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Author: Alyssa

On Selections from Open Praxis, Open Access, edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh

On Selections from Open Praxis, Open Access, edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh

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Open Praxis, Open Access: Digital Scholarship in Action is a 2020 collection edited by Darren Chase and Dana Haugh. Primarily, it draws together chapters that reflect librarian considerations of open scholarship. In what follows I summarize a handful of chapters from this collection. In “An Overview of the Open Access Movement in Canada,” Rosarie Coughlan and Mark Swartz do as their chapter title promises: they provide an overarching look at the state of open access in Canada. The authors suggest…

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On Putting the Humanities PhD to Work by Katina Rogers

On Putting the Humanities PhD to Work by Katina Rogers

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In Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving In and Beyond the Classroom, Katina Rogers takes graduate training reform as her mission. She argues that current graduate training is not fit for purpose; i.e., it primarily trains PhDs to become tenured track faculty members when A) there are very limited TT faculty jobs, and B) most PhDs end up working in other roles or industries altogether. In doing so, Rogers suggests, academia replicates inequalities as a very small (generally moneyed)…

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On Knowledge Unbound by Peter Suber

On Knowledge Unbound by Peter Suber

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Knowledge Unbound: Selected Writings on Open Access, 2002-2011 is a collection of posts from Peter Suber’s newsletter, which started as the “Free Online Scholarship Newsletter” and was renamed the “SPARC Open Access Newsletter” when Suber was hired by SPARC in 2003. This lengthy collection spans over a decade of thinking and reporting on the Open Access (OA) movement. It is primarily focused on the American context, but Suber comments on happenings in Canada, Europe, and the UK as well. Issues…

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On “In Pursuit of Open Science, Open Access is Not Enough,” by Claudio Aspesi and Amy Brand

On “In Pursuit of Open Science, Open Access is Not Enough,” by Claudio Aspesi and Amy Brand

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Claudio Aspesi and Amy Brand warn the academic community about the pitfalls of an uncoordinated approach to open access in their article “In Pursuit of Open Science, Open Access is Not Enough.” The authors suggest that the current open access hype is opening the door for an increased monopoly of digitized academic services and assets by the Top 5 publishers. In particular, Aspesi and Brand highlight the increase of commercial publisher activity in the areas of data analytics, research and service…

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On “A Multi-disciplinary Perspective on Emergent and Future Innovations in Peer Review,” by Jonathan P. Tennant et al.

On “A Multi-disciplinary Perspective on Emergent and Future Innovations in Peer Review,” by Jonathan P. Tennant et al.

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In “A Multi-disciplinary Perspective on Emergent and Future Innovations in Peer Review,” Jonathan P. Tennant and a large group of co-authors consider the past, present, and future of peer review in scholarly communication. They suggest that although academic publishing is largely done online, peer review methods broadly have yet to catch up to the possibilities that our networked world hold. Tennant et al. argue that resistance to reforming peer review for the modern age is “largely a hangover from the…

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On “Why We Publish Where We Do: Faculty Publishing Values and Their Relationship to Review, Promotion and Tenure Expectations,” by Meredith T. Niles et al.

On “Why We Publish Where We Do: Faculty Publishing Values and Their Relationship to Review, Promotion and Tenure Expectations,” by Meredith T. Niles et al.

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In this study, Meredith T. Niles, Lesley A. Schimanski, Erin C. McKiernan, and Juan Pablo Alperin focus on the gap between what faculty express as their own publishing values and what they assume their colleagues values are. Niles et al. demonstrate that although faculty suggest their own publishing values are community-oriented (e.g. they are concerned with relevant journals, audience reach, and open access), faculty also believe their colleagues to value journal prestige and impact more. This is impactful research; as…

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On “A New History of the Humanities,” by Rens Bod

On “A New History of the Humanities,” by Rens Bod

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In A New History of the Humanities, Rens Bod aims to cover the “greatest hits” of the humanities from Antiquity to present day, with a goal to underline the substantial impact of the humanities on the development of humanity over centuries. He also suggests that a history of the humanities is timely, since dozens of histories of science exist.  Of note, Bod is specifically considering the humanities as “the disciplines that investigate the expressions of the human mind” (1, emphasis…

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On “Lend Me Your Ears: The Rise of the History Podcast in Australia,” by Honae Cuffe

On “Lend Me Your Ears: The Rise of the History Podcast in Australia,” by Honae Cuffe

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Honae H. Cuffe examines the role of the history podcast in the Australian context. She glosses a selection of Australian history podcasts—some overtly academic, some not—and concludes that this is an important mechanism for translating historical work (and even historiography) to broader publics. Cuffe acknowledges the challenges of history podcasts in the academic context; namely, that there is pushback from those who do not consider “translation” work worthwhile or intellectually robust enough, and that it is difficult to have such…

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On “Ten Hot Topics Around Scholarly Publishing,” by Jonathan Tennant et al.

On “Ten Hot Topics Around Scholarly Publishing,” by Jonathan Tennant et al.

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Jonathan Tennant, Harry Crane, Tom Crick, Jacinto Davila, Asura Enkhbayar, Johanna Havemann, Bianca Kramer, Ryan Martin, Paola Masuzzo, Andy Nobes, Curt Rice, Bárbara Rivera-López, Tony Ross-Hellauer, Susanne Sattler, Paul D. Thacker, and Marc Vanholsbeeck present and explore 10 oft-debated issues in scholarly communication, in particular around open access publishing. They suggest that there are various misconceptions and differing opinions floating around in this realm, and hope to tackle some of these issues in order to bring more clarity to the…

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On The Poethics of Scholarship, by Kaja Marczewska, Janneke Adema, Frances McDonald, and Whitney Trettien

On The Poethics of Scholarship, by Kaja Marczewska, Janneke Adema, Frances McDonald, and Whitney Trettien

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In this self-declared “open access pamphlet,” the editors (and authors)— Kaja Marczewska, Janneke Adema, Frances McDonald, and Whitney Trettien—take a critical approach to open, digital scholarship. They frame such an approach within the concept of a scholarly “poethics,” or, an ethical poetics. This conception is present throughout the three short essays that make up this pamphlet. Marczewska offers “The Horizon of the Publishable in/as Open Access: From Poethics to Praxis,” where she rails against the co-opting and corporatization of the…

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