Perceptions of Open Access Scholarly

Monograph Publishing in the Faculty of

Humanities and Social Science at Queen

Mary, University of London

Jon Fowles

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of MA Information Studies at the University of

Brighton, School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, 2013

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Acknowledgements

I’m very grateful to QMUL for allowing me to conduct this research project within the

institution, the University of Brighton for their academic support, and my friends and family

for their support of all other kinds.

In particular I would like to thank:

Sarah Molloy, the Research Librarian at QMUL, who provided me with a wealth of advice on

how to conduct the research within the institution and greatly improved my access to

participants.

Audrey Marshall, my supervisor at the University of Brighton, who provided me with

invaluable guidance on the direction, structure, and presentation of the project, as well as

the best approach to the research methods.

All of the participants in the project who helped me to collect their opinions through the

interviews and the survey. This project took place during the busy summer period when the

academics were in the middle of their own research and the postgraduate students were

concluding their studies. By giving up their time to help me they demonstrated an enormous

amount of goodwill, as well as a commitment to engage with an important topic in their

profession.

Archana Deshmukh, Gill Fowles and David Fowles for crucial proofreading.

Marian Chaplin, for unending reassurance and patience.

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Abstract

The monograph crisis in academic publishing has reduced the ability of scholars to access

research findings in monograph form, as their institutional libraries are unable to acquire all

of the resources that they need. This has affected researchers in the humanities and social

sciences comparatively more than their colleagues in science, technology, and medicine

disciplines due to the need to present a longer and more sustained argument for many

research topics. Some academics believe that Open Access (OA) publishing of monographs

will resolve this issue by removing price and permission barriers. However, concerns remain

over the business model for OA monographs. Although there are a number of complex

financial and technical issues that OA publishing platforms must overcome, research has

indicated that the main obstacles will be cultural and institutional.

The aim of this research was to explore perceptions of OA monographs within the

boundaries of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary, University of

London in order to assess any cultural or institutional issues that may prevent any future

transition to OA monograph publishing. The research consisted of a mixed-methods case

study.

The findings show that although the majority of participants would be willing to

sacrifice direct financial reward in order to meet their primary motive of improving the

dissemination of their research findings, they remain unconvinced of the sustainability of the

business model for OA monographs, with anxieties existing over the ability of underfunded

humanities and social science disciplines to meet processing charges. These concerns have

led to a degree of trepidation over the implementation of future policy for OA monograph

publication. Although established publishers have sought to utilise the author-pays models

that require processing charges, a number of recently created business models have sought

to experiment with other methods of funding publication, presenting a possible solution for

HSS. However, many of these publishing platforms lack the prestige and branding that is

necessary to increase submissions and encourage experts to take part in the peer review

process. These factors are difficult to obtain without a secure position in the publishing

hierarchy. The success of any new model may depend on the ability of advocates to

convince academics in the HSS faculty to abandon the ingrained concept of the publishing

hierarchy and other protocols for publishing behaviour.

Although the results of this project cannot be generalised outside the boundaries of

the case, it is hoped that they can be used to inform further research. The turbulent

landscapes of OA and academic publishing indicate that there is further scope for such

research.

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Table of Contents

List of Figures...................................................................................................... 5

Chapter One: Introduction.................................................................................. 6

Chapter Two: Literature Review........................................................................ 13

Chapter Three: Methods..................................................................................... 28

Chapter Four: Results......................................................................................... 37

Chapter Five: Discussion of Results................................................................. 56

Chapter Six: Conclusions................................................................................... 64

Chapter Seven: References................................................................................ 68

Appendix One: Creative Commons Licenses................................................... 74

Appendix Two: Photographs of Inductive Thematic Coding.......................... 75

Appendix Three: Form of Consent.................................................................... 77

Appendix Four: Information Sheet.................................................................... 78

Appendix Five: Example of Interview Schedule............................................... 80

Appendix Six: Web Form Survey....................................................................... 82

Appendix Seven: Sample of Inductive Thematic Coding Data....................... 87

Appendix Eight: Quantitative Data Demographics.......................................... 94

Appendix Nine: Quantitative Data Analysis of Academic Age....................... 96

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Perceived Importance of Monographs

Figure 2: Perceived Importance of Journal Articles

Figure 3: Perceived Motives for Publishing Monographs

Figure 4: Perceived Effects of Open Access on Monograph Publishing

Figure 5: Perceived Regularity of Use for Dissemination Formats in Research

Figure 6: Perceived Preference: Open Access and Traditional Print Monographs

Figure 7: Perceived Motivations for Agreeing to Review a Monograph

Figure 8: Perceived Effect of Publisher Reputation on the Decision to Review a Monograph

Figure 9: Academic Age Distribution of Participants

Figure 10: Discipline Category of Participants

Figure 11: Position of Participants in the Faculty

Figure 12: Department/School of Participants

Figure 13: Academic Age of Participants vs Use of Digital Monographs

Figure 14: Academic Age of Participants vs Importance of Career Advancement

Figure 15: Academic Age of Participants vs Importance of Increased Reputation

Figure 16: Academic Age of Participants vs Importance of REF Requirements

List of Images

Photograph 1: Example of Inductive Thematic Coding 1

Photograph 2: Example of Inductive Thematic Coding 2

Photograph 3: Example of Inductive Thematic Coding 3

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Chapter One: Introduction

Open Access (OA) seeks to improve access to academic research findings through the

reduction of price and permission barriers. Academic journal articles have long been the

focus of the OA movement due to the absence of direct financial payment from the

publishers to their authors (Suber 2012), whereas the current business model for

monographs usually involves some degree of financial reward. This focus has delayed the

establishment of a stable and sustainable business model for OA monographs. The lack of a

stable and sustainable business model for OA monographs was cited as the primary

reservation against incorporating long-form research outputs into recent policy decisions

regarding ‘gold’ OA in England: the report of the Finch Working Group (2012); the Research

Council of the United Kingdom (RCUK 2013d) mandate for funded projects; and the

inclusion of an OA compliance requirement for the Research Excellence Framework (REF),

governed by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE 2013b). Although

there are complex economic and technical issues that must be overcome to establish a

business model for an OA scholarly monograph publishing platform, some studies have

found that:

The main obstacles for the development...are cultural and institutional. A certain number of scholars in different disciplines and fields still express great hesitation with regards to eMonographs as the equivalents of paper-based publications in terms of quality and prestige...A similar argument is made about publishing in Open Access (Adema and Rutten 2010, p.5).

Although journal articles are the dominant dissemination method for research

findings across academic disciplines, the Research Information Network (RIN 2009) have

shown that the monograph is still regarded as highly significant in the humanities and social

sciences (HSS). As such, this topic is highly relevant for the HSS faculties at higher

education (HE) research institutions, such as Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL).

This chapter provides an overview of the context in which this research project took

place, beginning with definitions of the scholarly monograph, OA, and copyright. A brief

outline of the historical and current environment of serial and monograph publishing is then

presented, followed by a history of the OA movement itself and a description of the

institutional context at QMUL.

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1.1 Definitions

For the purpose of this research, a monograph is defined as: “a printed specialist book-

length study of a research based topic, usually but not necessarily written by a single

academic author from their own primary research or its equivalent in downloadable digital

form or other electronic format” (Nicholas et al. 2009, p.67). A monograph is also considered

to be a work “of original scholarly research, engaging with other relevant primary and

secondary literature and pushing forward disciplines into new areas of enquiry” (Cambridge

University Press 2013).

These definitions have been used to distinguish the monograph from textbooks,

which are intended to “summarize, organize, and analyse the accumulated wisdom of an

area of knowledge, presenting it in a way that is accessible to students at a specific level of

competence” (Luey 2010, p.123), and also to differentiate the monograph from ‘trade’ books,

which are “for the most part...not primarily intended as ways of disseminating new, original

research findings” (Wellcome Trust 2013). The latter are generally regarded as less

specialised, aimed instead at engaging the general public with an academic topic. As a

result, their business models often have higher print runs and lower cover prices.

OA material has been defined as being available to the reader as “digital, online, free

of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” (Suber 2012, p.4). ‘Free of

charge’ can be achieved through two routes, commonly referred to in the literature as ‘gold’

and ‘green’. These terms are interpreted in a number of ways, sometimes leading to

confusion and misunderstanding between authors working from different definitions. For the

purpose of this project, the HEFCE definition of ‘gold’ and ‘green’ were used, being the most

relevant to the working practices of the academic community at QMUL:

The ‘gold’ route, often funded by a payment to the publisher (an ‘article processing charge’ or APC), leads to publication in a form that is immediately available to all, free of charge, in electronic form. The ‘green’ route is taken when the final peer-reviewed text of a published output is also deposited in an institutional or other repository where it is made freely available, either immediately or after the expiry of an agreed ‘embargo’ period (HEFCE 2013a).

This study applied its focus to the ‘gold’ route in response to recent events relating to OA

monograph policy in the UK (Finch Working Group 2012; HEFCE 2013a; RCUK 2013d), and

the difficulties associated with depositing a monograph in an institutional repository.

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Within the literature, copyright is described as the exclusive right to reproduce,

publish, modify, and sell copies of a work (Collins et al. 2013). To make work ‘free of most

copyright and licensing restrictions,’ OA usually employs a Creative Commons (CC) license

that determines how work may be reused by others (Appendix One). These licenses do not

require the author’s permission for many types of reuse, and are therefore less restrictive

than many of the licenses used in traditional business models for academic publishers.

1.2 The Serials and Monograph Crises

The traditional business and publication model for disseminating research findings

has been accused by many prominent academics of creating a phenomenon that has come

to be known as the ‘serials crisis’ (Willinsky 2006; Pirie 2009; Suber 2012). The development

and diffusion of improved internet technology in the 1990s had increased the potential for

access to research, moving material online and removing many of the physical access

barriers inherent in the nature of printed documents. This created the possibility of a

significant reduction in production and dissemination costs. The removal of these costs had

greatly reduced the value added to research material by academic publishers, and yet

market homogenization had allowed the prices of subscriptions to continue to rise faster than

inflation and academic library budgets.

The height of the crisis occurred when these costs became too high for university

libraries to maintain payments, causing them to cancel subscriptions. This limited access to

journal articles for members of HE institutions and damaged the profit margin of the

publishers. In response, the academic publishers created the ‘big deals’, where journals of

varying quality were packaged together by the publishers and sold as one subscription.

“Although the big deals brought down the unit costs of journals, overall spending continued

to increase at the same pace” (Ferwerda 2010, p.135). Libraries were getting more for their

money, but were compelled to continue spending at rates their budgets could not sustain.

The ‘serials crisis’ is considered the precursor to the subsequent ‘monograph crisis’,

where library budgets became overwhelmed by attempts to maintain subscriptions to

journals, mostly in science, technology and medicine (STM) disciplines. As a result of the

need to devote larger proportions of their budgets to these journals, libraries struggled to

maintain their purchasing power for monographs. The reduced demand for monographs

caused the publishers to introduce smaller print runs, which in turn introduced an increase in

unit prices to recoup their first-copy costs. This exacerbated purchasing and access issues

for library acquisitions teams and the academic communities that they serve.

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Willinsky (2009) states that the ‘monograph crisis’ reduced the average sales of each

monograph from 2,000 copies in 1980 to just 200 at the start of this century. This has

reduced the ability of HE institutions to support teaching and research by providing access to

monograph resources. As a further consequence, academic publishers have been forced to

become more selective in the books that they publish, and authors have found it harder to

publish their work in monograph form (Ferwerda 2010). As studies have shown, monographs

are more prominent in HSS than in other discipline groups because they value the scope

provided to present and analyse evidence at length (RIN 2009). As a result, the monograph

crisis has had a significant effect on many HSS disciplines.

1.3 Open Access

The OA movement has sought to exploit the abilities of digital technologies to improve

access to academic research findings by removing price and licensing barriers for online

research material. It has also drawn attention to the perceived injustice of publicly funded

research being made inaccessible for most members of the public outside of HE institutions

(Suber 2012). OA has had a notable success with online academic articles, with many online

journals offering OA, such as those provided by the Public Library of Science (PLOS 2013),

establishing prominence in their field.

However, although OA can encompass all forms of material from all disciplines, the

focus of advocates and publishers in the move towards OA has primarily been on STM

journals (Adema and Schmidt 2010). Suber (2012) describes this as a deliberate targeting of

the ‘low-hanging fruit,’ before the more complex challenges in other fields and mediums.

Others argue that the movement should broaden its focus, and that “the main challenge in

the transition towards Open Access publishing is to make sure that monographs are not left

behind” (Ferwerda 2010, p.140).

Government support for OA has been growing in recent years, backed by the MP

David Willetts (2012) and further enhanced by the report of The Finch Working Group

(2012). The latter recommended the implementation of policy to encourage a transition to

the ‘gold’ publication route to make all journal article outputs from UK HE institutions

available OA immediately. However, some have argued that the Finch Report also redefined

the term ‘gold’ as an author-pays model, featuring APCs that must be paid to the publisher

before the work is made available OA (Eve 2013). The original definition made no mention of

enforcing a particular business model.

The Finch Report included scholarly monographs within its scope, recognising the

deleterious effect of the ‘monograph crisis’ on HSS, but was implicitly focussed on the

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positive impact that OA could have on business and economic growth; a result of the shifting

paradigm behind the economics of HE research:

Researchers are driven by a desire to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the world we inhabit, and to communicate their findings to others...Governments and other funders are increasingly interested in demonstrating the social and economic returns from their investments in research, and in assessing research performance (RIN 2009, p.4).

STM disciplines, and therefore journal articles, dominate the findings of the Working Group.

Instead of indorsing changes to policy, as it had with articles, the report recommended that

“universities, funders, publishers, and learned societies should continue to work together to

promote further experimentation in open access publishing for scholarly monographs” (Finch

Working Group 2012, p.8).

HEFCE, the body responsible for assessing the outputs of UK HE institutions through

the REF, recently considered a mandate that would require academics to make their

monograph outputs OA compliant for consideration in the post-2014 assessment (HEFCE

2013a). After consultation with HE institutions, HEFCE considered that it was too early to

include monographs in their OA policy, instead recommending that stakeholders continue to

experiment with methods of offering OA monographs. The overarching council for the seven

government research funding bodies, RCUK, also decided against including monographs in

their own mandate for funded research (RCUK 2013d).

The lack of a proven stable and sustainable business model for OA monographs was

the primary reservation of stakeholders consulted by The Finch Working Group, RCUK and

HEFCE when considering policy changes that would include OA monographs. Although

there are complex technical and financial challenges for the creation of such a business

model, any transition will likely depend on the attitude of the academic community to OA

monographs as producers, consumers, and as referees in the peer review process. It is

these attitudes, within the boundaries and institutional context of an HSS faculty, that this

project seeks to examine.

1.4 Queen Mary, University of London

QMUL has accentuated its history as a philanthropic institution founded, in part, to

improve the lives of underprivileged residents in the East End of London through the creation

and dissemination of knowledge. This responsibility to social development has expanded in

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modern times to encompass not only the local community, but the national and international

community as well (QMUL 2013a).

Many of the contributions QMUL makes towards this community arrive through the

research that it conducts. QMUL (2013b) declared its total research income for 2011-12 as

in excess of £90 million. In the last national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008) the

university was ranked 11th overall in the country. Several departments achieved a position in

the top five, including Linguistics, Geography, and Drama, which were ranked first, and

English Language and Literature, which was ranked second. These results indicate a

thriving research body within the HSS faculty.

The faculty receives funding for research from a number of sources: HEFCE allocate

national capital to QMUL, which they then distribute to the faculty; RCUK disperse funding in

the form of individual or team grants, which in HSS come mostly through the Economic and

Social Research Council (ESRC) or the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC); and

capital can be obtained from private charitable bodies such as the Wellcome Trust.

QMUL’s status as a research-intensive institution has allowed it to receive

government funding, allocated by RCUK (2012), to aid the transition to OA. The funding has

been used by the library service to produce studies into the implications of a transition to OA

for the institution and to raise awareness, but has so far maintained the general focus of the

OA movement and RCUK by directing resources towards the publication of OA journal

articles. By conducting research into OA monographs, this study supplements the work

already conducted into OA journals by the transition project. Due to the recommendations of

the Finch Report, and the adoption of these recommendations by organisations such as

RCUK, this project focusses on the ‘gold’ route to publication.

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1.5 Aims and Objectives

The aim of this research project is to investigate the perceptions of the academic

community in the HSS faculty at QMUL regarding the publication and use of OA

monographs.

The following objectives have been designed to focus this aim:

To investigate perceptions of the current status of the monograph within the HSS

faculty at QMUL.

To investigate perceived motivations for publishing monographs within the HSS

faculty at QMUL.

To investigate perceptions regarding the publication of OA scholarly monographs

amongst academic authors, or potential authors, within the HSS faculty at QMUL.

To investigate perceptions held by HSS academics and postgraduate research

students at QMUL towards the use of online scholarly monographs, and the potential

impact of OA on them as consumers.

To investigate perceptions held by HSS academics and postgraduate research

students at QMUL towards the effect that a possible transition to OA scholarly

monograph publishing would have on them as referees, or potential referees, in the

peer review process.

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Chapter Two: Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

The literature review begins with an analysis of recent policy documents relating to funding

body mandates and REF requirements, and the corresponding consultation submissions by

HE institutions. Also included in this section is a brief analysis of the available OA

monograph business models, examining both the academic literature and the information

provided by the publishers themselves. This first section is necessary to provide context for

a review of the academic literature relating to perceptions of the monograph within HSS and

the possible impact of a transition to OA publishing on the academic community as authors,

consumers, and contributors to the peer-review process.

A considerable proportion of the relevant studies into the perception of OA

monographs in the academic community derive from the wealth of work funded by the Open

Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) foundation and its UK subdivision

OAPEN-UK (Adema2010; Snijder 2010; Adema and Rutten 2010; Collins et al. 2011; Adema

2012; Snijder 2013). OAPEN (2013) is an international initiative dedicated to the

development of OA monograph publishing. As well as developing their own publication

model, the foundation provides a service called the Directory of Open Access Books

(DOAB), which aggregates metadata from other publishers of OA monographs to make them

more discoverable online.

2.2 The OA Policy Environment in England

2.2.1 HEFCE and the REF

OA in England is inextricably linked to the governance and funding of the research output of

HE institutions. These institutions are provided with government funding for research by

HEFCE. They are then responsible for managing this funding and allocating it to individual

students or teams. In 2013-14, HEFCE (2013c) plan to release £1,558 million to English HE

institutions for research; QMUL will receive approximately £32.5 million for their allocation.

HEFCE are also responsible for assessing the research output of institutions in

England through the REF and its predecessor, the RAE. A five point scale is used to assess

the originality, significance, and rigour of research. The REF is used as a basis for

distributing the amount of funding that is provided to each institution for research. As a

result, the HEFCE requirements for REF assessment are hugely influential on the research

conducted by academics within HE institutions in England. The next REF takes place in

2014, with the following exercise scheduled approximately six years later.

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In response to the Finch Report and the actions of funding bodies, HEFCE (2013a)

stated that they were considering a requirement that all research outputs that were

submitted to the post-2014 REF exercise be published OA where that could be reasonably

achieved. As part of the consultation process for this proposal, many HE institutions

expressed anxieties about the inclusion of monographs. QMUL (2013c) submitted their own

input for consultation, sharing the concerns of the Finch Working Group regarding the

sustainability and stability of the OA monograph business model.

Further objections were raised from within the HSS faculty at QMUL. The School of

English and Drama expressed their discipline specific concerns, including: that the use of

third party material may be discouraged in view of copyright concerns, that research

conducted in collaboration with the commercial sector may be devalued, that ‘trade’

publications would no longer be REF compliant, and that existing agreements for publication

cannot be made OA compliant retrospectively to meet REF requirements. The latter point,

they stated, was particularly relevant for multiple book deals (Ellis and Harvie 2013).

In July 2013, HEFCE set out their proposals for the post-2014 REF. Under the

proposals, monographs were not to be assessed for OA compliance:

The advice that we received on monographs...emphasised the very early stage of development of open access options for this type of publication... The funding bodies accept that it is currently not reasonable to expect open access options to be widely available for long-form publications, and recognise the differences that exist between these publications and journal articles in terms of business models and publication cycles. Therefore we do not intend for the open access requirements to apply to monographs...for the post-2014 REF (HEFCE 2013b).

2.2.2 RCUK and Public Funding Body Mandates

RCUK acts as the governing council of the English public funding bodies, declaring their

annual financial commitment to research to total approximately £3billion (RCUK 2013c).

Although HSS funding can be obtained from any of the 7 funding bodies if it meets the

relevant conditions, the ESRC, which lists a budget of £203million for 2011/12 (RCUK

2013a), and the AHRC, which has a corresponding budget of £100 million (RCUK 2013b),

are likely to be the primary awarding bodies for the social sciences and the humanities

respectively. These two bodies are the smallest governed by RCUK; by comparison, the

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2013) award approximately £800

million in grants per year.

As a precursor to the HEFCE consultations, RCUK (2013d) introduced a mandate

that research produced through the use of their funding from April of 2013 must be made OA

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compliant. They appeared to have been guided by the recommendations of the Finch

Report, excluding monographs and strongly recommending the ‘gold’ route to ensure

immediate access to research findings.

2.2.3 The Wellcome Trust and Private Funding Body Mandates

Funding in the HSS can also be obtained from private charitable funding bodies. The lack of

state involvement in these bodies allows them to exert more control over the conditions that

they apply to their funding. The Wellcome Trust (2013) extended their OA mandate to

include scholarly monographs published using grants awarded from October 2013 onwards.

This mandate required that the peer reviewed results of funded research be published in

Europe PubMed Central, a free information resource for biomedicine and health. The Trust

only supply funding to HSS academics in very specific fields relating to the exploration of

social, historical and cultural dimensions of scientific knowledge; for instance, those within

the Centre for the History of the Emotions at QMUL (2013e).

2.2.4 Institutional Mandates

Twenty-six UK HE institutions have adopted some form of OA mandate, according to the

Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR 2013). These policies enforce the ‘green’

route, by requiring that research outputs be deposited in the institution’s repository, although

many allow a publisher enforced embargo period before becoming OA compliant. In most

cases, monographs are excluded from these policies as a result of the complications

involved in embargo periods for copyrighted works that maintain a commercial interest to the

publisher. There are no examples of any institutional ‘gold’ mandates in the literature. Suber

(2012) believes that such a mandate in the current environment would limit the academic

freedoms of authors, due to the lack of available OA publishers.

2.2.5 Publishing and Business Models

Whereas the ‘green’ route to OA can work within the existing publishing landscape, policy

makers in the UK have chosen to advocate the ‘gold’ route, which will require a reformed

business model. As can be seen from the recommendations of the policy makers and the

results of their consultation with HE institutions, many stakeholders in the dissemination of

scholarly work believe that the publishing and business models for ‘gold’ OA monographs

have yet to be proven as stable and sustainable.

The issues with the models arise from the difficulty in finding an income stream to

cover production costs. Even with digital dissemination, first copy costs must be covered.

These costs include those associated with editing, typesetting, marketing, and organising

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peer review. “Books cost money; in the case of small print run specialist monographs often

in eye-watering amounts. If such volumes are to be made available through OA some way

must be found to pay for producing them” (Vincent 2013, p.113). In the traditional business

model for monograph publication these costs are met on the user side by readers or their

institutional libraries. In OA monograph publishing these costs must be covered elsewhere.

A review of the literature reveals the lack of an in-depth study of OA monograph

publishing models, although Adema (2010) published a useful examination of a large

selection of models at a shallow level in order to inform more detailed studies at a later date.

This study was conducted by gathering information available online and comparing the

methods of funding, the publishing practices, and the stakeholders. It was discovered that

most models were still at the experimental stage, with almost all relying on some form of

funding from a host organisation or external body to function, making it hard to assess their

stability or sustainability. All of the publishers examined at the time relied on the use of a

hybrid model, where the provision of free access to an online copy is supplemented by the

sale of an enhanced electronic or print version. Although the study was published before the

Finch Report, and can be considered too shallow to provide any comprehensive

understanding of the publishing landscape, it found that the future of OA monograph

publishing was likely to include a pluralistic approach, with a variety of different models.

Milloy (2013) provides a useful summary of the available publication models post-

Finch Report. Many publishers, including existing publishers who have converted to become

compatible with the advocated ‘gold’ route, have introduced the author-pays model

associated with OA journals, where processing charges are used to recoup publishing costs.

These charges are paid either before or after the publishing process, with a version of the

monograph then made available to the reader for free. The format of the free copy varies,

with some publishers only allowing access through their website (Bloomsbury Academic),

some offering only the downloadable PDF file (OAPEN), and some offering access in all

electronic formats, including the ePub format compatible with many eReaders

(PalgraveOpen).

Many publishers envisage the processing charge being met by the funders of the

research (PalgraveOpen 2013; Open Book Publishers 2013). This puts many HSS

disciplines at a disadvantage with such models; in STM subjects the publishing charges are

usually included as part of the budget when applying for a grant from a funding body,

whereas the vast majority of research is in the humanities is not grant-supported but self-

funded (Fitzpatrick 2011). Where there are grants available, they are generally too miniscule

to allow for the inclusion of publishing costs. As a result, the success of the author-pays

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model in STM journals may not replicate easily to HSS monographs. Waivers or charge

reductions for authors who cannot afford the processing charge are used by some OA

journals, such as the Public Library of Science (2013), but whether this will become feasible

with monographs is yet to be seen.

These publishers are able to make use of the hybrid model to receive income from

the sale of the print version or any enhanced electronic versions not made available OA.

Research into the effects of OA on print sales are either limited by the concept of ‘equal’

books, which are in fact books with similar characteristics (Snijder 2010), or by having to

study the effects of introducing an OA version of a book to a market where it has been

available non-OA for some time (Hilton III and Wiley 2007; 2010). As a result, it is difficult to

predict their sustainability at this time.

There are other models that have attempted to eliminate the need for an author-side

processing charge. This can be done through crowdsourcing (Unglue.it 2013); library

partnership subsidies that charge an annual membership fee to libraries to gain access to

enhanced monographs, whilst allowing non-member users to access the basic version for

free (OpenEdition 2013); or through global library consortia that select titles that they wish to

make OA, with an increase in the number libraries in the consortium lowering the cost to

each individual library (Look and Pinter 2010; Pinter 2012; Knowledge Unlatched 2013).

Member libraries in the consortium model also receive discounts on print versions.

As a result of recent policy decisions by RCUK and HEFCE, most HSS academics at

QMUL are under no obligation or serious pressure to publish their monograph outputs OA.

For any of the ‘gold’ OA business models discussed above to prove their sustainability,

academics in HSS will need to perceive a significant benefit to submitting their work with the

publisher. This benefit will need to fulfil their motivations for publishing. In addition, many of

the hybrid models will rely on the academic community continuing to purchase print or

enhanced digital versions monographs despite the availability of a free version. Lastly, they

will rely on expert academics agreeing to take part in the external peer review that they

organise, as without a rigorous and transparent process they will be unable to establish

prestige through the quality of their output.

2.3 Status of the Monograph

The literature contains effective documentation of the perceived importance of the

monograph to the presentation of research conducted in HSS. The most relevant study to

this project, in terms of approach, utilised interviews to explore perceptions on the future of

the monograph amongst academics in the faculty of Arts and Humanities at University

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College London, or UCL (Nicholas et al. 2009). The participants in the study communicated

the intrinsic value of the monograph as a medium through which ideas and intellectual

arguments on a specific subject can be developed in depth. This was also noted by Adema

and Rutten (2010), who used corresponding methods on a larger sample, finding that their

participants appreciated the available space to deliver an extensive and sustained

engagement with their argument.

However, the importance of the monograph is not a homogenous concept across all

fields of HSS. The RIN (2009) conducted a mixed-methods study into the publication habits

of monograph authors, combining bibliometric analysis and a researcher survey with focus

groups and interviews, finding that the journal article has become the primary dissemination

method across all disciplines, being especially dominant in a small number of humanities

disciplines, such as media studies, and a larger number of social science disciplines, such

as economics, psychology, and linguistics.

The bibliometric analysis discovered that between 2003 and 2008 there was a

significant rise in the amount of journal articles as a proportion of all outputs across the

social sciences and humanities, with a corresponding reduction in the proportion of

monographs. Although this might have suggested that the value of the monograph was in

decline, many of the participants in the focus groups and interviews concurred with the

findings of Nicholas et al. (2009) and Adema and Rutten (2010), with the participants from

humanities perceiving the monograph as immensely important to their presentation of

research findings, feeling that the pressures of REF requirements compelled them to publish

articles against their inclinations. As a result, there was a perceived level of resentment

towards these requirements.

The combination of career pressures to publish and the documented crises in

monograph production have caused some academics to worry about its continuing ability to

function as a research output and as a method of assessing the profession (Levine 2007;

Steele 2008; Willinsky 2009). Studies have found that scholars perceive the monograph as

essential for promotion and, increasingly, for gaining a first position. Publication of a

monograph with a large publisher has been associated with prestige, with it being

understood that promotion panels used this prestige as a method of assessing the quality of

the outputs presented to them. Therefore, the effects of the monograph crisis provide a

direct threat to employment prospects and career success for academics (Levine 2007;

Nicholas et al. 2009; Adema and Rutten 2010).

Although career pressures can affect academics at all levels of an HE institution,

primary and secondary research has documented the perception that for young HSS

19

scholars the publication of a monograph is often crucial to their ability to sustain their careers

and improve their chances of acquiring future funding. This leaves them more exposed to

the effects of increased publisher refusals than academics who already hold established

positions within HE institutions (Cronin and La Barre 2004; Levine 2007; Steele 2008; Acord

et al. 2010; Adema and Rutten 2010).

2.4 Motivations for Publishing Monographs

A number of inter-related motives for publishing monographs are presented in the literature.

These include: ensuring maximum dissemination and access to research findings; the

registry of a claim to their research; the bestowing of esteem from their peers; and the gain

of financial and career rewards (RIN 2009; Adema and Rutten 2010; Collins et al. 2011).

During these studies, academics attached the most importance to the former motives of

efficient distribution and wide accessibility to their work, emphasising the importance of

communicating research findings to inform further study. This was felt to be a core function

of the work performed by academia.

Although these stated primary motivations were essentially altruistic, the motivation

of personal reward is presented as significant. However, as Adema and Rutten (2010)

emphasise, there is a distinction between direct monetary reward, such as royalties, and the

rewards associated with increased reputation and prestige. These latter motivations relate to

claims of moral rights, honour, tenure and career advancement. Although an increased

reputation can lead indirectly to monetary reward, in the shape of increased wages or grant

funding, it is the professional recognition that is accentuated. Financial reward was of minor

significance to the participants in many of the studies.

The RIN (2009) study showed how these inter-related motives can lead to conflicts

for academics if they are faced with decisions that force them to choose between their

altruistic aims of achieving the most efficient and widest dissemination of their work, and

their individualistic aims of achieving professional recognition in terms of prestige and

reputation. This conflict is further complicated by the assessment pressures emanating from

their institutions, the REF, and their funding bodies. In the time since the literature reviewed

here took place, it can be assumed that the rapid progression of events surrounding OA

have exacerbated this conflict, especially in the HSS disciplines that had previously received

less recognition from the OA movement.

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2.5 Perceptions of Open Access: Producers of Monographs

Recent decisions that excluded monographs from OA policy are reflective of wider trends in

the movement. Suber (2012) believes that OA advocates have focussed on academic

journals because the publishers involved have never paid scholars for the articles that they

submit. This has freed authors to consent to OA without losing any money. Although most

monograph royalties are relatively meagre, their presence in the business model

complicates a transition to OA.

This trepidation over the loss of royalties may have been overstated; in a small

sample, qualitative study by Collins et al. (2011), it was discovered that publishers regard the

loss of royalties as more of an issue than the authors themselves, which is not surprising

given the evidence in the literature that financial rewards are not a motivation for most

academics. If the academic community believes that OA will fulfil the motivations of

disseminating knowledge and helping to advance the careers of author’s by increasing their

reputation better than traditional publishing routes, then it can be assumed that they will

choose to consent to it.

The contention of OA advocates is that it can greatly improve the visibility of an

author’s work by removing them from the confines of price and permission barriers, allowing

readers to access the work irrespective of the budget of their institution’s library or their own

private finances (Willinsky 2009; Suber 2012). Early studies of OA articles indicated that this

increased visibility led to an increase in impact that could be measured through citations

(Lawrence 2001; Eysenbach 2006). However, this has been challenged by other studies

which conclude that although OA may increase the amount of readers, the impact of the

work is dependent on other determinants, such as quality, importance, relevance and

marketing strategies (Amin et al. 2007; Booth et al. 2008).

There are a lack of reliable quantitative studies for assessing user behaviour in

regards to OA monographs due to the complexity of identifying online users (Snijder 2013)

or the difficulty in comparing OA and non-OA editions of the same book upon release due to

their mutual exclusivity (Snijder 2010 and Collins et al. 2011). However, Snijder’s (2013)

initial research seems to correlate with recent studies into journal articles, finding that

although OA increases the discoverability of monographs through visits and downloads, it

has no effect on citation. Recent projects that seek to increase the visibility of online

monographs, such as the DOAB (Adema 2012) and the Book Citation Index (Thompson-

Reuters 2013), will increase the availability of bibliomeric data and may facilitate further

studies in the future.

21

The study by Collins et al. (2011) discovered a strong perception that selection

committees still believe a print book is more prestigious than one published in electronic

format. This prestige is associated with the publisher, and has been built on a history of high

quality outputs that have contributed to, and impacted upon, the academic work of the HSS

disciplines. In academic monograph publishing, the quality of submissions is controlled by a

peer review process that uses the input of expert academics to assess the significance,

accuracy, validity, and originality of the work. The name of the publishers is used as a

gatekeeping function, providing a shortcut that allows the reader to trust the standards of the

peer review, and therefore the quality of the work.

Advocates in the literature are keen to stress the separation between OA and peer

review: “OA isn’t an attempt to bypass peer review. OA is compatible with every kind of peer-

review, from the most conservative to the most innovative, and all the major public

statements on OA insist on its importance” (Suber 2012, p.20). However, the keenness of

advocates to clarify this implicitly recognises that OA and peer review have become linked

through a perception that the former will undermine the latter, and that this will result in a

subsequent loss of quality: “it is a frequent accusation of detractors that the changes

introduced by Open Access models will lead to a slippage of standards in one way or

another” (Eve 2013, p.70).

Although some advocates of OA espouse a re-evaluation of the traditional peer

review system (Acord and Harley 2011; Fitzpatrick 2011; Eve 2013), these are separate

arguments to the introduction of OA itself. For the time being, the peer review remains, and

unless it is arranged by a funding body it is usually organised by a publisher-appointed

editor. This ties the peer review into the traditional dissemination process for academic work,

presenting issues for any new publishers:

The most pressing practical problem facing us now is the intertwining of publication and peer review. Every scholarly publication needs the imprimatur of peer review to establish its value to the field, its originality, and its argumentative rigor. Electronic texts need to be held to the same strict standards as conventional publications. But as it stands, peer evaluation is almost exclusively tied to existing academic book and journal publishers (Levine 2007, p.102).

OA publishers will need to adopt a rigorous and transparent peer review using expert

academics to increase their prestige and assure authors that their work will be well regarded.

22

The perceptions of academics nationally and across Europe regarding these issues

have been the subject of extensive studies conducted by OAPEN (Adema and Rutten 2010;

Collins et al. 2011; Adema 2012). These studies used mixed methods to analyse

perceptions of OA publishing within a conceptual framework of academic values, namely

quality, accessibility, efficiency and effectiveness, reputation and reward, economic viability,

and trustworthiness. They found that the majority of academics were aware of OA, with the

majority holding positive views on its influence. The participants believed that it will

significantly promote dissemination and availability; that it will promote the efficiency and

effectiveness of the publishing model; and that it will not hinder the quality of content, the

ability to reward the author, or the ability to increase the author’s reputation.

However, they also found that some academics were concerned about their work

being misappropriated, and as a result were fearful of circulating their publications openly.

These concerns were based around a perception that their intellectual property may be

compromised by plagiarism or the violation of the integrity of their texts. They were not

particularly inclined to restrict access to their work (Adema and Rutten 2010; Adema 2012).

In a later document, Collins et al. (2013) state that the perception of increased plagiarism is

misguided, being primarily an issue of academic ethics rather than the law; content can be

plagiarised regardless of how it is licensed and it is only the increased visibility that may

increase the instances of illegal use. The benefit of increased dissemination, they state,

should overcome trepidation over these concerns.

Although these studies illuminate some of the concerns of academics, the

extensiveness of the OAPEN remit removed the samples from the institutional contexts in

which they occur. Perceptions are altered when considering issues through the lens of

conceptual values, instead of the possible consequences to real-life working protocols. This

project supplements the findings of OAPEN by testing the results within the boundaries of

one HSS faculty, approaching the participants through the library of their HE institution.

2.6 Perceptions of Open Access: Consumers of Monographs

The main arguments in favour of OA identify the benefits that it can provide to users of

academic research. The removal of price barriers will enable academics and research

students to access work, even if their institution cannot afford to buy the print or enhanced

digital version. The removal of permission barriers associated with restrictive copyright will

allow users to translate works to a different language, distribute copies to colleagues legally,

copy the text for software data-mining, or reformat it for use with a different technology

without having to seek the author’s consent or risking prosecution. Removing the need to

seek permission for these actions improves the value of the work to the academic

23

community (Suber 2012). However, many of the benefits of digital monographs to HSS

academics at QMUL will depend on their willingness to adapt their research habits to

accommodate a digital format for book-length works.

As discussed earlier, studies employing a quantitative approach to assessing user

behaviour towards OA monographs have struggled to produce reliable data (Snijder 2010;

Collins et al. 2011; Snijder 2013). The commercial success of eBooks is noted; in 2012,

Amazon released a press statement claiming that for every 100 print books sold online,

customers purchased 114 e-books, tipping the balance towards the electronic format for the

first time (Malik 2012). Although these figures were not audited, studies have corroborated a

consumer trend towards electronic books (Daly 2012). However, it has been noted that

eBooks are not as established in the work of the academic community as they are with the

general public. The literature contains a number of detailed studies that consider the

adoption, use, and impact of eBooks on HE academics and students, but most are focussed

on the use of eTextbooks for learning and not the use of eMonographs for research (JISC

2009; Hayward et al. 2011).

Some of the issues that are believed to have prevented adoption are the scarcity of

available academic works, lack of necessary features for supporting scholarly work, issues

relating to the publishing and business model, and concerns over the use of digital rights

management policies that prevent copying data to another document or the printing of pages

(Hayward et al. 2011). Many of the concerns surrounding digital resources for authors as

producers are also concerns for authors as consumers, especially regarding a perceived

lack of quality and the standards of peer-review (Bates 2006). The study conducted by

Nicholas, et al. (2009) at UCL found a level of reluctance amongst the participants with

regard to the use of electronic versions of monographs in their research despite an

acceptance of the benefits that they offer. This was seemingly due to an innate preference

for the print format.

The Joint Information Steering Committee (JISC 2012) felt that there may be deep-

seated human factors surrounding study and research habits which eBooks may struggle to

satisfy, including the ability to make notes, annotations and bookmarks; the ability to read in

the best way to accommodate research, rather than sequentially from cover-to-cover; the

ability to have several books open at one time; or the ability to use an intuitive navigation

system rather than adapting to new software. The UCL study (Nicholas et al. 2009) also

discovered concerns about the stability of the digital medium, as unlike in scientific or

medical research, arts and humanities scholars regularly need access to older texts. This

creates a far longer half-life for academic works. It is possible that the views of participants in

24

the UCL study have changed over the last five years in light of developments in digital

publishing; “only in one case did an interviewee confirm that a full monograph he had written

had appeared in electronic form” (Nicholas et al. 2009, p.75).

There are many examples in the literature of progression towards the use of eBooks

in academia. Studies by the British Academy (2005) and Adema and Rutten (2010) found

that many HSS scholars had adapted to changes in technology within the field of HSS, using

online monographs and other digital resources in both their teaching and research. Swan

(2008) discovered that many of the participants in her study saw eBooks as a possible

solution to the monograph crisis, and welcomed the increased access that they believe it

would bring.

Kasdorf (2003) lists the following advantages of eBooks over print formats: storage

capacity; quick and inexpensive manufacturing process; efficient distribution channels;

intelligent viewing possibilities; intelligent navigation; hypertext; ease of retrieval; ability to

update and improve currency; ability to include multimedia; interactivity; and improved

accessibility for disabled readers. Fitzpatrick (2011) adds to this the ability to link to digital

versions of primary resources, a function that is particularly relevant in fields that contain

curated digital archives.

This growing appreciation of digital resources can also be seen in the expanding

fields of the digital humanities, which attempts to improve upon the analogue processes of

curating and analysing data by harnessing the power of computer technologies (British

Academy 2005; Fitzpatrick 2011; Berry 2012). Some academics believe that the digital

humanities will be crucial for the future relevance of the humanities (Parker 2012).

Importantly, the literature reveals a common perception that academics in HSS

believe that online and print formats possess different strengths and can be utilised for

different purposes, with the eBook often used to complement the print version (JISC 2009;

Adema and Rutten 2010; Bucknell 2010; Collins et al. 2011; Bulger et al. 2012). Academics

are perceived to value the convenience of electronic resources for finding specific

information, but still prefer to read long passages with the print versions.

The transition to digital monographs may be smoother amongst some demographics

than others. Carpenter et al. (2010) found a higher take-up of digital technologies amongst

postgraduate students who were younger or less academically senior when compared to

those who were older or more academically advanced. However, the extensive study

conducted by Acord et al. (2010) would seem to confute this, as they found that despite

25

young scholars technological abilities, they were more likely to conform to disciplinary

conventions and protocols due to their perceived vulnerability in the academic community.

Bulger at al. (2012) conducted six case studies in order to explore differences

between humanities disciplines in the adoption of digital technologies. Although they

discovered that researchers in all the cases were engaging with digital technologies, they

found that the use and perception of digital technologies were significantly affected by the

existing disciplinary research protocols developed through analogue methods. In some

cases this discouraged the adoption of digital technologies. Acord et al. (2010) corroborates

these findings.

The continuation of these protocols in HSS may be at the heart of many negative

perceptions of digital resources. In Fitzpatrick’s (2011) work on the transformation of the

academic publishing industry, she discusses the perception of eBooks in terms of ‘rear-view

mirrorism’; the difficulty that we have defining new technologies except in terms of older

ones. To illustrate this concept, she cites the transformation of the horseless carriage into

the automobile. The eBook, she feels, must move away from its attempts to replicate the

print book to fully take advantage of the benefits that it offers. The adoption of dual-use

researching, utilising print and digital, may represent a shifting paradigm. Whether dual-use

persists into the future can only be speculated upon:

Whilst champions of print argue that [eBooks] are still not as good as ink on paper, it is a huge leap to suggest that they never will be...And while it’s improbable that an electronic device will exactly replicate the characteristics of paper, something will emerge that most people will accept as good enough (Young 2007, p.108).

The movement of established academics away from print may alter disciplinary protocols,

rendering print monographs redundant and reducing the income streams for hybrid OA

monograph publishers.

2.7 Perceptions of Open Access: Referees in the Peer Review Process

Although the literature recognises the significant contribution that HSS academics make as

referees in the peer review process, studies of OA monographs have tended to focus on

their role as producers and consumers. Quantitative studies by Monkman and Ware (2008)

and Hall et al. (2012) sought to address these issues, but their research underrepresented

the HSS disciplines and focussed exclusively on journal submissions. A qualitative study by

the British Academy (2007) analysed the motivations for acting as a referee specifically in

HSS, although they also focussed on journal articles. The primary impetus in this latter study

was found to be the presence of professional values, with other motivations including: the

26

pressures of responsibility arising from their position; to contribute to the development of the

discipline; to stay abreast of developments in the discipline; to learn through engagement

with the works that they review; and the feeling of reciprocity, having benefited from the

reviewing of others for their own work.

The increasing amount of outputs from the academic community have already raised

concerns over the peer review process, with academics in all disciplines reporting that they

are receiving an increasing amount of requests to act as a referee and are often unable to

oblige due to other commitments or because they do not feel that they have an expert

knowledge of the research topic (British Academy 2007; RIN 2008; Adema and Rutten

2010). As a result, they are likely to become more selective about the work that they choose

to review. Established publishers who transfer to OA can rely on their reputation or their

connections to convince expert academics to review their submissions, but new publishers

may struggle to be as persuasive.

2.8 Conclusion

The literature review presents a body of research into OA monograph publication, illustrating

the importance of the monograph to many HSS disciplines and outlining a number relevant

issues related to publication, consumption, and refereeing behaviours. From the publication

perspective, although academic authors are generally shown to be willing to sacrifice

royalties in order to improve discoverability, concerns remain regarding academic impact,

business models, publisher prestige, quality of output, and matters of intellectual property.

From the consumer perspective, the use of digital resources in academia has been shown to

be increasing, especially through the practice of dual-use consumption, but the uptake of

eMonographs has been more protracted, either due to issues surrounding the business and

publication models or deep-seated human factors relating to the format. It’s possible that

publication and consumption behaviours are affected by the age of academics, especially in

terms of professional experience, adherence to existing disciplinary protocols, and level of

technological ability. From the perspective of referees, the rising number of requests to

review monographs has caused academics to become more judicious in accepting

invitations. All of these factors may contribute to the stability and sustainability of an OA

monograph business model. Recent HE policy consultation processes indicate that any

transition to OA monographs will be significantly hindered without such a business model.

This project addresses areas that have not been explored by the literature reviewed.

From the publication perspective, research into OA monographs pre-dates recent events

that have introduced long-form outputs as a serious consideration for future OA policy; this

study was able to examine the impact that these events have had on perceptions. The most

27

relevant studies also looked at the issues in a broad national or European context through a

framework of conceptual values; by focussing the project within the boundaries of a specific

HE institution this case study was able to investigate perceptions in a real-life context. The

recent development of new business models have also provided a number of options for

authors with reservations against processing charges and the pressures that they exert on

the funds of HSS, but many of the publishing platforms willing to experiment with such

models do not hold an established reputation; this project examines the likelihood of

academics at QMUL adapting their publication habits to support these publishers.

From the consumer perspective, the benefits of OA will be reliant on their willingness to

adapt their research habits to the digital long-form. The literature reviewed provides a

number of studies into the effects of digital resources, but they are mostly focussed on the

impact of eTextbooks on learning, rather than eMonographs on research; this study

addresses the latter exclusively.

Lastly, the literature reviewed does not suitably address the perspective of HSS referees

in the monograph peer review process. Their willingness to review for OA publishers without

established reputations may be crucial to the survival of many new business models. There

are no examples in the literature reviewed of studies that seek to explore the willingness of

academics to review the monograph submissions of publishing platforms that lack an

established brand.

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Chapter Three: Methods

3.1 Introduction

The literature review presents a number of studies that have used both quantitative and

qualitative approaches to assess the perceptions of the academic community towards the

scholarly monograph and OA. This research exploits the individual strengths of these studies

by using a mixed-methods approach, as used by Adema and Rutten (2010), to assess a

smaller sample contained within the boundaries of a case study, as demonstrated by Nicolas

et al. (2009). This chapter will present: the rationale behind the choice of the case study

approach; the choice of interviews and a survey as the methods for data collection and

analysis; an assessment of these approaches in terms of their suitability to the project; and

an assessment of their limitations.

3.2 Case Study

3.2.1 Introduction

To investigate the perceptions of the scholarly monograph and the potential impact of OA in

a real-life context, a case study approach was chosen. As Pickard (2013) describes, the

purpose of a case study is to provide a holistic account of the case and in-depth knowledge

of the specific through rich descriptions situated in context. By placing the issues related to

OA monograph publishing in this context, the project presents a more tangible

representation of perceptions than many studies in the literature.

To fully exploit the potential of the case study, a mixed-methods approach was

selected. Case studies recognize that there are many variables operating in a single case,

and more than one tool is usually required for data collection (Cohen 2011). By triangulating

the data obtained using different approaches, the researcher was able to corroborate results

and use the individual strengths of different data collection techniques to cover the

weaknesses in others (Pickard 2013).

3.2.2 Process

The research took the form of a case study set within the boundaries of the HSS faculty at

QMUL. The case was chosen for the following reasons:

The research output of the institution.

The presence of a prominent HSS faculty.

The presence of a dedicated OA transition project within the library service.

Involvement with funding bodies such as RCUK and the Wellcome Trust.

29

Access provided by the Research Librarian and through the researcher’s position at

the institution.

The following methods were used in this case study:

Semi-structured interviews were used to examine the perceptions held by individual

participants in the HSS faculty. Semi-structured interviews were a good way to

investigate perceptions as they allowed the participant to address the topic from any

direction that they wished. Although the literature has provided a number of

perceptions that may have applied to the population of the case, the researcher did

not wish to prescribe those perceptions onto the participants by relying on a limited

option quantitative approach.

A closed-question survey was used to further investigate the perceptions collected

from the first stage of the research, by validating their prevalence on a larger sample

of the faculty. The efficiency of this method allowed this sample to be obtained.

For the purpose of this study, the demarcation of participants into a humanities or social

sciences category was conducted according to the disciplinary nature of the School or

Department that they belong to within the HSS faculty at QMUL:

The humanities were determined to be the School of English and Drama; the School

of History; language and film departments in the School of Language, Linguistics

and Film; and participants who identify their research area as human geography in

the School of Geography.

The social sciences were determined to be the School of Politics and International

Relations; the School of Business and Management; the School of Economics and

Finance; and the Department of Linguistics within the School of Language,

Linguistics and Film.

Although consisting of elements of both, the focus of the School of Law was difficult

to define using the terms humanities and social science, and forms its own category

in this project as a result.

Participants who identified their research area as physical geography were

associated with the natural sciences for the purpose of this study, and were

excluded from comparisons between humanities and social science disciplines.

30

The case study was conducted between July and September 2013, with the interviews

taking place between the 10th of July and the 2nd of August, and the survey open between

the 12th of August and the 6th of September.

3.2.3 Limitations

The nature of the case study prevents the results from becoming generalizable outside of

the boundaries of the case, and is therefore limited in the direct benefit that it can apply to

other institutions. However, the data may be relatable to researchers in similar contexts and

could be used to inform further research, although the choice of methods will hinder an

attempt to exactly replicate the research for validation.

There were also ethical issues that prevented the inclusion of some data from the

interviews. As readers would be aware that the individual worked within the faculty and could

discern their research area, any statements related to the background of the participant or

information on the topic of past publications would allow them to be identified quite easily. To

protect anonymity, some parts of the transcripts were redacted, as was any information

related to the specific location of the interview.

3.3 Interviews

3.3.1 Introduction

Although it would have been possible to inform a quantitative approach using information

from the literature review, this would have prescribed perceptions onto the participants that

had been gathered from outside the boundaries of the case. The purpose of the first stage of

the research was to use semi-structured interview questions to enable the participants to

convey their perceptions to the researcher in the institutional and cultural context of the HSS

faculty. The initial questions that formed the interview schedule were based on the findings

of the literature review, but were designed to be open enough to allow the personal opinions

of the participant to be revealed, as well as their perception of the opinions of colleagues

(Appendix Five). The interview process was iterative, with data from each interview used to

inform successive interviews by identifying emerging themes (Bryman 2008).

3.3.2 Sampling

The sampling for the interview process was non-probabilistic and exploratory, with a

purposive approach. Exploratory sampling is well suited to a small-scale research project, as

it allows the researcher to gather new insights that can inform the project (Denscombe

2010). Purposive sampling allows the researcher to use their judgement as to the typicality

31

or interest to satisfy the specific needs of their project (Robson 2011). To obtain this sample,

an attempt was made to cover a wide range of perceptions from different disciplines within

the case from the perspective of individuals within the faculty who held established academic

positions or who were on the verge of completing their postgraduate study. The participants

chosen for interview consisted of:

Established academics, all of whom held the position of Professor, selected from:

o The School of Geography (Human).

o The School of Law (Centre for Commercial Law Studies – CCLS).

o The School of Politics and International Relations (Politics).

o The School of English and Drama (English).

o The School of Language, Linguistics, and Film (French).

Postgraduate research students were selected from:

o The School of Business and Management (Business), to represent the social

sciences.

o The School of History (History of the Emotions), to represent the humanities.

The School of Economics and Finance was excluded due to the contention in the

literature that “economics, together with psychology, is an outlier within...[HSS] in terms of its

publication profile” (Vincent 2013, p.109). This is corroborated by RIN (2009), who state that

the publication preference for these disciplines is significantly weighted towards journal

articles or other short-forms. Only one faculty member within the School of Economics and

Finance listed a monograph on their publication record, and they did not respond to requests

to interview.

Participants with academic positions were selected for interview on the basis of their

monograph publication record; relevant research interests; or declared interest, positive or

negative, in OA. The latter facet was determined during a consultation with the Research

Librarian at QMUL. As well as improving the discussions during the interview, the researcher

felt that an academic with an interest in OA was more likely to have discussed the issues

with other members of the faculty. The postgraduate research students were selected

according to the relevance of their research interests and the suitability of their theses being

adapted into monograph format.

3.3.3 Process

The interviews were semi-structured, using an interview schedule to address research needs

whilst exploring the participant’s perceptions (Appendix Five). The interview schedule was

initially based on findings from the literature review, but was regularly adapted to

32

accommodate the iterative process. By accommodating the results of previous interviews

several new directions were provided to the research, especially regarding areas that the

literature did not address, such as recent policy decisions and the perspective of agents in

the peer review process. Two trial interviews were conducted using postgraduate research

students from outside the boundaries of the case. The trial allowed the researcher to

estimate the amount of data that could be collected during the time period and helped to

remove questions that may have been considered leading or that were unclear syntactically.

A flexible approach was used during the interviews, with the researcher following up

leads and clearing up inconsistencies in answers. This flexibility was important to ensure the

relevancy and validity of the data (Bryman 2008). A consent form was signed before the

interview began to allow the researcher to use the data gathered (Appendix Three). In order

to increase transparency an information sheet was given to the participants before the

interviews, in both the invitation email and in person, to give them a brief overview of the

project and the manner in which the data would be used (Appendix Four).

The researcher’s position as a member of library staff enabled access to meeting

rooms in the library. However, most interviews took place in the office of the participant for

their convenience, and to ensure a relaxed atmosphere for discussion (Pickard 2013). The

researcher established with the participant that they were not likely to be disturbed in these

locations beforehand. The research students were unable to provide an office; consequently,

one interview was conducted in a meeting room in the library and one took place over the

Skype internet call service.

The duration of the interviews ranged from twenty-seven to forty-one minutes. On

conclusion the participants were given the opportunity to introduce topics that they felt had

not been covered and ask questions of the researcher. They were also asked whether they

would like a copy of the interview transcripts or a copy of the final research to ensure that

they had not been misinterpreted. Two participants requested their transcripts, which were

made available to them the following day to ensure their recollection remained as reliable as

possible. One minor correction was made to improve the context of the data in the transcript

from the participant for Business.

The audio data was collected using a Sony IC Recorder device before being

transferred to the software program Audacity. Audacity allowed the researcher to easily

navigate through the audio and improve the sound quality where necessary. From this

format it was transcribed into Microsoft Word by the researcher. The transcription included a

level of detail that the researcher felt suitable for the projects aims; all dialogue between the

start and the finish of the audio recording was written verbatim, excepting the removal of

33

filler language, unnecessary repetition and hesitations. These were not deemed relevant to

the research, as analysis was conducted on the statements of perception, not the linguistic

context.

3.3.4 Analysis

After transcription, the data was interpreted using inductive thematic coding (Robson 2011).

The font of the transcripts was colour coded to the participant before being printed, after

which relevant quotes were removed and attached to post-it notes that had been also been

colour coded in order to apply to one the objectives. The segments of data, or ‘codes’, that

had emerged from the research were then grouped into ‘themes’ according to the similar

facets that they possessed (Appendix Two and Seven). These themes were used in

conjunction with data drawn from the literature to inform the quantitative approach, allowing

a comparison between the results of other studies and the results of the project during the

discussion of findings.

3.3.5 Limitations

The status of the interviewer as a member of the library staff at QMUL improved access to

the participants, but may have influenced some of the more positive responses due to their

awareness of the work of the OA transition team. Interviews can be disadvantaged by the

‘interviewer effect’, where the use of a researcher as the method of data collection can lead

to unreliable results due to reduced objectivity and consistency (Denscombe 2010).

Concerns of consistency were especially relevant to this project, due to the semi-structured

and iterative nature of the interviews. In addition, time constraints reduced the level of case

exploration that could be achieved by sampling. Ideally, every discipline within each of the

Schools would have been represented by one participant who would be considered an

established academic and one participant who would be considered a young scholar. The

quantitative approach used in the second stage of the research was intended to offset the

limitations of objectivity, consistency and the representativeness of the sample.

3.4 Survey

3.4.1 Introduction

The second stage of the research design sought to validate the qualitative data by assessing

the frequency of perceptions on a larger sample within the case, with the intention of

providing a degree of objectivity and consistency. All participants in the survey were asked

the same questions in the same context. The efficiency of this method allowed a larger

34

sample to be obtained, increasing the likeliness of representing the population of the case,

rather than the views of one individual.

3.4.2 Sampling

The sample targeted a census of all academics and postgraduate research students within

the HSS faculty at QMUL, which was intended to be obtained by contacting the Heads of

Administration in each School to disseminate the survey to relevant participants.

Unfortunately, this sample could not be attained as some Schools did not respond to

requests or refused to disseminate the survey in the required timeframe.

In total, twenty-nine responses were received. The demographics of the sample are

presented in Appendix Eight; participants were spread over six of the schools (Figure 12),

with a relatively even split between the humanities and social sciences, as well as

contributions from the School of Law and physical geography disciplines (Figure 10). The

majority of the participants held academic positions, representing the nature of the faculty

(Figure 11). The distribution of participants according to academic age was also relatively

well balanced (Figure 9).

3.4.3 Process

The survey was conducted using a web form questionnaire designed in Google Forms. Web

form guidelines were followed in an attempt to maximise the response rate (Wroblewski

2008; Gaffney and Jarrett 2009). The questionnaire focussed on the use of Likert-type items

to assess the participant’s attitude towards the use of monographs in their discipline and the

potential impact of OA. As well as being a good approach for measuring perceptions, Likert-

type items have been shown to appeal to respondents (Robson 2011). The items used radio

buttons presented in a repeated pattern grid format to create familiarity and reduce demands

on the participants. The response anchors were based on those presented by Vagias

(2006). Other questions used multiple-choice radio buttons to provide a direct answer, or a

drop-down menu when the possible responses were too numerous to include for reasons of

screen-space. The amount of possible responses per question was limited to ensure that all

of the relevant information remained above the fold of the screen; in one case this required a

question to be split into two constituent parts. The questionnaire is presented in Appendix

Six.

A trial of fifteen participants was conducted before the questionnaire was

disseminated. This trial involved postgraduate research students from outside the

boundaries of the case. As a result of the trial, a question relating to years spent conducting

35

academic research was altered from a closed multiple choice format to an open text format,

as when faced with options offering age brackets some participants in the trial assumed that

the question related to their physical age and answered incorrectly.

3.4.4 Analysis

The data was collected using Google Drive and then exported as a dataset to a Microsoft

Excel spread-sheet to be analysed. During data analysis, the independent variables used

were the Department or School that the participant identified with, their academic age (since

becoming a postgraduate research candidate), their position (postgraduate research

student, research assistant, academic staff), and whether they had published a monograph

or not. The other variables, which consisted of their perception of their preferences and

research habits, were dependent on these answers as the survey looked to explore

differences in perception between the disciplines and between young and established

scholars. For the perception variables, the arithmetic mean was used to calculate a

representative score.

3.4.5 Limitations

The ability to compare data across the HSS faculty and between departments was

dependent on the response rate of the survey. Unfortunately, the census sample could not

be obtained as the School of Language, Linguistics and Film did not respond to requests to

disseminate the survey, and it must be assumed that members of these departments were

not contacted. The participant from the Department of French from the interview process

agreed to forward the survey to colleagues to ensure that there was some representation.

The School of Economics and Finance also failed to respond, and are not represented in the

survey results. The School of English and Drama declined to send out the survey during the

timescale for the project, as they felt it would be an interruption to the research of

academics. The summer is the period of the academic year when many scholars are

focussed on their research before their teaching commitments resume. This may also have

affected the response rate from the schools that did disseminate the survey, with only

twenty-nine responses recorded.

Due to space constraints for the survey, a number of topics discussed during the first

stage of the research could not be included, especially those related to the effect of OA on

the academic publishing industry and issues regarding collaboration. Also, limitations related

to objectivity from the qualitative approach could not be completely offset by the survey, due

to the need to associate the research with the OA transition team from QMUL in the

invitation emails to provide access to faculty members.

36

3.5 Conclusion

The qualitative approach was successful in generating a body of rich data that could be

coded into themes. These themes were then used to inform a survey, which produced data

to be triangulated with the information gathered from interviews and the literature review to

corroborate the perceptions of the participants, reducing the limitations of objectivity and

consistency that are associated with qualitative research. The findings indicate that the

mixed-method approach was the most appropriate for this case study, with the quantitative

data showing the prevalence of perceptions and the qualitative data and the findings of the

literature review providing a context for why people may hold these perceptions. However, a

more flexible timescale would have improved the results by allowing further interviews from

participants with different perspectives and increasing the response rate of the survey.

37

Chapter Four: Results

4.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the findings of the interviews and the survey discussed in Chapter

Three. The interviews produced a wealth of useful data, and unfortunately there was

insufficient space to represent many topics, especially those related to the current academic

publishing industry, the wider OA movement, and collaboration in HSS. The data was

condensed to provide an illustration of the most relevant themes to the objectives

determined in Chapter One, and the following sections are set out accordingly. Quotes are

emphasised in bold text, with the discipline of the participant given in parentheses.

The responses from the survey are used to support this data, either by corroborating

the perceptions expressed or contesting them. The qualitative data is also used to provide

context for the survey results. The quantitative data is presented in graphical form using bar

charts, with either the likert-type scale or the number of responses on the horizontal axis and

the variables on the vertical axis. Where social science and humanities categories are

compared, the distinction has been made according to the criteria presented in Chapter

Three.

Although the interviews began with a definition of key terms, there was some debate

surrounding the distinction of the monograph from trade books, an issue foreshadowed in

the definitions section of Chapter One. This was usually resolved after further discussion on

how the term monograph applied to the objectives of the project.

4.2 Status of the Monograph

The survey data revealed that both monographs and journal articles were perceived as

significant to the dissemination of research findings by all of the participants, with the wide

majority viewing them as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ (Figures 1 and 2).

38

Figure 1

Figure 2

1 2 3 4 5

Law

Languages and Film

Linguistics

Business & Management

Geog (human)

History

Politics & IR

Perceived Importance of Monographs

1 2 3 4 5

Law

Languages and Film

Linguistics

Business & Management

Geog (human)

History

Politics & IR

Perceived Importance of Journal Articles

Slight

Importance Neutral Important Very

Important

Not

Important

Slight

Importance Neutral Important Very

Important

Not

Important

39

During the interviews many participants felt that the monograph provided opportunities for

presenting research findings that articles could not offer. The participant for French

described the monograph as “the international gold standard” (French), stating that “it’s

difficult to envisage academics pursuing meaningful careers without monograph

publication” (French).

The Geography participant felt that the monograph had in the past been the “mark

of people’s intellectual prestige” (Geography), but had suffered from transference to

journal articles over time. They added that this trend had begun to reverse in recent years,

and speculated that the original shift may have been due to the RAE’s lack of recognition for

the work involved in publishing work in the monograph format: “you needed four outputs,

and people thought...‘if I spend time on a monograph, I won’t have time for the

others’” (Geography). The participant from English felt that the successor to the RAE, the

REF, would continue to enforce this partiality, stating that “the whole measuring system is

tipped against monographs. Because ... there’s this daft thing about the number of

items...I mean the notion that a three-hundred-thousand word... book is worth two

articles is absolutely ludicrous” (English). Neither participant was sure how the REF

would affect publication preferences in the future.

The interview participants from the social science disciplines of Politics and Business

recognised the importance of the monograph, but felt that they might not be as valued in

their own disciplines as in the humanities: “it’s still seen as something worth doing, it’s

still seen as...the forum for any...big study. Having said that...I think that’s less true

probably in political science and international relations than it is in an arts discipline

like history” (Politics). The Business interview participant saw the monograph as very

important, but acknowledged that this may be due to the interdisciplinary nature of their

research topic. The survey showed that respondents from the School of Business and

Management and the Department of Linguistics held journal articles with marginally more

regard, although those from the School of Politics and International Relations perceived

them as possessing equal importance (Figures 1 and 2).

For the Law participant, the importance of the monograph in their discipline

depended on how specialised the individual’s research area was. This was significant to

them as a member of CCLS, which specialises in commercial law practices, rather than the

Department of Law (DofL), which covers the full spectrum of legal studies. They felt that the

research areas covered by the DofL were more likely to be accepted for publication in

journals due to their broadness of scope, whereas many of the subjects covered by

researchers in CCLS “wouldn’t get into a general humanities/social science/law

40

journal... so the only way you can look at impact...it’s the monograph, and the

textbook” (Law).

Across all of the disciplines, it was recognised that the main reason for the

monograph’s importance was the freedom of space it allowed an author to address their

argument and fully explore a thesis, allowing, a “sustained engagement with a big topic,

a broad topic, in intellectually satisfying ways” (French). The Geography participant felt

that a perceived frustration with the limits of article publication may have been the reason

that many people in their discipline who had moved towards article publication at the turn of

the century had returned to the long-form in recent years.

The participants for History and Geography shared a perception that the monograph

had less rules for format and structure and allowed the author greater freedom to “create a

different, broader sort of narrative, and the one that you want” (History). When

contemplating the future publication of their PhD thesis, the History participant felt that the

monograph would allow them “to be a bit more explicit about why I’m doing what I’m

doing” (History), implying that it would enable them to reveal their ontology, epistemology

and wider research goals in more detail.

4.3 Motives for Monograph Publication

The most important motivation for the survey participants was shown to be the dissemination

of knowledge (Figure 3). This was also the implied overarching motivation for most of the

participants at the interview stage, who discussed their wish to contribute to the fund of

human knowledge by pursuing original research topics to communicate to their peers:

I would have thought that most people that go into academic research do so because they have a genuine interest in the research and in exchange of information and knowledge, and so on. So I would have thought that that was the primary motivation (History).

41

Figure 3

The survey also reveals that the interlinked motives of career advancement and

increased reputation are also highly valued. Many of the participants during interview

believed that the importance of the monograph as a statement of an individual’s intellectual

ability made it an essential achievement for career advancement:

For individual academics, looking at promotion, mobility from one university to another, if that’s what they’re looking for,... monographs would be seen as indispensable...It would be to secure greater esteem for themselves then they could solely by publishing articles (French).

It was implied by some of the established academics during interview that their

priorities may have changed once they had attained an established position, with their

motivations shifting away from the practical aspects of career advancement to the more

social goals of increasing their reputation and standing amongst their peers. However, the

findings of the survey show a slight decline in the importance of both career advancement

and increased reputation as a motivation for publishing as academic age increases, with the

1 2 3 4 5

[Financial Reward]

[Impact Agenda (Policy Makers/Public Opinion)]

[Meeting REF Requirements]

[Leaving a Legacy]

[Personal Pride in Publishing a Book]

[Influence the Direction of your Discipline]

[Career Advancement]

[Increased Reputation]

[Dissemination of Knowledge]

Perceived Motives for Publishing Monographs

Not a

Motive

Slight

Importance

Very

Important Neutral Important

42

importance of meeting REF requirements increasing slightly (Appendix Nine: Figures 14, 15,

16).

The Geography participant believed that the motives for publishing were also

influenced by the political environment and their personal circumstances. Sometimes they

felt that they held an ambition to “influence policy and make change in the real world”

(Geography), but when they felt that their ability to do so was being undermined by the

reluctance of policy makers to consult expert opinion they tended to react by focussing on

“trying to influence debates in [their] field” (Geography). The survey results indicated

that these were secondary motivations, with the direction of the participant’s discipline

holding more significance to respondents than the wider impact agenda (Figure 3).

The participant from Politics believed that the motive of communicating research

findings extended through the generations to those in the future who may be able to build

upon it to create a cumulative impact, and that this might conceal a more human desire to

leave a lasting legacy: “maybe there’s an extent to which you hope that you write

something that...is of lasting value, so that long after you’ve left that particular topic,

or you’ve even shuffled off this mortal coil...you might have left something of relative

permanence” (Politics). This was seen as an important secondary motivation by the survey

participants (Figure 3). A pride in seeing a publication available commercially was expressed

by some of the other participants: “The idea of actually having your book published in

some form is generally quite appealing...I don’t think you can really get away from

that” (History). The survey participants corroborated this data, identifying the personal

esteem gained from publishing a book as a secondary motive for publishing (Figure 3).

Importantly, the survey data revealed that financial reward was significantly less of a

factor when considering the publication of a monograph than the other offered motivations

(Figure 3). This corroborated the perceptions expressed by most of the interview

participants, with the majority sharing the belief that “royalties are pretty low down the

pecking order in terms of criteria and motivation... the motivations for publishing are

not primarily, or not directly,...financial” (French). It was commonly believed that as an

academic, “you’re never going to make large amounts of money” (Politics) from

publishing.

However, although the participants for Business and English did not explicitly

recognise direct financial reward as a motive for publishing monographs, they did believe

that they were important as a compensation for their work, which would indicate that the

award of royalties may factor into the decision to publish at some point.

43

4.4 Perception of Open Access: Producers of Monographs

A lack of awareness was a common perception of many interview participants regarding OA

monograph publishing. When discussing OA monographs, participants often diverged into

the topic of journals, which may be understandable considering the manner in which that

form has dominated the literature and advocacy of OA. It should also be considered that the

survey findings show the use of eJournals in research and publication habits to be more

common than that of eMonographs, and participants could be expected to relate the

discussion to their experiences:

I don’t think anyone thinks about it, I don’t think people think that you can get books on the web, I think we’re used to being able to access articles, because we have journal subscriptions through the library, and of course there are some eBooks that come through the library, but only because the library has purchased them, so I don’t think anyone even thinks about Open Access publishing when it comes to monographs (Politics).

This lack of awareness may be reflected in the survey results, with few extreme opinions of

‘significantly hinder’ or ‘significantly promote’ being recorded. Some participants chose to

omit questions related to OA, as they were directed to if they were unsure how to answer.

Many of the participants held a positive perception of OA in general, feeling that by

reducing barriers to access, national and global research would benefit from the

contributions that had previously been excluded by price barriers:

It will broaden the research community...people in some institutions in this country, and certainly in lots of other countries have enormous difficulty accessing work, and so Open Access has got to be a good thing...for those reasons (Geography).

However, although the participants for Geography and Law were generally in favour of the

goals of OA monograph publishing, they were concerned that these goals had been

compromised by the ‘gold’ route, which they felt has allowed OA to be misappropriated by

traditional publishers to maintain their profits through high APCs:

I feel very strongly that all academic work should be royalty free...and Open Access in principle... My problem with the Open Access agreements is that they are not free... The current system is just another way in which publishers can earn money (Geography).

44

The participant for English had a significantly negative overall perception of OA,

based around a number of adverse effects that they felt it would have on academia and their

own position as an author. Their primary concerns related to the business model for both

new OA publishers and existing publishers who decided to adopt OA: “how are they

financing their activities since they collect no money?” (English). This concern is

corroborated by the survey results, which show that the overall perception of the

respondents considered that OA would have the effect of hindering the potential of

publishers to provide a sustainable business model (Figure 4).

The participant for French felt that a conflict may arise between the increased

efficiency that they felt OA publishers may be able to provide and their ability to negotiate

copyright permissions and accommodate them with a less restrictive license. This

corroborated the data from the survey, where the ability of OA to slightly promote the ability

to increase the speed of the publication process was counterbalanced by a perception that it

may slightly hinder the ability to provide third party content (Figure 4).

On a wider level, the participant for English believed that OA would have a

deleterious effect on the academic monograph publishing industry, causing financial loss to

1 2 3 4 5

[Sustainability of Business Model]

[Quality of Presentation (copy-editing, etc.)]

[Financially Rewarding Author]

[Academic Quality (peer-review)]

[Preventing Plagiarism of Work]

[Ability to Include Third Party Content]

[Ability to Preserve Work for Future Generations]

[Enhancing the Career of the Author]

[Diversity of Research Areas Covered]

[Increasing the Reputation of the Author]

[Speed of the Publication Process]

[Readers Discovering Work]

[Ability to provide Flexibility of Digital Format]

Perceived Effects of Open Access on Monograph Publishing

Significantly

Hinder

Hinder

Slightly

No

Effect

Promote

Slightly Significantly

Promote

Figure 4

45

the national economy and a negative impact on the dissemination of knowledge by UK

institutions:

Nobody seems to have given any thought to the fact that the publishing industry in this country is extremely important, the academic publishing industry in this country is much more important than American presses. I mean...Cambridge [and] Oxford...are world-wide publishers, and these are petty, provincial arguments it seems to me (English).

These arguments echoed those raised by the School of English and Drama in relation to the

HEFCE consultation for considering OA monograph requirements in the post-2014 REF

(Ellis and Harvie 2013). Although the participant for Business shared the perception of a

healthy academic publishing industry, citing the regularity of output, the other participants

disagreed, feeling that the reduced output of monographs had impacted on their ability to

publish a monograph, especially if the research topic did not translate to high sales by

appealing to a large market:

The publishers make profit, and they restrict the flow of ideas, because certainly in my discipline it’s very hard to get monographs published which don’t relate to certain markets. So if you want to publish work on the UK... it’s very difficult. If you want to publish a work about the US... it’s much easier because there’s a bigger market (Geography).

Some participants felt that an OA publisher who had not yet developed an

established reputation would be ignored by traditional marketing methods due to a lack of

brand awareness: “The other thing is advertising...Would an Open Access scholarly

monograph published by some organisation nobody had ever heard of ever get

reviewed?”(English). The participant for Business, who has experience of working for

academic publishers, also felt that those who sought to provide OA would be unable meet

the costs required to create awareness of the work, hindering its discoverability: “If you

have to go to Open Access, where it’s free...I don’t know how that would work.

Because who’s going to...pick up the costs, who’s going to do the marketing?”

(Business). However, the survey results showed that the majority of participants were either

unconcerned with the effects of OA on marketing or believed that it would be outweighed by

other factors that increase the discoverability (Figure 4).

46

The participant for English displayed a level of concern over the ability of OA to

protect their intellectual property rights and their autonomy as an author. They felt very

strongly that copyright should be transferred to the publisher to protect their autonomy as an

author: “My publishers would never agree to [Creative Commons licensing]... They’re

defending my rights...Why should I give my property away? ... Intellectual property is

property "(English). The other participants diverged from this view, to varying degrees. The

participants for Politics, Geography, History, and French were opposed to restrictive

copyright, and felt that its function should be to protect the author from plagiarism rather than

to restrict access in order to profit financially: “I think copyright should be about

attributing the work to the person who created it...That’s your focus, rather than

anything to do with money really” (History). This tended to correspond to the participant’s

attitude to royalties, with those who valued direct financial reward expressing an inclination

towards restrictive copyright: “If you’re not bothered about the royalties, then why are

you going to be bothered about the copyright?” (Politics).

The participant for Business felt that the copyright should not be relinquished to the

publisher, as this is not the practice in the literary and artistic community: “For

monographs...there’s no reason why an author shouldn’t keep their copyright,

because it’s no different to a trade book, and the author there keeps their copyright,

so an academic should” (Business). However, they would be reluctant to introduce CC

licenses to their work due to concerns over their moral rights being compromised:

What you don’t want to do, if you go down these routes of fluid licensing, effectively, that the integrity of your work gets changed, or it could be compromised...Because when you write something it becomes your baby, doesn’t it? It becomes really personal to you (Business).

The survey results indicate that although respondents generally felt that OA would have little

to no effect on plagiarism, there was a higher tendency towards perceiving a propensity to

hinder rather than to promote the ability to protect moral rights (Figure 4).

A similar attitude was expressed towards academic quality of content, with the survey

data indicating that perceptions fell in between slightly hindering and having no effect (Figure

4). Concerns on this issue were shared by the interview participants for Politics and French,

who questioned how OA publishers would maintain the rigour and transparency of peer

review, and thus enhance the career and reputation of the author:

47

The question that would always arise in that circumstance, rather like the early days of online dissemination of material, would be where’s the quality control? How can I guarantee there’s appropriate esteem for my work being published this way? And who acts as peer-reviewers for this kind of thing? (French)

Similarly, many of the participants felt that the early days of online dissemination

continue to haunt digital monographs. The participants for Geography and Politics believed

that this negative perception arose from the suspicions people held of the peer review

practices of less prestigious online journals and other digital forms:

I guess most people operate in their head...with a disjunction between on the one hand, a quality control process that applies to real books, and the complete lack of that process when it comes to anything online...I think there’s still this confusion, understandable or otherwise, between...Open Access and the blogosphere (Politics).

The participant for Politics believed that the scarcity of eMonographs would be a

significant concern for OA, as authors may not consider digital publication for their

monographs until they became a regular feature of research behaviour: “I think they’re so

rare that people don’t really think about them” (Politics). However, the general feeling

amongst the other participants was that over time the prejudices towards digital monographs

had receded as they had become more available and more used in the profession:

I think that attitudes there have shifted, broadly speaking, over the last decade or fifteen years, that where there has been a suspicion of that format, I think people have come around to the realisation, largely, that if the quality control is there then a digital monograph is as worthwhile an output (French).

However, many participants stated that this acceptance would be dependent on the

presence of a rigorous and transparent peer review. There was a consensus, whether the

participant felt that way personally or not, that the perception of many in the faculty

associated the quality of peer review with the brand of the publisher, and that this brand was

the principal method for communicating quality to the reader:

48

When you’ve got fiction it’s all about the author, whereas with academic publishing the brand is the publisher. And so, that is what the publisher adds when it comes to academic publishing, they bring their name to it, which shows that they are reputable (Business).

Branding was associated with the notion of the academic publishing hierarchy, which

some of the participants felt enforced a degree of path dependency on the publishing and

consumption behaviours of the academic community:

“There’s a kind of hierarchy, of what’s good and what’s bad, or what’s good and what’s less good, and that applies to publishers when it comes to monographs...Open Access monographs would interfere with that hierarchy, make it more difficult to judge a book by its cover,...by getting rid of the...gatekeeping function that publishers play. I think...it would be confusing for people (Politics).

The participant for Geography recognised that this created a problem for publishers trying to

establish a reputation at the bottom of the hierarchy:

I think the difficulty has been for people setting up new titles, I think where an established title goes electronic people trust it, but where something comes in as electronic straight away I think they’re a bit more wary (Geography).

The only participant to currently fall under an OA mandate, the participant for History,

felt strongly in favour of OA monograph publishing, and stated that they would avoid

publishing a monograph with a publisher who did not provide it. However, they recognised

that the Wellcome trust were unique in terms of the funding that they offer to support

publication, and felt that a mandate from a body that could not provide this funding may

struggle with processing charges:

If you’re funded by the AHRC or another public body like that, it is a bigger issue...To what extent can [APCs] always be defended? Because can the money be used better? And I think when it’s a private charity that has apparently unlimited funds, like the Wellcome trust, it’s not really an issue, but it really depends on where the money comes from (History).

49

None of the participants were completely in favour of mandates, as even those who felt that

they may be beneficial voiced concerns over their implementation. In many cases, these

concerns were associated with uncertainty over the OA monograph business model.

4.5 Perception of Open Access: Consumers of Monographs

The survey data shows that although online journal articles were seen to be used regularly

during research in the social sciences and the humanities, perceived as being used ‘always’

in the former and approaching always in the latter, the regularity of use for digital monograph

was far lower, perceived as being used ‘sometimes’ (Figure 5).

This supports the findings from the interviews, where the use of digital journal articles were

often referred to as crucial whereas digital monographs were commonly referred to as

complementary: “I read almost all my journal work online, everything really, and I

rarely print it anymore. But I don’t read many [eBooks]... I read eBooks, you know

novels, but not research” (Geography).The interview participant for History felt that there

was a spilt in academia between those who prefer to read online and those who prefer to

read in print: “I don’t buy electronic books because...I prefer reading things in book

form, and I know that a lot of people in academia feel that way. So there is a sort of

resistance...Like I said before there’s a significant split” (History).

Figure 5

1 2 3 4 5

[Other Digital Resources]

[Print Monographs/Edited Collections]

[Print Journal Articles]

[Digital Monographs/Edited Collections]

[Digital Journal Articles]

Perceived Regularity of Use for Dissemination Formats in Research

Social Sciences

Humanities

Law

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Always

50

The participant for Business and Management, who would be considered the

youngest academically, seemed to be the greatest user of eBooks for research, stating that

they preferred to read on screen and that it was only a lack of availability that prevented

them abandoning printed documents altogether: “I’m used to reading online...I tend to do

the print versions when I can’t find an eBook of something that I want” (Business).

The participants for History and Politics thought that, at present, eBooks were more

commonly used by undergraduate students than postgraduate research students or

academics: “I think they probably impact more on students...I doubt that many

academics read books online. I think most academics read them physically” (Politics).

The survey results only display a negligible trend towards the use of digital monographs by

participants with less academic experience in years, indicating that the use of eMonographs

is not affected by experience in the faculty (Appendix Nine: Figure 13).

Most of the participants recognised that there were some advantages to the use of

eBooks as resources, especially in terms of searching for information, which was the most

common benefit offered during interviews, followed by portability and reduced storage

space. Many participants identified that the advantage of being able to search for keywords

in the text encouraged a dual-use for resources, where the print version would be used for

reading the book in its entirety or for long passages, and the online version used to locate

specific information:

If I thought it was a book I wanted to read as a whole, I would rather have the book. If it was something I thought I needed...a little bit from, and I needed to look for that little bit quickly, I would rather have the eBook because it’s searchable...Searchability is a huge advantage...Portability as well, given I travel around (Politics).

This is corroborated by the findings of the survey, which show that given a hypothetical

situation relating to a hybrid OA publishing model, the majority of participants would employ

dual-use to exploit the advantages that they saw in both forms (Figure 6). The participant for

Geography, however, felt that locating a passage of writing in a book was more convenient

with the print format than the digital, as turning physical pages was easier than scrolling on

the screen: “It’s much easier to...flip through and find the passage I’m after than it is

looking on the screen and scrolling around and trying to find it” (Geography).

The main issue regarding digital monographs for many of the participants was that

works in their discipline were not available digitally. This was exacerbated by licensing

issues that prevent the printing of pages or downloading of the monograph when they are

51

available: “I think in most circumstances I would be happy to use the free online

version. That might reflect the small print in the individual case, whether this was free

to look at online, but not perhaps to download” (French). The survey results show that

such digital rights management issues would also be a concern for OA models that seek to

restrict access to data by restricting non-premium consumers to the material onscreen

through their website, with many participants declaring that they would only use a free online

monograph if the license allowed them to download it as a file or print the pages that they

require (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Although most of the participants expressed that they were generally happy with the

format of eBooks for reading, a number of concerns were raised about their ability to be

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

I would buy the print version from a bookshop

I would read the whole book online

I would buy the print version from an online retailer

It depends on other factors

I would use the online version, but only if I couldprint the pages that I required

I would use the online version, but only if I coulddownload it and print the pages that I required

I would buy the print version to read in its entirety,but use the online version to find smaller pieces of

information, such as quotes

Number of Responses

Perceived Preference: Open Access and Traditional Print Monographs

I would buy the print version to read in its entirety but use the online version to find smaller pieces of

information, such as quotes

I would use the online version, but only if I could download it and print the pages that I required

I would use the online version, but only if I could print the pages that I required

It depends on other factors

I would buy the print version from an online retailer

I would read the whole book online

I would buy the print version from a bookshop

52

used for research. The most common issue was the lack of provision, or substandard

provision, of an ability to notate the content:

The only thing I don’t like about eJournal reading, which will be the same for an eBook, is the difficulty of writing notes on the page, and I’ve tried all of those iAnnotate things...and they’re really difficult to use...They’re clunky, they’re really clunky (Geography).

Another common issue with the format was the physical effects from screen reading

over extended periods of time, with many of the participants feeling that the profession

already involves too much work with computers and that a switch to digital monographs

would only intensify this: “We do an awful lot onscreen already and sometimes you

think it’s going to be too much time in front of a screen” (Politics). There was also a

feeling amongst some of the participants that was hard to describe accurately, but which

related to a romantic perception of the book as an object: “God, it sounds really

pretentious and horrible in a way, doesn’t it? But you know when you just really like

books?” (History). This was also related to a desire to own physical objects instead of

digital data:

I think for book length pieces I probably would still rather have a paper copy, especially if I’d bought it,...I want the thing... there’s a distinction between stuff I’m buying and stuff I’m borrowing from a library... if it was free to use, I would be very happy with an eBook. But if I’m buying it for my own collection, I’ll buy the paper copy (Geography).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the participants felt that a transition to OA publishing

had the potential to benefit them as consumers of monographs by alleviating many issues

regarding access and availability: “As a consumer I feel fine about that, because who

wouldn’t want something for free?...There’s some times when you think that, ‘oh, I

just wish that it was there so I could just see it” (Business). The only concerns for them

as consumers related to the ability of OA to function as a business and publication model.

Some participants expressed anxiety over digital material being available to them into the

future due to the longer half-life of resources in HSS, although the survey data shows that

most respondents didn’t feel OA would affect this (Figure 4).

4.6 Perception of Open Access: Referees in the Peer Review Process

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All of the participants during the interviews felt that acting as a referee was an implicit

obligation: “it seems to me consistent with the work of being an academic, particularly

if you’re a professor, certain things are expected of you, and that seems to be one of

them” (English). However, despite the poor amounts on offer (the participant for Politics

pointed out that compensation often amounted to less than the minimum wage), the survey

does show that financial reward was of slight importance to those surveyed, and there were

concerns during the interviews that OA publishers would be unable to compensate reviewers

financially:

Commercial publishers are able to at least provide modest compensations for people who peer-review, whether that might be a cheque to a certain amount or books from their list to a certain value. I can imagine that any kind of systematic Open Access route might very well cut off the ability of publishers of different kinds to compensate peer-reviewers for that kind of work (French).

However, as with the motivations for publishing, most participants recognised that it was the

contribution to the discipline that compelled them to act as a reviewer, as well as their

individual ambitions to develop within their role:

There’s very rarely any financial incentive to do that, it’s to do with career development, and the weighting of factors there can be different to individuals, but also to do with supporting the discipline as a whole, that this is something that we fundamentally believe in, if we didn’t we wouldn’t be doing it ourselves (French).

This was corroborated by the survey results, where respondents prioritised their professional

responsibilities and a wish to sustain their discipline over other motivations (Figure 7).

54

Figure 7

Some participants felt that a move to OA monograph publishing would have no effect

on peer review, recognising that the dissemination method and the method of quality control

were separate processes. Other participants disagreed, feeling that the ability to persuade

experts to review may be hindered by the lack of an established brand to support their

claims to prestige, as well as their inability to financially compensate referees. There was a

common perception during interviews that a transparent and strong peer-review process

would be crucial for the establishment of any OA publisher to counter the negative

perception that some may have about the standard of the work: “I think the peer review

process will become more important in order to establish Open Access as a bona fide

method of publishing” (Business). The interpretation of the contribution made by

publishers to this function differed amongst the interview participants, with some feeling that

their contribution had been overstated, especially during the evidence given for the Finch

Report, and some feeling that they perform a critical and undervalued supporting role:

I know it’s that report, where the publishers said ‘there’s a lot of money...about the poor peer-review’... Finch Report... When I read it, I was just going ballistic, because what money do they use for the peer-review? I mean, I’m sorry (Law).

In terms of monographs, then the contribution of publishers would...I’d see it as major, but not necessarily directly perceptible to individual academics...If a publication series has an editorial board that makes academic judgements...these things are ultimately supported by the publisher (French).

1 2 3 4 5

[Financial Reward (including provision of books,…

[Career Progression or Enhanced Reputation]

[Supporting Discipline]

[Sense of Duty or Responsibility as an Academic]

Perceived Motivations for Agreeing to Review a Monograph

Not a

Motive

Slight

Importance

Neutral Important Very

Important

55

All of the participants agreed that the publishers benefit from the time of academics and their

sense of professional responsibility, supported by the salaries paid by their HE institution.

The concept of the academic publishing hierarchy was introduced again during

discussions on OA and the peer-review, with some participants feeling that the main

contribution of the publishers was the provision of a brand that authors, readers, and

members of promotion and appointment panels could use to identify quality and

trustworthiness: “They organise it...They’ve got the brands. They’re brokers and brand

merchants really” (Politics).

The survey results show that the majority of respondents would factor the reputation

of the publisher into their decision on whether to review or not, with a considerable number

stating that they would not review a submission from a publisher who did not hold a certain

level of prestige (Figure 8).

Figure 8

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

No - I would agree to review it anyway

No - It would depend on other factors

Yes - I would only agree to review a monographfrom a publisher with an established reputation

Yes - It would be a consideration, with other factors

Number of Responses

Perceived Effect of Publisher Reputation on the Decision to Review a Monograph

56

Chapter Five: Discussion of Results

5.1 Introduction

This chapter synthesises the findings of the literature review in Chapter Two with the results

of the research, as presented in Chapter Four. The discussions are structured according to

the objectives of the research, although the final three objectives have been placed in a

section together to better illustrate the relationship between the different perspectives that a

member of the HSS faculty may hold.

5.2 Status of the Monograph

The ability to consider the importance of the monograph in the HSS faculty is influenced by

the meaning of the term ‘importance’ to each individual. The literature review recognises that

the journal article is the primary dissemination method across all academic disciplines in

terms of output (RIN 2009), but the importance of the dissemination method is strongly

dependant on the nature of the research that has been conducted. Many of the participants

in the interview process expressed their appreciation of the freedom that the monograph

allows, in terms of space to engage a research topic, to control the narrative, and to develop

a less formulaic prose style. This supports the findings of many studies into the status of the

monograph in HSS, including Nicholas et al. (2009) and Adema and Rutten (2010). Although

the majority of the work produced by the faculty may be considered appropriate for the

constricted article form, many of their findings will require the reduced restrictions on

expression that a monograph allows. The results from this project support this, with all

disciplines displaying a perception of the monograph as ‘important’ or ‘very important’

(Figure 1), even in subjects where the journal article is shown in the literature to be suitable

for the vast majority of research outputs, such as business and linguistics (RIN 2009).

The results from the interviews show that in some disciplines monographs are

regarded as essential for job security and the ability to maintain forward momentum in the

pursuit of an academic career. This is corroborated by the survey results, which show the

importance of career advancement as a motivation for publishing a monograph (Figure 3).

This is indicative of the pressure on scholars, especially young scholars, to publish a

monograph in order to sustain their careers, as many other studies have found (Cronin and

La Barre 2004; Levine 2007; Steele 2008; Acord et al. 2010; Adema and Rutten 2010).

Although the results of the survey show that career advancement and increased reputation

were perceived as important for the majority of respondents, despite their academic age,

they also reveal that the level of perceived importance was higher amongst those with less

experience (Appendix Nine: Figures 14 and 15). This would seem to indicate that a

57

protraction of the ‘monograph crisis’, documented by Steele (2008) and Willinsky (2009), will

continue to impact on the ability of the HSS faculty to disseminate their research findings

and thus advance their careers, improve their reputation, influence their discipline and wider

society, and meet REF requirements.

5.3 Motives for Monograph Publication

The findings show that the primary motivations of participants for publishing a scholarly

monograph are dissemination of knowledge, career advancement, and increasing the

reputation of the author. This corroborates the studies conducted by OAPEN into the

perceptions of academics on a national and European level (Adema and Rutten 2010;

Collins et al. 2011; Adema 2012), showing that their findings extend into the institutional

context at QMUL. Meeting REF requirements was considered a less important motivation,

with its significance likely to be related to the wider goal of sustaining an academic career.

The results also support the argument that direct financial reward is of little to no concern for

most authors in the faculty, due in part to the small amounts that they can hope to receive. If

OA is seen to improve the ability of authors to achieve their primary motives, then the

findings indicate that the majority of participants would be willing to sacrifice their royalties by

submitting their work to OA monograph publishers.

However, an increase in submissions to OA publishers may also depend on a

number of secondary motives, such as influencing the direction of the author’s discipline,

leaving a legacy, and influencing wider society. These motivations were given a level of

importance by the survey participants (Figure 3). To fulfil these desires, and the primary

motivations of career advancement and increased reputation, OA monograph publishers will

be required to prove that increased discoverability will increase, or at least not hinder,

impact. Although this has proved difficult during studies from the literature reviewed in

Chapter Two (Snijder 2010; Collins et al. 2011; Snijder 2013), research into this topic may

be facilitated by an increase in bibilometric data provided by DOAB (Adema 2012) and the

Book Citation Index (Thompson-Reuters 2013).

5.4 Perceptions

OA monograph publishing can be perceived as a broad, complex and often divisive issue

within the academic community, as the literature review and the results of this project

indicate. This is due in some part to the multiple perspectives that each individual agent can

apply to the issues, as the producers of scholarly monographs, the primary consumers of

scholarly monographs for research, and as referees in the peer-review process. Two of the

58

participants explicitly recognised inconsistencies in their responses when considering their

twin role as authors and readers of academic work:

I think it would be fantastic, I mean, it’s a total hypocrisy, because I’m saying, as an author, I would be a bit worried about it because of this whole quality control issue, but as far as being a reader would be concerned, fantastic, you know, the more that’s out there and available, that’s great (Politics).

In addition, some of the interview participants observed that holding the perception of

oneself as an ‘author’ had the potential to conflict with the goals of being an academic, with

the former being associated with individuality and autonomy and the latter being associated

with collaboration and altruism. The conflict arising from the notion of authorship in academia

is debated at some length by Fitzpatrick (2011):

The understanding of the origins of authorship bears significant consequences for thinking about ourselves as authors and ameliorating the anxieties that such work often produces in us; if in part our attachments to the idea of authorship arise from deeply seated beliefs about the locus of individual intelligence and about the placement of the individual within liberal society, we might recognise a certain conflict between that notion of authorship and the more communally oriented ideals of academic life (Fitzpatrick 2011, p.60).

Unfortunately, restrictions on space have limited the amount of discussion that could be

conducted into this issue within the project.

5.4.1 Perception of OA: Producers of Monographs

This project indicates that the issues related to the OA movement in general were known to

many of the participants, and most agreed with the contention of academics such as

Willinsky (2009) and Suber (2012) that OA will help them to meet their primary motivation to

disseminate knowledge by lowering price and permission barriers and increasing

discoverability. However, the results indicate a relatively low level of awareness for OA in

relation to monograph publishing, despite the high profile events that have taken place in the

last year in relation to the consultation process for funding body mandates and the REF-

2014 requirements. This may indicate that many academics will not become engaged with

the topic until they are required to: “In terms of Open Access monographs, I don’t think

59

it’s something...that most people are particularly concerned with unless they have to

be” (History).

Participants were much more comfortable when discussing journal articles during the

interviews, which is indicative of the greater prevalence of OA resources in this format and

the higher level of past advocacy that they have received due to the perceived difficulty of

convincing academics to sacrifice their royalties (Suber 2012). The findings of this project

bring into question this rationale, supporting studies by OAPEN that many individuals in the

academic community would be willing to submit their work to an OA publisher if they

believed that it would help them to meet their altruistic goals of disseminating knowledge and

their personal goals of advancing their career and improving their professional reputation

(Adema and Rutten 2010; Collins et al. 2011; Adema 2012): “I could get rid of the

royalties if you just make it available” (Law).

The findings also show that the participants were unconvinced of the ability of OA to

provide a sustainable business model for monographs, echoing concerns raised during the

consultation process for the recent policy decisions of the Finch Working Group (2012),

RCUK (2013d), and HEFCE (2013b). This uncertainty has created a degree of trepidation

amongst the HSS faculty towards the extension of these policies to include monographs in

the future. Concerns relating to the OA monograph business model are centred on the

inability of the underfunded HSS disciplines to pay the processing charges demanded by

author-pays models and questions over the ability of a model without processing charges to

cover the first copy costs involved in monograph production.

As many of the established publishers are relying on the author-pays model to

provide OA monographs, experiments with other models may rely on the willingness of

authors to submit their work to less renowned organisations. However, this is hampered by

the phenomenon of path dependency that many participants in this study identified in

association with branding, prestige, and the publishing hierarchy. These findings corroborate

those of Collins et al. (2011). The concept of the publishing hierarchy provides a number of

challenges to new OA publishing platforms in their ability to improve the author’s reputation

and advance their career. A double-bind dilemma exists: authors wishing to increase their

reputation will choose to submit their work to the most prestigious publisher, but the

publisher relies on authors submitting work to them in order to increase their prestige. This

essentially immobilises the hierarchy, making it hard for new publishers to establish a brand

associated with trustworthiness and quality:

60

[An OA monograph] would definitely be seen as inferior unless it was somehow produced under the auspices of an existing publisher...it would have to be in the hierarchy. I mean I just think people would think this was just a sort of vanity project that you’d stuck online...it wouldn’t have any cache, it wouldn’t have any kind of guarantee that there was any quality control (Politics)

The results also reveal a level of concern amongst some of the participants over the

affect that OA monograph publishing may have on moral rights, intellectual property,

copyright and plagiarism; as presented in the findings of studies by OAPEN and OAPEN-UK.

The survey data from the research was unclear, with the average of the respondent’s

answers falling in between OA having ‘no effect’ and ‘slightly hindering’ the ability to prevent

plagiarism. There is no way to discern from the data whether those who felt that it would

hinder the ability to prevent plagiarism believed that OA works would genuinely encourage

copyright infringement, which Collins et al. (2013) dispute, stating that plagiarism is primarily

a matter of academic ethics rather than copyright law, or simply believed that increased

discoverability would logically lead to more plagiarism, which Collins et al. (2013) accept.

Both of these perspectives were expressed by participants during interview.

5.4.2 Perceptions of OA: Consumers of Monographs

The strength of impact that OA monographs will have on the population of the case study as

consumers will depend on the level of adoption for digital monographs in their research

habits. The benefits of removing price and permission barriers, as described by Suber

(2012), were recognised by the participants, but the actual use of digital monographs for

research in the faculty remains low. However, the research findings confirm that many HSS

scholars at QMUL are adapting to new digital resources, as found by earlier studies by the

British Academy (2005) and Adema and Rutten (2010). This can be seen from the perceived

regularity of use for other digital resources, especially journal articles (Figure 5). The

interviews revealed that the scarcity of works, digital rights management issues regarding

printing and downloading material, and the lack of suitable features for academic research

were perceived to be the primary limitations on the use of eMonographs by the participants,

corroborating the findings of Hayward et al (2011), and suggesting that many of the issues

surrounding eTextbooks also apply to eMonographs. Many of the participants in the

interviews stated that they had no problem reading in eBook format, seeming to reject the

contention of JISC (2012) that deep-seated human issues were influential in the slow uptake

of digital monographs by the academic community; the one exception to this being the

physical effects of on-screen reading:

61

I wouldn’t say that I’ve got a problem with format, in respect of affordability, accessibility, physical comfort, and so on. I have the impression that all those things have improved over the last couple of years, and will continue to, so that wouldn’t be a concern for me (French).

It could be speculated that this shows an increase in adaptation to digital reading formats

since the study at UCL by Nicholas et al. (2009), but there are inherent difficulties in

comparing results between case studies.

Studies from the literature review suggest that the academic age of the participants

had the potential to influence perceptions, through differences in technological ability or the

pressures of complying with disciplinary protocols. The results show that there is only a

marginal correlation between academic age and the perceived use of digital monographs

(Appendix Nine: Figure 13). This may support the findings of Acord et al. (2010) and Bulger

et al. (2010), by indicating that young scholars in the HSS faculty continue to work within the

disciplinary protocols set by their more experienced colleagues, therefore challenging the

findings of Carpenter et al. (2010), who recognised that young academics adopt digital

technologies more rapidly than their older peers. However, the qualitative data would

suggest that these results are more representative of the lack of available HSS monographs

in the digital format, which affects scholars at all levels of experience in the faculty equally.

The presence of dual-use consumption habits supports the findings of many studies

into research habits and eBook use in HE institutions (JISC 2009; Adema and Rutten 2010;

Bucknell 2010; Collins et al 2011; Bulger et al. 2012). This will be significant for the income

streams of hybrid OA business models, including those experimenting with alternatives to

processing charges.

If I thought it was a book I wanted to read as a whole, I would rather have the book. If it was something I thought I needed...a little bit from, and I needed to look for that little bit quickly, I would rather have the eBook because it’s searchable (Politics).

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5.4.3 Perceptions of OA: Referees in the Monograph Peer-Review Process

The survey data shows that motives expressed for reviewing monograph submissions in the

faculty are consistent with the findings of the British Academy (2007), with author’s placing a

higher significance on their sense of professional responsibility and the need to support their

discipline than their personal goals, suggesting that the motivations for reviewing monograph

transcripts are the same as those for reviewing articles. Some of the interview participants

endorsed the position of OA advocates (Suber 2012), by stating their belief that OA is a

separate process to the dissemination of research findings, and that changes to one would

not affect the other. Although the perception that OA and peer review are separate

processes is entirely accurate, the current publishing environment ensures that the two are

still attached in cases where there is no funding body to provide the organisational function,

as discussed in the literature (Levine 2007; Acord and Harley 2010). In addition, the survey

results show that many of the participants perceived that OA was more likely to hinder the

quality of content through peer review than promote it (Figure 4).

For established publishers who convert to OA, their existing brand and connections

can be used to maintain their peer review process. However, until the peer review is

completely isolated from the dissemination method new publishers will be required to

become brokers and brand merchants, as one participant referred to the role of publishers in

the peer review, by performing an organisational function. Their ability to perform this

function will be dependent on the willingness of expert academics to review their

submissions.

The survey results address a gap in the literature review, by showing that many

members of the HSS faculty would take the reputation of a publisher into consideration when

considering whether to act as a referee (Figure 8). Studies have demonstrated that the

volume of these requests has continued to rise in recent years, causing an increase in

rejections to referee (British Academy 2007; RIN 2008; Adema and Rutten 2010). This

presents another double-bind for new publishers offering OA: they will need to present a

rigorous and transparent peer review to convince academics that their work is of a high

standard and establish their reputations, but to do so they will rely on experts agreeing to

review their submissions; without an established brand, many of these experts would decline

the invitation to review the work, preventing them from generating the prestige required to

satisfy them:

63

I think peer-review would become more important with Open Access, because sometimes when I think things are Open Access, I think...it just comes across that it’s not as credible...And it’s probably not the case, but sometimes I think...the bias of how the industry has been for x amount of years has made me think that way (Business).

5.5 Conclusion

The findings show that although the majority of participants would be willing to sacrifice

direct financial reward in order to meet their primary motive of improving the dissemination of

their research findings, they remain unconvinced of the sustainability of the business model

for OA monographs, with anxieties existing over the ability of underfunded HSS disciplines to

meet processing charges. These concerns have led to a degree of trepidation over the

implementation of future policy for OA monograph publication.

As many of the publishing platforms that are experimenting with a move away from

processing fees lack the prestige and branding that a place in the existing publishing

hierarchy provides, the ability to assuage anxieties over the OA monograph business model

may depend on the ability of advocates to convince academics in the HSS faculty to

abandon the ingrained concept of the publishing hierarchy and other protocols for publishing

behaviour in order to increase submissions and encourage experts to take part in the peer

review process.

64

Chapter Six: Conclusions

The aim of this project was to explore the perception of the academic community in the HSS

faculty at QMUL regarding the publication and use of OA monographs, to better understand

the cultural and institutional issues that may prevent any future transition. By placing the

issues in this context, the project supplements findings from the literature that address the

perception of OA monographs on a national or international level by studying these

perceptions at an institutional level within a real-life HE environment in England. A study at

this level was imperative in light of the recent consultative processes that considered the

inclusion of monograph outputs in policy that would directly impact upon HE institutions in

England. This project was also able to investigate perceived publication and consumption

behaviours that will be significant to recently developed business models that experiment

with funding streams that do not require controversial processing charges. In addition, the

investigation of perceived consumption behaviours adds to the body of research on digital

resources in HE by focussing on the use of eMonographs in research, as opposed to the

more commonly studied use of eTextbooks in teaching. Lastly, this study addressed the lack

of research into the perceptions of HSS academics from the perspective of referees in the

monograph peer review process, as identified in section 2.8. By conducting the project as a

case study, the research was successful in establishing the institutional context. The use of

a mixed methods approach allowed the production of rich data from a small exploratory

sample in the first stage of the research that was used to provide context for a larger and

more representative sample from the faculty in the second stage.

The issues were examined through the fulfilment of the objectives presented in

Chapter One. The first objective sought to establish perceptions regarding the status of the

monograph within the faculty. The perceptions expressed by participants during the research

would suggest that any continuation of the shift towards journal articles publication reported

in the literature will be met with resistance in many of the disciplines, and will only be

adopted reluctantly and gradually, if at all. This reduces any threat of the monograph being

undermined as a favoured dissemination method for many areas of research. In light of

these results, the detrimental effects of a continuing monograph crisis will continue to be an

issue of significance for academics in the HSS faculty.

The second objective sought to ascertain the perceived motivations for publishing

research findings as monographs in the faculty. The primary motivations for participants

corresponded to other studies from the literature, illustrating that direct financial reward is not

considered a motive by the majority of faculty members. The dissemination of knowledge

was shown to be the primary motivation, followed by rewards related to reputation and

65

career advancement. If any ‘gold’ OA business model can demonstrate that it increases

discoverability and impact, and can offer enough prestige to further their career goals, then it

will increase the probability of receiving submissions from the faculty.

The third objective sought to explore the perception of OA from an author’s

perspective within the faculty. The qualitative data suggests that despite recent consultative

processes regarding the inclusion of monographs in OA policy, awareness of OA

monographs is not particularly high, due primarily to the lack of available digital titles.

However, the research findings corroborate wider studies into OA by OAPEN, showing that

within the institutional context of the faculty a number of academics have an existing

perception of the benefits that OA could bring to their motivations to publish, especially

through an increased ability to disseminate their findings. This is offset by concerns

regarding the business model for OA monograph publishers, especially regarding the ability

of the HSS faculty to meet processing charges. New publishing platforms experimenting with

business models that do not require processing charges may struggle to attract submissions

due to the concept of the publishing hierarchy. Attempts to penetrate this hierarchy may be

hindered by their inability to attract submissions.

The fourth objective required the exploration of perceptions in the HSS faculty

towards OA monographs as consumers. The findings show that digital monographs are not

widely used by researchers in the HSS faculty, especially in the social sciences. The

qualitative data suggests that availability is a more pressing concern than issues with the

eMonograph format. The study also shows that many academics employ a dual use

between digital and print resources, using online material to find smaller amounts of

information and print material to read in full. This would benefit hybrid publishing models that

rely on the sales of print editions as a supplementary income stream.

The fifth objective identified a gap in the research by seeking the perceptions of

academics as agents in the monograph peer review process. The study showed that

although financial reward is of some importance to reviewers in the faculty, they are more

likely to accept invitations to act as a referee out of a sense of responsibility and to support

their discipline, which corroborates other studies into the motivations for reviewing journal

articles in HSS disciplines. However, many participants stated that they would take the

reputation of the publisher into consideration. If this perception extends to the wider

academic community, then it will present another double-bind for new publishing platforms

offering OA without processing charges, due to the need to generate prestige before being

able to attract reviewers and establish a peer review process.

66

By allowing a more flexible timescale, the results of the research could have been

improved by conducting more interviews and increasing the response rate of the survey by

opening it into the academic teaching year. Although the results of this project cannot be

generalised outside the boundaries of the case, it is hoped that they can be used to inform

further research. The turbulent landscape of OA and academic publishing indicates that

there is further scope for such research.

67

6.1 Recommendations for OA Transition at QMUL

Increase awareness of reputable OA monograph publishers by:

o Creating an approved list of publishing platforms, such as:

The OAPEN Library, list of partners.

Open Book Publishers.

o Publicising this list on the library website and within the HSS faculty. Focus on

established academics, as they may be in a better position to break with the

publishing hierarchy and disciplinary protocols.

Increase the discoverability of OA monographs at QMUL by considering the following

actions:

o Harvest the metadata from the DOAB discoverability tool to integrate OA titles

into the QMUL library catalogue and increase awareness of their availability.

Include an OA logo or other signifier on such titles.

o Become a partner with the Knowledge Unlatched global library consortium to

help the academic library community target titles to be made OA, and to

receive discounts on print and enhanced electronic editions.

o Monitor the output of the library partnership subsidy OpenEdition, who

currently publish the majority of their monographs in the French language.

Metadata can also be harvested from this platform, whether the library

becomes a member or not.

68

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Appendix One: Creative Commons Licenses

(Collins et al. 2013)

75

Appendix Two: Photographs of Inductive Thematic Coding

Photograph 1

Photograph 2

76

Photograph 3

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Appendix Three: Form of Consent

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Appendix Four: Information Sheet

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Appendix Five: Example of Interview Schedule

Interview Guide

Definition of Monographs: “a printed specialist book-length study of a research based topic,

usually but not necessarily written by a single academic author from their own primary

research or its equivalent in downloadable digital form or other electronic format” (Nicholas

et al. 2008)

Definition of Open Access: “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and

licensing restrictions” (Suber 2012).

Scholarly Monograph Publishing

How important do you feel the monograph format is to scholars in your discipline?

Why do you think scholars are motivated to publish their work? What are they hoping to

achieve?

Why do you think a scholar may choose to publish their work as a monograph, as oppose to

a journal article or other format?

What role do you feel collaboration has in regards to monographs? Do you believe in the

lone scholar method, or would you say you prefer a more co-operative process?

Do you feel a sense of ownership over your work?

What are your opinions on royalties for scholarly monograph works?

What is your attitude towards copyright in regards to scholarly monographs? What role do

you think it plays, and how important is copyright licensing to authors?

How do you feel about the reuse of work that you have published?

Open Access as Authors

How do you feel about Open Access monograph publishing?

What questions would you say Open Access has created for monograph publication?

How would you rate the level of awareness for Open Access monograph publishing in the

faculty? How do you feel that it is perceived?

81

Do you feel there is a difference in attitude towards Open Access amongst younger scholars

and scholars who have already established a reputation?

In light of the recent introduction of an Open Access mandate by the Wellcome Trust, what

effect do you feel Open Access monograph mandates may have on you as a scholar?

How do you feel a mandate would impact on academic freedom?

Do you feel that other faculty members perceive it the same way?

How do you feel digital monographs are regarded in your discipline?

How do you feel your attitudes to academic monograph publishing have changed over time?

Open Access as Readers

What sort of impact do you feel eBooks have had on the research activity of scholars and

students?

Do you use eBooks for research? What are your opinions of it as a format?

What do you perceive as the advantages and disadvantages of using an eBook, in

comparison to a printed monograph?

How much content do you think that you would normally access, do you read the whole book

online?

Do you read from the screen, or print the content that you need?

Do you see any academic use for the introduction of multimedia to a digital monograph?

How do you feel about Open Access monographs as a reader of content?

Open Access as Referees in the Peer Review Process

What contribution do you feel publishers currently make to the peer-review process?

How do you perceive the effect that the Open Access movement may have on the peer-

review process, in terms of monographs?

How would you feel about a publisher who sought to make changes to the peer-review

process?

Closing

How do you see the future of monograph publishing in academia?

Do you have any questions for me about the research?

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Appendix Six: Web Form Survey

83

84

85

86

87

Appendix Seven: Sample of Inductive Thematic Coding Data

Key to Qualitative Data

Participant 1

Professor of Geography (Human)

School of Geography

Participant 2

Professor of Politics

School of Politics and International Relations

Participant 3

Professor of English

School of English and Drama

Participant 4

Postgraduate Research Student (Business, PhD)

School of Business and Management

Participant 5

Professor of Law

Centre for Commercial Law Studies (CCLS)

School of Law

Participant 6

Professor of French

School of Languages, Linguistics and Film

Participant 7

Postgraduate Research Student (History of Medicine, PhD)

School of History

88

On the importance of monographs...

“They were a kind of mark of people’s intellectual, kind of prestige”

“You would be developing it from your PHD, and then as you did a very large body of work,

you would try and bring a monograph out of that. I think about a decade, ten to fifteen years

ago that began to change, it may be partly to do with REF, I think, that, you know, you

needed four outputs, and people thought, what if I spend time on a monograph, I won’t have

time for the others. It also became much more difficult to publish them, which it still is”

“If you look at the last five or six years, they seem to have been coming back into fashion,

and I think partly that’s people have got frustrated with the journal format, they want a longer

piece to say something more substantial.”

“I think the only way you could judge that is by thinking about something like the Research

Excellence Framework... but I would guess that most people would submit a mix of

monographs and articles, and therefore I would conclude from that, that...it’s still seen as

something worth doing, it’s still seen as...the forum for any...big study. Having said that,...I

think that’s less true probably in political science and international relations than it is in an

arts discipline like history.”

“If you were to think about how else you could publish it...would be in the form of articles.

That would be a problem in the sense that it wouldn’t allow you to fully develop a thesis, an

argument, and you would have space restrictions there that you don’t have, at least in such

extreme form, if you’re writing a book, and I think there’s an extent to which a book...allows

you to present a more coherent whole”

“Extremely [important]”

“Articles or chapters in books ... are length-restricted... Major works of history, literary

criticism, philosophy...there’s a range of subjects in the humanities that take space”

“You might be developing a completely new set of ideas, you might be exploring an area that

hasn’t been done properly before, you might be wanting to...overturn something that’s been

done before, new evidence, new reading, etc. etc. that can only be done in this form.”

“Not quite sure how it’s going to work with REF, but certainly with the RAE, ...the whole

measuring system is tipped against monographs. Because ... there’s this daft thing about the

number of items...I mean the notion that a three-hundred-thousand word... book is worth two

articles is absolutely ludicrous.”

“I’ve heard some business scholars that [are] all about journal publications, and the

books...are kind of second place”

“Actually quite important for us, far more important than journal articles. Can I qualify it by

saying, first of all, you are interviewing someone in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies,

which is a department outside [The Department] of Law... [A lot of the research topics

covered in CCLS] just wouldn’t get into a general humanities/social science/law journal... so

the only way you can look at impact, there’s this thing about, ‘I want to be known’, it’s the

monograph, and the textbook.”

89

“There is a fairly large constituency in modern language studies, well I suppose in the arts

end of the humanities in general, that would see monographs as the international gold

standard.”

“I think different universities place different sorts of premiums on monographs. So, hard to

generalise there, but I certainly think that looking across the board young scholars looking

for early career posts would be...certainly at an advantage if they had monographs

published.”

“The dividing line between a monograph and what you’re calling a trade book can be very

blurred, and perhaps more blurred with some publishers than others. That might not be such

an issue for early career scholars, but for established scholars who are trying to engage,

perhaps, with the impact agenda that might be more and more blurred in the future... Having

some kind of beneficial effect on social life and wellbeing outside of the academic world. And

that would classically, perhaps, be through the route of promoting public understanding.”

“Sometimes the distinction between the traditional monograph, which is a book

straightforwardly about something, and the scholarly edition can be a little bit blurred, so

those of us who are editors might be a little wary of assumptions that a book-length study

means a monograph, and to what extent all book-length studies can be seen on the same

terms.”

“In arts academia, it’s difficult to envisage academics pursuing meaningful careers without

monograph publication.”

“Few people read them from cover to cover, I think, especially students”

“My impression is not actually that important in one sense, in terms of REF and looking at

how much is coming out of the departments and so on. My impression is that it is peer-

reviewed articles that is the main...that is the way they look at it, because... people put out a

lot of articles”

On the motives for publishing monographs...

“It is that sense of being able to say something much more substantial”

“Many academics views ...change over time really. Sometimes I think it’s to...influence policy

and make change in the real world,...to try and add to the general fund of knowledge, which

may have a longer term impact, and very often it’s not as grand as that, it’s just about trying

to influence debates in your field”

“Monographs actually...are a very good way of trying to reach a wider public, rather than

academic journal pieces, which are written in a very formulaic way. Monographs, you have

more freedom in how you write them, and the kind of prose style you adopt”

“I don’t think they do it to make money, because you don’t make money in academic

publishing, but they, I think that they see themselves as part of a broader literary and artistic

community”

90

“I think most [academics], rightly or wrongly, think what they do is interesting, and...

‘important’...and are in the business of communicating it to other people... I think they are

trying to have a conversation with other academics really.”

“I think there’s also an extent to which...you want the...next generation of people...to read it,

so PhD students...and maybe even undergraduates, who might then go on. Maybe there’s

an extent to which you hope that you write something that...is of lasting value, so that long

after you’ve left that particular topic, or you’ve even shuffled off this mortal coil...you might

have left something of relative permanence.”

“I don’t think anyone takes [royalties] into consideration, you’re never going to make large

amounts of money.”

“People become academics usually because there’s some big piece of research that they

want to do, and a PhD is just a kind of starting thing”

“The academic profession has become...quite pressured...in recent years ...It’s had a very

bad effect on young scholars, because they’re told they have to publish monographs. Well,

you know, how can you publish a monograph when you’re three years out of a PhD? And so

a lot of stuff is put out there which...would be much better if they waited another ten years,

and they...just...did some good research articles. But panels say, ‘we want books’.”

“It’s on a shelf in shops, that’s kind of one motivation”

“[There hasn’t been a monograph published on my research topic from the perspective of my

discipline]”

“Main motive? Probably recognition. It’s probably the main motive. Secondly, perhaps,

promotion, the REF.”

“If you have a very quick point to say about a particular case, we can do it in eight to ten

thousand words. But if you have a whole argument to develop about an area, it’s hard to do

it in less than twenty to thirty thousand words.”

“It’s quite individualistic, actually. I went to...a conference recently... [and] you could see

everyone saying, ‘how, why didn’t he cite me, and her, and her? I mean, you should cite me,

and her, and her. How can you even start this talk...?’, and it was really quite sad.”

“A new book or something, the first thing you do is look in the bibliography I’m afraid.”

“I want it in Heathrow Terminal One, Two, Three.”

“For individual academics, looking at promotion, mobility from one university to another if

that’s what they’re looking for, and general looking for high REF ratings as well, monographs

would be seen as indispensable”

“It would be to secure greater esteem for themselves then they could solely by publishing

articles, and that comes back to the point I made about promotion, mobility, and so on.”

“There are also big ideas that people have that just can’t be explored within the space of an

article length study. So, sustained engagement with a big topic, a broad topic, in

intellectually satisfying ways”

91

“So I think that royalties are pretty low down the pecking order in terms of criteria and

motivation... the motivations for publishing are not primarily, or not directly, let’s say,

financial...if there’s a financial motivation it’s not ‘what royalties can I get from this?’ it’s ‘how

might I advance my career as a result of this and get promoted?... Even if not promotion,

then esteem more generally’”

“I think is this idea that you have, presumably especially when you are at PhD level, that you

have something incredibly original to say, to get out there. I would have thought that most

people that go into academic research do so because they have a genuine interest in the

research and in exchange of information and knowledge, and so on. So I would have

thought that that was the primary motivation.”

“The idea of actually having your book published in some form is generally quite appealing to

you, but I don’t think you can really get away from that, even if that’s not generally something

that people would generally want to admit that it’s about.”

“I don’t think money is an incentive at all, because you don’t really make that much off

academic publications.”

“When you publish papers they have such limited space, and you can only say so much, but

with a monograph you’ve got so much freedom to tell the whole story in the way that you

want to.”

“In a monograph...it’s the ability to create a different, broader sort of narrative, and the one

that you want.”

“That’s perhaps something that I can do later on with a monograph, to be a bit more explicit

about why I’m doing what I’m doing, if you know what I mean? So, it’s that sort of freedom as

well.”

On collaboration...

“Working on one’s own isn’t really working on one’s own,...the production of knowledge is

always collaborative”

“It’s about a conversation, really, and that conversation...being, hopefully, as wide as

possible really, so...I certainly wouldn’t want to limit it”

“I would have thought time is one of the big issues”

“If you’re doing something that’s inter-disciplinary, you really need people who have a

grounding in different disciplines to be able to do this, otherwise you’ve got to re-educate

yourself...Life is too short.”

“A monograph is a sole endeavour, you have to really trust somebody. I only trust one

person”

“That’s one of the areas where I think people can be a little too quick to assume that

monographs are necessarily single authored. And when joint-collaborative authorship

involves people from different international academic cultures, where there are different

imperatives at work, both within universities and more generally, in respect of government

policies I can imagine there being complicating factors.”

92

“A lot of arts and humanities academics do work with the notion of the lone scholar. Of

course we recognise, collectively, the importance of collaboration in the form of, let’s say,

conference discussions, and so on. But I think there are many people who are very happy to

do that, but who might be a little wary of co-authoring something.”

On the perception of academic monograph publishing...

“The publishers make profit, and they restrict the flow of ideas because certainly in my

discipline it’s very hard to get monographs published which don’t relate to certain markets.

So if you want to publish work on the UK, which is about the UK, it’s very difficult. If you want

to publish a work about the US, or North America more generally, it’s much easier because

there’s a bigger market.”

“[The current publication model] has a negative effect on whether they can get it out there,

so either...people chose to end up not publishing monographs, and publishing journal pieces

instead, or they go down the list of publishers... There’s a hierarchy of publishers, so...if

you’re prepared to move down the list, eventually you’ll find something, but many people will

say ‘it’s not worth publishing with those people’... because [of] their reputation, and

[because] they don’t have the prestige.”

“When you look at the profits made by academic publishers, just in terms of say return on

capital employed, they are fantastically high compared to most other businesses.”

“They’re interested in selling to libraries, and they’ve got a figure in their head of how many

libraries they can sell it to, and as long as they do that, they’ve broken even on it, and they’re

not interested in the communication aspect of it.”

“Academic publishers have, in effect, loss leaders,...they make their money...out of English

Language textbooks. They make a mint of money out of that, they’re very lucky that we are

the centre of the English language... one arm of it subsidises the other arm of it, if you like.”

“The people who work as subject editors in an academic press, and I know some of them

quite well, and have known them for years, they are, themselves, often academics, and they

are working in that subject... because they’re passionate about their subject, and they

publish those books because they think this is a very worthwhile book, and we need to get it

out there.”

“They are publishing works that have, by definition, a fairly small market. ...The main market

that they have, and this is very important in terms of electronic Open Access, on which I’m

not very keen, is that not very many people buy the printed versions of scholarly

monographs...They’ve dropped enormously.”

“The young are expected to produce books too soon...They probably publish too many...that

seems to me a problem...and that may be one of the reasons why the sales have dropped. I

mean, books have to find their level, obviously once you become an established author you

do much better ..., but I would have thought a starting author has got quite a problem.”

“I think academic publishing is very strong...Everything is very regular that they bring out, it’s

not like one minute they have ten books and all of a sudden there’s two. It’s a steady stream

of books in all disciplines...They do make money on them...even if they don’t have a very

93

high print-run, with the eBook sales, etc., library subscriptions, they make money out of

them”

“Even as an eBook I still see monographs as...even though they’re both academic, it’s not

like a journal, because it’s still a book, in which I see it as a trade.”

“When you’ve got fiction it’s all about the author, whereas with academic publishing the

brand it’s the publisher. And so, that is what the publisher adds when it comes to academic

publishing, they bring their name to it, which shows that they are reputable”

“The relationship in general between...between higher education institutions and publishers

and funding bodies is probably something that isn’t working, perhaps, as well as it could do. I

mean it’s an interaction between public and private, which is always complicated anyway....I

mean, there is this motivation to make money. But then some publishers are semi-public

institutions as well.”

On the changes in attitude to academic publishing...

“It...seems to have got slightly easier again in the last four or five years. I think maybe that’s

a combination of publishers who used to have a poor reputation have built stronger lists, so

there’s more now you can turn to. So there’s publishers who are always easier, but you

didn’t want to go with them, you now feel comfortable going with. Some new publishers have

emerged in my own discipline, which has been very useful, and they’ve got a more open list.

So less, sort of, frustrated with it than I used to be.”

“I’ve got the same feeling about the value of [academic publishers]. I still don’t think they’re

very valuable.”

“I’ve become a bit more cynical about publishers, I guess. But I think it’s very difficult to undo

the kind of lock they have on the process because it’s, there’s a degree of path dependency

about the whole thing, it’s very, very difficult to shift.”

“They now outsource everything, so they out-source copy-editing, for example, to people

who are paid by the hour, I mean I’ve certainly felt in my years of working with academic

publishers that...the level of quality-control, one could say, has gone down, because it’s too

expensive, because they can’t afford to keep employing all those people... I’m talking about

the physical book, I’m not talking about content.”

“The industry’s changed, the way the public consume books and the literature in general has

changed, so academic publishing has to move with those times because I’m pretty sure

there was a time when people used to complain about not getting paper journals.”

94

Appendix Eight: Quantitative Data Demographics

Figure 9

Figure 10

0

1

2

3

4

5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Nu

mb

er

of

Re

spo

nse

s

Academic Age (years since starting postgraduate study)

Academic Age Distribution of Participants

School of Law, 3

Humanities, 15

Social Science, 10

Natural Science, 1

Discipline Category of Participants

95

Figure 11

Figure 12

5

24

Position of Participants in the Faculty

Postgradate Research Student

Academic Staff

CCLS, 2 Film Studies, 1

French, 2

German, 2

Law, 1

Linguistics, 2

Business and Management, 4

Geography (Human), 3 Geography

(Physical), 1

History, 7

Politics and IR, 4

Department/School of Participants

96

Appendix Nine: Perceived Effect of Academic Age

Figure 13

Figure 14

1

2

3

4

5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Perceived Regularity of Use

Academic Age (years since starting postgraduate study)

Academic Age of Participants vs Use of Digital Monographs

1

2

3

4

5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Academic Age (years since starting postgraduate study)

Academic Age of Participants vs Importance of Career Advancement

Not a

Motive

Slight

Importance

Neutral

Important

Very

Important

Never

Rarely

Sometimes

Often

Always

97

Figure 15

Figure 16

1

2

3

4

5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

Academic Age (years since starting postgraduate study)

Academic Age of Participants vs Importance of Increased Reputation

1

2

3

4

5

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40Academic Age (years since starting postgraduate study)

Academic Age of Participants vs Importance of REF Requirements

Not a

Motive

Slight

Importance

Neutral

Important

Very

Important

Not a

Motive

Slight

Importance

Neutral

Important

Very

Important