)
Source: https://www.openaccess.nl/en/what-is-open-access/pros-and-cons
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Check whether or not your journal has been scored by one of these databases*:
Directory of Open Access Journals
https://doaj.org/
QOAM: Quality Open Access Market https://www.qoam.eu/
SciRev:
https://scirev.org/
*Note that there are differences between OA approaches/ concerns in
the sciences and in literature/ humanities. Peter Suber addresses this subject here: https://blog.apaonline.org/2017/06/08/open-access-in-the-humanities-part-2/
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
“The University Library System (ULS) at the University of Pittsburgh publishes more than 40 scholarly, peer-reviewed online journals. We publish with partners from the Pitt community as well as scholars from universities and scholarly societies around the world.”
“Because we are committed to helping research
communities share knowledge and ideas through open and responsible collaboration, we subsidize the costs of electronic publishing and provide incentives to promote Open Access to scholarly research.”
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
http://augustwilson.pitt.edu/
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Pitt expresses interest (Fall 2015) Proposal authoring/ approval 18-month process (Spring 2017) Travels to Pittsburgh (2017-2018) Developing all language and policies for the journal/ site Designing every inch of the website (see next page or actual site) Designing article layout (see article page) DOI, ISSN, Backup 20+ pieces of material from the top Wilson scholars (spreadsheet) Currently in the galley stage; finalizing author approvals Look for publication, if all goes well upon my return, by June 20 Rolling deadline after that, with annual PDF posted to site
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Open Access Overview http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm Open Access.NL https://www.openaccess.nl/en/what-is-open-access/pros-and-cons Penn State University Press http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_main.html Creative Commons Licensing https://creativecommons.org/ Pitt CC License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC License for the August Wilson Blog https://augustwilsonblog.wordpress.com/ CC License for The Keystone Newspaper https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ The CC Wiki page on is helpful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Suber
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Pros, in general
https://sparcopen.org/open-access/ https://www.enago.com/academy/benefits-of-open-access-publications/ https://www.openaccess.nl/en/what-is-open-access/pros-and-cons Pitt ULS ULS Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing (OSCP) https://www.library.pitt.edu/oscp PITT OA journals https://www.library.pitt.edu/e-journals ULS E-Journal Publishing https://library.pitt.edu/publications August Wilson Journal http://augustwilson.pitt.edu/
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
American Literature Association Annual Conference May 2019
Websites to Open August Wilson Journal http://augustwilson.pitt.edu/ Penn State Journals http://www.psupress.org/Journals/jnls_main.html Pitt Journals: https://library.pitt.edu/publications OA Definition http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm Creative Commons https://creativecommons.org/ CC License for the August Wilson Blog https://augustwilsonblog.wordpress.com/ DOAJ https://doaj.org/