Evaluating Open Access Programs | Joseph Esposito | The Scholarly Kitchen

"I am just back from the annual PSP [Professional & Scholarly Publishing] conference in Washington, where I had the opportunity to attend a number of stimulating sessions. You can find the full program here. Of particular interest to me was “Plenary #1: A Tale of Two Continents — Open Access in Europe and the US.” There were three outstanding presentations — by Rachel Burley of BMC/SpringerNature, Amanda Click of American University, and Richard Wilder, Associate General Counsel at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — but toward the end I felt a question creeping into consciousness; and that question was, 'How do you evaluate the effectiveness of your programs; and when those evaluations are completed, will you make them openly available to the public?' The panelists did not have an answer to this question, and they freely admitted so: their candor was admirable and engaging. But still, I would have liked to know not just what they are doing but why....

It is not surprising that our panelists could not say how their OA programs are to be evaluated. OA has sat outside the realm of accountability since its inception...."