18 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 292 2017 approach has a number of advantages, including ease of distribution and analysis and the potential to receive more candid responses as respondents could complete the survey voluntarily and anonymously. The Research “Failure” The primary participant groups invited to complete the survey included Canadian university press directors and library press directors. The former group declined the invitation to participate in the survey for two reasons: 1. They felt that the survey invitation indicated a presumption on the part of the research group, towards an open access business model for monograph publishing in Canada, which implied a bias in any recommendations resulting from the project. 2. They expressed regret at not having the opportunity to contribute to the survey instrument and study design—suggesting a combined survey between CARL and press directors instead. As a result, the research project was abandoned. Reasons Why the Research Project Failed and Lessons Learned The reasons stated by our participant group for opting out of the survey must be acknowledged and will now be examined through a highly reflective lens, and framed as a series of lessons learned. Each of the lessons are interrelated, however they will be explored separately in order to clearly articulate cause and effect, where possible, as well as practical approaches or things we would do differently a second time around. Lesson # 1: Before you begin, understand the landscape and take a balanced approach. The academic publishing and scholarly communications landscape,
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