APC P.17

2003/2004

 

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES

ACADEMIC PROGRAMME COMMITTEE OF THE UWIDEC

 

Open Access to Research

 

It has been agreed that the DEC will move speedily to put on-line delivery of its materials in a central place in its instructional package.  The Academic Programme Committee of the UWIDEC is one of the few University bodies on which sit representatives of the DEC, the Director of Information Services, the University Librarian, as well as representatives of the Faculties.  As such, and given the priority the DEC will give to Internet delivery, it is appropriate for it to consider the wider implications of the Internet for the University.

 

This paper is intended to initiate discussion within the University of several ways in which we may take advantage of the Internet to further our aims and give ourselves a higher profile internationally.

 

The APC has already proposed that e-mail may be used for the transmission of coursework assignments, and this proposal has been quickly endorsed by the two relevant Boards.  It is suggested, now, that there are many other and more significant ways in which our modes of conducting ourselves should change in response to the challenges and opportunities provided by the Internet.

 

For the present, we propose to make three sets of suggestions: one building upon the minor change to examination procedures already noted; the second concerned to give greater prominence to work on on-line material throughout the University; and the third concerned to promote our research work.

 

1. Digitising theses and other examined publications

 

Many of the University’s degrees and other qualifications include a significant element based upon original written work — theses, research papers, studies, etc. — which, after examination, are preserved either in the University Libraries or in more specialized departmental collections.  They are thus publications, and are often of great scholarly value, even when submitted for comparatively low-level qualifications.

 

At present, the regulations governing such documents require printed copies to be made and, at some point, bound.  Such bulky paper documents are transmitted between examiners, and eventually, if successful, among our libraries.  But they then reach only the campuses — the libraries we run throughout the region in our University Centres cannot expect to carry copies of such work, even if it concerns their particular country (except, of course, if the student is particularly generous).

 

While our regulations continue to speak to the world of paper, if not parchment, the fact is that these writings are now almost always concocted digitally.  Students can exchange them with their supervisors in that fashion; supervisors can make corrections or suggestions (procedures such as “Track changes” in Word permit this to happen transparently and efficaciously). 

 

The suggestion is, then, that we change these regulations to require digital submission of all examined publications.  Instead of receiving a number of paper documents, whichever office currently receives such work will receive instead a digital file (possibly even by e-mail).  It will distribute this file to the relevant examiners.  Any regulations concerning examiners’ reports should be altered to permit such reports themselves to be digital documents.  If such a possible publication is passed by the Examiners, instead of requiring a number of bound copies to be submitted to the University, successful candidates shall be required to submit an approved digital version, to be maintained on open access by the relevant campus library or other unit.

 

As the campus libraries currently offer advice to many students on the presentation of examined publications, it is suggested that they likewise offer advice, or provide a service, to construct user-friendly final versions of such digital publications.  (For instance, we suppose it would be better to maintain html files rather than, say, Word, files; less costly in terms of server space to maintain html than pdf files.  There are detailed points of on-line policy here which we need not settle now.  The main thing is to switch from paper to bits.)  The receiving library should copy such files to the other Campus libraries, and notify all UWI libraries of their holdings, so that further copies may be made for instant access elsewhere.  If there comes a time when the three campuses share the very same servers, copies should still be made as back-ups.  In the case of PhD theses, it is suggested that the receiving library may wish to receive one bound paper version, in deference to tradition and as a precaution against digital catastrophes.

 

These suggestions have to some extent already been overtaken by events, in that there is a move to join an Electronic Theses Project.  Some of the detailed suggestions above may require amendment in the light of how that project operates.  What needs to happen is that we do not merely experiment with such procedures but adopt them as our default.

 

It is suggested that these proposals be endorsed for transmission to the Board for Undergraduate Studies and the Board for Graduate Studies and Research where the necessary changes to regulations can be enjoined on Faculties.

 

2. Centering on-line work

 

The University’s current Strategic Plan intends to move us significantly into cyberspace.  A number of initiatives have already begun; various individuals have likewise taken up the challenge.  But, as so often is the case with matters affecting our teaching responsibilities, little is being done centrally and formally to encourage these developments.

 

It is suggested that the Board for Undergraduate Studies, in particular,[1] be asked to review the whole area and to propose a comprehensive plan to underwrite what is already the University’s intended path.  Among other things it should:

 

·         Ensure that work on Internet support for courses and programmes is explicitly recognized, throughout the University, as eligible evidence in relation to teaching performance.

·         Encourage the UWIDEC in particular to institute systems for peer-review and for other modes of quality assessment of on-line material.

·         Encourage course and programme co-ordinators to produce and maintain guides to Internet resources for students, in the way ordinary bibliographies are routinely provided.  This should be mandatory for all courses offered off-campus, through the UWIDEC or other units.

·         Mandate staff development offices to hold workshops to assist staff in learning the elements of Web-publishing.

·         Encourage the recognition of outstanding work in this area through some sort of annual award.

 

 

3. Open access to research

 

The final suggestion is a matter of generalising the point in the first, of providing open access to examined publications.  Instead of restricting access to persons in attendance at a campus library, or able to obtain some sort of microfiche copy, the suggestion there is that the Libraries should maintain successful examined publications on their servers with no access restrictions.

 

The Libraries should also ensure that information on these holdings is regularly sent to any websites that maintain open access information on on-line research work.

 

What we are there requiring of our students we should require of ourselves.  The bodies that award grants for research within the University should normally[2] require recipients to make available on open access any publications arising out of the funded research.  Each Faculty (or other unit) should ensure that it has a set of webpages where such research and work-in-progress can be posted or linked to.  The requirement need not be to post to any particular source, but simply that the resulting work is freely available, and referenced on the relevant Faculty page and in the Library lists of our holdings. 

 

The University should expect similar untrammeled access by the world for virtually all the materials it uses in assessing a member of staff.  Publications etc. should be archived, either on the staff-member’s own webpage or elsewhere. 

 

If this were encouraged, and given our widespread use of our own journals in many fields, it should help those journals to see the wisdom of moving to a purely digital form.  Bodies that subsidise academic journal publication within the University should certainly insist that all such publication be on-line.  Others responsible for the direction of our journals should encourage them to move on-line and to archive their past issues.

 

A major argument in favour of such open access to our research, and one that carries weight with many governments in the developed world, is that this research costs money, money which the citizens of our nations provide.  What good is it to such citizens if the results of that research are locked away in a few inaccessible libraries?

 

It is worth noting, however, that none of this can come for free.  It costs, in terms of labour-power and resources, to provide reliable on-line services.  Unfortunately, we have so far done very little to present a serious image to the world in these ways.  One very important open access resource (the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[3]) has just begun seeking an endowment fund to allow it to continue as an open access dynamic resource — it estimates that a fund of $3 million will be needed to allow its modest staffing and resource needs to be met from interest.  We may not aspire to providing the major resource in any area — though there is every reason why we should in those that pertain directly to our contributing countries — but we should recognize from the start that these issues cannot be left to unsupported individual initiatives.

 

 

 

Office of the Board for Non-Campus Countries and Distance Education

24^th March 2004