Access, accommodation, and science: Knowledge in an “open” world

Abstract

The rising popularity of open access (OA) publishing in scholarly communities is purportedly leading to increased public access to knowledge. This is especially true for discussions of scientific research. However, we argue that while there have been significant moves to provide better material or technological access to research, OA advocates must still tackle the issue of making original scientific research articles conceptually accessible to broader publics. Despite being freely available on the Web, research articles are not by default linguistically or conceptually accessible to the global public(s) they are partially intended to reach with the move to OA. In this paper we examine how OA, coupled with innovative scientific communication practices, can help align the ideals of OA with the realities of complex, specialized genres of writing to provide better, more "open," access to research. We look to PLOS ONE and the PLOS Blog Network to consider how material access coupled with communication strategies developed by bloggers can work together toward more openly accessible original scientific research articles. Contents Introduction Open Access and the Open Movement Accommodating science Accommodating and access: PLOS ONE and the PLOS Blog Network Conclusion 9/7/13

Researchers' use of social network sites: A scoping review

“…Mainly they discuss the dissemination of and access to science/research. Some attempts are made to problematize reciprocity (Kelly & Autry, 2013;Lievrouw, 2010; and a related discussion can be seen about blogging and various target groups (Luzon, 2013a). Only a handful of articles touch on how scholars use social media to promote their identity as trustworthy (Kirkup, 2010;Luzon, 2009Luzon, , 2011Luzon, , 2012Luzon, , 2013Kimmons, 2012, 2013).…”

“…Five articles study blogs in various ways (Cao & Yin, 2009;Colson, 2011;Kelly & Autry, 2013;Luzon, 2013a;. One article is about podcasting (Alegi, 2012), one about a wiki (MacKenzie, 2013) and one is based on a survey of how researchers disseminate their results to various stakeholders (Wilkinson & Weitkamp, 2013).…”

“…A more nuanced image of access to science is advanced in two articles. Kelly and Autry (2013) consider broadening the audience for original scientific research articles by combining the publication of research articles with blog entries. They study a selection of PLoS articles and what has been blogged about these articles.…”

Open to the public: paywalls and the public rationale for open access medical research publishing

“…Rather than limiting access to research, we would argue the focus should instead be on increasing science literacy and improving the quality of academic publishing for the benefit of all; for example, by working to enhance researchers' ability to identify predatory journals [49] and by tracking and reporting on retracted publications [50]. Greater efforts can also be made on the part of scientific writers to make research more linguistically and conceptually accessible [51]. Lay summaries accompanying publications may help to make open access research more navigable by members of the general public [52].…”

Research Access and Discovery in University News Releases: A Case Study

“…However, there is a need for further research into the benefits of public access since most evidence is anecdotal (Nunn & Pinfield, 2014). Additionally, access does not ensure understanding, a barrier that can be overcome through effective science communication (Kelly & Autry, 2013). Science journalists, who are a target audience of research news releases, sometimes lack access to research as well, particularly to related articles, and must find alternative access (Lenzen-Schulte, 2015).…”