University Open Forum about Academic Publishing to be Held April 20, 2012 at the University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg Campus

News item published on: 2012-04-09 15:14:53

At The University of Southern Mississippi, the Offices of the Provost and the Vice President for Research will be partnering with the Aquila Digital Community (aquila.usm.edu) to sponsor an open forum addressing the changing landscape of academic publishing. The forum will be held on April 20, 2012 from 10 a.m. to noon in Gonzales Auditorium (LAB 108) and is open to everyone in the university community.

The forum, Academic Publishing: Changes and Challenges will feature a brief overview of recent trends from Dr. Carole Kiehl, Dean of University Libraries, followed by an expert panel discussion. The panel members represent a broad range of disciplines at the university. These faculty are actively involved in writing and editorial duties for scholarly publications: Parthapratim Biswas, Physics; Fengwei Bai, Biological Sciences; Andrew Haley, History; Vafa Kamali, Research; Bikramjit Banerjee, Computing Science; and David P. Daves, Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education. The Q&A session will be moderated by Associate Dean for Library Collections & Scholarly Communications, Corrie Marsh.

“There are a variety of academic concerns surrounding new models for publishing,” says Dr. Gordon Cannon, Associate Vice President for Research. “For example, many new open scholarly scientific journals now require expensive author fees and some granting agencies require archival preservation of research data. This forum will initiate future campus discussions about how to address these challenges.” Ms. Marsh describes Dr. Cannon’s influence: “We are very excited and inspired by Dr. Cannon’s encouragement to open a campus-wide dialog about the changes in academic publishing.”

One of the panel experts, Dr. Haley, will describe his experience using open Internet publishing to support his research and publications. Fellow panelist, Dr. Biswas, who is a member of the editorial board for the journal ISRN Condensed Matter Physics, affirms the significance of the forum: “the so-called ‘open access’ journals are increasingly becoming more and more important, and it is high time to have a discussion to explore issues associated with publishing in the free journals.”

For more information about the forum, contact Corrie.Marsh@usm.edu or call 601.266.4241.