Online open access journals trump paper based journals every time in terms of amplification of ideas too. Often open access journals provide online forums for discussion of the articles presented. This kind of dialogue is invaluable both for the readers and authors. Many open access journals also provide reader metrics. Authors can see at a glance how many people have downloaded their abstract, or full paper, and some also track where the readership is located around the globe. This simply cannot be achieved with paper based journals. All you can know for certain is how many subscribers there are for each issue sold. I have already written about sharp practice - the cynical manner in which some publishing houses exploit the goodwill and free labour of academics, and then make huge profits selling on journal subscriptions back to the academic community, so I won't revisit this point.
What is worse though, is the fact that much of the academic establishment continues to frown upon open access publications as though they were second class citizens in the publishing world. There are a number of elite journals (largely rated on the basis that their published works are cited more widely than those of other similar publications, and also tacitly on the reputation of the editorial board) that academic managers encourage their researchers to target. If researchers can secure publications in any of these elite closed journals, they will be well placed when it comes to the official research assessments that come along periodically, where governments award money for further research. Those top universities that demonstrate the best research outputs (that is, the most prestigious) and publication track records receive most of the cash. Those who don't can pretty much forget it for another round. It's an inward looking, self-feeding, self congratulatory 'old boys' club, and it is entirely unjust at so many levels. It's a hierarchy that rarely changes. No wonder many people despise the ivory tower brigade and their academic snobbery.
There has to be a better way to disseminate research. There are many high quality open access journals in existence, and several that are highly recommended in the field of learning technology and distance education. Some of these are listed as links below. If you know of others, please send me the links and I will include them on this blogpost. There is also a large list of links available to open access and hybrid education related journals. One that is not listed yet on the list is Research in Learning Technology (formerly ALT-J) which will be converting to open access in January 2012. Other closed journals should, and probably will follow suit. Open access is not synonymous with poor quality. In fact many online open access journals work twice as hard to prove that they are high quality. What open access does mean is larger readerships for the published research. That has to be worth something in anyone's book.
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology
Digital Culture and Education
e-Learning Papers
EDUCAUSE Review
European Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning
Future Internet
International Review of Research in Open Distance Learning
The Journal of Distance Education
Journal of Interactive Online Learning
Journal of Technology Education
The open case by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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