Lesson Plan

Open Access Publishing - Discussion Session for Psychology Graduate Students

Addressing: Why are open research practices, open access, and author rights important to Psychology graduate students? How might tools and resources related to these impact choices graduate students may make in research design, research practice and documentation, and venues for sharing research results?

Format: 1 course session for a full semester course; In-Person; Flipped (with pre-class assignment)
Special Notes: *Pre-Class Reading Assignment included
Audience: Graduate Students in the PSYC 5315 course at Virginia Tech, Spring 2016
Course Description: PSYC 5315 - Research Methods: Advanced treatment of a variety of research related issues germane to the discipline of psychology, including: the scientific method, elements of the research process, alternative strategies for operationalizing variables, sampling, research ethics, experimental research, quasi-
experimental research, non-experimental research, research artifacts, non-traditional research strategies, quantitative literature reviews, and legal problems in research.
Timeframe: 75 minutes
Materials for course session: 
●	Pre-Class Reading Assignment - licensed for reuse as CC BY 4.0
○	Announcement posted on class course site with links to articles
○	Alternative reading assignment announcement with links to OA articles only
●	In-Class Handout - licensed for reuse as CC BY 4.0
Learning Objectives:
●	Following this session’s pre-assignment and in-class session, students will be able to:
○	Define open access as it relates to scholarly publishing
○	Describe characteristics of open research practices
○	Identify copyrights and author rights considerations for graduate students (such as decisions related to theses/dissertations)
○	List considerations for authors when selecting a publication venue
○	Use multiple sources to learn more about a journal 
○	Describe characteristics to review when evaluating a journal for its quality and suitability as a publication venue
○	Describe where to look for a journal’s copyright or author rights policies
○	List two methods of support for open access author fees
○	Review a journal and identify its: open access status; relevance to one’s topic; history and reputation; and area of focus within a discipline
Assessment: in-class discussion; no written or submitted assessment

This lesson plan is licensed by its author, Virginia Pannabecker as: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

Session Title: 
Open Access Discussion for Psychology Graduate program Research Methods Course

[5 min] Self-Introduction, Session Goals

[5 min] All-Class discussion: You’ve read three items that discuss open access and open access publishing methods. Based on these readings, or what you already knew, how would you define “open access”?

[15 min]
●	[5 min] In groups of 3-4, discuss the three readings: 1. What are some of the most important points from each? 2. What are some things the readings suggest that researchers consider for research practices, and/or for publishing research results?
●	[10 min] Groups report back to class - all class discussion

[5 min]
All class discussion - OA and You: What kinds of content do you create in your courses or outside of them? As researchers and copyrights owners, what kind of choices would you like to make (if/when you can) as far as using open research practices, openly licensing your work, and/or keeping or transferring your copyrights to publishers or other entities?

[Examples to bring up if students don’t on their own: theses and dissertations, licenses / institutional policy regarding electronic thesis and/or dissertations (ETDs) / conference presentations / journal articles]

[5 min]
Demonstration: Instructor demonstrates looking at an article by a Psychology faculty member, identifies the journal title, and goes to the journal website. 

[5 min]
Ask the class: what kinds of criteria would you use to decide if a journal was high quality, and appropriate for your publishing goals? How would you know if it’s open access or peer reviewed? 

[5-10 min]
With the class:
●	Review the journal according to the criteria you discussed
●	Show how to find copyright or author rights policies on a journal website
●	Look up the journal with tools like DOAJ, UlrichsWeb, etc. (see In-Class Handout)

[10 min]
Small group assignment
Students groups use handout resources and class criteria to identify and review an open access journal. Ask them to identify a journal of interest, to look at it and use handout tools to answer::
●	What did you find? 
●	Is the journal OA? 
●	Does it charge an author fee? 
●	What are their author rights / copyright policies? 
●	Would you want to submit your work to this journal? Why or why not?

[10 min]
Student groups report back on the journal they identified and researched
[5 min - if time]
Discuss any open access fee support options available at your institution or in your context; mention options to include OA journal author fees in grant proposal budgets

[5+ min - as there is time]
Questions