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/