The University of Vemont Libraries: Bailey/Howe Library

Open access literature is literature that is digital, available online, free of charge and free of most restrictions on copyright and licensing. By removing the price barriers and permission barriers that often limit access to scholarly publications, open access publishing offers the potential to mitigate the crisis in scholarly communication and to ensure wider dissemination of academic research and knowledge at greatly reduced costs to scholars and institutions.

While most open access publishers are ethically run for the common good, there are a few open access publishers who exploit the author-pays model solely for the purpose of making a profit. Beall’s List of Predatory, Open-Access Journals outlines the top offenders to help you make an informed decision as to where to publish.

Jeffrey Beall is an academic librarian at Auraria Library, University of Colorado at Denver, who writes the Scholarly Open Access blog. He also publishes a list of predatory open access publishers, who he describes as “those that unprofessionally exploit the author-pays model of open-access publishing (Gold OA) for their own profit. Typically, these publishers spam professional email lists, broadly soliciting article submissions for the clear purpose of gaining additional income. Operating essentially as vanity presses, these publishers typically have a low article acceptance threshold, with a false-front or non-existent peer review process. Unlike professional publishing operations, whether subscription-based or ethically-sound open access, these predatory publishers add little value to scholarship, pay little attention to digital preservation, and operate using fly-by-night, unsustainable business models.”

The board of directors of the Public Library of Science (PLoS) has appointed Gary Ward, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, as board chairman, effective January 1, 2011. Ward, a charter member of the PLoS Biology Editorial Board, has a longstanding association with PLoS and was recognized by the organization for his expertise in and support of Open Access — a policy of providing free, public online access to scientific research literature.

Ward received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He served as a senior staff fellow at the National Institutes of Health’s Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases for seven years before joining the UVM faculty in 1996. Ward currently serves as co-director of the Vermont Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases at UVM.

In its appointment announcement, PLoS cited Ward’s Open Access credentials, which include his present role as chair of the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) PubMed Central National Advisory Committee, past membership in the NLM Public Access Working Group, and membership in the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition Open Access working group.

“The board feels confident that Gary’s insights into PLoS’s vision, his engaging and collaborative style, and his commitment to Open Access will make him a highly effective leader at this critical juncture in PLoS’ history, as we seek new and powerful ways to communicate and enhance the advancements of science,” stated the announcement of Ward’s appointment by Liz Allen on PLoS Blogs.

Release Date: 11-30-2010

Author: Jennifer Nachbur
Email: Jennifer.Nachbur@uvm.edu
Phone: 802/656-7875 Fax: 802-656-3961

On October 20th, Professor Gary Ward, UVM Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, will join Dana Librarian Jeanene Light for a session on Scholarly Publishing. The presentation will include how to select a quality journal in which to publish, ways to navigate the copyright and author’s rights portions of the submission process, and the potential benefits open access and other alternative publishing models have for authors and researchers. Register for the noon session by contacting Donna O’Malley.