Tag Archives: open access

Welcome to Digital Literacies and Open Practice 2024-5

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I can’t believe we are about to start this module again for the sixth time as the module was first created in 2018. How time flies! We have a new cohort of students, and I’ve just completed some research on the impact of teaching on this module. The findings about what staff think of their own and their students’ digital literacies are really interesting and going to be the subject of a LEaD Learning Circle event in November. We also collected data on their attitudes towards open educational practices. Watch this space as I have also just submitted the first of a few planned journal articles on this research.

Definitions and terminology are both topics for discussion in next week’s first teaching day. I am really looking forward to meeting the new cohort, as this continues to be a really fascinating area to teach (and do research) in. We’ve got some introductory reading on what are digital literacies (from AdvanceHE) and a similar short piece on what open educational practices are from University of Edinburgh. A key part of the day is also going to be learning about where understanding copyright fits in this whole process and we have a link to last year’s guest lecture from Chris Morrison as he sadly can’t join us next week. But, it’s going to be a great term and good luck to everyone taking the module!

Healthcare Publishing in Open Access Journals

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This post is written by Asma Ashraf, a Lecturer in Adult Nursing at City University of London. This is part of Asma’s assignment for EDM122 and is licensed under CC BY. Asma writes:

Publishing in open access journals – to do or not to do!

I clicked on a link to read an article on the university library website. A message appeared asking do I want to ‘Get Open Access version’ and to click on the red button.  I wondered if it is correct, surely this is not a ‘paywall’. I laugh nervously as I think to myself, I do not need to worry about this, I have access!

As an academic, I am privileged to have access to most journals. As I proceed, I think to myself, is this a test? Are the module leaders trying to point out the challenges that others face? This is not a message I have seen before and I decide that it is reminding me that there are free versions available to access.

This is very telling about the challenges that those wanting to access academic journal articles experience.  I have been on the receiving end of hitting ‘paywalls’ and it invokes stress. In this essay, I will be exploring whether healthcare workers should only publish in open access journals. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in their ‘Recommendation on Open Science’ guide want scientific research to benefit all globally (UNESCO, 2023).

Let me rewind a little and explain what I mean by ‘paywall’.  Paywalls are also known as digital subscriptions. It is where you make regular payments to gain access to digital content (Myllylahti, 2019). A paywall in the academic setting is when you must pay per article or choose to have a digital subscription to access peer-reviewed articles (Open Society Foundations, 2018).  Paywalls are used by online news sources such as newspapers and have been used in journalism since 2010 when the phrase was coined (Myllylahti, 2019).  In journalism, the reasons for paying for news are not quite the same as open access for scientific knowledge. Paywalls preventing users from accessing scientific publications are denying access to scientific knowledge and not fostering an open science culture (UNESCO, 2023).

As a nurse lecturer, I am interested in knowing what the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) website say about open access to support nurses and nursing students.  There is no direct discussion about open access; however, the NMC do discuss modernising of education for nursing students. This has become more relevant particularly since leaving the European Union and new standards dictating nurse education require access to evidence and best practice (NMC, 2023).

 

My Hunger for Knowledge

As a nurse working in the National Health Service (NHS) since the late 1990s, I can remember attempting to access journal articles and there was a limit to the access.   I wanted safe and evidence-based health research, so I was constantly searching for free access through Athens.  Now called NHS OpenAthens, this provides free online access to NHS funded resources including journals and e-books to healthcare workers (Health Education England, 2024). Although the NHS funding will have paid for the research through publicly funded research (National Institute for Health and Care Research [NIHR], 2021). The cost to the NHS to access medical literature is steep. I was not able to find exact costs; however, in my search I came across an example from Daly et al.’s (2020) research discussing the merger of the library and knowledge services within one hospital NHS trust project.  The cost to access one database was £11.5K (Daly et al., 2020), this is the cost for one hospital trust. There were 215 NHS hospital trusts in England alone in 2022 (The King’s Fund, 2023), and if they are all paying individually for open access this cost runs into the millions just for access to one database.

Open access was propelled internationally in 2001 after a meeting in Budapest which was sponsored by Open Society Foundations.  The outcome of the meeting was to encourage researchers to publish and disseminate their findings outside of the billion-dollar academic publishing industry (Open Society Foundations, 2018). The UK NIHR in 2021 published the Open Access publication policy setting out key principles to ensure that publicly funded research is available openly (NIHR, 2021).  However, this does not mean that it is entirely free, because an open access fee is paid by the NIHR to ensure the publisher allows open access.

For those with access to the internet that can look up information themselves, open access to journals means more people have access to good quality evidence-based research.  This is important as a healthcare provider; however, it is important that patients can have open access to scientific information too (NHS England Workforce, Training and Education, 2020).

I believe access to information should be a priority and open access can support equity and inclusion for those that produce and use knowledge by enabling knowledge to be shared in diverse ways (UNESCO, 2023).

 

Blinded by Ego

Since 2012 I have published several peer-reviewed articles.  In the beginning in my naivety, I was blinded by the grandeur of being a published academic. The prestige of publishing research results that I worked hard to write up in a journal with a high impact of dissemination (Chang, 2017), or so I thought.

Until recently, I did not understand the importance of publishing in an open access peer reviewed article.  Whilst undertaking the Digital Literacies and Open Practice module (EDM122), I was so shocked when I learned how much money the academic publishing companies make.  I watched Paywall: The Business of Scholarship. The Movie (2018) and I am still feeling angry that public money goes into funding research, yet access is restricted to the public, including those who conduct the research (Moore, 2014).  Publishers receive public money. For example, the NIHR provide funds into grants they provide to ensure evidence-based research is published and available. Unless the researchers have access through their academic institution, someone is still paying and if you leave and your next organisation does not have access you lose access to your own work.

It is unfair that publishers are exploiting researchers (Moore, 2014).  Researchers who submit manuscripts for publication want to have their work peer reviewed so they will pay a fee to the publisher.  A group of experts will look at your manuscript and essentially proofread and provide feedback. The scam here is that those reviewing the manuscript do this for free they do not get any remuneration for their time.  The publisher is taking money from those that want to publish and commissioning free work to others.

 

Benefits, Challenges and Limitations

I have been approached by publishers requesting me to publish and write for their journals.  I remember the first time I got an email I was so excited.  When I inquired further there was mention that I would need to pay money. My colleague recommended that I not entertain these publishers because they were not looking to improve evidence base (Logullo et al., 2023).  Although I am now more aware of such scams, it does leave me with a bitter taste.  As someone who wants to share knowledge and support nursing care, I feel sad at the manipulative nature of the publishing industry (Logullo et al., 2023).  Golden open access is an approach used where authors pay the publishers fees, meaning that only those who have the funds can afford to pay. Open access journal publication still does not benefit those in lower income countries because you need access to the internet (Logullo, 2023).

On a positive note, I have worked with stakeholders including patients and advocacy groups who benefit from open access. They are better informed when making decisions and supporting others. Behind a paywall these important stakeholders would not have access to vital information.  Open access journal publication also enables findings to be looked at critically (Logullo et al., 2023). This is essential to developing and evolving evidence-based healthcare practice.  Logullo et al. (2023) have published their article under a CC BY comms licence, which provides others the opportunity to build on their work.

Open access journal publication also ensures that people are not duplicating work, because when they search for publications, they can see the detail of what has already been studied (Logullo et al., 2023).

 

Enlightened or not really!

I have developed awareness and feel that I only want to publish in open access journals going forward.  Although my last four articles were all published in peer-reviewed open access journals. I did not realise the significance of this until now.  I had become part of an unfair system that goes against my idea of social justice to access free resources (Bali et al., 2020).

As a nurse, equality, diversity, and inclusion plus equity are crucial for me and this is part of the UNESCO (2023) recommendations.  I would like nursing colleagues and nursing students to be able to embed evidence-based practice in their day-to-day work.  However, if scientific knowledge is behind a paywall this can only mean inequity and limited access for the majority (Moore, 2014).

Having previously worked in research and now academia, within the last 10 years my access to published research has been unlimited through the academic institutions have been employed with.  This is great for me, however, there is a huge cost to the university.

Working as a lecturer, I do not need to have too many publications at this stage of my career.  However, if I want to progress in academic rank there is a requirement for me to engage in scholarly activity and publishing in peer-reviewed journals (Cade, 2022). On a positive note, it is important that knowledge is shared openly (Cade, 2022), and I am keen to do this.

 

Honing My Skills

I have spent some time trying to understand where open access fits in the wider context of publishing.  Is it open educational practice or part of open educational resources? Is it just about publishing in peer-reviewed journals, or does it include books?  I realise now that it is both (Bali et al., 2020).

My experience is limited to publishing in peer-reviewed journals; however, having access to textbooks is important too. I have learnt whilst completing this module that public scholarship can also be done from writing blogs, using social and professional networking. These are powerful tools for disseminating knowledge such as X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn (Bali et al., 2020; Ross, 2020) and other open platforms (Logullo et al., 2023). In terms of social justice, access to a blog or a social media post is available to more people than information that is guarded by a paywall. This means that information from these sources is not restricted to only those with enough capital to view it. However, quality needs to be considered and can be opinion rather than evidence based (Bali et al., 2020).

In terms of licensing for this essay, I looked through the different choices and considered the options used by previous students before me for their blog. During the game, ‘The Publishing Trap,’ which we played in class to help us better understand publishing in academia. I was nervous and reluctant to contribute because I was concerned my academic thinking would be challenged and felt I didn’t know enough.  This is odd because I am usually happy to talk about my experiences and give permission for others to use my stories and examples.  Yet during this game, I found that I did not want to yield, mostly because I feel like an imposter in academic publishing (Berna, 2020).  This is not out of fear that someone will steal my idea, but more that I am concerned about my knowledge being questioned.  This is called imposter syndrome and it is well known that this psychological block is a coping mechanism (Berna, 2020).

What will I do?

In summary, I will ask students to consider how they access publications and if they go onto publish to prioritise open access so their work can be available to everyone. I encourage students to strive for evidence-based practice in healthcare and ensure they have open access wherever they work.

Now that I have more knowledge, I will continue to promote open access and share what I have learnt.  This is to ensure peer reviewed scientific information is shared and it will in turn promote digital literacy through its use (UNESCO, 2023).

The learning for this module has enabled me to delve further into my own practice and to understand the political and social need for open access publications.

 

References

Bali, M., Cronin, C. and Jhangiani, R.S., 2020. Framing Open Educational Practices from a Social Justice Perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2020(1), p.10. https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.565

Berna, J. S. (2020). Unblocking scholarly writing – Minimizing imposter syndrome and applying grit to accomplish publishing. Scholar Chatter, 1(1), 1 – 7, https://doi.org/10.47036/SC.1.1.1-7.2020

Cade, R. (2022). Publishing in Peer-Reviewed Journals: An Opportunity for Professional Counselors, Journal of Professional Counseling: Practice, Theory & Research, 49(2), 61-62. https://doi.org/10.1080/15566382.2022.2157595

Chang, Y.-W. (2017). Comparative study of characteristics of authors between open access and non-open access journals in library and information science. Library & Information Science Research, 39(1), pp 8-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2017.01.002

Health Education England (2024). OpenAthens [online] Available at: http://tinyurl.com/27tl9fwl [Accessed on 13 January 2024]

Logullo, P., de Beyer, J.A., Kirtley, S., M Maia Schlussel. And Collins G.S. (2023). “Open access journal publication in health and medical research and open science: benefits, challenges and limitations”. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2023/09/28/bmjebm-2022-112126

Moore, S. A. (Ed.). (2014). Issues in Open Research Data. Ubiquity Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3t5rd3  [Accessed on 28 January 2024]

Myllylahti, M. (2019). Paywalls. In The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies, pp 1-6. Wiley Online Library.  https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0068

‌National Institute for Health and Care Research (2021). NIHR Open Access publication policy – for publications submitted on or after 1 June 2022. [online] www.nihr.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/nihr-open-access-publication-policy-for-publications-submitted-on-or-after-1-june-2022/28999 [Accessed on 13 January 2024]

NHS England Workforce, Training and Education (2020). [online] Available at : https://youtu.be/8WufUDDkP58?si=o2mUdHiLgAXKPCbt [Accessed on 27 January 2024]

Nursing and Midwifery Council (2023). [online]  Available at: https://www.nmc.org.uk/news/news-and-updates/council-to-decide-on-modernisation-of-education-programme-standards/ [Accessed on 27 January 2024]

Open Society Foundations (2018). What Is “Open Access”? [online] Opensocietyfoundations.org. Available at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-open-access [Accessed on 13 January 2024]

Paywall: The Business of Scholarship. The Movie (2018). [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/zAzTR8eq20k?si=VRvu4v3V84JFGclL [Accessed on 13 January 2024]

Ross, P. (2020). “Blog it: Free open access to nursing education (#FOANed)”. Australian nursing & midwifery journal (2202-7114), 26 (9), p. 40.

The King’s Fund (2023). [online] Available at:

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-nhs#:~:text=How%20many%20NHS%20hospitals%20are,trusts%2C%20including%2010%20ambulance%20trusts. [Accessed on 27 January 2024]

UNESCO (2023). UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science [online] Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science/about [Accessed on 27 January 2024]

Experiences of using Open Educational Resources in journalism teaching and research

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This blog post was written by Carolyne Lunga as part of the final assignment for the module EDM122 at City, University of London

In this essay, I reflect on using OERs in my teaching and research of journalism and media studies and discuss the challenges I have encountered and strategies I have adopted to improve my knowledge on OERs and indicate plans for improving my practice.

Open Education Resources (OERs) have been defined in various ways. Literature shows that a discussion on OERs generates mixed understandings since scholars do not agree on copyright, openness, cost, and universal access among others. While some definitions celebrate OER benefits to higher education and those who previously did not have access (UNESCO, 2002; Mishra, 2017a, Mishra, 2017b), others interrogate the notion of whether OERs are ‘free’ or ‘not free’ (Downes, 2012) considering that access to the internet itself requires financial and time resources and that there are some societies who lack access to electricity. In terms of definitions, Mishra (2017), notes that OERs, are understood by many as referring to any resources available free of cost on the internet. This is supported by UNESCO’s definition of open access as referring to “free access to information and unrestricted use of electronic resources for everyone (UNESCO website). As Mishra (2017: 371), further notes, the basic premise of OERs is that “they can be reused and adapted in various contexts without seeking further the permission from the original copyright holder”. This is advantageous to educators who can reuse OERs for teaching and research. Mishra (2017a: 371) further notes that without a discussion on copyright, the discussion on OERs is incomplete since “information available on the internet can be shared for personal use, its reuse, revision, remixing and redistribution require the permission of the copyright holder”. In relation to cost and access, Olivier and Rambow (2023) are more positive about the value of OERs, noting that they are beneficial for those who cannot afford to purchase paid for content, specifically in contexts where higher education is expensive and inaccessible to many. D’Antoni (2008: 8) also provides an optimistic view when he contends that they can “assist in achieving educational justice across the world”. Meanwhile Richter and McPherson (2012) criticise the notion that OERs can bring about justice when they argue that unless they are fully adaptable or reusable in various contexts, their mere existence cannot bring out justice. Furthermore, there is no discussion of what this justice may entail.

As a journalism lecturer, a discussion on OERs is significant for bringing to the fore issues that are central to discussions of how digital journalism/communication is practiced. This includes access and participation online, the prevalence of disinformation and misinformation on online platforms and how it affects access to credible news/information, the digital divide, how credible journalism is hidden behind paywalls and the rise of hate speech, and propaganda. In digital journalism, I teach students to adopt a critical stance and question how big tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have the power to influence and control how and what we consume online, the dominance of advertisements online and algorithms among others can divert our attention towards entertainment. For these topics, I rely on journal articles and books from journalism scholars who publish with Routledge, Elsevier, and other big publishers criticised for commercialising education (Paywall movie, 2018). Journalism is concerned about democracy and my students, and I discuss how ‘democratic’ the internet is. I believe that a conversation about the internet itself, how it structured and its development in a capitalist era is important if we are to explore fully the value of OERs for education and society in general. For instance, Papacharissi (2002; 2004) argues that while the internet has potential to revive the public sphere, by enabling the participation of various social groups, it is inaccessible to some due to high data costs, lack of digital and media literacy skills, and censorship of information. Carson (2020) supports this by arguing that the commercialisation of the internet and inequalities online make it inaccessible. The quick spread of fake information through digital technologies also hinders the internet from being truly democratic (ibid). These issues resonate with the debates around OERs.

I teach Digital Media Communication and Introduction to Visual Communication which combine the theoretical and practical components of design where students work with images to manipulate, combine them, and edit them using Photoshop software. I teach students to develop content for social media platforms and analyse various news websites in various parts of the globe. I teach how disinformation, and misinformation have become prevalent online, particularly on social media platforms and how this threatens the normative role of journalism in providing citizens with accurate and truthful information (Carson and Farhall, 2018). In delivering journalism courses, I mostly use books, journals, newspapers, and other materials which are paid for and accessible through the university library. These are readily available, and I make use of the subject librarians if I require assistance accessing a particular resource. I have used OERs to complement library materials. However sometimes I struggle with questions of whether I have properly repurposed and reused these resources to avoid plagiarism? I mitigate this challenge by checking several times if I have fully referenced the source. For instance, the UNESCO website provides access to OERs on media and democracy. Informed by Mishra (2017) that OERs can be reused, I have been able to reuse the materials and make them relevant for the diverse group of students that I teach by including examples of journalism practice in other contexts. I also use Hybrid Investigative Journalism, an open access textbook by Konow-Lund et al (2024) which considers how reporters, citizens, bloggers, community coordinators and others undertake investigative journalism for teaching and research. My research students use it for their dissertation research and say that they find it useful in that it incorporates empirical evidence and experiences of scholars researching diverse contexts. Adopting OERs in my teaching and research supervision has enabled me to enhance the learning experience of students and provide them with access to information that they may not have access to (Mishra, 2017a, 2017b).

I make students aware of the vast OERs that are available on the UNESCO website. Apart from information on media, the OER resources on the UNESCO website include those on the Creative Commons (cc) licences, education and technology and artificial intelligence. Before taking the EDM122 Digital Literacies and Open Practices (in Higher Education), I was not aware of the meaning of cc licenses and how they work, and I did not have a full understanding of OERs. After learning about them in the course and being exposed to literature on OERs including links to where to find them (e.g. the OERs guide from Edinburgh), I feel more confident guiding students on what the different licenses mean and how content can be reused, knowledge which they can use when researching for their essays or writing news stories on place and in their professional lives as journalists. I am also able to use the UNESCO materials and attribute them accordingly. For instance, some of the UNESCO publications I have accessed are licensed using the Creative Commons-Attribution 3.0 IGO license which means I can “download, copy, translate any of these publications and use it free of charge, as long as the original author is given credit for the original creation. No prior permission is required to do so” (UNESCO website, 2024).

In a context in which journalism is practiced differently in various parts of the world and some credible newspapers are found behind paywalls, discussing about OERs with my students has enabled me to help them understand what they are, and why it’s important to acknowledge work which is originally created by another person and made available for reuse and how they can add on to the knowledge by incorporating their own examples. The advantages of using OERs in teaching and learning supports Olivier and Rambow (2023: v)’s point that “OERs bring fresh air to the higher education ecosystem when higher education is not accessible to millions, is not affordable, and is plagued with issues of poor quality in many countries”. However, problems of quality and discoverability of OERs remains a challenge for most educators and students (Kortemeyer, 2013).

In teaching Introduction to Visual Communication and Digital Media Communication courses, I can talk about OERs, copyright and good professional journalistic practice. In the former course, students are required to find images which they can transform using Photoshop software and I have observed how some students come into the course with no in-depth understanding of copyright and licensing. Various journalism student guides at City and in other universities include information on copyright for students benefit in ethics classes which they mostly take at first year. Informed by knowledge gained from the EDM 122 course, I have had the opportunity to discuss copyright law and licensing of images in more detail to make students aware of the ethical and legal implications of violating regulation by manipulating images that belong to others and are not for repurposing. I have included additional copyright readings on the module handbook including Ekstrand and Silver (2014) which explores theories of the image to inform discussions about copyright reform in the digital age and the university’s Copyright guide. During lectures and practical sessions, I made the students aware of images that they could use and corrected the assumptions that they had, about images on the internet being widely accessible and free to use for all.

Another problem of downloading and reusing images and videos without checking the licensing restrictions is that students can become victims of propagating disinformation. Kirchengast (2020) argues that deepfake technology requires strong regulation due to the harm they can cause to individuals and society. I assign students practical assignments to take their own photographs to use in the course. In some instances, students develop their own photos by making use of generative AI software such as Adobe Firefly which enables one to create their own images and use without having to worry about violating copyright or licensing regulations. But still it raises questions about how to acknowledge information developed by generative AI platforms. The university’s generative AI policy states that students should indicate when materials are generated by AI including the prompts used (City Generative AI policy, 2024). I emphasise why students should always exercise integrity when conducting research and acknowledging sources. The result has been the creation of high-quality essays with thorough in-text citations and bibliography creation.

I use the UNESCO digital library to access various materials on topics that are relevant for my teaching. For example, during the pandemic UNESCO published a lot of information on the Covid-19 pandemic, and disinformation and I found their open access library very useful considering that very little was known and published at the time about the Covid-19 pandemic. I was careful in how I used other materials on the pandemic as not all information available online is open access, though this was a challenging process which took time.

During this time when artificial intelligence is topical and conversations around generative AI tools impact in higher education and society at large, I am constantly referring to the UNESCO website to access information and understand more about generative AI. For example, the open access UNESCO document titled “Generative AI in education and research” has helped me to understand potential risks that generative AI could pose to human agency, inclusion, equity, and gender equality. Furthermore, the document provides information and recommendations to government agencies, and policy makers on how Generative AI can be used for society’s benefit (UNESCO, 2023). To improve my practice, I plan to continue learning about OERs, including talking to librarians who specialise in these resources to acquire expert guidance on using them and how to publish my own work. I am organising student workshops with OER experts so that my students can also benefit.

In conclusion, the essay demonstrated how I use OERs in teaching and research of journalism. While OERs provide advantages of access particularly to those without access. Scholars acknowledge problems associated with internet access, lack of digital and media literacy skills and lack of internet infrastructure to some sectors of society which means that they cannot fully benefit from OERs. I have shown how issues discussed when talking about OERs are directly linked to the conversations discussed on digital journalism which has enabled me to discuss disinformation, access, copyright, and licensing. By taking the EDM 122 course, I have had the opportunity to enhance my knowledge and support my students better.

I plan to publish this essay on the course blog “EDM 122: Digital Literacies and Open Practice” blog under the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-SA. This licence allows for distribution, adaptation, remixing and building on the materials as long as the creator is given credit and adaptations are shared under the same licencing terms, not allowing for commercial use (Creative Commons, 2019) This licence protects authoring rights and allows for build-up of knowledge and ideas in a fair way to future users as it needs to be shared under the same terms and in a non-commercial way (ibid).

References

Carson, A. (2020) Investigative Journalism, Democracy, and the Digital Age. New York: Routledge.

City, University of London. (2024) Using generative artificial intelligence (AI) for learning https://studenthub.city.ac.uk/help-and-support/studying-online/using-ai-for-learning (Accessed 30 January 2024).

Creative Commons (2019) “About CC licenses” https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ (Accessed 31 January 2023).

D’Antoni, S. (2008) Open educational resources: The way forward (Deliberations of an International Community of Interest). Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO Creative commons http://learn.creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2008/03/oer-way-forward-final-version.pdf (Accessed 27 January 2023).

Downes, S. (2012) Free and not free [Blog post]. Half an Hour. Retrieved from https://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2012/11/free-and-not-free.html (Accessed 27 January 2023).

Ekstrand, V.S. and Silver, D. (2014) “Remixing, Reposting, and Reblogging: Digital Media, Theories of the Image, and Copyright Law”, Visual communication quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 96-105.

Kirchengast, T. (2020) Deepfakes and image manipulation: Criminalisation and control. Information & Communications Technology Law, 29(3), 308-323. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600834.2020.1794615 (Accessed 30 January 2024).

Konow-Lund M., Park M., and Bebawi S. (Eds.) (2024) Hybrid investigative journalism. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41939-3 (Accessed 30 January 2024).

Kortemeyer, G. (2013). Ten Years Later: Why Open Educational Resources Have Not Noticeably Affected Higher Education, and Why We Should Care. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/2/ten-years-later-why-open-educational-resources-have-not-noticeably-affected-higher-education-and-why-we-should-care (Accessed 29 January 2024).

Mishra, S. (2017a) Open educational resources: removing barriers from within, Distance Education, 38:3, 369-380, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2017.1369350 (Accessed 25 January 2024).

Mishra, S. (2017b) Promoting use and contribution of open educational resources. New Delhi: Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia. http://oasis.col.org/ handle/11599/2659

Olivier, J. and Rambow, A. (2023). Open Educational Resources in Higher Education: A Global Perspective (2023) Springer Nature Singapore, Singapore.

Papacharissi, Z. (2004) “Democracy online: civility, politeness, and the democratic potential of online political discussion groups”, New media & society, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 259-283.

Papacharissi, Z. (2002) The virtual sphere: the internet as a public sphere. New Media and Society. Vol 4. 9 (9-27)
Paywall the business of scholarship: the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAzTR8eq20k (Accessed 24 November 2023).

Richter, T. and McPherson, M. (2012) “Open educational resources: education for the world?”, Distance education, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 201-219.

UNESCO Digital Library https://unesdoc.unesco.org/search/72a71bb0-74c9-4ef5-a26b-934dd8b90ab8/N-e90ced73-7869-4795-a37f-56423ebf1cde (Accessed on 30 January 2024).

UNESCO OER platform https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources Accessed on the 23 January 2024

UNESCO The Creative Commons licenses https://www.unesco.org/en/open-access/creative-commons (Accessed on 30 January 2024).

UNESCO (2002) Forum on the impact of Open Courseware for higher education in developing countries: Final report. Paris: Author. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001285/128515e
(Accessed on 30 January 2024).

UNESCO (2023) Guidance for generative AI in education and research https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386693 (Accessed on 30 January 2024).

Impact of Open access: healthcare, public health, and own practice

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This post is by Pia Sebastian who recently completed my module in February 2023 and is a nurse educator. Her essay is licensed under CC-BY NC and she writes….

Today, the marvel of technology and digital advancement has led us to believe that all information can be accessed through the snap of our fingers, or in this case just a few clicks (Arakelyan, 2021). The accessing of information in digital landscape has evolved tremendously throughout years and is still evolving at this present age, it has made easier and more open, however in previous years this was not the situation. This essay will seek to explore the implication of Open Access in healthcare, public health industry and my own practice.

 Growing up, I tend not to notice how I access information, although what I knew back then was that it was more tedious, and it required more effort. Most of the time, information I would gather were insufficient and inadequate especially in terms of research for schoolwork, there were not enough printed journals, articles, or books to dig myself into for knowledge and information. I never realized that most of those that I required was because most journals and articles would need to be retrieved through subscriptions. Access to research data has always been limited to journal subscribers and this implies that those people and organisations engaged in research who cannot afford the cost of a subscription do not have access to these journal articles. According to traditional subscription-based publishing models, authors must either transfer their rights to publishers or allow them the sole right to publish their works. Publishers may govern the reuse of a work once it has been published, but writers may still have some restrictions on how, where, when, and with whom their work may be shared (Research Publications and Open Access Policy – Staff Home, University of York, n.d.). However, there is a progressive shift towards accessing journal through electronically, consequently there is also an increase in number of journals existing globally (Strydom et al., 2022).

Impacts in Public Health and Healthcare

Publishing literacy and research works, journals and articles may it be printed or in digital form can be a profitable industry due to subscriptions. Lawton and Flynn (2015) stated that most of the peer-reviewed scholarly research are published journals which can only be accessed by institutions willing to pay for subscription fees or those individuals that can afford to do so. Further, these subscriptions can be exorbitantly expensive only a well-funded universities libraries can pay for it and primarily this are in developed countries (Open Society Foundations, 2018). Tennant et al. (2016) indicated that access to 75% of articles is not directly possible unless one has the privilege to work in an institution that has subscription access to these articles or has enough money to pay on a per-article basis subscriptions to all peer reviewed journals.

I believed that this generated a huge predicament for researchers and academics who are in need most of these important and vital sources of information essential to their work, innovation, and research. Ellison et al. (2019) recognized that each year huge amount of money by hundreds of billions of dollars are being utilized to finance medical research by government and different commercial and charitable organizations and institutions with the primarily objective is to improve and prolong lives. Publication plays a vital role in dissemination of scientific invention, yet translation of medical research into clinical practice is slow. In connection with this, application of research published via the conventional subscription publication model is hampered by copyright limitations that prevents reusing the published content and paywalls that forbid public use.

For instance, according to Open Society Foundation (2018), this meant that those doctors who treats HIV and AIDS in Africa will not be able to have access to the medical results on treatments even when the research upon which these articles were created were embarked on locally. Thus, impacting adversely to patient’s care. Moreover, emailing request for articles across the time zones does not offer fast solutions when these are necessary the most. This also impedes researchers not to study their found pursuits and interests due to no free access to information and or limited literature.

Apart from this, the Ebola’s 2014 outbreak was terrible for countries like Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Although there was an article in Annals of Virology published in 1982 indicating that Liberia had a high potential for endemic Ebola and warned health authorities of the risk of probable outbreaks however it was only accessible by subscription. Since these results were published in a subscription journal and were therefore buried behind a paywall, local public health officials were probably unaware of them. Limiting access to such information may have prevented information from reaching public health professionals who were caught off guard and unprepared by the 2014 endemic (Smith et al., 2017).

Open Access Movement proposes to remove price and permission barriers for accessing peer-reviewed research work and making research work freely available to anyone who wishes to see it (Elle & Gray, 2020). Open Access refers to the practice of producing scholarly research freely and permanently accessible instantly for anyone to gain access to globally. Research results can be downloaded, reviewed, shared copied and printed within legal requirements, as long as the authors and original sources are properly cited under the Creative Commons licenses, for which articles and journals can be legally used, built upon, and adapted without permission (What Is Open Access; Its Benefits & Other FAQs | BMJ, n.d.). Greenberg (2019) pointed out that authors can retain copyright licensed under Creative Commons. Further, under open access there is high standards of production and rigorous per review with promotion and publishing quality research.

Consequently, because there is an immediate and unlimited access to content research findings, producing breakthroughs and innovation especially in health sciences, paved way to better the lives of people and for humanity. Barbour (2006) acknowledged that open access makes medical knowledge widely disseminated and freely accessible to all, including academic researchers, medical professionals, policymakers, and laypeople. This data can influence the laws and practises that affect population health. In addition, increasing the reach and use dynamically influences how medical research is conducted and disseminated in a wider global audience by supporting innovations and advancing discoveries. Ross-Hellauer et al. (2020) stressed that the distribution of other open science outputs that would typically be kept secret not only contributes to increased reproducibility and transparency of research, but it also results in the release of more research components that may have an effect on others by generating network effects through reuse.

In his study Tennant et al. (2016) stressed out that open access does not only beneficial to academics but also impacts the other domains in society. It makes research available to everyone with an internet connection, therefore it exceeds academic affiliation and strengthens lifelong learning. For instance, anyone who uses information from open access can lead to possibilities for knowledge to be   used in unexpected creative and innovative ways beyond the mainstream professional research. It surpasses all other potential alternative modes of access to scholarly literature because it allows for unfettered re-use and long-term stability independent of the financial restrictions of traditional publishers that limit knowledge exchange.

West (2015) stressed out that in Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), a medical and humanitarian organization, access to research evidence is vital for MSF health staff to be able to make the best informed decisions in field programmes. Not only that, it is not only the MSF, but there are also several organizations that conducts research, and the vast majority are in low- and middle-income countries or developing countries stricken by conflicts, natural disasters, and poor access to healthcare. By open access sharing of experiences can be accomplished with other authors and experts worldwide, building collaborative findings thus, making a great impact to society.

In addition, World Health Organization (WHO) observed a policy wherein all WHO authored and WHO funded articles that are presented for publication in peer-reviewed journals must be distributed in an open access journal or an open access platform ensuring that it is freely accessible and reusable to the public. Further, WHO believes that having a universal access to publicly funded research as well as research data is indeed essential to addressing public health challenges of the 21st century (WHO | WHO Policy on Open Access, n.d.).

Moreover, Day et al. (2020) by enhancing patient empowerment and their capacity to avoid receiving false information that could harm their health and wellbeing are two benefits that could result from increasing access to primary sources of medical literature through open access publishing. Thus, has a result for the population’s overall goal of promoting public health.  For instance, those patients looking for information about complex or unusual medical illnesses such as rare diseases or genetic disorders for which there is little information available outside of academic journals may find open access to be especially valuable with to the most recent medical research without being restricted by a paywall.

Another impact of open access was described in the article written by Strydom et al. (2022), this recent pandemic brought about by SARS- COV 2 and COVID- 19 have emphasized the benefits of open access in dissemination of the research results as swiftly as possible, researchers embraced open access platforms rather than utilizing traditional methods of publishing thereby accelerated research and scientific collaboration and partnership by data sharing and by hastening the replication of investigations and expanding data reuse. Essentially with this, there has been more information readily available about COVID-19 and thereby saving lives of millions of people throughout the globe and mitigate further health threats brought about by the pandemic.

Impact on Personal Practice

The nursing profession faces a variety of challenges in the twenty-first century, including an ageing nursing workforce, an increase in the proportion of elderly and seriously sick patients, rising healthcare costs, and a shortage of nursing personnel (Fawaz et al., 2018) and as a profession that rely on evidenced-based practice through research, open access plays a crucial part on this. Nick (2011a) had emphasized that accessing recent literature is necessary in the evidence-based practise environment of today. However, it can be difficult to maintain and acquire enough current reference materials. The culture of evidence-based practise is challenging to establish under these circumstances and reference collections are frequently decades out of date.

Attributing to the open access that it is freely available online and provide professionals, like me all across the world a greater level of information proficiency especially in light of the emphasis on achieving evidence-based practise. Networking, collaborations in nursing research, and the use of new and improved therapies could all benefit from universal access and to create urgently required nursing systematic reviews, clinical practise guidelines, critically acclaimed topics, or best evidence topics, completed research from several nations can be integrated as these can affect and improve my practice and benefit patient’s care. Thus, would help clinical practise match more closely with the objectives for evidence-based practice (Nick, 2011a).

Nick (2011b) had also stressed out that by providing access to Open Access resources, there is a reduced in financial burden and improved online information access, which would ultimately aid in adopting evidence-based practise. Increasing access to academic resources can have a positive impact on my clinical practise, useful for student learning and teaching content, and to patient care results. These encounters brought home to the value that Open Access may provide to healthcare professionals who struggle to get access to up-to-date knowledge and research on practical challenges. In essence, Open Access gives the chance to align information gathering on a global scale.

The Future of Open Access

It is imperative that results of publicly funded research should be accessible to stimulate discovery and innovation. In UK, it has been mandated in National Institute for Health and Care (2021) requiring all peer-reviewed research activities arises from NIHR-funded research studies made open access under open license. This meant that the research output funded by UK government are freely available to taxpayers who funds research, regardless of institutional affiliations by health and social practitioners. Further, this new policy ensured it works for the diverse stakeholder community as it impacts on patient and the public by empowering for further drive to innovation and discovery globally.

 

 

CC-by-nc 4.0 Foto: Pay Numrich / KohleerSetzen!
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This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercially purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. It includes the following elements: BY – Credit must be given to the creator; NC – Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted (Creative Commons, 2019).

References

Arakelyan, L. (2021, January 7). How Technology Makes Life Easier and Safer. ITChronicles. https://itchronicles.com/technology/how-technology-makes-life-easier-and-safer/.

Barbour, V. (2006). The impact of open access upon public health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 84(5), 339–339. https://doi.org/10.2471/blt.06.032409.

Communication, K. W. W. is a R., & Frontières, A. A. based in the M. U. of M. S. (2015, October 22). What impact does open access have on healthcare? On Health. https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-health/2015/10/22/impact-open-access-healthcare/.

Creative Commons. (2019). About CC Licenses. Creative Commons. https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/.

Day, S., Rennie, S., Luo, D., & Tucker, J. D. (2020). Open to the public: paywalls and the public rationale for open access medical research publishing. Research Involvement and Engagement, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-020-0182-y.

Ellison, T. S., Koder, T., Schmidt, L., Williams, A., & Winchester, C. C. (2019). Open access policies of leading medical journals: a cross-sectional study. BMJ Open, 9(6), e028655. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-028655.

Eve, M. P., & Gray, J. (2020). Reassembling Scholarly Communications: Histories, Infrastructures, and Global Politics of Open Access: Introduction. Direct.mit.edu. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11885.003.0004.

Fawaz, M. A., Hamdan-Mansour, A. M., & Tassi, A. (2018). Challenges facing nursing education in the advanced healthcare environment. International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences, 9(1), 105–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2018.10.005.

Greenberg, T. (2019, April 1). Benefits of publishing your work open access: debunking myths. Www.wolterskluwer.com. https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/authors-benefits-publishing-open-access.

Lawton, A., & Flynn, E. (2015). The Value of Open Access Publishing to Health and Social Care Professionals in Ireland. Ariadne, 73. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/lawton-flynn.

New Open Access policy for NIHR funded researchers. (n.d.). Www.nihr.ac.uk. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/new-open-access-policy-for-nihr-funded-researchers/29244.

Nick, J. (2011a). Open Access Part I: The Movement, The Issues, and The Benefits. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.3912/ojin.vol17no01ppt02.

Nick, J. (2011b). Open Access Part II: The Structure, Resources, and Implications for Nurses. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.3912/ojin.vol17no01ppt03.

Research Publications and Open Access Policy – Staff home, University of York. (n.d.). Www.york.ac.uk. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from https://www.york.ac.uk/staff/research/governance/research-policies/publications-open-access/.

Ross-Hellauer, T., Tennant, J. P., Banelytė, V., Gorogh, E., Luzi, D., Kraker, P., Pisacane, L., Ruggieri, R., Sifacaki, E., & Vignoli, M. (2020). Ten simple rules for innovative dissemination of research. PLOS Computational Biology, 16(4), e1007704. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007704.

Smith, E., Haustein, S., Mongeon, P., Shu, F., Ridde, V., & Larivière, V. (2017). Knowledge sharing in global health research – the impact, uptake and cost of open access to scholarly literature. Health Research Policy and Systems, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-017-0235-3.

Strydom, A., Mellet, J., Van Rensburg, J., Viljoen, I., Athanasiadis, A., & Pepper, M. S. (2022). Open access and its potential impact on public health – A South African perspective. Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2022.975109.

Tennant, J. P., Waldner, F., Jacques, D. C., Masuzzo, P., Collister, L. B., & Hartgerink, Chris. H. J. (2016). The academic, economic and societal impacts of Open Access: an evidence-based review. F1000Research, 5, 632. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.8460.3

Your Taxes Fund This Research. Shouldn’t You Have Access to It? (2018). Opensocietyfoundations.org. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-open-access.

What is open access; its benefits & other FAQs | BMJ. (n.d.). Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://www.bmj.com/company/openaccess/open-access-faq/.

WHO | WHO Policy on Open Access. (n.d.). Www.who.int. https://www.who.int/about/policies/publishing/open-access.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open Access in health practice: Is it a necessity or a luxury?

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This post is written by Emerson Castillo, who completed the module EDM122 in October 2022-February 2023. He is a nurse educator and he chose to licence his work under a CC-BY NC Licence. Emerson writes: 

Since the turn of the century, the open access movement—in which research articles are made publicly accessible online rather than published in journals that require substantial subscription fees—has risen significantly (Ratcliffe, 2014). Nonetheless, according to a review by Piwowar et al. in 2018, only 28% of scholarly papers, are currently open access, this means numerous academic knowledge is still unavailable to the public without a paid individual or institutional subscription. This signifies that designing new clinical guidelines and protocols is still challenging for clinicians as they have restricted resources for related literature. In addition, this also affects clinicians’ capacities including myself as a clinical practice educator to conduct further and in-depth research studies.

This essay explores open access in health education and how can this impact clinical practice among healthcare providers while fostering safer and quality care for all.

 

“opening the door” by laurabillings is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

 

What is Open Access?

Open access (OA) refers to a set of guiding principles and a variety of methods that allow for the free online distribution of research outputs (Suber, 2015). It is a term under open practice, which is a publication and distribution approach that facilitates scientific research literature—freely and unrestrictedly accessible to the public online. Likewise, the results of academic research are made available to an unprecedented number of researchers through open access, which democratizes information access while promoting innovation and discovery. Wagner (2022) stated that “when there are no financial, legal, or technical barriers to accessing a publication—that is when anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search for and search within the information, use it in education, or use it in any other way that is permitted by the agreements—that publication is said to be open access (Wagner, 2022).

Most academic publications are only accessible to those who pay a subscription fee or who are members of an organization that does. Open Access makes research findings broadly accessible through digital technology. There are two ways to make work accessible: either by publishing in a journal that instantly makes the work freely available online or by depositing a copy of the published work in a repository (Kingsley, 2015). In a nutshell, free-to-read and free-to-reuse are the two elements of open access (Open Society Foundations, 2018).

 

The world’s response to Open Access

Open access accelerated dramatically in December 2001 when an open society foundation sponsored a meeting in Budapest, Hungary where the statement of principles on open access to research literature developed (Open Society Foundation, 2018). However, two following initiatives inspired by the Budapest Open Access Initiative—the Bethesda Statement from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Berlin Declaration from the Max Planck Society—broadened and strengthened the basis of support for open access (Open Society Foundation, 2018). To apply the open access approach, scholarly academics, libraries, students, patient advocates, and small companies, among others, have organized their members and led the initiative (Suber, 2015).

Additionally, in April 2006, the European Commission urged: “Research funding agencies… should establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given period in open access archives…” Furthermore, the WHO judges that “universal access to publicly funded research, including research data, is fundamental to tackling the public health challenges of the 21st century”. With this, the organization mandated that all works written or financed by the organization submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals after January 1, 2021, must first be published in an open-access journal or on an open-access platform (World Health Organization, 2021).

In the United Kingdom, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) also addressed this widely concerning issue regarding open access. In 2021, the NIHR released the Open Access Publish Policy stating that all publications submitted for peer review after June 1, 2022, should comply with the four principles. Articles must be free and accessible to everyone, with no barriers to re-use and dissemination, freely discoverable and if necessary, NIHR will settle payment to allow immediate open access (National Institute for Health and Care Research, 2021).

Sadly, as the world extensively attempts to move forward in advancing open access, some low-socioeconomic countries still have limited access to recent studies and educational resources. Contrarily, the Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) collaborates with libraries all around the globe to supply developing and transitional nations’ citizens with access to digital information. Its primary goal is to negotiate, support, and enable the widespread accessibility of scholarly electronic content by library users from the education and research sectors, professional communities, governmental organizations, and civil society (Kupryte, Segbert-Elbert and Bernal, 2005).

 

Benefits of Open Access to clinicians and patients

Nowadays, in developed countries such as the United Kingdom, it is straightforward for clinicians to access newly published scientific studies. As I have noted earlier, most academic search engines like science.gov, PUBMED, and CINAHL are readily available to use for most clinicians. Furthermore, academic institutions also provide free access to various research databases. Some institutions push further by providing free training on how to maximize the use of these databases and efficiently search for useful and relevant studies to your research.

Conducting research studies is a fundamental role for clinicians and health leaders. Likewise, as a clinical practice educator, I am accountable for guaranteeing that clinical practice is aligned with standards established on recently completed studies. Presently, I am leading a study focusing on pre-operative assessment of bariatric patients and I am arranging to apply open access to it once it’s ready for publishing as the Royal Society stated that authors “who choose open access are likely to benefit from increased dissemination.” This implies that if I apply the principles of open access to my study, my research may potentially have high citation rates, thus, I will personally gain and benefit from it as a clinician and academe. Further, the Nuffield Department of Medicine – Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health (2003) specified that open access could benefit clinical practitioners as they can apply findings of research to clinical practice that improves patient care and medical management and could influence the creation of new policies and procedures in the healthcare setting.

Overall, open access benefits patients by permitting clinicians to extend their knowledge and understanding of recent clinical trials. Remarkably, it allows all clinical practitioners to identify any new research gaps (Yoong et al., 2022).

 

Barriers to Open Access

Although there are many advantages to open-access publishing, most authors choose their publications based on the reputation of the journal. Due to false impressions of quality, open-access publications are at a disadvantage (Shah, 2017). In addition, a journal’s reputation in research and medicine is determined by its impact factor ranking. As a result, the reputation and worth of individual papers are frequently assessed using the journal’s impact factor (Wageningen University & Research, 2021). This is an unnecessary risk for an author because a research study may potentially be judged based on the open-access journal they disseminated it with. This can be deceiving for clinicians and the public since the quality and reliability of a study depends on which company published it and not the actual outcome and findings of the study. This may put patients and the public at risk as clinicians deliver medical treatments based on recent findings.

 

Open Access and Clinical Practice

We can all agree that the public’s social and health needs dramatically changed since Florence Nightingale founded nursing in the 1850s. These changes vary from clinical to social needs, for example, improvement in infection control and management and more complex medical conditions brought by globalization. The importance of open access in healthcare lies in providing a constructive way of solving problems and enhancing standards of care through research studies. Open access makes medical evidence widely disseminated and freely accessible to everyone, including academic researchers, medical professionals, policymakers, and laypeople (Barbour, 2006). This evidence can influence the laws and practices that affect public health.

Before the introduction of the open access model, nearly all scholarly study peer-reviewed articles were published in print journals with subscription costs that might be prohibitively expensive, even though writers received no compensation for their contributions. In addition, only well-funded university libraries, particularly in industrialized countries, had access to these magazines for the public. This implies that healthcare providers working in any remote region of a third-world country, for example, often could not access complete articles regarding the results of the latest medical research on the treatment and management of certain diseases.

Presently, on top of my research study, I am also formulating clinical guidelines for assessing patients with complex medical histories and clinical needs in Preoperative Assessment Unit. Thankfully, most of the resources nowadays are easily accessible using my NHS account in contradiction to what my colleagues experiencing in the Philippines.

I can remember a time when a friend of mine was writing his dissertation roughly 10 years ago. He was studying in a low-end school, consequently, his access to the latest medical literature was extremely limited. When I had a conversation with him to see how he was doing with his paper, he disappointedly mentioned that he spends almost 500 USD to acquire access to different studies. According to him, roughly 50% of his online purchases were insignificant in his research focus and was not able to use them at all. Regrettably, this access does not have a return policy. I think this is unnecessary especially if a clinician is researching to improve health practice or advance medical treatment. A question came into my mind, is it fair for researchers and clinicians to spend money in conducting studies to address the needs of the public and society?

Another scenario came to my attention when a colleague approached me a few months ago and asked about the importance of open access in nursing. I briefly discussed that open access is a way to communicate scholarly work and to be used and re-used. Thus, open access simply suggests free and readily accessible research studies that can be used as a basis for improving clinical practice or as a foundation for further investigation or study, therefore, affecting nursing practice. Moreover, I utilized the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2019 to highlight its significance because open access allowed for the free exchange of scientific knowledge, which has been incredibly valuable for modern-day scientific study. Researchers from all over the world have been positively impacted by easy access to scientific data and literature in terms of understanding the virus’ characteristics and key underlying mechanisms. This understanding has enabled pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and other treatments to prevent people from contracting the disease or minimizing the symptoms brought by the coronavirus (Bose, 2022) regardless of the call to suspend intellectual property rights for covid-19 vaccines (Krishtel and Malpani, 2021). On May 5, 2021, the United States startled the globe by announcing its support for a World Trade Organization (WTO) proposition that would temporarily suspend intellectual property rights on covid-19 vaccinations. This denotes that successful negotiation of an intellectual property waiver would guarantee that producers could not restrict access to raw materials and finished goods for covid-19 technology worldwide (Krishtel and Malpani, 2021). On contrary, some open-accessed research does not support the use of vaccination in tackling the pandemic. As reported by Peter Doshi (2020), Associate Editor at The BMJ today, “vaccines are being hailed as the solution to the covid-19 pandemic, but the vaccine trials currently underway are not designed to tell us if they will save lives”. This is the power of open access as it provides a scientific understanding of how we deal with different medical situations, and it provides facts about the edge and drawbacks of a specific medical treatment e.g., vaccination and other medications. Without these previous studies regarding coronavirus or acute respiratory distress syndrome, we might still be waiting for vaccines as you read this. We gather and analyze data from previous studies as a basis for developing a piece of new knowledge.

 

Conclusion

Open access is like opening a door for new discoveries as it allows clinicians to gain new knowledge and understanding of the complex world of human health. It is important in advancing research studies that influence the management and treatment of progressing clinical needs of the patients and the public. During the discussion, I discussed several advantages and disadvantages of open-accessed research studies. With this, I believe open access is a necessity in health practice. However, clinicians and health leaders must be keen and critical in assessing the reliability and credibility of all research studies we are exploring as they can either positively affect the public and patients or put them in danger. In a nutshell, open access is advantageous in improving clinical practice and competencies among healthcare providers when used with high caution.

 

References:

Barbour, V. (2006). The impact of open access upon public health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 84(5), pp.339–339. doi:10.2471/blt.06.032409.

Bose, P. (2022). How Will Open Access Research Help Tackle Future Pandemics? [online] News Medical Life Sciences. Available at: https://www.news-medical.net/health/How-will-Open-Access-Research-Help-Tackle-Future-Pandemics.aspx [Accessed 10 Jan. 2023].

Doshi, P. (2020). Will covid-19 vaccines save lives? Current trials aren’t designed to tell us. BMJ, [online] 371(8265). doi:10.1136/bmj.m4037.

Doyle, G. and McCutcheon, J. (2015). Clinical procedures for safer patient care. [online] Victoria, B.C.: BCcampus, p.1. Available at: https://opentextbc.ca/clinicalskills/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2023].

European Commission (2006). Scientific publication: Policy on Open Access. [online] commission.europa.eu. Available at: https://commission.europa.eu/research-and-innovation_en [Accessed 6 Jan. 2023].

Kingsley, D. (2015). Open Access. [online] osc.cam.ac.uk. Available at: https://osc.cam.ac.uk/open-access [Accessed 24 Jan. 2023].

Krishtel, P. and Malpani, R. (2021). Suspend intellectual property rights for covid-19 vaccines. BMJ, [online] 373(8296), p.n1344. doi:10.1136/bmj.n1344.

Kupryte, R., Segbert-Elbert, M. and Bernal, I. (2005). The eIFL.net Initiative: Access and Management of Electronic Resources by Library Consortia in Developing and Transition Countries. Serials Review, [online] 31(4), pp.256–260. doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2005.09.001.

Masnick, M. (2022). Huge News: Biden Administration Announces All Publicly Funded Research Should Be Available For Free To The Public. [online] Techdirt. Available at: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/26/huge-news-biden-administration-announces-all-publicly-funded-research-should-be-available-for-free-to-the-public/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2023].

‌National Institute for Health and Care Research (2021). NIHR Open Access publication policy – for publications submitted on or after 1 June 2022. [online] www.nihr.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/nihr-open-access-publication-policy-for-publications-submitted-on-or-after-1-june-2022/28999 [Accessed 8 Jan. 2023].

Nuffield Department of Medicine – Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health (2003). Benefits of Open Access. [online] Nuffield Department of Medicine. Available at: https://www.tropicalmedicine.ox.ac.uk/sops/ndm-cghr-open-access-guide/benefits-of-open-access [Accessed 24 Jan. 2023].

Open Society Foundation (2018). Your Taxes Fund This Research. Shouldn’t You Have Access to It? [online] Opensocietyfoundations.org. Available at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-open-access [Accessed 20 Jan. 2023].

Open Society Foundations (2018). What Is ‘Open Access’? [online] Opensocietyfoundations.org. Available at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-open-access [Accessed 7 Jan. 2023].

‌Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J.P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., Farley, A., West, J. and Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, [online] 6(1), p.e4375. doi:10.7717/peerj.4375.

Ratcliffe, R. (2014). What’s the biggest challenge facing open access? [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/oct/27/-sp-whats-the-biggest-challenge-facing-open-access [Accessed 30 Jan. 2023].

Shah, D.T. (2017). Open Access Publishing: Pros, Cons, and Current Threats. Marshall Journal of Medicine, 3(3). doi:10.18590/mjm.2017.vol3.iss3.1.

Suber, P. (2015). Peter Suber, Open Access Overview (definition, introduction). [online] Earlham.edu. Available at: http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm [Accessed 20 Jan. 2023].

Wagner, K. (2022). LibGuides: Scholarly Communication: What is Open Access Publishing? [online] guides.monmouth.edu. Available at: https://guides.monmouth.edu/c.php?g=1180268&p=8629436 [Accessed 31 Jan. 2023].

Wageningen University & Research (2021). Open Access: pros and cons. [online] Wageningen University & Research. Available at: https://www.wur.nl/en/library/researchers/open-access/open-access-pros-and-cons.htm [Accessed 29 Jan. 2023].

Yoong, S.L., Turon, H., Grady, A., Hodder, R. and Wolfenden, L. (2022). The benefits of data sharing and ensuring open sources of systematic review data. Journal of Public Health, 44(4). doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdac031.

Open Access and its Importance in Optometry

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This post is written by Michelle Mehta a lecturer in Optometry at City and a recent student on EDM122 Digital Literacies and Open Practice. She has licensed her work under CC-BY SA and writes……

Open Access and its Importance in Optometry

I am a Contact Lens Optician, currently working as a Professional Services Consultant for a specialist contact lens manufacturer, UltraVision, and a Visiting Clinical Tutor at City, University of London.  Both of these roles involve education within optometry.  While my role at City involves the support of teaching at undergraduate level, my role with UltraVision involves education of current practitioners and making sure they are up to date with current products and methods within our profession.  In order to do this, there is a necessity to be able to source the latest trials data and research within optometry.

One of the things that struck me while studying this module was the various meanings of the term ‘open’ and indeed ‘open access’ (OA).

According to JISC, ‘open access means making research publications freely available so anyone can benefit from reading and using research’1.  They state that this means more than simply making research available to read, but also allowing others to reuse that research; for example, by allowing its content to be analysed.

According to UNESCO, ‘open access means free access to information and unrestricted use of electronic resources for everyone’2.  It states that any kind of digital content can be OA to include text, data software, audio, video and multimedia.

The Budapest Open Access Initiative, released to the public in February 2002, stated that removing access barriers to research ‘will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge’.3

OA is a new way for academics to publish and achieve a worldwide audience.  Its purpose is to make publications freely available online to all users at no cost as opposed to the traditional subscription model in which readers have access to scholarly information by paying a subscription4.  OA publications usually carry less restrictive copyright and licencing barriers than printed works, for both users and authors alike.  This means that anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, print search for information, or use it within education or in any other way within the legal agreements.  This method of publication allows authors to receive a wider audience, allows readers to access the most recent work in a given field and means that funders can finance a much broader works and reach a wider audience.

A piece of research carried out by Nagaraj and Bhandi, at Mangalore University in India in 2017,5 in which they researched the advantages and disadvantages of OA journals, found that researchers gave priority to factors such as the quality of the peer review and impact factor before selecting an OA journal for publishing.  They also found that 80% of researchers agreed that there is a fundamental benefit in open access publishing.  They wanted to explore the factors that influenced publications in OA journals and ascertain the perceived advantages and disadvantages of OA journals by physics researchers.

Among the advantages they found was that OA journals drive innovative research articles.  As OA journals are free to access, it went without saying that they had more readers.  They also found that OA journals lead to higher visibility, as many researchers use Google as their main search engine, where OA is going to give higher visibility.  Finally, they also found that OA increased the number of citations.

Although OA journals provide full-text access to users, they did find that there were some disadvantages.  One of the factors found to have constrained authors from publishing in OA journals was the impact factor; among research scholars, 47% of participants agreed that OA journals have a low impact factor.  Authors agreed that article processing charge is an added expense; the copyright policies also varied among publishers and many do not have a clear copyright policy.

When it comes to healthcare, OA publishing can add value to a number of health and social care professionals and their work in the health services.  Many peer-reviewed research is published in subscription journals, which are only accessible to those in institutions, or those who are willing or indeed able to pay the required subscription fees.  This causes research to lose its impact as it’s only being made available to a small number of people.  OA provides a constructive solution to this problem6.  A worthy goal is to allow dissemination of important medical and scientific information to promote scientific advances and improvement in medical care7.  The increase of access to research and allowing more contribution opportunities for publishing by junior authors and developing countries is made more possible with OA.

One of the barriers to access to research has been the pressure on academics on how often they publish and the prestige of the journals they publish in.  Some, for example, will insist that there should be a minimum number of publications in a respected journal with a higher impact factor, but these journals tend to be older and non-OA journals.  The objective of OA is not to replace existing journals but rather to maximise research impact and access.

There is high value of OA to patients and health care professionals.  Publishers allow free access to their journal content in developing countries, making it implicit that OA has both value and has a positive impact on patient care.  A key example of this would be in the fight against Ebola.  This demonstrates the value of OA to publish scientific research for immediate patient care.  Many publishers are allowing free and unrestricted access to scientific and medical databases and journals to West Africa, where this battle continues7.

Overall, it has been shown that health research is significantly beneficial due to its capabilities to advance research, evaluate and improve the service and empower the profession.  As a result, research should be an imperative component of all health professional’s work.  OA provides an innovative and more accessible way for these professionals to engage in research.  The opportunity for medical students, academic physicians, community physicians and international authors to contribute to and learn from OA journals is priceless.

So, what about the relevance of OA in the field of Optometry?  In 2014, the University of Waterloo in Canada, wrote an article in their School of Optometry and Vision Science Newsletter, in which they stated ‘as practicing optometrists, access to evidence-based research to answer clinical questions is particularly important, in order to provide the best possible support to patients’8.  They went on to state that the prohibitive cost of subscription rates for many vision sciences journals, providing access to important medical information makes OA literature increasingly valuable.

An independent and vibrant profession commits to discovery as a basis of better patient care and optometry is no exception.  Some recent discoveries in our field are breath-taking and the increasing awareness in health care, including optometry, of the advantages of accepting the challenge of translating these discoveries to patient care is becoming ever more eveident.9. Through more formalised research and discovery, the profession’s knowledge base expands and tools for diagnosis and management of patients becomes more useful and more sophisticated; and like other healthcare professions, optometry is moving to a more formalised clinical application of research results in what is termed ‘evidence-based’ practice.

Applications in clinical research trials form the basis of the kind of research that is becoming increasingly a component of healthcare, including optometry.  In its most rigorous form, we have the outcomes of randomised clinical trials which are applied quantitively to populations of patients.  This is considered the best of what is commonly described as evidence-based medicine.9 One of the most recent of these applications would be in what the profession is terming its very own pandemic, known as progressive myopia, leading to its treatment, myopia management.

When my own son, was first described as one of those children with progressive myopia and a clinician friend of mine had advised me to consider myopia management strategies for him, not only was I not familiar with this, but many of my peers and colleagues had not heard of this either and were very dubious.  Five years later, through the availability of results of clinical trials, as well as promotion of awareness in the profession, treating, or at least discussing myopia management, with the parents of these children, is now becoming best practise.

In addition to this, educators are also acutely aware that optometry is a rapidly evolving discipline and that courses and clinical knowledge must be kept up to date.  Constant changes in healthcare make a static lecture that changes little from year to year of diminishing value to students.  Aging books, while very worthwhile for foundational knowledge, cannot keep up with the rapid changes.10   With this in mind, the hope would be that the discovery of new knowledge will happen under the OA model.

Likewise, students, who are often unable to afford paying subscription fees, gain great advantage when information is freely available.  It enables them to read complete publications, helping them to maintain the evidence basis for what they are being taught.  It also helps to reduce the misuse of abstract-only referencing.  As many online researchers will know, access to articles beyond their abstract is often blocked by what is known as ‘paywalls’.  What makes this worse is that if the article turns out to be not what the researcher was looking for, there is no ‘returns policy’.

The optometric profession is seeing exciting discovery that is surely going to impact future practice and place optometry in an even stronger position to provide better care.  This is made more possible when the results of this discovery are made accessible to educators, students and existing practitioners, enabling them to keep up to date with latest trials and advances, which in turn enables them to give the most up to date patient care and treatment.

I wanted to establish how many journals there are in the optometric professions that are fully OA.  In my search, I found out that there are one hundred fully OA journals in optometry, according to oa.mg11.  However, of those hundred, only thirty came under the list of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).  The DOAJ is ‘a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a community, committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone’.12 In addition to this, I could not see, on that list, any of the optometry journals that many of us in the profession are familiar with here in the UK.

Optometrists in the UK generally gain access to journals through paid subscription.  There is further access, without charge, to journals by professional bodies that they may be member of, although they are paying annual fees to retain this membership.  Clinicians will often not be aware of search engines, such as PubMed or Google Search, which can often give access to some OA articles or trial data; especially those that may have qualified some years back.  This may be different for more recently qualified practitioners who would have used these search engines in their undergraduate studies.

On 4 September 2918, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), a group of national research funding organisations announced the launch of cOAlition S.  This is an initiative to make full and immediate OA to research publications a reality, which is built around Plan S; this consists of one target and ten principles.

cOAlition S state: “With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or be made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo”.13

It has been found that subscription journals have mostly adapted so that Plan S affected scientists can still publish with them.  The biggest disruption has been with the highly selective journals, which reject most of the papers submitted to them and recoup their costs through subscription fees.  However, in the end they have adjusted by retaining their subscription models but have also announced new OA publishing options.14

Plan S has already catalysed a shift in the open access landscape.  Journals that previously only offered no route to make peer-reviewed articles immediately open access now do, even if only for authors with Plan S funders.14

I am a member of a new clinical and research committee set up by the Association of British Dispensing Opticians, who have a number of aims and objectives for members.  One of these is to try and find a way for members to have access to research in a similar way to those in the nursing profession.  Through this module I have learnt how this is changing rapidly and I hope, with the launch of cOAlition S, that more OA will be available to us as a profession, enabling us to give the best patient care, with the support of the most up to date access to research an innovation, and evidence-based treatment.

 

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References

  1. An Introduction to Open Access. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/an-introduction-to-open-access
  2. UNESCO Open Access Publications. https://en.unesco.org/open-access/what-open-access
  3. https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read/
  4. The Importance of Open Access Publishing. https://www.conference2go.com/blog/the-importance-of-open-access-publishing/
  5. Nagaraj, M. N. and Bhandi, M. K. Physics Researchers’ Perception of Advantages and Disadvantages of Open Access Journals: A study. International Journal of Library and Information Studies, 2017, Vol 7, p 132
  6. Lawton, a et al. The value of open access publishing to health and social care professional in Ireland. Ariadne. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue/73/lawton-flynn/
  7. Wang, J. Z. et al. Open access medical journals: Benefit and challenges. Clinics in Dermatology, 2019, 37, 52-55
  8. Sterling, P. Open access and its relevance to practicing optometrists. School of Optometry and Vision Science Newsletter. University of Waterloo, Spring 2013, Vol 17, No.2, p 14
  9. Adams, j. The role of research, evidence and education in optometry: a perspectivea. Clinical and Experimental Optometry, 2007: 90: 4: 232-237
  10. Kundart, J. Open access publishing: opportunities and challenges. Optometric Eductaion, Volume 38, Number 3/ Summer 2013, p 89-91
  11. mg. https://oa.mg/journals/open-access-optometry-journals
  12. https://doaj.org/about/
  13. https://www.coalition-s.org/about/
  14. Else, H. A guide to Plan S: the open-access initiative shaking up science publishing. Nature, News explainer, 08 April 2021, Correction 12 April 2021. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00883-6

 

Paywall the movie: showing at City on 24th October

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As part of this module considers current developments in open access, Jane will be showing the movie Paywall the business of scholarship, at lunchtime to mark Open Access week. The movie explores the business of academic publishing, developments such as the website Sci-hub and how the academic community might respond.

The session will be held on Wednesday 24th October in B103 from 12.30-14.00 and includes some time at the end for discussion. If you want to find out more before deciding to attend, watch trailers for the movie online.

Booking details for anyone wishing to attend the session are here.