Requiring the class to submit a literature review of a topic necessitates that the researchers acquire a load of journal articles. However, not all journal articles are accessible and free of charge. This somehow poses a challenge for the researchers especially if the school is not subscribed to publishers in which the selected journal articles belong to. Interestingly, the open science movement which aims to advance scientific knowledge and provide an opportunity for developing countries to participate in timely research activities (McKiernan et al., 2016) can help address this challenge. This idea on open access to research works is what struck me most.
I am glad knowing that the open science movement has been gaining momentum. Building on the concepts of creative commons license and fair open access principles, the movement helps me and my students advance our understanding of our specific research areas free from expensive monetary constraints. I will be able to share the journal articles with the class online without giving them the burden of paying fees if they download such articles on the publisher’s website. This can be tremendously helpful in the learning process.
One of the concrete realizations of the open science movement is the Free Journal Network initiative wherein publishers provide open access to their journal articles, sharing their best practices in the review process which are comparable to the practices of for-profit publishers. These open access journals operate in fair open access principles. The third principle states that all articles published should be open access and be licensed under creative commons. This suggests that scholars sharing their research work need not pay a huge amount of money to publish but a support from the scientific community operating in the same fair open access principles may move the research work forward and reach the public at little to no cost. In the classroom setting, this provides an opportunity for learners to gain knowledge about an area of interest which will have implications to their practice and profession at a minimal monetary cost. This may have negative economic impact to the publishers but the benefit of doing so outweighs the cost – who knows, that journal article related to medical treatment may further advance a developing country researcher’s knowledge and builds on that knowledge to further refine that medical treatment.
Although not all scholars and researchers agree with open access because of the fear of losing their rights to their work, creative commons has already worked this out. As with traditional copyright principle, all licenses under creative commons except CC0 require attribution to the owner of the work. Even with open access journals, the work is still attributed to the owner who also has the copyright as indicated in the condition of each CC license. Thus, even with the use of an open access article, the class has the legal and ethical responsibility to cite the owner. In general, this open access initiative has opened the doors for those who wanted to learn about an area of interest but cannot do so because of financial constraints (Subbiah, 2004).
Implications to Teaching and Learning
In my research class, understanding the concept of open science movement and its ties with creative commons needs to be part of the syllabus. This helps both the facilitator and learners establish a common ground on the responsibility of using online materials and articles appropriately. I can refer the students to the different creative commons licenses and refer to these licenses in their work and in the works of others. It has to be emphasized that the use of open access articles and online materials under CC license must be properly attributed to the owner. As such, the learner also has to be responsible in licensing his/her work through creative commons. Such practice may help develop a more responsible consumer and producer of knowledge.
Moreover, licensing one’s work under creative commons opens the possibility for increased exposure of the work which can invite collaboration from other researchers and increase use of the work (Gorgolewski & Poldrack, 2016). It may be facilitated through the use of online forums and communities of practice, tags in the online post, and online correspondence with interested individuals to name a few. This opens an opportunity for the students to showcase their work outside of the class and hopefully gain more knowledge and experience by interacting with peers of similar interests.
Operating on open access principles is a generous way to share one’s ideas which may be impactful to an individual or to the community.
References
Gorgolewski, K. J., & Poldrack, R. A. (2016). A practical guide for improving transparency and reproducibility in neuroimaging research. PLoS Biology, 14(7), e1002506. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002506
McKiernan, E. C., Bourne, P. E., Brown, C. T., Buck, S., Kenall, A., Lin, J., McDougall, D., Nosek, B. A., Ram, K., Soderberg, C. K., Spies, J. R., Thaney, K., Updegrove, A., Woo, K. H., & Yarkoni, T. (2016). How open science helps researchers succeed. eLife, 5, e16800. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16800
Subbiah, A. (2004). Open access and the developing world. The National Medical Journal of India, 17(6), 289 – 291.
Yarkoni, T. (2016). How open science helps researchers succeed. eLife, 5, e16800. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16800
Acknowledgment: My appreciation to Brian Cassell, Instructor of Vancouver Community College, for the insightful feedback on the draft.
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