- Resource System
- Scholarly information
- Resource Units
- Peer reviewed journal articles
- Location
- World Wide Web
Open access publishing is located on the world wide web, accessible anywhere where there is both internet access and a capable computer. Open access publishing is directly related to the digital knowledge commons, which started with the advent of the Internet around the 1950s and spans into present day and catalogues an action situation of over 3 billion people who have active access to the internet. The resource unit is peer-reviewed scholarly information or “high quality” information.
The social dilemma is how to create equal access to peer-reviewed information, which the advent of open access publishing (“author pays” model) helps with, as opposed to traditional publishing (“reader pays” model). Connected to this issue is the dilemma of how to monitor the open access journal articles to make sure that they do not neglect the peer-review process that makes scholarly information credible.
Open Access Publishing
Resource System
Peer reviewed information in the format of a scholarly article published in an open access journal.
Resource Users
All people with access to internet and a capable computer (>3 billion people world-wide)
Different positions include:
- Author of information
- Consumer of information
- Peer reviewer of information
- Board member of open access journal
- Individuals monitor open access journals for quality control
Public Infrastructure Providers
- Research universities or organizations that fund research for experimentation
- Government that provides subsidies to research universities and organizations
- Researchers who write scholarly articles for publishing
- Journals who publish articles
- Internet servers that host the journal's websites
- Electricity providers
- Third parties accumulate and host information in regards to the quality of different open access journals (specifically regarding their peer review process)
Public Infrastructure
- Academic institutions
- Open access journals
- Government
- Self-organized reporting and monitoring of open access journals into a list (i.e., Beall's list)
Relationship 1
- Authors provide publications and payment for publishing in the open access domain
- Peer reviewers serve as the gatekeepers what gets published
- Journals publish the information and organize the peer review (or lack thereof) process
- Interested parties monitor and report on the quality of different open access journals to third parties, such as Beall's list (www.scholarlyoa.com)
Relationship 2
- Authors submit their potential publications to the journals
- Readers access the journal's website to consume information
- Board members participate in shaping the quality of the journal
- Authors and readers pay electricity company for access to internet
- All people pay the government to fund academic institutions
- Interested parties report suspicious journals and publishers to a third party such as Beall's list
Relationship 3
- Authors provide the intellectual creativity to produce articles to be submitted to the journals
- Interested parties provide monitoring services of open access journals to third parties
- Government funds public institutions like academic universities and some organizations
- Taxpayers pay into government system
- Electricity providers power the servers that host the websites where the open access domain exists
Relationship 4
- The journals provide access to the articles
Relationship 5
- If the journals do not maintain a peer review process of the information that they publish, this can diminish trust between the authors and readers of the articles produced in open access
- The articles posted in open access journals tend to get higher rates of citations and wider dispersal, making the authors more popular in the open access domain and encouraging future publications
- The peer review process serves as gatekeeper to what is published and increases the overall quality of the open access domain
Relationship 6
- Authors provide the supply for the journals
- Readers create the demand for the journals
- The peer review process improves the author's quality of writing
Exogenous Drivers 7 (Resource System)
*Hypothesized potential drivers
- Public opinion of the overall quality of the open access domain and it's ability to regulate the provision of the peer review process could undermine the whole system
Exogenous Drivers 7 (Public Infrastructure)
*Hypothesized potential drivers
- Extensive power outages could affect the journal's capability to offer articles
- System is vulnerable to internet viruses
- Government could restrict citizen's ability to gain access to potential websites
Exogenous Drivers 8 (Resource Users)
- Lack of sufficient funding to cover publication costs can prohibit authors from publishing
Exogenous Drivers 8 (Public Infrastructure Providers)
- Lack of sufficient funding to finance public research institutions could diminish the overall production of new research
Human Infrastructure, Private and Human-Made (Resource Users)
(none specified)Human Infrastructure, Private and Human-Made (Public Infrastructure Providers)
(none specified)Turrentine H, Arizona State University.
Brady U, Arizona State University.
. 2015. The Evolution of Open Access Journals. SOS 598: Applied Robustness Analysis in Social-Ecological Systems.