The strengthening case for open access publishing
This problem has been combatted recently at the prestigious US academic institution, Princeton University. Explained on their news site, they will prevent researchers from giving the copyright of scholarly articles to journal publishers, except in certain cases where a waiver may be granted. The new rule is part of an Open Access policy aimed at broadening the reach of their scholarly work and encouraging publishers to adjust standard contracts that commonly require exclusive copyright as a condition of publication.
We have been advocates for open access publishing since even before our launch in 2008, which you can read about here. We offer an open access resource for the physiotherapy profession and also offer the opportunity to publish your research in an open environment. Why? Well Steve Wheeler does a great explanation in support of this in his recent blog post, the case for open publishing. He concludes by saying “what open access does mean is larger readerships for the published research. That has to be worth something in anyone’s book.” Not to mention the fact that it makes knowledge available to those that otherwise wouldn’t have access!
We have an Open Access Directory in Physiopedia and hope that in the future the list will grow. If you know any others please send them to me and I will add them to the directory.
In support of open research and peer review
A recent publication, Peer review in scientific publications, by the Science and Technology Committee in the UK government has supported open peer review of scientific research. In the concluding statements the publication states that “while pre-publication peer review continues to play an important role, the growth of post-publication peer review and commentary represents an enormous opportunity for experimentation with new media and social networking tools. Online communications allow the widespread sharing of links to articles, ensuring that interesting research is spread across the world, facilitating rapid commentary and review by the global audience. They also have a valuable role to play in alerting the community to deficiencies and problems with published work”. It then goes on to “encourage the prudent use of online tools for post-publication review and commentary as a means of supplementing pre-publication review.” So, we seem to be one step ahead here at Physiopedia, we have already seen this opportunity and have been publishing open research and encouraging open peer review for the last few months. This is an area that we would like to explore more and welcome any articles for publication or contributions to peer review.
In a most timely manner the Guardian newspaper this week published an article by George Monbiot which describes academic publishers as the “most ruthless capitalists in the Western world”. In his article, Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist, he comments on how academic publishers charge vast fees to access research paid for by us, the taxpayer. The article is a solid reminder of how the academic publishing world works and reminds me of the article that David Wiley wrote in 2009, The parable of the inventor and the trucker, in support of open research. George concludes that it is time to “throw off these parasitic overloards and liberate the research that belongs to us”. I say “let’s do it”, that’s what we’re all about here at Physiopedia, liberating knowledge, providing universal access for all.
All for Open! New case reports published on Physiopedia.
Physiopedia believes strongly in open publishing and peer review of content to build knowledge. However we have also taken this a step further by offering the opportunity to openly publish and peer review research. This allows readers to access new research free of charge, without print or on-line journal subscription charges. The aim is to broaden opportunities for research findings to be widely disseminated and freely available to advance physiotherapy and physical therapy practice worldwide.
There are several benefits to this approach compared with that of the more traditional and closed publishing methods with which we are all familiar. Open publishing offers the opportunity to:
- make new research available quicker by avoiding the usual bureaucratic delay
- support new researchers in highlighting their ideas as they work
- publish student work that is otherwise filed away for no-one to read or use
- allow open peer review without delay therefore reducing the time taken to implement new research into practice
See the two recent examples of openly published research on Physiopedia:
- The effectiveness of thoracic manipulations on shoulder pain: A Case Report
- Manual Therapy and Exercise Intervention in the Treatment of Shoulder and Neck Pain in a Patient with Mental Health Comorbidities: A Case Report
If you are interested in publishing your work in Physiopedia, you can read more here or email Rachael directly for more information.
Open peer to peer review for physiotherapy and physical therapy
As a wiki based project Physiopedia offers the opportunity to openly peer review and edit the content that is published on it’s pages. This open peer review gives any physiotherapist or physical therapist who’s interested a chance to appraise the published content which enables our community to continually keep articles correct and up to date. This contributes to an eternally updated evidence based resource for our profession, of which we can be proud!
The idea of open, peer-to-peer (P2P) review has generated a lot of interest recently, particularly after Wired reported that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gave New York University Press and MediaCommons a $50,000 grant to take a closer look at this. The money will be used to take a close, critical look at the idea. It will “assess the value and shortcomings of P2P review for the evaluation of scholarship.” It will create “a road map for scholars and publishers” by laying out flexible “criteria and protocols” to guide open peer review experiments across disciplines. It will look at what technology used for P2P review needs to be able to do. And it will weigh whether existing tools and online platforms are adequate to support those needs. “The [resulting] white paper will, of course, be made available for open peer review.”
Part of the idea of this investigation is to get a better sense of how widespread support for P2P review is and how well technology enables it. Stephen Downes comments that “if peer review were open, rather than constituted by smallish groups of people working in secret, we’d see very different papers published, from very different authors.” Physiopedia tests this theory by presenting the opportunity for open publishing of research and the subsequent option for open review from the Physiopedia community. We are watching with interest to see the outcomes of this investigation and the resulting white paper. We hope that we will learn from it and be enabled to develop our peer review processes in an effective way.
Whither the Wikis? With your help, not the case for Physiopedia.
I came across this article recently on the Inside Higher Ed website and thought it a pertinent and interesting read in relation to what we are doing in Physiopedia. The article suggests that “it is becoming clearer where wikis are jibing with the culture of academe, and where they are not” and suggests that many of the academic wikis have failed to take off. A good time to talk about the academic successes and opportunities in Physiopedia.
We like to think of Physiopedia as an “academic wiki” in that we advocate evidence based content, have students completing academic work on the site and also allow our community to publish research and other academic work. As far as students completing classroom work in Physiopedia these projects have been a great success. So far six student projects have been completed in Physiopedia with great results and great feedback from tutors and students alike. Some have successfully been for academic credit and most have resulted in great content being produced for our profession. This looks like it is set to continue with more and more educators and their students becoming involved from all over the world.
With regards to publishing academic work (i.e. research) in Physiopedia it is still early days. For this to be a success we need, as suggested by the article, an overhaul in the way we think about publication. In my opinion publishing academic work in a professional topic specific wiki has a place along side traditional means of publishing in journals. Researchers can benefit from greater exposure and discussion surrounding their work, we can bridge the gap between completing research and publication and also provide an opportunity for publication to those that don’t want to go through the rigorous process of publishing work in a journal, a good example of this being student dissertations.
The opportunity to publish research in Physiopedia increases the impact of scholars, students, and bloggers by enabling them to share summaries and discuss academic papers online. The subsequent opportunity for open peer review then provides a place where academic papers can be summarized, discussed, clarified, or made fuller by the general community. Surely this collaborative activity surrounding academic work is a great way to highlight and discuss new research and subsequently provide evidence and support (or not!) for what we do.
Key to all of this is continuous support from our Physiopedia community. So if you have some research that you would like to publish in a new way, or an abstract from previously published work that would benefit from discussion among the community please do get in touch….
