The Open Access Week in the Scholarly Blogosphere
Happy Birthday, Open Access! Last Sunday, the Berlin Declaration turned twenty years old. Its anniversary coincides with the international Open Access Week.
Heinz Pampel 
Happy Birthday, Open Access! Last Sunday, the Berlin Declaration turned twenty years old (Pampel & Kindling, 2023). Its anniversary coincides with the international Open Access Week. During this action week, events promoting Open Access are organized worldwide (an overview can be found at openaccessweek.org. Another list of events in Germany is available at open-access.network). In panel discussions or digital formats, such as blog posts, the current state and future of Open Access are examined.
This action week is a good opportunity to take a look at the Rogue Scholar Science Blog Archive (Di Giambattista 2023). A search in the archive of English-language blogs archived by Rogue Scholar yields 493 hits for the term open access week. The same search for German-language blogs resulted in 44 hits (as of October 22, 2023).
In the following, I will introduce some of the posts. To do this, I will use the Five Ws method and will present a blog post for each W.
Who?
In 2009, Martin Fenner discussed the perspective of researchers on Open Access in a blog post titled Open Access Week: A researcher’s perspective (Fenner, 2009). He emphasized the potential for the reuse of scholarly articles.
Why?
The question of the motivations behind Open Access is addressed in several parts of the blog post Twitter interview with Open Access Nigeria by Mike Taylor (2014). This post is a transcript of a Twitter interview. Still worth reading!
What?
Georg Fischer (2023) provides suggestions for those who decide at the last minute to celebrate Open Access Week with an event or another format in his German-language blog post Veranstaltungen in Berlin und Brandenburg (English translation: Events in Berlin and Brandenburg). He provides an overview of activities in the Berlin-Brandenburg area for this year’s Open Access Week. There is also a reference to a panel discussion taking place in Berlin (at the Zuse Institute Berlin) on Tuesday, in which I am also involved, and which deals with the current state and future of Open Access in Germany (Kindling, 2023).
When?
One must discuss preprints when addressing the question of “When” in the context of Open Access. A noteworthy post in the archive, written by Scott Edmunds in 2021, is titled Preprints Meet Open Peer Review (Edmunds, 2021).
Where?
The question of “Where” was frequently discussed, especially in the early years of Open Access. Green or gold were possible answers. With the rise of preprints, the distinction becomes less important. Many authors choose both paths. A noteworthy blog post titled The number and proportion of freely available articles is growing; reaching 45% of the literature published in 2015 from 2015 in the archive is by Juan Pablo Alperin (2017). He examines the paper The State of OA: A large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles (Piwowar et al., 2018) in this post—a paper that continues to be very important for scientometric research on Open Access.
Conclusion
This subjective selection of articles from the Rogue Scholar Archive demonstrates that looking back is not only fascinating because it allows us to contextualize current developments; it also shows the potential of blog posts in academia. For example, they allow us to describe thoughts and backgrounds that traditionally are not discussed in academic articles. Thus, academic blogs also contribute to bibliodiversity. The motto of this year’s Open Access Week (Community over Commercialization) emphasizes the importance of community-supported publication initiatives for Open Access. Academic blogs also make a significant contribution to this. For curation purposes, overlay blog posts are a great solution (Fenner, 2023). They allow me to consolidate blog posts on a specific topic, enabling a collective view of diverse discussions and perspectives.
References
Alperin, J. P. (2017). The number and proportion of freely available articles is growing; reaching 45% of the literature published in 2015. ScholCommLab. https://doi.org/10.59350/9abst-wk467
Di Giambattista, C. (2023). The OpenCitations blog posts are now archived on Rogue Scholar with DOIs. OpenCitations blog. https://doi.org/10.59350/vwajv-ym488
Edmunds, S. (2021). Peer Review Week 2021: Preprints Meet Open Peer Review. GigaBlog. https://doi.org/10.59350/j2nnd-43b72
Fenner, M. (2009). Open Access Week: A researcher’s perspective. Front Matter. https://doi.org/10.53731/r294649-6f79289-8cw3b
Fenner, M. (2023). Generating Overlay blog posts. Front Matter. https://doi.org/10.53731/gzrse-p5d35
Fischer, G. (2023). 23. bis 29. Oktober: International Open Access Week 2023 „Community over Commercialization“ – Veranstaltungen in Berlin und Brandenburg. Open Access Blog Berlin. https://doi.org/10.59350/7hdpg-hm144
Kindling, M. (2023). Podiumsdiskussion: Open Access in der Region Berlin-Brandenburg: Was wurde erreicht und wo geht es hin? (Hybrid). Open Access Blog Berlin. https://doi.org/10.59350/trt30-p4845
Pampel, H. & Kindling, M. 20 Jahre Open Access: Wie Berlin das offene Publizieren prägte. (2023). Der Tagesspiegel Online. Retrieved October 23, 2023, from https://www.tagesspiegel.de/wissen/20-jahre-open-access-wie-berlin-das-offene-publizieren-pragte-10657489.html
Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., Farley, A., West, J., & Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: A large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, 6, e4375. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375
Taylor, M. (2014). Interview with Open Access Nigeria. Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week. https://doi.org/10.59350/4v1nk-69837