Making Open Access Work in the Social Sciences

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As open access gains a strong foothold in medical publishing, social science scholars increasingly are looking for outlets to make their own research open access. In STM, publication fees of the major open access journals start at $1,350, with payment often covered as part of grants received from pharmaceutical companies, government, and other organized entities. In contrast, limited grant funding in the social sciences doesn’t typically include publication support, so the question remains, “How can the open access model work for the social sciences?” This moderated panel discussion included representatives from libraries, university administration, and publishers to gain a full view of the current open access funding and publishing landscape and what might lie ahead. The conversation particularly focused on the librarian’s role in facilitating the open access funding and publishing processes and how the role of a social science librarian may change in an open access world. The open-access movement in academic and scholarly publishing has grown steadily over the last few years, gaining particular prominence in medical publishing through venues such as PLoS ONE and BMJ Open. Government and university open-access mandates, however, have increasingly spread interest in open access to social scientists. In 2011, this interest has only deepened as the launch of SAGE Open brought to the social sciences the broadscope, open access mega-journal model already popular in STM publishing. When examined in the context of stagnant or shrinking serials budgets, limited grant and publication funding in the social sciences, and the ongoing wedding of tenure in many social science disciplines to publication in prestigious traditional journals, the burgeoning support for a new model raises many questions for librarians, faculty, and publishers alike. This panel discussion, moderated by Mr. Robert Brooks, sought to trace the librarian’s changing role and offered recommendations regarding how librarians and publishers can collaborate to ease the transition of social science faculty to a publishing landscape in which new open access outlets share space with traditional journals. Panelists began by outlining their current interactions with open access and their personal impressions of the challenges in bringing this new model to the social sciences. Mr. Jeffrey Carroll described the increasing need for librarians to reach out proactively to faculty to educate them about evolving policies and publishing options. He placed the librarian-as-advocate in the context of the larger transition of libraries from providers of hard-copy research materials to providers of content and information services that no longer necessarily take the form of discrete books and journals. Indeed, the theme of educating faculty and building awareness proved a common thread among all three discussants. Ms. Deborah Ludwig stated that part of her role consists of implementing policies made by administrators. With respect to the open access policy adopted by the University of Kansas, implementation has meant respecting the different attitudes of different faculty segments toward open access, such as heavier resistance among humanities faculty, and educating them according to their respective needs, making particular use of faculty champions and providing meaningful incentives to use the institutional repository, such as recognition for highly-downloaded authors. Similarly, Mr. Eric Moran shared that the most challenging aspect of helping SAGE pioneer the broad-scale open access model in the social sciences has been educating humanities and social science faculty. Like Ms. Ludwig, Mr. Moran mentioned the need to provide incentives to make open access publishing more accessible, such as the low introductory acceptance fee offered by SAGE Open. Discussion then turned toward the fee structures associated with the open access business model. The publisher’s perspective holds that librarians