So on Tuesday I started at my new work placement with Jisc Collections. They are a government funded organisation that work on behalf of libraries and universities to secure good deals on journals but they also do a lot of research into new forms of access - and that's where I come in.
I am very interested in Open Access and hope to write my dissertation on it so this place really appealed to me. The research they do into not just open access but all new access models available to academics and researchers is so interesting, if you're into that kind of thing. And from what I learnt on my first day I think this placement is going to be really useful.
But day one means taking things slow and getting to grips with the place which is what we did. I arrived with my fellow Brookesian (that's a word right) and we were shown into a meeting room where our supervisor talked us through who Jisc are, what they do, why they do it and how we could help. Then we had an office tour and met everyone else and then it was lunchtime. So not much done yet.
But after lunch we got to work collating the results of a survey done by Humanities researchers about access models and how they feel about them, specifically how they feel about self-publishing as an option for their work. It was so interesting to see the range of responses although what came across the most was that the current academic climate wouldn't recognise self-published work and so many thought it would be a waste of their time to try and do it. Better to leave it to publishers who know what they are doing and would bring a level of prestige to the work.
But at the same time many were dissatisfied with the current service they were getting from publishers and would like to move away from the traditional publishing models if only the culture would let them. So it all comes down to people needing to be better informed about Open Access and self-publishing if they are going to accept it as a legitimate form of publishing.
Not bad for the first day. So I look forward to seeing what else I can learn over the coming weeks.
I am very interested in Open Access and hope to write my dissertation on it so this place really appealed to me. The research they do into not just open access but all new access models available to academics and researchers is so interesting, if you're into that kind of thing. And from what I learnt on my first day I think this placement is going to be really useful.
But day one means taking things slow and getting to grips with the place which is what we did. I arrived with my fellow Brookesian (that's a word right) and we were shown into a meeting room where our supervisor talked us through who Jisc are, what they do, why they do it and how we could help. Then we had an office tour and met everyone else and then it was lunchtime. So not much done yet.
But after lunch we got to work collating the results of a survey done by Humanities researchers about access models and how they feel about them, specifically how they feel about self-publishing as an option for their work. It was so interesting to see the range of responses although what came across the most was that the current academic climate wouldn't recognise self-published work and so many thought it would be a waste of their time to try and do it. Better to leave it to publishers who know what they are doing and would bring a level of prestige to the work.
But at the same time many were dissatisfied with the current service they were getting from publishers and would like to move away from the traditional publishing models if only the culture would let them. So it all comes down to people needing to be better informed about Open Access and self-publishing if they are going to accept it as a legitimate form of publishing.
Not bad for the first day. So I look forward to seeing what else I can learn over the coming weeks.
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