The Open Access conversation – more than just advocating for a mandate

Abstract

The institutional open access mandate is widely regarded as a necessary tool to realise the potential of open access, institutional repositories and online scholarly communication. Advocating for a mandate can be a challenge: the enthusiasm of advocates for this excellent idea is often met with concerns and misgivings, mostly based on misinformation. Some potential participants distance themselves from the idea for fear of having one more administrative task taking up their time while others are downright opposing the idea. All of this can lead to barriers which need to be overcome. Advocacy can have a bigger impact if it forms part of a campus conversation on scholarly communication including current problems and new developments. The roles, needs and concerns of the various participants should be addressed. Value propositions should be created for the main role player groups: researchers, managers and readers.