In an article in Universitetsläraren, representatives from Stockholm University Library, Stockholm University Press, and Stockholm University Student Union, call on universities and colleges to make academic resources and textbooks more accessible. They wish to open a discussion regarding university textbooks being published with immediate open access.
“The aim of open science is to make scientific research transparent, accessible and re-usable, to further research, innovation and development. It’s good for science, and therefore, for all of society.”
Vetenskapen bör vara öppen – även för studenter
Annika Ullman, Wilhelm Widmark and Simon Froster Delbom highlight the gravity of university students being able to access textbooks and academic resources to ensure their continued education. It is important that the universities support students in this objective, and even morse so, that the textbooks are of high quality and based on academic research. The authors wish to see all universities in Sweden publish academic textbooks as open access resources in the near future.
Textbooks as book series
Since the founding of Stockholm University Press in 2015, researchers and scholars have been able to publish peer reviewed books and papers with full open access. The advantage of the academic press, is that it may publish university textbooks written by scholars that otherwise wouldn’t be deemed commercially successful.
The book series Basic Readings in Culture and Aesthetics publishes textbooks with open access to make them immediately available to the students, and, they are externally peer reviewed to guarantee scientific and academic quality.
“We need updated, research-based textbooks suited for our courses; they need to be universal enough to be used nationally in the subjects they deal with. The main idea is that these textbooks are written with the authors/scholars own research as a starting point.
It’s important that the students don’t encounter any problems with getting the literature they need. In particular, easy access to individual chapters in anthologies is vital, this facilitates the incorporation of specific course literature.”
Sonya Petersson, Chair of the Editorial Board, Basic Readings in Culture and Aesthetics.
About open science
Open science is a movement that aims to make scientific research and its dissemination accessible to all levels of society. Open science is transparent and accessible knowledge that is shared and developed through collaborative networks. In Sweden, the goal for all universities is to convert to an open science system by 2026.
About the authors
Annika Ullman is Chair of the Publishing Committee for Stockholm University Press, Wilhelm Widmark is Library Director at Stockholm University Library, and Simon Froster Delbom is Chair of the Stockholm University Student Union.
About Stockholm University Press
Stockholm University Press – a part of Stockholm University – is an open access publisher of peer reviewed academic journals and books. Our focal points are rigorous peer review, open access and global dissemination.
Stockholm University Press Blog 