Open Access Dissertations
Problem
The academic library has traditionally been considered a central keeper and primary source to get scholarly information. Today, because of the exponential rise in the cost of scientific journals, the academic library is experiencing economic and access barriers to knowledge. Open Access to the dissertations is a good solution to help low-budget academic libraries to cope with their problems. Though some of the dissertation writers are beginning to embrace and support Open Access venues by supplementing institutional repositories and academic databases, most of them still do not implement this system as being unable to realize how exactly this will affect their career.
Research Purpose
I am undertaking this research project because I am a supporter of Open Access approach to intellectual property and to scientific dissertations in particular. Making a dissertation Open Access serves as a good starting pad for a scientist and it helps him/her to make an early input into the development of science. Also, in spite of the growing popularity of the Internet sources, scientific library remains the primary source for students to get scholarly information and it is scientists’ responsibility to support this institution by providing their scientific achievements. However, there are certain pitfalls and barriers that do not allow dissertation writers to follow this path. In my study I want to find out more information about those pitfalls and try to understand why exactly dissertation writers choose or not choose to make their dissertations Open Access. To accomplish this task, it is necessary to capture empirical data from dissertation writers to determine whether they are embracing the Open Access concept and implementing it on practice.
Brief summary of Literature Review
For my research I used a number of competent scientific literature sources that I will try to summarize briefly:
- Evans, M. A. J. (2012). “Open access to scientific literature: An assessment of awareness support and usage among academic librarians at historically black colleges and universities”. This study focuses on how librarians at HBCU institutions feel about Open Access venues and documents their current interactions with Open Access venues. Evans concludes that librarians are aware of Open Access venues and in favor of making research freely available on the Internet. However, they are experiencing a variety of obstacles in making the transition to Open Access: funding, scepticism about quality of work for public view, lack of institutional commitment, and low or no demand by faculty and others within the academic community.
- Khalili, L. (2011). “Familiarity and experience with open access among Iranian medical researchers”. This study explores the current status of familiarity and experience with Open Access among medical researchers in Iran. Khalili concludes that more than half of the respondents are unfamiliar with basic Open Access initiatives and services and only half of the researchers have publishing experience with OA journals.
- Ellingford, L. M. (2012). “Education scholars' perceptions and practices toward open access publishing”. This study focuses on scholars' perceptions and practices toward publishing in open access outlets in …