Introduction
Throughout our class, we have discussed scholarly publishing and the emergence and persistence of Open Access publishing. We’ve covered the conflicting incentives for academics to publish traditionally versus open access. Urs discusses how copyright and ownership shaped traditional scholarly publishing; Suber provides a history of Open Access publications and positions OA publishing not as a response to predatory publishers, but as product of the marriage of scholarship and digital media. That said, OA remains one of the few avenues of publication available to scholars who wish to not participate in predatory publishing cycles. University libraries are reckoning with diminishing collections budgets. University repository mandates are protested and promptly ignored.
A review of the literature on early-career researchers discloses a concerning picture of the lives of young academics. Surveys of Early Career researches and heads of departments conclude that the demanding nature of academic careers disproportionately affects ECRs who face unprecedented job insecurity. (Akram et. al., 2021) Another survey of Swedish universities’ junior faculty concludes that support from the university, work time management, job clarity, contract length, and quality of life satisfaction could help mitigate stress and resulted in a perceived improvement in scientific production. (Signoret et. al., 2019) A large study conducted examined ECRs’ attitudes and communication practices concluded that ECRs consider journals the primary form of scholarly communication and accept the current publishing system out of necessity for reputation purposes and proposes that ECRs are ill informed little about publishers. (Nicholas et. al., 2018)
With libraries’ struggles to encourage OA publication and implement OA policies in mind, I began consider the disproportionate disincentive for ECRs to publish open education and wished to uncover some meaningful potential solutions for overcoming or circumventing these disincentives. I determined a micro-study would be the most feasible option within the time limits of this assignment. One of the most cited barriers to publication is time. Therefore, I decided to survey a sub-group whose time is perhaps more constrained than most others: Caregivers.
For my final project, I surveyed early career researchers who are also caregivers about their scholarly publishing experiences in order to propose informed solutions for how to encourage and support faculty to publish Open Access.
Survey Design
I designed and distributed a short, open-ended survey to caregiver ECRs in order to gather qualitative information about their publishing experiences. The questions asked were informed by previous surveys of Early Career Researchers regarding publication and Open Access. The questions were open ended in order to capture commonality and variation across experiences, as well as allow each respondent to answer with the level of detail and specificity they were comfortable with.
Respondents were directed to answer all, some, or even none, of the questions as they saw fit. Each participant was assured they could back out any time with no hard feelings. It is, after all that time of the semester, they have tiny humans, and their time is precious. Each participant had the option to answer questions over the phone, zoom, or by form. Every respondent chose the form. Each respondent was assured that their names, the names of their institutions, their job titles, and their responses would remain private, and that no identifiable information would be released to my professor, classmates, or other participants.
The Questions
During your academic career have you published a monograph? More than one? Did you publish with a university press or a commercial publisher?
During your academic career, have you published journal articles? If asked, would you be able to name the publisher the journal is owned by? (Such as Wiley, Elsevier, etc.)
Have you published Open Access?
Have you created, contributed to, or otherwise been involved in the production of an OER?
Have you ever published a pre-print?
Do you submit your publications to an institutional repository?
Have you previously reviewed for a journal? Was it a traditional publisher or OA?
Have you ever received funding to support OA or OER projects?
Does your department consider OA publications, OER projects, or Digital Media Scholarship on par with traditional publications for tenure review or promotion?
Upon your first publication, were you aware or made aware of the rights you, the author, retained or did not retain upon publication?
Can you identify some barriers or obstacles that you have encountered throughout your publishing career as a caregiver?
Can you identify some advantages or benefits you have experienced throughout your publishing career as a caregiver?
At this moment, do you know the name(s) of the Scholarly Communications Librarian(s) or Officer(s) at your institution? (Yes or No)
If yes, how many professional interactions have you had with your Scholarly Communications Librarian/Officer?
If no, for what reasons would you consider reaching out to a Scholarly Communications librarian?
Key Takeaways from the Survey
· Not a single participant could name their Scholarly Communications Librarian or Officer.
· Many respondents noted they were advocating for other things within their departments. Publishing OA was, therefore, not a priority when measured against urgent social issues.
o Several noted a concern about diminishing their impact on superiors if they advocated for too many changes.
· Several participants noted the high cost of OA publishing/OER projects and the difficulty of securing funding.
Humble Proposals
· Scholarly Communications librarians should introduce themselves and actively engage their communities. We cannot advocate for the needs of people we do not know and who do not know us. SC Librarians might attend or host events where faculty could meet them and learn about the resource they can be to the faculty and other scholars.
· SC Librarians should advocate directly to authoritative bodies. Faculty are overwhelmed and overworked. Rather than assisting faculty with statements in their tenure packets, they should advocate on behalf of faculty directly to department chairs or boards for equal consideration of OA publications and OER for tenure.
· SC Librarians should incentivize OA where they can, and offload labor where they cannot. At some universities, it might be realistic to advocate for incentive systems like the one at University of Chicago and other large universities. At other universities, more immediate assistance might take the form of a centralized OA grant application calendar or ListServ.
Limitations of the Study
· Small Sample Size
o I contacted ten ECR parents. Nine were able to complete the short survey. Ideally, there would be larger body of responses to provide a fuller picture of the challenges ECR parents encounter in publishing.
· Limited to Single Group
o This survey is meant to assess what, if anything, SC Librarians can do to support ECRs publishing OA. This study only addresses one sub-population of ECRs here and does not directly address the intersectional experience of many persons.
· Survey Designer is Not a Parent
o In a perfect world, the study would have more researchers, more input, and more diversity of perspective in its design.
References
Nicholas, D., Watkinson, A., Abrizah, A., Boukacem-Zeghmouri, C., Xu, J., Rodríguez-Bravo, B., Świgoń, M., & Herman, E. (2018). What publishers can take away from the latest early career researcher research: Latest early career researcher research. Learned Publishing, 31(3), 249–253. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1165
Signoret, C., Ng, E., Da Silva, S., Tack, A., Voss, U., Lidö, H. H., Patthey, C., Ericsson, M., Hadrévi, J., & Balachandran, C. (2019). Well-Being of Early-Career Researchers: Insights from a Swedish Survey. Higher Education Policy, 32(2), 273–296. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/s41307-018-0080-1
Akram, S., & Pflaeger Young, Z. (2021). Early Career Researchers’ Experiences of Post-Maternity and Parental Leave Provision in UK Politics and International Studies Departments: A Heads of Department and Early Career Researcher Survey. Political Studies Review, 19(1), 58–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920910363