Medical Students, Other Student Groups Endorse Open Access

OA, they say, would benefit undergraduate and graduate eduaction

Josh Hadro -- Library Journal, 6/18/2009

• Student groups say OA levels educational playing field
• Cost and immediate access among major concerns
• Student support may eventually carry over to faculty

The debate over Open Access (OA) has typically been the domain of faculty and administrations, taking place near the pinnacle of academia's ivory tower. But last week the American Medical Student Association and other student groups, brokered by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), weighed in from below with their own "Student Statement on the Right to Research." 

In the statement, students call upon faculty, researchers, and funding groups (including governments) to support Open Access principles in order to remove "barriers for scholarly and educational re-use" of research materials.

The other signatory groups on the the June 10 statement were the Student PIRGs, Students for Free Culture, Universities Allied for Essential Medicine, the California Institute of Technology Graduate Student Council, and the Trinity University Association of Student Representatives.

Nick Shockey, student outreach fellow for SPARC and former student senator at Trinity University in San Antonio, told LJAN: "Until now, there has not been much of a student voice on this issue that affects students so much, and we have a compelling case to make. Limited access to research makes us settle for what is available rather than what is best and puts those students at smaller institutions that cannot afford multi-million dollar journal budgets at a disadvantage."

Students' stake
Libraries have a stake because the significant portions of their yearly budgets are spent on journal subscriptions that fuel the traditional publishing model. Faculty base their careers and reputations on the research disseminated via those relatively narrow channels. The student coalition statement draws on arguments from both camps, citing four basic precepts:

• Open Access improves the educational experience because it allows access to research regardless of a school or library's ability to afford journal subscriptions.
• Open Access democratizes access to research, giving students and patients alike the ability to find current information on medical and other topics.
• Open Access advances research because it gives students and researchers immediate access to the most current studies.
• Open Access improves the visibility and impact of scholarship, a crucial element of professional development as students contemplate the path toward becoming scholars.

In addition to calling upon faculties, researchers, and funders to support OA, the student groups also pledged to support OA in their own activities, as well as to educate and engage their fellow students in similar efforts.

Student initiative
Shockey, who was recognized as a SPARC Innovator in 2007 for spearheading the second-ever student senate resolution in favor of public access to publicly funded research , said he plans to reach out to other student organizations to raise awareness. 

At MIT, for example, OA advocates put "price tags" on some of their more costly journals; Shockey called that a particularly effective way of making students aware "of the often-staggering amounts of money they pay for access."

The long view of OA support
Student support, suggested Shockey, should ultimately translate into faculty support: "As students who believe knowledge should be an openly available resource enter the academy, I am confident that universities will become more open accordingly."

Debbie Rabina, who teaches a course in scholarly communications at the Pratt Institute School of Information & Library Science in New York City, agreed, telling the Newswire, "In many ways the academic structure of promotion and tenure stands to undergo dramatic changes and when these grad students are looking for jobs in academia, if OA is a reality by then, [these students] will face a very different academic world."

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