Open research in language and society

Emily Farrell, Britta Schneider, and Dorothea Horst, Europa-Universität Viadrina

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The push towards making research free and open to read, in all its parts and forms, from data sets to published output, is a big topic in scholarly communication. Yet, we know surprisingly little about the attitudes and experiences of researchers in language and society when it comes to open research. A new survey is designed to change that.

Why is open research important?

The majority of research published with academic publishers remains available only by purchase or subscription, primarily either by an individual researcher or through an institutional library. This significantly limits access.

Open research goes right to the heart of the scholarly mission. After all, scholarship is committed “to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges” (Draft Recommendations of the MIT Task Force on Open Access).

This obviously involves increasing the ability of anyone, anywhere, to read the results and output of scholarly research. For that to happen, research has to be accessible.

When research is open and free to read, it is more visible, potentially more discoverable, and allows researchers internationally to discuss, cooperate, and collaborate. There is a general consensus that open research is more widely read and, as a consequence, more highly cited (Piwowar, et al, 2018).

Another reason relates to equity and inclusion. Making scholarly work free to read removes one barrier to access for those who cannot afford to pay themselves, or work for an institution who cannot cover the costs.

Despite the obvious advantages of open research, the case for it is not clear-cut.

Open access is confusing

It is fair to say that scholars feel increasingly overwhelmed by the constantly changing open research landscape.

Institutions and funding bodies demand that research results are made available openly, but the constraints on which outlet is acceptable is often unclear. There is often a lack of transparency around who pays the price to cover open access publication and what that price is.

In addition to the financial cost is the additional work. It is not always clear whether an open access publication will receive the same level of shepherding, editing, and proofreading from the publisher as a traditional publication or whether the burden is on the author. Some publishers are clear that this is the case, others are less transparent. Some sit in between. Language Science Press, for example, who offer cost-free, open access and peer reviewed publishing, require competency in LaTex for manuscript preparation, or the availability of student assistants who do.

This lack of consistent approach leads to a continued suspicion that an open access publication is less prestigious. This is of particular concern where we are in an ever more competitive job market and every publication choice weighs heavily in the tenure and promotion process. Can early career researchers risk prioritizing open access, if it means choosing a publication with a less prestigious press or a lower impact factor journal? Are more established scholars making choices to publish open access that will help their younger colleagues chose this pathway, too?

Is open access the opposite of academic capitalism?

Open access can be seen, in part, as push back against the consolidation of power, function, and wealth of a small number of large commercial publishers. To engage these commercial entities in a process that will ensure they increase their open access offerings, large institutional and national library consortia are increasingly leveraging their power. Organizations in the US and Germany, for example, have signed agreements on behalf of researchers to enable easier and cheaper access to academic publications.

Some scholars, such as those from the scholar-led or radical open access movements, argue that we should refrain entirely from publishing texts with commercial publishers or in publications that are pay-walled and cost money to read.

Predatory publishing

Digital publishing and open access has also led to a dramatic increase in predatory and fraudulent publishers. It can be incredibly difficult to distinguish legitimate open access publishing entities from predatory ones.

There have been attempts to monitor and list predatory publishers and journals, for example Beall’s List, but these have not been without controversy. The endeavor of creating lists of bad actors can also seem Sisyphean, as the rate at which dubious publishers and conference organizers appear happens with incredible speed. There is research that indicates that “for the most part, young and inexperienced researchers from developing countries” are the ones most susceptible to the entreaties of these publishers (see also Demir, 2018).

Which brings us to our survey!

As mentioned above, we’ve put this survey together to help us better understand the challenges and opportunities relating to open access publishing in sociolinguistics and related disciplines.

The survey includes some basic demographic data gathering: where people are located, what positions they hold, where they completed their doctoral work, and what particular area of research they work in. We include these questions in order to better understand if there are geographical differences or variation depending on seniority. We’ve also included some questions relating to technology and social media in order to understand how researchers are using these channels to promote their work. We also include some definitional questions: Open access, open science, open research, and open data are all part of a range of related yet different concepts. We would like to know what framework people are using when they say ‘open access’.

The questionnaire covers a range of questions relating to researchers’ current practices and future plans. If researchers are publishing open access, how are they funding those publications? We also want to know whether those that have published open access have experienced different approaches from the publisher on aspects of manuscript preparation like copy-editing and proofreading.

We are also interested in understanding whether researchers in our field are being compelled by funding bodies or institutional policies to make their work open. Finally, we’d like to know whether researchers see the practice of making work freely readable as being part of an effort to distribute knowledge more equitably.

Why should you take the survey?

Research on open access publishing practices points to a need for a more detailed understanding of what is happening at a disciplinary and sub-disciplinary level. And while many researchers in sub-disciplines that focus on the nexus between language and society care about the impact of their research beyond their small disciplinary bubble, there are still substantial gaps in our knowledge.

Through the survey, we want to get a clearer picture of attitudes towards and experiences with open research in sociolinguistics and related disciplines.

With our combined research, teaching, and publishing experience, the three of us feel that the first step is to understand the open research landscape in language and society. From there, we hope that more can be done to propel open research forward.