Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2013

Scholarship Domain(s)

Scholarship of Discovery, Scholarship of Interdisciplinary Integration, Scholarship of Community Application, Scholarship of Faith Integration

Abstract

Olivet Nazarene University’s recent move to start publishing academic scholarship in a digital institutional repository, Digital Commons, is a smart move to not only highlight and preserve Olivet scholarship, but also to support the worldwide open access movement that is widely expected to rescue the current failing model of academic publishing. The traditional methods for publishing faculty scholarship have been inadequate for some time, and the financial structures that sustain them are collapsing due to skyrocketing journal prices. What faculty members want most for their research is that it be as accessible, available and useful to other researchers and to be quoted by them. The open access model, while new, shows promise. If all faculty scholarship could be searchable by Internet search engines, then it could reach anyone, anywhere, who has access to the Internet. With greater accessibility, additional, even nontraditional, readers could be added into the intellectual commons, building stronger and larger communities of researchers, including those who cannot afford the current high tolls to access scholars’ literature. Open access also enhances the self-correcting scholarly nature of the research process and promises a hopeful future of further enhancing scientific productivity and accelerating the translation of ideas into commercial ventures. Lowering or eliminating the up-front expense of the publication of Christian scholarship to third-world countries could also be seen as a mission activity. Certainly, publishing as many Wesleyan educational materials openly online as possible may help to better balance the ubiquitous prevalence of theologically reformed materials in Bible bookstores, scholarly journals and the blogosphere.

Comments

Originally published in an open access online journal as follows:

Hippenhammer, Craighton. "Reducing Barriers to Wesleyan Thought: Olivet Nazarene University and the Wesleyan Holiness Library." Didache: Faithful Teaching (Winter, 2013): http://didache.nazarene.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=889&Itemid=51.

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