Academic Writing Librarian: DBS Business Review: A New Open Access Journal

Guest post by Marie O’ Neill, Head Librarian Dublin Business School

Marie O’ Neill - Managing Editor, Alan Morgan - Editor in Chief and Margaret Linehan - Advisory Board member of DBS Business Review, Head of Humanities CIT and Chair of the Irish Academy of Management

SPARC (2016) describes open access as the ‘free, immediate, online availability of research articles, coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.’ The Library of Dublin Business School (DBS) has a proven commitment to open access publishing. DBS Library publishes Studies in Arts and Humanities, a cross institutional, peer-reviewed, open access journal which is indexed on the Directory of Open Access Journals and on an international EBSCO research database. The journal is published on the OJS publishing platform. The Library also recently launched a new open access journal called DBS Business Review.

SAH Journal accepts high quality submissions from students as well as faculty. A particularly rewarding aspect of this publishing endeavour is the partnership between faculty and librarians. The Editor in Chief of the journal is Conor Murphy, lecturer in film at DBS; the Managing Editor is Alex Kouker, Subject Librarian at Dublin City University. Jane Buggle, Deputy Librarian at DBS and myself are senior editors. In a recent issue of SAH, Jane Buggle (2016) explores the benefits of the librarian-faculty publishing phenomenon in the editorial that she authored. Jane quotes Vandergrift and Bolick (2014) who state that:

“the core library value of access supports the great opportunity to share knowledge and push innovation, thus driving our entry into publishing…as libraries invest more in this space, we must uphold our values and principles of access and discoverability.”

Buoyed by the success of Studies in Arts and Humanities, DBS Library considered the production of a second journal in the area of business replicating the SAH Journal publishing module (cross institutional, peer reviewed, open access, student as well as faculty submissions, librarian-faculty publishing partnership etc.).

The library subsequently launched DBS Business Review. This is also published on the OJS Platform. The Editor in Chief is Alan Morgan, Course Director for Marketing at DBS, I am the Managing Editor and Jane Buggle along with Joan Colvin, Postgraduate Librarian at DBS are sub-editors. The Research Librarian at DBS Colin O’ Keeffe is an editorial board member of both SAH Journal and DBS Business Review. In an editorial co-written by Alan Morgan and myself we outline the motivation behind publishing an open access journal in the discipline of business:“The open access journal publishing sphere is heavily dominated by the arts and sciences. The publication of an open access journal in the discipline of business might appear contradictory in a field dominated by the practice and semantics of marketing and sales, but in the discipline of business it is no less critical to have a range of scholarly communication channels which also encompass the free and open dissemination of high quality business research. The need for freely available peer reviewed business research is equally important for the public, the business community, start-ups, academic institutions and established brands.” (O Neill and Morgan, 2017)

The Irish Government in its National Principles for Open Access Policy Statement (2016) asserts that:
“Open Access adds value to research, to the economy and to society. The outputs from publicly-funded research should be publicly available to researchers, but also to potential users in education, business, charitable and public sectors, and to the general public.”
One of the statement’s three key principles also illustrates the impact that open access publishing can have on the dissemination of research output internationally, on research informed teaching and innovation.

A key goal of DBS Business Review is to facilitate a robust and dynamic scholarly communication across business schools in Ireland and beyond, including non-cognate disciplines. The journal also aims to infuse these conversations with ideas and submissions from professionals, practitioners and industry experts.

Engagement with DBS Business Review in Ireland and beyond has been high. Editorial Board and Advisory Board members are drawn from Dublin Business School, Alliance Manchester Business School - University of Manchester, Cork Institute of Technology, Waterford Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology Tallaght, Dublin Institute of Technology, London Metropolitan University, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin City University, Griffith College Dublin, Ulster University, IReL, ALBA Graduate Business School, Greece and University College Dublin. Submissions to the inaugural issue have been received from Dublin Business School, Ulster University, University College Dublin, Waterford Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown Institute of Technology, Trinity College Dublin and others. Next steps for DBS Business Review is indexing on the DOAJ and on a business database. These processes are in hand. DBS Library is also in the process of joining the Library Publishing Coalition. Colin O’ Keeffe, Alex Kouker and Marie O’ Neill had the pleasure of meeting Melanie Schlosser from the Coalition when she recently visited Dublin from the U.S.

DBS Business Review is currently seeking submissions. Please click here for further information.

References

Buggle, J. (2016). Editorial, Studies in Arts and Humanities, vol 2. no. 2. pp.1 http://sahjournal.com/index.php/sah/issue/view/6/showToc (Accessed 24 October, 2017).