Comments for Cash for Questions: social science research funding, policy, and development

Comment on The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? by The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? | Science ouverte - Open science | Scoop.it

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:28:07 +0000

[...] In part 1 of this post, I raised questions about how academic writing might have to change in response to the open access agenda. The spirit of open access surely requires not just the availabilit… [...]

Comment on The consequences of Open Access: Part 1: Is anyone thinking about the “lay” reader? by Adam

Adam — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:50:13 +0000

Hi Stephen – great article. I particularly like the image of “dry, jargon-laden language” being a “barrier higher than any paywall”. That sums up my rebounder investigations pretty much exactly. I’m glad to hear that these issues have been raised and discussed elsewhere too.

Comment on The consequences of Open Access: Part 1: Is anyone thinking about the “lay” reader? by Adam

Adam — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:47:06 +0000

Thanks Graeme. Your comment makes me wonder about the binary division between “academic journals” and “practitioner articles/trade press” – I guess in many fields (such as yours) this division is much less clear and much harder to defend.

I think I find myself conditioned to think in terms of a split between academic outputs and practitioner outputs because that’s how a lot of grant application schemes set it up – a division between academic impact aims and ambitions and research user impact aims and ambitions. But perhaps I need to challenge that more.

I guess some fields lend themselves to jargon which enables the target audience familiar with that terminology to instantly locate the article in the intellectual landscape and makes it a much shorter and clearer read.

Comment on The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? by Adam

Adam — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:42:47 +0000

That’s an interesting analogy – can the elite trust the people with the knowledge, what might they do with it, and what guidance/leadership ought they to be given?

Comment on The consequences of Open Access: Part 1: Is anyone thinking about the “lay” reader? by Stephen Curry

Stephen Curry — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 22:44:52 +0000

Some thought ps here (from a scientific perspective): http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21937-set-science-free-from-publishers-paywalls.html?full=true

Comment on The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? by Heather Morrison

Heather Morrison — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:35:57 +0000

It might be interesting to compare these kinds of arguments with the arguments made a few centuries ago when people began to advocate for opening up reading and literacy to the population at large . If you let people read ~ even the Bible ~ who knows what kinds of heresies may arise?

Comment on The consequences of Open Access: Part 1: Is anyone thinking about the “lay” reader? by The consequences of Open Access: Part 1: Is anyone thinking about the "lay" reader? | Everything open | Scoop.it

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:18:08 +0000

[...] The thorny issue of "open access" – which I take to mean the question of how to make the fruits of publicly-funded research freely and openly available to the public – is one that's way above my pa… [...]

Comment on The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? by The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? | bibliolibrarianothecaire | Scoop.it

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:12:00 +0000

Comment on The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? by The consequences of Open Access, part 2: Are researchers prepared for greater scrutiny? | Open Access to Scholarly Publishing | Scoop.it

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:59:16 +0000

Comment on The consequences of Open Access: Part 1: Is anyone thinking about the “lay” reader? by Graeme Stuart

Graeme Stuart — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:55:32 +0000

Thanks for the post (and the followup one). If open access encourage academics to also write lay summaries, I think that would be great. My teaching and research focus is community engagement, so not surprisingly I’m a strong supporter of open access and you raise some interesting points. In my field (and many others) I can’t really see any reason for NOT writing in a style that is easy to read and understand. I’m involved in a research project at the moment exploring what is working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities (in Australia) and our commitment is that we will focus on research outputs targeting community members and community workers before working on “academic” publications. I realise this is a different context to many other fields, but I in some areas I think it is an appropriate approach.