Doktoranders förhållningssätt till Open Access
En studie av epistemiska kulturers betydelse för doktoranders tankar kring vetenskaplig publicering
Vetenskaplig kommunikationOpen accessDoktoranderForskningsbibliotekOpen access-policyEpistemiska kulturerMalmö högskola
The aim of this bachelor-thesis is to study how postgraduates approach open access during times of change within scholarly communication. Our theoretical framework is based upon Knorr Cetinas epistemic cultures and Cullen & Chawners theory that there is a paradigmatic conflict within scholarly communication due to the fact that open access has failed to reach the same level of prominence among researchers as it has within research libraries. We interviewed six postgraduates at Malmö högskola in order to find answers to our research questions. We identified a shared epistemic culture among the postgraduates, which can be explained by the fact that being postgraduates, they all share similar experiences and values. We chose to call this epistemic culture the horizontal epistemic culture. During the interviews institution-specific cultures were expressed as well. These institution-specific cultures we chose to call the vertical epistemic cultures. Our study shows that the basic principle of the open access movement, namely to make all research freely available, has encountered difficulties when it comes to being incorporated within both the horizontal and the vertical epistemic culture. The statements of the postgraduates unanimously show that open access is viewed neither as a concept nor as a real publishing-alternative for them. We can conclude that the statements of the postgraduates show a similar conflict between the traditional publishing system and open access publishing that Cullen and Chawner identified. Research libraries should be aware of these cultures in order to be able to collaborate more efficiently with the postgraduates.