Skip to content

The University of Iowa Libraries

Skip to content
Go to
InfoHawk+
University of Iowa Libraries University of Iowa Libraries The University of Iowa The University of Iowa Libraries

Library News

Go to the University of Iowa Libraries home page

Tag: Open Access Fund

Open Access logo
Oct 24 2018

Guest post: Open Access – a fitting model for the case report

Posted on October 24, 2018 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 22-28, 2018) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access. We appreciate their contributions.

The fourth post is by Alex C. Essenmacher, MD, Diagnostic Radiology.

Open Access – a fitting model for the case report

Medical knowledge has proliferated rapidly in recent decades and seems to be accelerating, and with increasingly subspecialized knowledge there are constant changes in treatments and practice.  The newest discoveries published don’t tend to change the wider practice of medicine right away; understandably, more certainty about the effectiveness and safety of a change in practice needs to be established before it reaches a patient.  Review articles, meta-analyses, and comparative studies that follow shortly after a new discovery might bring about that change, rendering approaches recently taught in medical school obsolete.

There is an increased drive from national medical leadership to teach and encourage good scholarship in physicians.  This push manifests as statistics questions and sample literature comprehension on medical board examinations and required scholarship projects from residents and fellows.  In graduate medical education, advancement is generally less dependent on publications than non-clinical, university academics, but residents in medical education programs may pursue publication as a way to fulfill the scholarly project mandated by the American College of Graduate Medical Education.

In the internet age, publication in many varieties, including academia, differs from the old model.  Journals can make content available digitally as soon as it is approved and reach a larger audience even with fewer printed copies circulating.  Despite the plethora of venues, publishing a manuscript can remain difficult because the most established journals in a field are often in environments of increasing complexity and subspecialization.  Clinical residents have the primary responsibility of mastering patient care rather than become researchers, so the time to complete large projects may not be available to them.

Physicians and others in the healthcare field communicate not just in research and review articles but often in case reports –  detailed descriptions of one patient and the disease diagnosis, course, and outcome – that is usually reported for novelty or educational value.  It is a way to exchange useful knowledge in the confines of the academic setting that doesn’t require long data acquisition periods and a statistician.  The most recognized journals in medical fields, because of the increased complexity of the science, often forgo consideration of case reports.   There is still a home for publishing medical case reports, but now it is often in a smaller journal, usually newer, sometimes online-only, and disproportionately utilizing an open-access model.  The University of Iowa Open Access Fund makes it easier to share insightful cases from the university hospital with the world, and the process is quick and easy!

 

Posted in Scholarly CommunicationTagged Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Open Access logo
Oct 12 2018

Guest Post: Actualizing Unrestricted Knowledge Sharing for Collaborators, Partners, Allies, and Beneficiaries, Globally

Posted on October 12, 2018October 23, 2018 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 22-28, 2018) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access. We appreciate their contributions.

The first post is by Danielle Medgyesi, recent MS Graduate, Department of Occupational and Environmental Health

Actualizing Unrestricted Knowledge Sharing for Collaborators, Partners, Allies, and Beneficiaries, Globally: From Iowa to Switzerland to Haiti

Photo of Danielle MedgyesiThis year’s Open Access (OA) theme (2018): “Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge” is especially relevant to a project our team recently published in an OA journal. As a University of Iowa graduate student in the College of Public Health, I worked closely with Assistant Professor Kelly Baker, PhD, and her extensive international network to develop a thesis project conducted in an internally displaced persons (IDP) community in Corail, Haiti. The community was established as part of the 2010 earthquake relief effort. Reflective of IDP communities worldwide, Corail has become a permanent residence for many families. Yet, residences face unsanitary and unsafe conditions due to a lack of permanent sanitation infrastructure and access to waste management services. The goal of the thesis project was to evaluate young children’s exposure to environmental hazards during play in public neighborhood areas that contain deteriorated latrines, trash, free-roaming animals, and open drainage canals.

As with many Global Health efforts, this project required resources and collaborators beyond the academic setting. We worked closely with colleagues at the non-profit organization, Terre des hommes, including our team leader at headquarters (Switzerland) and local staff working with and living in Corail (Haiti). As the project unfolded, our network of allies and those impacted by and interested in the health and safety risks of young children grew extensively. Thus, for the project to reach its’ full potential, we needed to involve and inform a diverse audience—from caregivers living in Corail, local partners in Haiti, and more broadly non-profit organizations and other academic institutes globally. Knowledge sharing, especially in the context of international research, is heavily dependent on the ability to overcome geographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic barriers. Publishing in an OA article to ensure free access to the public is a step in the right direction to overcome such barriers. Yet, reflective of the 2018 theme, it is our responsibility as researchers and those involved in information sharing to continuously evaluate and develop new strategies so that research is truly accessible to a diverse audience, including those who have limited access to the internet and literacy.   

Conclusively, I would like to express my support and gratitude for the OA fund at the University of Iowa and encourage others, especially students, to take advantage of this wonderful resource. With the decision to re-fund the OA program in the spring, the staff at the University of Iowa library were swift to respond and process our application to publish the thesis project in an OA international journal (IJERPH). The library’s quick turnaround permitted the manuscript to be available to the public shortly thereafter. Having the OA fund at the University of Iowa is a valuable resource for faculty and graduate students who may not have other means to pay for the processing fee. I look forward to following OA efforts as they continue to expand and reach a global audience.

 

Posted in Business, Main Library, News, Scholarly CommunicationTagged Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Oct 23 2017

Guest Post: A new path for sharing your research

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 23-29, 2017) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access. We appreciate their contributions.

The fourth post is by Thomas Gruca, Henry B. Tippie Research Professor of Marketing,

A new path for sharing your research

My path to the world of open access journals was more by accident than intent. I was aware of the “pay to play” model where open access means the journal is “open” to publishing anything the author submits so long as a large fee is paid. I was unaware that there are many open access journals with rigorous review standards and high impact factors.

My journey began, as many do, after my paper was rejected by multiple top-tier journals. This study looked at rural outreach by cardiologists in Iowa and surrounding states. It is an unusual topic for most top medical journals since their primary focus is on clinical research, not issues of access (especially in rural states). The next potential outlet happened to be an open access journal sponsored by a major non-profit organization dedicated to research and treatment of cardiovascular disease.  I met with the editor-in-chief who is on the faculty here at Iowa. After looking over the paper, he agreed that it might be a good fit for his journal. He also described the process of choosing another editor to manage the review process to avoid conflicts of interest. [Quick lesson for new researchers – try to talk to editors before submitting a paper that might not fall in the scope of a given journal. It saves time and effort for all involved.]

The reviewers were very prompt, thorough and tough. Now that I have met all of their requirements and answered all of their questions, I have to admit that their input greatly improved the paper. Moreover, one of the new analyses they wanted has given me new ideas for future research.

This work was not supported by grants and there are very few grants supporting research in business. Once the paper was accepted, I was ready to pay the publication fee from the research funding provided by my college. (For this journal, that amount corresponded to 90% of my entire research budget for the year.) Fortunately, I received substantial help from the Libraries and Provost’s Open Access fund.

My experience has a few lessons for other who are considering submitting their work to an open access journal. First, open access journals are not all the same. There are library staff members who can help you identify appropriate publishers and avoid predatory outlets. Second, open access journals are peer-reviewed and rigorously so! High quality journals – open access or not – have a high bar for publication, so make sure you submission is the best it can be. Finally, while the publication charges can be a barrier, the OA Fund may be able to help you share your work freely with anyone and everyone.

Posted in Scholarly CommunicationTagged Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Oct 19 2017

Guest Post: Open Access – The sound way forward

Posted on October 19, 2017October 26, 2017 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 23-29, 2017) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access. We appreciate their contributions.


The third post is by Padmini Srinivasan, Professor, Computer Science.

Open Access – The sound way forward

At a personal level Open Access to scientific and technical publications is fundamental to my day-to-day activities as a researcher and educator.  Barriers, especially financial, in our ability to access our own cumulative knowledge are detrimental to the growth of our societies, particularly in regions of the world struggling even for basic sustenance.  It is good to see ‘open access’ which made its formal appearance at the turn of the century, gain momentum including in my field of computer science.  Authors now have varied options as for instance, to retain just copyright or to retain all rights.  I became aware – some years ago – of how painful it was to access the literature when I wanted to make thirty copies of my own paper for my graduate class. The publisher asked for several thousand dollars in copyright fees!  If it had been a last minute article selection then making copies for free would have been approved under ‘fair use’.  But I could not make copies and plan to distribute them say in a month’s time.  The whole situation was bizarre.  Open access comes to the rescue in this and many other situations.  I would like to especially credit the field of physics for our open access opportunities today. Physicists had set the precedent for free sharing of knowledge way before open access came up the horizon.  Physics departments and libraries, at least across the US, would with almost clock-work precision exchange pre-prints amongst themselves through the postal service. Each department maintained its mailing lists for sending and receiving these preprints which would be arranged nicely in a reading room.  Reliance on the postal services diminished with the arrival of arXiv – a repository for electronic preprints – about thirty years ago.  ArXiv continues today even in areas beyond physics.  The fact that this ‘free’ exchange model clearly did not impinge on the profits from journals in Physics was part of the winning argument for the spread of Open Access.  I also want to acknowledge the strong support offered by Libraries and Universities such as our own; for instance, their support of publication costs associated with Open Access journals is invaluable.  These fees are worth it given the long term access options they yield.  My students and I have availed of this facility on several occasions and we are grateful for these funds.  I know open access will continue to flourish and anything outside will steadily become a dwindling exception.

Posted in Faculty News, Scholarly CommunicationTagged Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Image of Carrie Figdor
Oct 17 2017

Guest Post: Opening doors through open access

Posted on October 17, 2017October 19, 2017 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 23-29, 2017) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access. We appreciate their contributions. 

The second guest post is by Carrie Figdor, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Opening doors through open access

The UI Open Access Fund enabled me to publish an article on science journalism at Frontiers in Communication, a fairly recent addition to the Frontiers-in family of online journals, many of which have very high citation rates. This article has since become the third most-viewed article to date of that journal (despite the relative recency of its publication) and the journal editors have approached me to curate a Research Topic in this area. Since its publication I have also been invited to contribute to a forthcoming volume with Oxford in media ethics. I have no idea whether that invitation is attributable to the publication of this paper, but it is undoubtedly true that Open Access publication vastly increases potential exposure due to its immediate accessibility to anyone for free. This is extremely important in a context of very high priced academic journals that get their content for free from academics.

Working with the Libraries’ open access fund staff to obtain funding was a scholar’s dream. The application was straightforward, my DEO, David Cunning, was very supportive, the funds were granted swiftly, and payment to the journal was taken care of quickly and efficiently. Once my article was accepted, the rest was easy.

 

Posted in Scholarly CommunicationTagged Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Open Access logo
Oct 21 2016

Guest Post: Leonardo Marchini on Open Access

Posted on October 21, 2016December 2, 2016 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 24-30, 2016) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access.  We appreciate their contributions.marchini_leo_051716_200x300_0

The third guest post is by Leonardo Marchini, DDS, MSD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Preventative and Community Dentistry.

See his Iowa Research Online deposited publications here.

I consider open access publishing a better way to share research findings, since by removing the financial barrier to access it allows for a larger audience to read and use the findings worldwide. It also allows for authors to share their publications more widely, by promoting it in research oriented social media and e-mailing it to groups of researchers in the same field, allowing for even more exposure.

However, most journals in my research field are not open access. In a recent work with a broader focus, I searched for a journal capable of reaching a larger audience and then selected an open access Journal with a higher than average impact factor in my field. The submission process happened as usual, and the peer review was intense, but the manuscript was accepted after a couple review rounds.

However, the publication fees for this journal would be a problem if I was not supported by the UI Libraries Open Access Fund. My experience with the Open Access Fund was amazing! I applied and got funded really fast!

Since then the article has been published and received great attention from the scientific community in many countries, as we had a lot of comments and requests for additional information through channels that would not be available for non-open access articles, like researcher networks. I hope it will reflect in more citations in the near future.

Posted in Main Library, News, Scholarly CommunicationTagged Iowa Research Online, Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Open Access logo
Oct 13 2016

Guest Post: Open access journals, a valuable resource for researchers

Posted on October 13, 2016December 2, 2016 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 24-30, 2016) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access.  We appreciate their contributions.Leone~Jose

The second guest post is by Jose Pablo Leone, MD, Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Hematology.

See his Iowa Research Online deposited publications here.

My name is Jose Pablo Leone, I am Clinical Assistant Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Iowa. I have used the University of Iowa Libraries’ OA Fund a number of times and it has been a great resource. The staff at the Library is extremely helpful, they have helped me identify target journals and search the literature several times. Publishing articles in open access journals in my experience has been very gratifying. It allows for a much broader reception of the manuscript, many more researchers around the world are able to read it, making for a wider audience, and as a result of these you become more acknowledged by these researchers. In addition, I have found the free access and the self archiving features very valuable, this allows you to easily share your articles with your peers and collaborators. Researchers often struggle when they cannot access an important manuscript due to non-open access policies. In this regard, the opportunity to publish your work in open access allows creating potential collaborations with researchers that are focusing on your same topic in different countries. I have had the pleasure of being contacted by researchers about some of the articles I published open access and it has been a great experience. Another advantage of open access journals is that as your article gets more reads, it could also get more citations, making the impact of your manuscript stronger. Most journals also offer very user friendly tools to track the reception of your article, such as number of reads, downloads, citations, social media, etc. Finally, there are many misconceptions about open access journals that I would like to mention, for example, many people have the wrong concept that an open access article will not be cited in public databases such as PubMed, this is not true and depends on the journal rather than the open access policy or not. Some researchers believe that the open access journal will not have an impact factor, this is not correct, many open access journals do have established impact factors, however it is important to check this with each journal, as many of the newer journals will not have an impact factor yet. Lastly, some authors do not consider open access journals under the wrong impression that the article will not be peer reviewed, the reality is that submissions to open access journals do undergo a full peer review process and in addition, quite often the timing of this process is faster in open access journals.

Posted in Business, Main Library, Scholarly CommunicationTagged Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Open Access logo
Oct 07 2016

Guest Post: Open

Posted on October 7, 2016December 2, 2016 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 24-30, 2016) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience making their work Open Access.  We appreciate their contributions.

The first guest post is by Chioma M. Okeoma, Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Microbiology.  okeoma

See her Iowa Research Online deposited publications here.

Open access (OA) literally means making literature available to researchers, teachers, journalists, policy makers, and the general public without barriers. Without the open access mechanism, readers or consumers of scientific findings would face price and permission barriers for the use of research findings.

For authors like me, OA provides unlimited access to our work to anyone regardless of their geographic location. The benefits are optimal dissemination of intellectual findings, rigorous peer and public discourse, and increased citations. Above all, OA provides an author maximum visibility and impact for research findings. As authors benefit from publishing OA, so do institutions.

Of course OA publishing is not without a cost to authors because OA publishers charge fees to cover costs. However, the cost of publishing may be covered by grants to authors, or by government and/or institutional subsidies depending on the country and institution. For example, the University of Iowa is a huge proponent of OA publishing. The University through the Office of the Provost and University Libraries provides funds to cover the fees for OA publishing; http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/scholarly_publishing/OAfund. So when next you think of publishing, think OA. Try it and you will find being “OPEN” truly rewarding.

Chioma M. Okeoma, Ph.D

Posted in Business, Main Library, News, Scholarly CommunicationTagged Iowa Research Online, Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week
Open Access logo
Oct 23 2015

Guest Post: Expectations Exceeded – My Experience With The Open Access Fund

Posted on October 23, 2015December 2, 2016 by Willow Fuchs

During the month of Open Access week (October 19-25) we will be highlighting a number of guest posts from University of Iowa Faculty and Staff who have personal experience with Open Access.  We appreciate their contributions.

The fifth guest post is by Matthew Uhlman, Urology Resident, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

Expectations Exceeded – My Experience With The Open Access Fund

Thanks for the chance to write about our experience with the open access (OA) fund here at Iowa. To introduce myself, my name is Matt Uhlman and I’m a 6th year Urology resident at the University. Over my time here, I’ve seen and learned a lot. Being at a large referral center, and in Urology no less, we see plenty of abnormal things and when we come across them, we often look to the mystical “literature” for guidance.

In a number of instances, I found that there wasn’t much written on the things I was seeing and since I find that writing about cases helps me process through them and cement concepts, there were a number of times I, along with colleagues, decided we wanted to write up a case we’d seen. There are very limited options for such papers (case reports), but what I found was OA journals had emerged as a place for them. For a long time, I’d written off such journals figuring they were just filled with the ramblings of people paying to publish stuff that wasn’t really worth my time. However, as I started to look around for case reports, I found they were a really helpful resource as they were effectively mini-review articles on rare things.

During my research year, I had written up a number of cases and when I came across the OA fund at the University, using it was a no brainer. The costs to publish weren’t prohibitive, but were unfortunately a tough sell to the department given the tight budgets we work within. After I learned about the fund, I talked with the librarians who work with it and was happy to learn how eager they were to help me get support. It didn’t feel like I was going to a tight fisted group who would find any reason to not support our efforts, but rather an ally who genuinely wanted to get behind us.

Since that time and with the knowledge of the OA fund, I’ve been able to utilize it another 4 or 5 times, publishing in a number of different journals. An interesting unintended, but positive, outcome from the OA fund has been the opportunity to help a number of medical students publish. Without dedicated research time, it can be tough to find time for long term research projects. Being able to help students write up a case report or short review article has been a great way to get them involved in researching a subject and then contributing to the overall body of medical literature, plus, it looks nice on their resume when they apply for residency!

Looking back over the last few years since I found out about, and started using the OA fund, it’s been a catalyst to being able to publish on the things I’m encountering on a daily basis in residency, not just the things that others deem “worthy”. Case and point, we recently published a paper on the safety of instillation of a chemotherapy compound in the bladder at the time of a specific surgery. We had submitted the paper to a number of journals and had basically been told, “This isn’t a common cancer, nor a common practice. Come back when you have a randomized trial”. For anyone familiar with research, randomized trials take a long time, a lot of coordination, a lot of money and early safety/efficacy data. We decided to go with a more well-known OA journal within Urology and ultimately had the paper accepted and published. After doing so, we started hearing from physicians at different institutions who were interested in starting a trial, now that someone had done the initial safety work. There’s a long way to go, but the first step was publishing our results and the OA fund made that much more attainable.

My experience with the fund at Iowa has been uniformly positive. To anyone thinking about utilizing the funds, I say go for it. It’s allowed me to write about the things I’m seeing, walk with students through the process of publishing and publish on topics that are timely, but don’t always fit into the limited scope of our standard journals. I don’t know if this sort of fund is available elsewhere, but I feel like it should be!

Again, thanks for the opportunity to write about my experience. I hope y’all have a great day!

All the best,

Matt

Posted in Business, Faculty News, Main Library, News, Scholarly Communication, TransitionsTagged Open Access, Open Access Fund, Open Access Week, publishing

Categories

  • Anti-racism
  • Art Library
  • Business
  • Collection Connection
  • Cultural Center Liasions
  • Did You Know
  • Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio
  • DVD Display
  • Employment
  • Engineering
  • Event
  • Faculty News
  • Hardin
  • History
  • ICBF
  • ICBF2010
  • Iowa Digital Library
  • IWA
  • Learning Commons
  • Main Library
  • Music
  • New Books
  • News
  • Preservation
  • Research Data
  • Scholarly Communication
  • Scholarly Impact
  • Sciences
  • Special Collections
  • Transitions
  • Uncategorized
  • University Librarian
  • What's new

Archives

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Stories about the Libraries published in the University of Iowa's Iowa Now

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Zoia by Automattic.
University of Iowa Libraries University of Iowa Libraries The University of Iowa The University of Iowa Libraries
  • Contact the Libraries
  • Library locations & hours
  • News & Events
  • Help using the Libraries
  • Assistance for people with disabilities
  • Our diversity statement
  • Thank a Librarian
  • Web site/page feedback OR general suggestions
  • UI Libraries other links UI Libraries in the Internet Archive Use and reuse of UI Libraries web content - Creative Commons Staff SharePoint (authentication required)
  • UI Libraries on social media UI Libraries on Instagram UI Libraries on Facebook UI Libraries on Twitter UI Libraries on Pinterest UI Libraries on Tumblr UI Libraries on YouTube UI Libraries on Flickr UI Libraries blogs
  • 100 Main Library (LIB)
  • 125 West Washington St.
  • Iowa City, IA 52242-1420
  • 319-335-5299 (Service Desk)
  • ©2019 The University of Iowa
  • Give a gift to the Libraries!