Opening Access to Academia

Unofficial open access logo
Originally created by
Public Library of Science

A few months ago, I needed to supply a writing sample for a fellowship application. I thought that I had just the thing: an article published earlier that year that showed my interest and abilities in subjects directly related to the fellowship. The problem was, as I soon found, that I had no presentable digital copy of the article. Yes, I did have a pre-publication word processor document with all the relevant text, and yes, I did have hard copies from the publisher--but I had no digital version of the article in its final, formatted, published form. I also did not have access to the journal through my institution. The only way to obtain a digital version of my own work in its final, published form was to email the publisher asking for special access to it.

I write all of this not only to complain but also to point out how odd academic writing, intellectual rights, and access can be. This issue is nothing new, and it is certainly part of a much larger conversation about the shifting tectonic plates of the academic publishing landscape. In my predicament, I faced two questions: 1) Why didn't I have more direct access to my own work in its final (digital) form? 2) How could I have more power to digitally disseminate my own work? In response to my first question, fortunately, the publisher helped me in my plight; of course, rather than granting me access to the journal, the publisher liaison emailed me a pdf document of the article because, the correspondent claimed, it was simpler than other options. This still does not answer my bigger question. In response to my second question, I am glad for Academia.edu, where I can post my published work for those without access otherwise (my profile here).

As my example shows, the answers to questions about intellectual rights and public access in academic publishing do not come easily. In addressing such questions, I am also glad for groups such as Open Access Now and Creative Commons (just a few among many).

Last Friday, the tectonic plates of the academic publishing landscape shifted, as the USA's Office of Science and Technology Policy released the following news:

OSTP Director John Holdren has directed Federal agencies with more than $100M in R&D expenditures to develop plans to make the published results of federally funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication and requiring researchers to better account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research.

The full policy memorandum may be read here.

This was, for a number of reasons, good news, not least of which is the fact that these issues are gaining public attention and support. Perhaps my own (albeit minor) predicament would not have been particularly helped by these first steps for the government's push toward open access. But this is, at least, a good start.