University-Press Association Speaks Out on Public Access to Research

February 15, 2012, 2:07 pm

The Association of American University Presses does not support the proposed Research Works Act, the group said in a statement released Tuesday. But it also does not support an opposing bill, the Federal Research Public Access Act, which would require public access to the results of federally financed research no later than six months after publication. The other bill would prevent federal agencies from imposing such mandates.

Both bills would “short circuit the process of creating appropriate and sustainable public access policy currently being undertaken by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, as mandated by current law, the America COMPETES Act,” the group said. “AAUP supports the COMPETES process, and is hopeful that a better and more informed policy will result that will help to best disseminate the fruits of publicly funded research.”

The Research Works Act has come under heavy fire from open-access advocates and from some scholarly associations and publishers. The Association of American Publishers supports it. Several members of the university-press group, including the MIT Press, have spoken out against the bill.

The press association “supports the goal of providing free public access to the results of publicly funded research,” the statement said. “However, we think the blanket prohibition sought by RWA goes too far. At the same time we also think the one-size-fits-all solution proposed in FRPPA is unworkable. It mistakenly assumes that no more than six months will be required for publishers to recover the investment they have made in preparing research works for publication, in all fields and across all disciplines.”

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djbdoc

This is an excellent idea I have done with students over the last two semesters. In my undergraduate leadership course, I had them do a weekly blog instead of weekly reflection papers. Not only did this encourage them to learn something new, but they engaged in more authentic reflection because their thoughts would be visible to them long term. They now have a running digital record of their learning!
iredale

Please, please, please tell us exactly what course you’re teaching. It sounds like a tech-related course. I don’t teach such a course (I teach legal writing and research), and I’m sure there are others here who don’t. Never mind *using* WordPress — I doubt that my students even know what it is!
justm

So when you say that you are introducing them to, “technical skills that will be transferable” are you sure that they don’t already get plenty of this experience with social sites like Facebook, etc? And are these “technical skills” valued by employers (well, at least as much as being comfortable with basics such as knowing how to use formatting tools effectively in documents)?
11196496

Several years ago I was teaching a course on Afro-Latin religions and asked students to evaluate web pages on Voudou and other traditions of Latin America. Earlier when I taught the History of Christianity students did something similar with Christian denominations. They worked in small groups. Each student reported on the contributions of all of the other students in the group. I gave them guidance on evaluating web sites (academic, confessional; produced by denominational officials, insider individuals, academics, last time updated, well documented or not, etc.). The best result of the project was student reflections on web sites were transferred to print media, e.g., the credentials of the author, the lag time between statistics gathered and publication. They then came to appreciate how dated class textbooks might be when compared to journal articles or academic postings on the web.
richrobles

Great post. The same can be done using PBWorks and Wikispaces.

@justm: While students may gain that experience using social networking sties, it’s important to promote and reinforce the notion that the inherent technical skills (e.g., written communication, information manipulation, critical thinking, reflection, etc.) in social media are just as valuable in their academic work. Indirectly, students need to be reminded that these skills are a projection of their capabilities and identity in their professional environment.

While they may not identify these skills explicitly, employers are looking for these skills in our students. More importantly, they are looking for workers to express and collaborate with others in-person AND in the digital environment. Workers with the capacity and disposition to interact in both environments are crucial as interact with peers in their generation and older generations.
cjgberg

I created a small group exercise for a graduate library school class to use the diigo social bookmarking system and their educator account to document the impact of a long-rang planning document by the National Library of Medicine. It went pretty well, and I plan to continue something like this. The slides describing the activity are at: http://www.slideshare.net/cjgberg/group-activities-in-online-instruction-greenberg-slides
msehphdjd

After reading this (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/education-needs-a-digital-age-upgrade/), I’m piloting the use of individual blogs in an online introductory sociology course. Rather than have all of the conversation/response taking place on discussion threads in Blackboard, they’ll create individual blogs. We’ll keep the discussion forums for response to a specific prompt for each chapter and limited give and take.

The intent of the blog is that they be more mindful in their composition, etc. Their blog will be evaluated individually, as opposed to so much relying on their participation in the DB. I think the blog will allow for more creativity, etc. and they won’t be as tempted to think they can fly under the radar with quick, somewhat meaningless responses (e.g., “Yeah, I totally agree.”) We’ll see. It’s a pilot…

In another class, also introductory level, I’m giving them the choice of a traditional paper, a blog, or a website. No matter the vehicle, they have the choice of addressing a specific social problem or social problems, generally. The task will be to integrate sociological concepts into their presentation re the issue(s). E.g., Discussing homelessness via a discussion of social structure.
peche1

Perfect timing for this article! I am planning to present on this very topic shortly. I have integrated digital projects into my classes for the past several years (wikis, blogs and various other online tools). Not only does it allow for students to express themselves in multiple ways (beyond typed research papers), it does offer them an opportunity to expand their technical skills – something employers are looking for (as richrobles noted).
hbstowe

Hi, I’m interested in using blogs instead of weekly reflection papers, but, since my students will be working in the community, I also need the blogs to be private. I could do something on Blackboard that’s blog-similar, but I hate reading on BB and it takes forever. Do those of you who have used blogs in the classroom recommend a particular site? Have students set up blogs and send you links? Suggestions for the practical?
http://twitter.com/katecollier KateCollier

I think the students will enjoy this project! I have two thoughts:

-Can you tie your first goal “Some familiarity with the person whose work they personally explore” more closely to the learning outcomes of your course? and
-You may find the students need more scaffolding for the “teamwork and project planning,” which can be a BIG win for them in this experience. For example, you might identify specific roles that a few of the students could assume (someone to keep up the excitement/spirit of the group; one or two to plan and track progress; someone who uses the planning/tracking data to keep everyone on task and remind of deadlines.

Have an awesome semester! :-)
acavender

It’s a course on American Political Thought, housed in the Political Science department.
acavender

I’d second what @chronicle-7759f7e8d1327ebfd2d66cf12f22ec87:disqus says below.

That said, what I’m asking them to do goes beyond what’s available with social networking sites such as Facebook. Those reflection, communication, and critical thinking skills are important, to be sure—but so is the ability to *build* something. I’ll be asking students to think about what they want to communicate and how they want to communicate it, and then make some decisions about how best to present their information in a way that appeals to the reader. They’ll then learn some skills that will enable them to do that effectively in an online environment.

The teamwork, critical thinking, presentation, and problem-solving skills they’ll be developing are skills that employers will value, I think.
acavender

It sounds like this was a really successful project!
acavender

Thanks for sharing the slides!
acavender

Both Blogger and WordPress allow users to set their blogs as private, requiring readers to log in. Students could protect their blogs in this way, then give you permission to access the blogs and send you the links.

A possible downside to this approach is that, to the best of my knowledge, you won’t be able to subscribe to students’ blogs via RSS feed if they’re password-protected, so you’d need to go to each blog individually. If you have a lot of students, that could be a headache.
acavender

Thanks for the reply—you’ve given me a few more things to think about.

As for “Some familiarity with the person whose work they personally explore”: In the past, I’ve had each student choose a figure in American political thought whose work we don’t explore together in class, and explore some aspect of that person’s work in a research essay of approximately ten pages. The student would then present that work to the rest of the class at some point during the last few weeks of the semester.

In this project, the student will do much the same sort of exploration, but will have more options for presentation of her work than text alone (though of course there’ll be some text involved).
acavender

Huh. Editing my previous reply isn’t working, for some reason.

I just wanted to clarify that the course isn’t a tech-related course.
jliedl

I had a class create a timeline of early medieval history filled with biographical and analytic entries they wrote. My mistake was to run it using remote software and when that broke down, so did our website. I’m planning to return to such a project, but I will host the data and the software somewhere that I have control of it before the next class!
dkompare

Great group assignment, Amy! Hopefully they’ll all learn not only about how to do collaborative work, but also how to create engaging and enlightening web content (vs. the usual individual student blogs, which have been fairly tame and samey in my experience).

I’m doing short writing assignments in my Intro to Film Aesthetics course this fall, and instead of the Blackboard discussion board (in which all good ideas and intentions go to die), I’ve set up a Google Group. The idea is they post their writing for the whole class to read and comment on, in a relatively simple and accessible interface. That was the idea, at least, but GGroups has been tricky to figure out thus far. All my students have signed up to the group invitation, but none of them have been able to read or post thus far. I can’t figure out what’s set up wrong, but my TA and I are tracking down suggestions. If anyone has any here, I’d love some help!
dolllar

I had a similar experience — with a class annotating the recent health insurance reform legislation. I broke it into pieces and each student had to enter their precis. It crashed Google Docs. What software is available that might handle lots of students trying to enter small bits of info, such as creating a time line???
jliedl

We both probably used the same software earlier (SIMILE’s timeline w/Google Docs). I’m now planning to implement Omeka with a timeline plugin that mimics that capability. I figure that running it on a server that I’ve set up will be more robust and stable. http://omeka.org/codex/Plugins/Timeline
http://twitter.com/suebecks Sue Beckingham

I co-taught on a course with over 100 Journalism students where the students in groups of 3-4 used WordPress to create online newspapers. They integrated a Twitter feed, linked to a Facebook page and used both video and audio within their articles. YouTube and SoundCloud were used to upload the media files. At the beginning of the course, only 6 had ever used anything but Facebook. By the end of the course they were showing me new things!
ivanacg

Great approach! Critical reading (and evaluating — isn’t this just the modern take?) of texts has been always important but with the digital media (all the online offerings!) it becomes paramount.
http://twitter.com/shannonhmize Shannon Haley-Mize

I am also piloting a digital media project this semester. I am still in the planning process and some of the specifics I am wrestling with include how much guidance to give vs. letting them plan the type of project and how to best assess and communicate expectations.

I have used blogs for a while, but I use the Ning platform to house them. I favor this space because it builds on their knowledge of FB, allows individual pages, and keeps the space closed. There are disadvantages, but for my purposes so far it is the best option. It also eliminates the need to log into individual blogs. Students log into the Ning and can then access all blogs, discussions, ind pages, and shared resources.
jmcclurken

Interesting. I’ve had students use the SIMILE timeline with Google Docs in several different projects and I haven’t had this problem. woodycarter and jliedl, how many people did you have entering data at any given time.

Of course, I’m also a big fan of Omeka, so I’ll be interested to see how jliedl’s project works this semester.
jmcclurken

Password protected blogs are a bit easier in WordPress than in Blogger, in my experience, though both take a fair amount of setup at the front end. Once that’s done though, it’s fairly seamless, other than, as Amy notes, the issue of not being able to easily make RSS work.
jmcclurken

FWIW, having done these kinds of projects for 3+ years in history classes, I’ve now got a group of students who did these projects who have now graduated. Many of them having contacted me to tell me that they found jobs in which they use the skills learned while working on these projects; a number of them explicitly link those skills to being hired for those jobs.
mrsalander

My students are composing a Multi-Genre Digital Argument that is housed completely online. I was shocked at the limited tech skills that the students have; however, it has allowed me to slow the course down and teach skills and tools that I wish I knew about as an undergrad (if they existed at that time!). I have introed Diigo, Zotero, Google Sites, WordPress and more and we have spend class time exploring htem. Next semester, I will require the use of Zotero and WordPress. Stepping stones…
http://twitter.com/jshbldt Josh Boldt

Great idea, Amy. I’ve been thinking about adding a website design component to my first year writing classes, as well. Last semester, I incorporated a digital project I called “Film as Composition.” Basically, I replaced one of our papers with a collaborative project in which groups created a short film “interpretation” of a work of fiction. It was really fun.
hildavcarpenter

I am all for competition. However, there is a wealth of knowledgeable people who cannot afford individual journal subscriptions, or $25-$30 daily acces to journals. To assume that the financial burden is on the individual researcher eliminates PhD’s or other individuals interested in research. Not all libraries subscribe to journals, thus the more rural intelligence is omitted from the stream of new research. I speak for myself, but I am certain the are others in my same situation across the U.S.
sand6432

It should be noted that FRPPA applies only to government agencies whose research budgets exceed $100 million–which excludes the NEH.