OA: Convenient but not congenial?

Introduction

I recently attended a one day sandpit-type event in London which aimed to define and scope a research agenda for a specific industry sector. The event was organised and led by a government department with a specific strategy of improving performance in the sector. The participants included interested researchers, civil servants, professional bodies, and representatives from private organisations working in the sector. As the day progressed, I was struck by two things: first, the research themes we were grouped in, which had been discussed and agreed at a previous similar event, were not especially novel. On the contrary, they were themes which covered topics that academics in the field had been researching, discussing and debating for the past decade. Nonetheless, they were clearly still of interest and of concern to the participants. Second, and linked to the previous point, was a comment made by an industry representative and supported by all those non-academics in the room, was that: “academics are good at researching but they are not very good at sharing and communicating”. OUCH! This comment touched a nerve.

In my previous blog I commented on my initial hesitation in embracing social media and being ‘open’ and connected this with our academic role in the practice of engagement and contribution to impact. Since then, I came across a social media tool guide for academics and Miah’s (2016) thoughts on why we should make time for it, reiterates this point.

Yet, the ‘sandpit’ experience has made me consider that there is still a lot more that needs to be done to bridge the theory-practice and policy gap and the question that remained was what else can I, within a ‘business and management’ field, do? It is not only about embracing social media and being active or about Open Access. Debbie Smith’s “True openness…” piece made an interesting observation when she stated: “making research articles open access does not mean that the availability is increased…and open to all.” This prompted me to delve deeper to explore the following question:

Is making knowledge available the same as making it accessible?

Openness

It seems to me that there are two aspects of ‘Open Access’ (OA): ‘Openness’ and ‘Accessibility’.

By ‘Openness’ I mean making the research product or research outputs readily available to a wide audience. This is the premise of OA : to share ideas and knowledge making it more widely available and thus overcome the obstacle of price and or permission (Suber, 2003).

Both the benefits and value of OA are now recognised. A recent survey found that two thirds of researchers in the UK support a move to OA (Havergal, 2016). This is reflected in the discussions made by fellow OKHE colleagues. Katie Holmes for example, discusses the value of OA to early career researchers like herself in terms of the ease, convenience of availability of material and the value it brings to her research through the sharing of ideas. Iain Bailey feels “…OA… should be a no-brainer” in relation to the potential benefits it could bring to knowledge development, his concerns resonate with Starbuck’s (2006) thoughts on the challenges in the social sciences in relation to the production of knowledge. Nicky High in her narrative on how OA has benefited the scientific publication community comments on the value in terms of making relevant research more easily available and making the academic’s work more visible. Rubow et al. (2015) identify these same benefits: the ease of availability of pertinent work for research, teaching, learning, and informing; the potential to increase readership of a particular author; the potential to increase the popularity and visibility of work; and the potential to grow the development of knowledge. But it is not only about making research outputs available there has been a recent call to make the whole research cycle (from research funding proposals to research findings) available (Havergal, 2016).

However, reservations about OA were also mentioned by OKHE colleagues. I am sympathetic to Iain Bailey’s point about the nature of publishing academic research within the current Higher Education context, referring to the ‘publish or perish’ culture. To an extent McCabe (2013) discusses the ‘publish or perish’ issue within the context of the digital age. While Fitzpatrick’s (2011) work looks more closely at this issue by evaluating the relationship between technology, publishing and academic culture. Other reservations mentioned by OKHE colleagues (Katie Holmes and Debbie Smith) included the costs associated with publishing through the Gold OA model, where publishers are paid for research outputs to be made available for free. Some of my reservations are related to the peer review process and quality control of OA journals; and the potential for the ‘nefarious use of open data’ as was the case with ‘Climategate’ (Grove, 2016). However, I found that most of these reservations are common misunderstandings. Suber (2013) outlines and clarifies some of these convincingly.

The Openness aspect of OA has been discussed at length. Openness addresses the obstacle of ease of availability, as long as you have access to the internet. Openness addresses the issue of free at the point of use, but there are still issues that remain in terms of how this is provided. The recent Higher Education Policy Institute’s contentious recommendation of a national license (Price and Chaytor, 2015) that would allow access to anyone in the UK to published research is a reminder of this.

But even if we do make our research outputs available it does not guarantee they will be read beyond the academic sphere and it does not guarantee that they will be ‘accessible’ to a wider audience, as Debbie Smith pointed out. This is due to two things: awareness of availability and the accessibility of the writing.

Awareness

Let’s consider awareness first. If relevant material is openly available it does not automatically mean that people are aware that it exists. For example, I was completely unaware of the Open Education Resources (OER) to support teaching mentioned by Imgi and Simon Hardaker. I was not alone in this. When I asked other colleagues about it they were all equally in the dark.

Teaching and learning is suppose to be our bread and butter and yet some of us are unaware of this information and material. So how, then, can we expect non-academics, policy makers or the general public to become aware that our journal article(s)/research outputs are freely available unless they know what, how and where to look for it?

Now that I know of the OER gold mine (thanks OKHE colleagues!) I am curious to know more about it and see how it can help me and my students. From the limited exploration that I have done I feel quite motivated to see how I can not only make use of it, but contribute to it. This simple example highlights some challenges of OA achieving its full potential. Making material available is one thing, helping people be aware of it existence, spark their curiosity and inspire them to use it is another.

Accessibility

Let us now consider the ‘accessibility’ aspect. Debbie Smith highlights this when she states “Academic writing is full of jargon and complexities that the lay person and people from other disciplines may struggle to understand” and she continues “…open access … only has value if we make a conscious effort to write academic papers in a format that is easily understood by anyone.” ‘Accessibility’ in this case refers to accessible writing. Writing that is comprehensible, understandable and jargon free. What Andrew Marr calls ‘fluent human’. This is not a new problem or exclusive to academia, but we academics have form.

Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1965:570) illustrates the problem with this example under ‘Sociologese’:

“(On family life.) The home then is the specific zone of functional potency that grows about a live parenthood; a zone at the periphery of which is an active interfacial membrane or surface furthering exchange –from within outwards and from without inwards– a mutualising membrane between the family and the society in which it lives.”

One of the problems in academic writing is the detachment between academics and the wider public. Academics tend to write for their peers and therefore rarely think about writing for a wider audience such as policy makers, civil servants, and/or other professionals. Academic writing tends to be complicated and full of jargon perhaps with the intention of making the simple appear complicated. Geoff Mulgan (1996) suggested that perhaps The Plain English Campaign –an organisation that campaigns ‘against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information’– should “direct some of its attention to higher education, since some of the very worst offenders are to be found among the growth areas of academic life”. While Derounian (2011) suggested that academics apply the same criteria in relation to clarity of writing, support and coherence we demand of our students to ourselves and emphasised the value of dissemination beyond an academic audience.

Some academics and some funding bodies have also called for the use of ‘plain language’. For example, The Wellcome Trust encourages its applicants to write the fundings proposals in plain english. Billig’s (2013) book “Learn to write badly: how to success in the social sciences” provides a good analysis of the reasons behind why writing styles in the social sciences are poor and discusses the implications for academia. Foster (2016) within the humanities context identifies and outlines a number of real examples of “unintelligible academes” and uses these to illustrate how not to write.

One way in which academics are making their research more accessible to a wider audience is through the use of social media. For example, from her analysis of TED speakers, Gallo (2014) identifies and discusses through examples the three components to inspiring presentations, it must be novel, emotional and memorable. The Conversation is a collaboration between professional journalist, editors and universities to enable knowledge to be communicated, shared and used with the wider public. These are some examples of what can be done to change the way in which we communicate our research and ideas.

Orwell’s (1946) essay on “Politics and the English Language” with his six simple rules to follow remains a potent reminder that “language is an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought”.

Conclusion

Making knowledge available is a step towards Open Knowledge but we should also be mindful of making knowledge accessible for all. The aspect of openness addresses the issue of availability free at the point of use but we must not assume that our work will be read. We must recognise the limitations in relation to the each user’s level of awareness and level of interest. The ‘sandpit’ experience reminds me that even publicly available and relevant work is easily forgotten. In the early 2000s the government set up an organisation specifically aiming to compile evidence and make it available to help the industry sector improve performance by sharing good practices. This was an extremely valuable resource, and I still use it to support my teaching. The organisation no longer exists, but the material remains freely available on-line. Yet, today’s department in charge of the same industry sector and its performance and for whom the material was compiled for was not aware of this information. The accessibility aspect addresses the issue of clarity and comprehension. In relation to this as Hillman (2016) suggests we should “write for the ignorant but intelligent reader”.

So yes, Open Access may make getting hold of research easier. But it does not necessarily make that research easier to understand. Convenience 1; Congeniality nil.