OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL

 

Number 3. 

 

Open Access  Sources and Journal  first appear as an alternative  to standard or traditional sources that were viewed as costly, , selective and restricted to minorities or under privileged groups. The idea behind the creation of these sources was to promote the diffusion at lower cost to knowledge worldwide. Unfortunately,  observed some advocates of open sources, they are  still fighting against resistances widely spread about their  supposed cost and affordability.

For Peter Suber, Open Access to academic research is still a ‘hot’ topic that is unfortunately held back by people who should know it better. He identifies 6 main myths that need to be overcome in order to fully understand and then make good use of open access journals

The first stereotype is that ‘‘the only way to provide open access to peer-reviewed journal articles is to publish in open access journals’’. Beneath this myth, according to Suber, is  the misunderstanding of the  term journal  itself.  At this point, the difference between gold (from source journal or publisher) and green access (from repository or institutional website) seems to play a major role.

 The second myth is that ‘all or most Open Access Journals charge publication fees’ whereas facts, from  2006 -2012, are that more than 67% of OAJ are free while at the same time about 75% of  conventional non open journal actually charge fees. Consequently, it’s become clear that publishing in open access would be less expansive than doing so in a non-conventional journals.

The third myth asserts that ‘most author-side fees are paid by the authors themselves’, whereas  they are paid by funders (54% )or by universities (27%).  Moreover, it is only 12%  of that author fees that are actually paid out of author pocket.

The fourth  myth, establishes that ‘publishing in a conventional journal closes the door on making the same work open access’. At this stage, he underlines the point  that authors  might ask for addendum (a proposed contract modification which the publisher might or might not accept). Furthermore,  there is still the option of  ‘rights-retention policies’  on the side of faculty at the university level. These rights  ”assure that faculty may make their work open access even when they publish in a non-open access journal, even when the non-open access journal does not give standing permission for green open access, and even when faculty members have not negotiated special access terms or permissions with their publishers”

The fifth most recurring myth is related to the quality of  Open Access Journals . In that vein, it is commonly believed that ‘Open Access Journals are intrinsically low in quality’. That belief is proven to be false by Marie E. McVeigh. Indeed, in an article written in 2004, in the Thomson scientific, she reveals that “there was at least one open access title that ranked at or near the top of its field in citation impact”.

The six myth lays on the assumption that ‘Open Access mandates infringe academic freedom’. This myth is completely irrelevant according to Suber, because only ‘one-third of peer-reviewed journals are open access, requiring researchers to submit new work to Open Access Journals would severely limit their freedom to submit work to the journals of their choice’

Have you ever had any resistance to publish in an Open Journal? If yes, does any of your fear(s) to publish in Open Journal fall in one of Suber classification? Do you agree with any of Suber’s mythification of  common resistance to Open Journal?  If   yes which one and why? Are you convinced by the counterarguments he elaborated to breakdown these myths?

Natacha’s Preliminary Project Brief

My project is to build an app for beginners to advanced French language users. The idea of that app emanates from the observation that many of my undergraduate students sometimes lack a platform in which they could broaden their knowledge of French. That is, they are most of the time restricted to what is proposed to them by the curriculum. This app is not then intended for students I usually call ‘class passers’ who are fine with what is offered – and at the time even  find it too much, but rather to those I call ‘Knowledge hunters’, actually willing to expand their learning perspectives

My target users are thus students, but this might be extended to any French culture and language lovers. I intend to provide them with a plate-form, an environment to express themselves through blogging, video, and live chat. In addition,   I will provide a space in which they could have updated news from the French and francophone world, namely from broadcasts as   RFI, or  Africa N 1. Furthermore,  I think of spaces where ‘clients’ could explore possibilities of traveling to   France  or  any others francophone countries(http://www.partirpascher.com)  and have a weekly or daily  playlist  of  French songs, and  connections to French  shopping sites(  fashion industry, museums, bookstores, etc.)

Because most students are ‘glued’ on their i-phones or smartphones, it would be more attractive if the app is deployed on a mobile phone carrier, in such a way that they could carry it along with them everywhere. That proximity and availability of their phone could develop a ‘positive’ addiction to French or francophone-related custom and usage, in such a way as to provide a type of natural-like immersive language environment.

Building such an app is surely a challenging task for someone who is still at his very debut in designing and programming. I know from what I tried to gather here and there that I would have to master the HTLM5  and the Java script languages which I don’t know yet.  However, the good point is that I am a hard-working person and a fast learner.

Natacha Pawa Bio

Hi, I am  Natacha Pawa a second-year French Ph.D. student at the Graduate Center, B.A in English/ French  Literatures with a minor in linguistics from the University of Buea (Cameroon), a Master in French literature, and a D.E.A in French Literature both from the University of Yaoundé I.

I am currently – starting from Fall 2017-  an Adjunct Lecturer of  French at Hunter College and a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College – from last Fall.  I previously taught French core courses respectively at St John’s University and Queens borough Community College. In my teaching, I am dedicated to bringing to my students of varied academic disciplines a new approach to university core foreign language courses, which are most often viewed by them as a loss of time.

My academic interests are broad and varied, My master thesis was on  The Images of Africa in The Color Purple of Alice Walker and La Rose de sable of Montherlant,  and my D.E.A used  Freudian psychoanalytic approaches to examine the psychoses(agoraphobia, schizophrenia, madness, etc.)  in  The Bluest Eye of  Toni Morrison, Le Baiser au lépreux of Francois Mauriac and Kamouraska of Anne Hébert.  For my forthcoming Ph.D. dissertation, I went through a specialization Ph.D. course in the  Clinical Psychology Department at City College. I  intend to continue working with the psychoanalytical approaches (Freudian and contemporary American schools)  on the issues of memory, trauma, self and identity in selected works of some twentieth and twenty-first-century  French and francophone authors (I prefer to keep them secret for now!)

My  Great Hobby is singing , I am an active member of   Souls in Harmony (don’t google it; it’s one of my parish choir and its fame is still in process!).

 

Natacha’s Project Idea

I  am interested in providing  French Language lovers of all levels in general and my students, in particular, a consistent and well-sustained Language and literature Website and app in which they could find appropriate material to broaden their horizons. More specifically, my aim is to bring my undergraduate students from various disciplines- that still take French language core courses just as university requirements- close to other aspects of French /francophone culture and civilization that are not listed in the course outline imposed by the curriculum to non-tenure-track faculties like me.

The postulate which underpins the idea of creating other website and app to the numerous existing ones lays on the discovery that too many of them are a little bit just a repetition of the topics covered in the curriculum. I want something that would take into consideration the website’s visitor or app’s purchaser’s need of evasion from standardized topic and issues so frequent in various language websites.

However, I am still in the domain of ideas and I have never built an independent website or app – I don’t consider the site I created last Fall in Cuny Academic Commons as neither an independent nor a well-constructed site: https://bpawa.commons.gc.cuny.edu/.  Thus, I  need to acquire in this course technical skills to built both a challenging  French-language website and an app.