Costs,risks and benefits in improving access to journal articles

This paper reports on a study – overseen by representatives of the publishing, library, and research funder communities in the UK – investigating the drivers, costs, and benefits of potential ways to increase access to scholarly journals. It identifies five different but realistic scenarios for moving towards that end over the next five years, including gold and green open access, moves towards national licensing, publisher‐led delayed open access, and transactional models. It then compares and evaluates the benefits as well as the costs and risks for the UK. The scenarios, and the modelling on which they are based, amount to a benefit‐cost analysis to help in appraising policy options. Our conclusion is that policymakers should encourage the use of existing subject and institutional repositories, but avoid pushing for reductions in embargo periods, which might put at risk the sustainability of the underlying scholarly publishing system. They should also promote and facilitate a transition to gold open access, while seeking to ensure that the average level of publication fees does not exceed c.£2.000; that the rate in the UK of open access publication is broadly in step with the rest of the world; and that total payments to publishers from UK universities do not rise as a consequence.     

LONGITUDINAL STUDIES OF TEST-WISENESS

Longitudinal studies were conducted to examine test-wiseness (tw) with respect to (a) grade differences, (b) grade by sex interaction, and (c) stability. Included in the tw measure were stem-option, absurd-options, similar-options, and specific-determiners. Ss were students in grades 5 through 11; 539 Ss were observed twice with a 2 year interval between observations.
Results indicated (a) significant increases on tw in four of five cases, (b) no sex by grade interaction, and (c) tw as a stable characteristic over the grade levels studied.     

Faculty Development through Computer Awareness

Although the use of microcomputers and their associated software programmes has the potential to help faculty work more efficiently, their use is not yet as widespread as it might be and many faculty members are still unaware of how they might use computers both to facilitate their own research and report writing and as an adjunct to their teaching. Efforts to encourage greater usage of computers which emphasise the acquisition of appropriate skills only, in many instances appear to have limited long-term effectiveness. A multi-dimensional model for the promotion of educational change has been developed and tested in a stafl development programme to promote the awareness and use of computers to assist faculty at a large Australian institute of technology. The beginnings of the model and the programme are described together with the results of an initial post-programme survey. These represent the preliminaly findings of a longitudinal study of effective models for the promotion of educational innovation in higher education. The initial results suggest implications both for the teaching of computer awareness and for the building of an effective theory of innovative change in higher education [1].