Open Access and Students – thoughts from an OA Publishing House Intern
Before my internship at Tampere University Press, the term Open Access was actually quite foreign to me. I started my internship at an OA publishing house without any knowledge of the principles of open access publishing, let alone what everyday life is like in such a publishing house. Fortunately, internship is meant for learning!
OA publishing involves a huge number of different things that guide publishing activities. TUP is a Diamond Open Access publishing house, which means that all its publications are openly available online, and publishing costs nothing for the authors. My previous understanding of publishing was based on the operating models of large commercial publishers, so the everyday life of a non-profit publishing house like TUP was new to me and really interesting to follow.
Some tasks I knew to expect, such as proofreading and editing back cover texts and titles. I also encountered a lot of new things: I learnt more about the peer review process for example, and I was told among other things about the occasional challenges involved in finding reviewers. I also had the chance to anonymise a manuscript for double-blind review. I was shown several publication platforms and repositories, and the processes related to them, and I was also able to follow the activities of TUP's editorial board for a while.
In addition to these, I had to flip my marketing perspective upside down when I realised that the main target group was potential future authors instead of readers. In addition to all this, I began to understand what open access to scientific information really means, and how much OA publishing differs from commercial publishing.
At the end of the day, even academia is surprisingly commercial. In my view, this is contrary to the principles of doing science, because the very nature of science demands that research and the knowledge produced by it are made public. Locking research outputs behind any kind of paywall reduces the openness of information and thus also perpetuates inequality in our society – even though everyone should have access to scientific information, in reality this is rarely the case. It is important to consider which is in truth more in line with the principles of doing science: financial profit or equal access to knowledge?
What about students?
My internship at Tampere University Press has made me think about the openness of information also from a student's point of view. Searching for and applying research information is commonplace in university studies, so it surprises me that I don't remember coming across the term Open Access at all in my studies. Perhaps different publication models are not exactly key themes in literary studies. However, over the past five years, I have been in numerous situations where I would have had use for OA sources without even knowing what OA even means. Sometimes a suitable source for my thesis has been behind a paywall, sometimes all the books in the course have been on loan and behind an endless reservation queue. At least for me, situations like these always create frustration and extra stress. The idea of the poor student is probably so well known by now that this is obvious, but students cannot afford to pay for knowledge.
Lately, while browsing TUP's website, I have been thinking about how relieving it would have been if all information had been openly available. No more giving up on interesting sources or suffering through the Hunger Games that is borrowing a textbook. Students should be aware of the many benefits and opportunities of OA publishing, because Open Access issues have a concrete impact on their everyday lives. Open access to information makes it easier to complete studies, and OA publishing offers not only interesting internship experiences but also possible career paths. In addition, future researchers are currently sitting in lecture halls, and they may or may not later choose the path of OA publishing.
Author: Noora Huhtamella, Master's student in literary studies
English translation: Piatta Hellevaara
