A little less ideology and a bit more pragmatism is necessary in the Open Access debate

25th January 2016

“A little less ideology and a bit more pragmatism is necessary in the Open Access debate”

Name: Prof Pearl Dykstra
Position: Professor of Sociology, Director of Research Department of Public Administration and Sociology (DPAS)
Expertise: intergenerational solidarity, aging societies, family change, aging and the life course, survey data collection
Institution: Erasmus University Rotterdam, Department of Sociology
Country: The Netherlands
More info: Home Page LinkedIn

An interview with Prof Pearl Dykstra on 15 December 2015

What got you originally interested in Open Access (OA)?

It was shortly after I joined the Erasmus University in 2009 when I was made aware of Open Access publishing. This happened in a slightly dramatic fashion. I had left the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) to become professor of Empirical Sociology here in Rotterdam. At that time when a researcher left the NIDI, his or her webpage was removed after a few weeks. I naturally wanted to continue informing people about my publications.

It was Rotterdam’s Institutional Repository team at RePub who helped me out when I asked them whether they could assist me in ‘resurrecting’ my bibliography. They could, and as they began gathering my articles from various databases and journal websites, the question quickly arose as to whether I still had manuscript versions or post-prints of my articles, as they wanted to add links to Open Access full text to my list. As a result, I met with Rotterdam’s so-called “Green Road” policy upon arrival, i.e. Green, as in depositing research results in the Institutional Repository. It was also from that point onwards that I always made sure to send my actual manuscripts to them for the RePub repository. So when manuscript deposit became mandatory here in 2011, it was already my default practice.

Is there still a need to spread the Open Access message?

As to promoting the Open Access principle: my co-authors and the researchers that work on our projects are now used to the ‘Green’ practice, so little advocacy is needed.

“We also make a point of registering publications in our institutional research registration system, and we discuss this during our periodical performance evaluations.”

When we receive grants from organisations that require that we provide Open Access to our results, we are ready for that. The ERC Advanced Grant for our “Families in Context” project is a good example, since Open Access is required by the EC for all projects financed in this area. We also make a point of registering publications in our institutional research registration system, and we discuss this during our periodical performance evaluations. In this sense, Open Access is ‘institutionalised’ at our faculty, or at least in my group.

What still needs to be done to provide more Open Access to research?

I don’t believe that the Green Road is the only way. The University Board and University Library believe that the most effective way to maximise Open Access is by taking a mixed approach, and I agree – even if it’s only because we often work together with researchers from other universities and other countries. Sometimes funding is available to make publications Open Access immediately, by paying an upfront fee… taking the so-called ‘Golden Road’. Of course, ‘gold’ makes life easier, but it comes with a price-tag we can only afford sporadically. So in my view, it’s: “Green when possible, Gold when it cannot be avoided.”

What challenges do you still see for more Open Access?

I personally don’t experience any real obstacles, although there is always room for improvement in the process. I’m talking about how the bibliographic information about the publications of our researchers is currently being collected. Much of it is already available in all kinds of databases. It would be nice if that information could be more efficiently shared with our registration systems in Rotterdam. In fact, I believe that more researchers would be encouraged to more consistently deposit their manuscripts if the metadata about an article or book chapter would already be in our own systems.

What still needs to be done to provide more Open Access to research?

A little more pragmatism and a little less ideology in the Open Access debate would be a step forward, in my opinion. In addition, we need to re-evaluate the importance of bibliometric values like impact factors or H-indices.

Tags: APCs, CRIS, European Commission, Gold OA, Green OA, OA publishing, Open Access, advocacy, articles, bibliography, funders, h-index, impact, impact factor, institutional repository, metadata, papers, performance evaluation, post-prints, research assessment, research evaluation

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“A little less ideology and a bit more pragmatism is necessary in the Open Access debate”

An interview with Prof Pearl Dykstra on 15 December 2015

What got you originally interested in Open Access (OA)?

Is there still a need to spread the Open Access message?

What still needs to be done to provide more Open Access to research?

What challenges do you still see for more Open Access?

What still needs to be done to provide more Open Access to research?

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