The Open Access Movement: Connexions and the Power of Virtual Collaboration

As the momentum surrounding the open access movement increases, many Scholarship Programs conferences in spring 2009 included presentations by the Connexions initiative, a nonprofit Internet repository for freely accessible academic material that encourages free and open access to intellectual content.

Hosted by Rice University in Texas, Connexions offers users a two-way portal for distributing and developing academic work.  Academics have the opportunity to place their articles, curriculum, syllabi design, working papers, and essays in the repository for the wider academic community to view. 

Protected by a Creative Commons license, uploaded content is available for download in its original format, fostering citations. This access is crucial to what Diane Harley of UC Berkeley’s Center for Higher Education Research described as the material’s “impact factor” during her presentation at the Faculty Development Program Spring Conference.

Undoubtedly, the costs of textbook creation and the sourcing of online journal articles is prohibitively expensive.  Tailored course textbooks can be compiled through Connexions from chapters and articles (referred to by Connexions as “modules”) in the repository, and subsequently downloaded in an e-book format or produced as a hardback copy for a fraction of the purchase or publication costs.

In addition to citation hits, perhaps one of the most significant services of Connexions is the potential for peer collaboration and review.  In this respect, the wider academic community is able to comment, critique, add to, and update the original article by creating a new version of the text.  Working groups can also be established to develop a given text or syllabi with fellow academics, a feature which transcends the need for face-to-face workshops and extensive track changes.

Jonathan Emmons

Connexions Community Development Specialist Jonathan Emmons had the opportunity to present the portal and interact with NSP grantees. Scholarship Programs spoke to Jonathan about his views on Connexions and its impact for grantees during and after their scholarship time.

Scholarship Programs: You’ve been to three OSI conferences in 2009: What have learned from grantee feedback?

Jonathan Emmons: One thing I’ve learned is that the potential of Connexions runs far beyond what I naively thought it was when I first arrived in the job.  In certain parts of the world, there’s just not the opportunity to get certain types of resources. There’s often no incentive for a publisher to put out an Arabic or Russian text in other languages, for instance.

SP: You mentioned the Palestinian grantees at the PROL / PFDP conference had actually opened your eyes to the limitations in script.             

JE: I don’t think I fully appreciated the limitations of our current system and the need to push forward with our “internationalization.”  Internationalization has been something we made our priority, but we have limited resources. One of the things I realized by talking with the Palestinian group is that in addition to simply having the Arabic language set, we need to address the authoring aspect.  We simply can’t support the fact that the script runs from right to left—we definitely need additional support here.

SP: What would you hope Connexions could offer in a year’s time?  What would be the new slide in your presentation?

JE: I would hope to have another 5000 “modules.”  As we grow and become more established, I hope the distribution as far as languages and content will start to even out.  At the moment, were very English and sciences-centric.  That has to do with the history of the Connexions project, but we’ve also been making gains in other subject areas and in some other languages.

SP: If you could give all the grantees you’ve spoken to so far some advice about using Connexions, what would it be?

JE: Firstly, for those wary of using Connexions for fear of a lack of content, I would say the best way to get content is to add content.  The more content there is in Connexions, the easier it is to contribute.  It’s easier to add to the development of a book by adding one module to other content than it is to write the entire book yourself.  Therefore, by adding content in a certain field in a certain language, it’s making it easier for the next person.

Secondly, contact Connexions for support.  My full time job is offering user support.  I actively make time to do two hour long one-on-one web training sessions for individual  authors.  I’d encourage authors who want to collaborate to contact me early so I can help them in the process of collaborating on a project or book.

Thirdly, do not let that process discourage you.  Authors must understand they are not on their own and that they have a lot of resources they can tap into.

SP: Many thanks Jonathan, and we hope to see you at future conferences.

Scholar Feedback: The Benefits of the Virtual Platform

The Palestinian Faculty Development and Rule of Law Conference provided a feedback forum for,Khitam Abu Hamad (Brandeis University), Sahera Bleibeh (University of Washington, Seattle), and Kefah A. Barham (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), all Palestinian Faculty Development Program grantees who were invited to Houston, Texas, last fall to help develop the Connexions portal.

As Connexions is constantly developing, the advantages and disadvantages of its the current platform became apparent to the participants.   For Sahera, the initial barrier of “user unfriendliness” can be broken down with a little perseverance.  The ease of downloading documents, collaborating, and joint editing as well as the licensing protection offered by Creative Commons were also deemed effective tools.

For Kefah, the use of the platform spreads from the academic research level to its practical application in the classroom.  “I’m interested in K-12 education and integrating technology into the classroom, so my interest in the conference stemmed from there,” Kefah said. “There are problems in Palestine with access to updated books and resources.  With Connexions, we can create our own repository and database, and have it safety there online,” she added.

The usefulness of the Connexions platform to the classroom goes further. Sahera described knowledge as “expanding vertically, not horizontally.” Students’ time is made more efficient with less need for exhaustive Google Scholar searches, for example, as the classroom reading material can be collected in the repository and shared

The scholars also highlighted the difficulties they face in their everyday lives as women.  Adding to the double burden of running a household and the demands of research and study is the significant amount of time it takes to move around the Occupied Territories.  Frequent checkpoints make travelling from home to university difficult, and living alone as a student in another town is not too common.  Perhaps most significant here is the role Connexions’ can play in facilitating the academic development of women by collaborating remotely on a working paper and giving feedback to other academics.  In this respect, the virtual ‘meeting room’ does much to ease and advance the work of women scholars without them having to leave the home.

For those thinking about using the platform, the grantees offered the following advice:  Khitam noted that the key is to use the platform frequently and spread the word to other universities to invite a wider collaboration. Sahera felt it was crucial to “customize Connexions for what your needs are.”

For more information on Connexions, please visit the website at: http://cnx.org/

Information on the history of the open access movement and a collection of related links can be found at the OSI Information Program’s webpage