PRESTIGE, KARRIÄR OCH OPEN ACCESS Forskares syn på publicering i vetenskapliga tidskrifter
(2006)Division of ALM and Digital Cultures
- Abstract
- Dissatisfaction with the current market for scientific publishing, dominated by a few large publishers able to obtain high subscription fees, gave birth to the Open Access movement. One problem for the Open Access movement, which aims at making research results freely available, is that scientists are reluctant to publish in journals that are free on the Internet, so called Open Access journals. This master's thesis aims at showing how scientists reason about their own publishing in scientific journals. It is investigated which factors are important when scientist decide on which journals to send their articles. The aim is to increase the understanding of scientists' views on Open Access.
Six interviews were conducted with scientists in... (More) - Dissatisfaction with the current market for scientific publishing, dominated by a few large publishers able to obtain high subscription fees, gave birth to the Open Access movement. One problem for the Open Access movement, which aims at making research results freely available, is that scientists are reluctant to publish in journals that are free on the Internet, so called Open Access journals. This master's thesis aims at showing how scientists reason about their own publishing in scientific journals. It is investigated which factors are important when scientist decide on which journals to send their articles. The aim is to increase the understanding of scientists' views on Open Access.
Six interviews were conducted with scientists in Biomedicine at Lund University. The university has recently adopted a policy that recommends its scientists to publish in Open Access journals. All of our informants thought that the idea of Open Access was something positive, since it would mean that scientists all over the world would get access to scientific results. When it came to their own publishing though, our informants had doubts about sending their articles to Open Access journals because of the low impact factor these journals have. The scientists in our study consider publications in prestigious journals to be important for their career. By publishing in prestigious journals they also reach their target group, which is other scientists.
Theories from the Sociology of science were used to analyse the results, primarily Pierre Bourdieu's theories about the scientific field. Bourdieu shows that it is difficult for forces outside a field to influence the reward system inside. In the case of Open Access, Lund University and other authorities have tried to change scientists' publishing habits, but this is complicated because a scientist's reputation depends on the opinions of his or her peers. Things are further complicated by the fact that scientists work in a global community. It is difficult for a university in Sweden to influence their scientists, who are competing with scientists all over the world, to publish in journals with less prestige. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1327082
- author
- Ruhe, Ebba and Åström, Anneli
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2006
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Vetenskaplig kommunikation, vetenskaplig publicering, vetenskapliga tidskrifter, Open Access, vetenskapssociologi, Pierre Bourdieu, forskare, Documentation, information, library science, archivistics, Arkiv- och bibliotekskunskap, dokumentation
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 1327082
- date added to LUP
- 2006-07-10 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2014-04-11 14:16:43
@misc{1327082,
abstract = {{Dissatisfaction with the current market for scientific publishing, dominated by a few large publishers able to obtain high subscription fees, gave birth to the Open Access movement. One problem for the Open Access movement, which aims at making research results freely available, is that scientists are reluctant to publish in journals that are free on the Internet, so called Open Access journals. This master's thesis aims at showing how scientists reason about their own publishing in scientific journals. It is investigated which factors are important when scientist decide on which journals to send their articles. The aim is to increase the understanding of scientists' views on Open Access.
Six interviews were conducted with scientists in Biomedicine at Lund University. The university has recently adopted a policy that recommends its scientists to publish in Open Access journals. All of our informants thought that the idea of Open Access was something positive, since it would mean that scientists all over the world would get access to scientific results. When it came to their own publishing though, our informants had doubts about sending their articles to Open Access journals because of the low impact factor these journals have. The scientists in our study consider publications in prestigious journals to be important for their career. By publishing in prestigious journals they also reach their target group, which is other scientists.
Theories from the Sociology of science were used to analyse the results, primarily Pierre Bourdieu's theories about the scientific field. Bourdieu shows that it is difficult for forces outside a field to influence the reward system inside. In the case of Open Access, Lund University and other authorities have tried to change scientists' publishing habits, but this is complicated because a scientist's reputation depends on the opinions of his or her peers. Things are further complicated by the fact that scientists work in a global community. It is difficult for a university in Sweden to influence their scientists, who are competing with scientists all over the world, to publish in journals with less prestige.}},
author = {{Ruhe, Ebba and Åström, Anneli}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{PRESTIGE, KARRIÄR OCH OPEN ACCESS Forskares syn på publicering i vetenskapliga tidskrifter}},
year = {{2006}},
}