The Democratisation Myth: Open Access and the Solidification of Epistemic Injustices

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Author : Marcel Knöchelmann

Open access (OA) is considered to solve an accessibility problem in scholarly communication. But this accessibility is restricted to consumption of Western knowledge.

Epistemic injustices inhering in the scholarly communication of a global production of knowledge remain unchanged. This underscores that the commercial and “big deal” OA dominating Europe and North America has little revolutionary potential to democratise knowledge.

Western academia, driven by politics of progressive neoliberalism, can even reinforce its hegemonic power by solidifying and legitimating the contemporary hierarchies of scholarly communication through OA.

I approach the accessibility problem dialectically to arrive at a critique of the commercial large-scale implementations of OA. I propose a threefold conceptualisation of epistemic injustices comprising of testimonial injustice, hermeneutical injustice, and epistemic objectification.

As these injustices prevail, the notion of a democratisation of knowledge through OA is but another form of technological determinism that neglects the intricacies of culture and hegemonial order.

URL : The Democratisation Myth: Open Access and the Solidification of Epistemic Injustices

DOI : https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/hw7at

Le principe d’ouverture des données de la recherche scientifique. Réflexions autour du croisement de l’informatique et du droit

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Auteur/Author : Agnès Robin

Les données de la recherche scientifique sont actuellement soumises à un programme de standardisation technique (FAIR) dont l’objectif est d’en permettre la diffusion aux fins de réutilisation par le public (entreprises privées ou autre).

Cette politique, qui sans se confondre avec elle, converge avec celle dite de « science ouverte », s’articule autour d’un principe normatif conflictuel, selon lequel le résultats de la recherche (et donc les données) doivent être « aussi ouverts que possibles et pas plus fermés que nécessaire », obligeant alors les chercheurs, ingénieurs et documentalistes, éventuellement chargés de la gestion des données de la recherche, à procéder à une qualification juridique délicate des données.

URL : http://intelligibilite-numerique.numerev.com/index.php/numeros/n-1-2020/9-le-principe-d-ouverture-des-donnees-de-la-recherche-scientifique

Where Does Open Science Lead Us During a Pandemic? A Public Good Argument to Prioritise Rights in The Open Commons

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Author : Benjamin Capps

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, open science has become central to experimental, public health and clinical responses across the globe.

Open science is described as an open commons, in which a right to science avails all possible scientific data for everyone to access and use.

In this common space, capitalist platforms now provide many essential services and are taking the lead in public health activities.

These neoliberal businesses, however, have a central role in the capture of public goods. This paper argues that the open commons is a community of rights, consisting of people and institutions whose interests mutually support the public good.

If OS is a cornerstone of public health, then reaffirming the public good is its overriding purpose, and unethical platforms ought to be excluded from the commons and its benefits.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180120000456

Open access publishers: The new players

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Authors : Rosângela Schwarz Rodrigues, Ernest Abadal, Breno Kricheldorf Hermes de Araújo

The essential role of journals as registries of scientific activity in all areas of knowledge justifies concern about their ownership and type of access. The purpose of this research is to analyze the main characteristics of publishers with journals that have received the DOAJ Seal.

The specific objectives are a) to identify publishers and journals registered with the DOAJ Seal; b) to characterize those publishers; and c) to analyze their article processing fees.

The research method involved the use of the DOAJ database, the Seal option and the following indicators: publisher, title, country, number of articles, knowledge area, article processing charges in USD, time for publication in weeks, and year of indexing in DOAJ.

The results reveal a fast-rising oligopoly, dominated by Springer with 35% of the titles and PLOS with more than 20% of the articles.

We’ve identified three models of expansion: a) a few titles with hundreds of articles; b) a high number of titles with a mix of big and small journals; and c) a high number of titles with medium-size journals.

We identify a high number of titles without APCs (27%) in all areas while medicine was found to be the most expensive area.

Commercial publishers clearly exercise control over the scope of journals and the creation of new titles, according to the interests of their companies, which are not necessarily the same as those of the scientific community or of society in general.

URL : Open access publishers: The new players

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233432

Innovative Strategies for Peer Review

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Author : Edward Barroga

Peer review is a crucial part of research and publishing. However, it remains imperfect and suffers from bias, lack of transparency, and professional jealousy. It is also overburdened by an increasing quantity of complex papers against the stagnant pool of reviewers, causing delays in peer review.

Additionally, many medical, nursing, and healthcare educators, peer reviewers, and authors may not be completely familiar with the current changes in peer review. Moreover, reviewer education and training have unfortunately remained lacking.

This is especially crucial since current initiatives to improve the review process are now influenced by factors other than academic needs. Thus, increasing attention has recently focused on ways of streamlining the peer review process and implementing alternative peer-review methods using new technologies and open access models.

This article aims to give an overview of the innovative strategies for peer review and to consider perspectives that may be helpful in introducing changes to peer review. Critical assessments of peer review innovations and incentives based on past and present experiences are indispensable.

A theoretical appraisal must be balanced by a realistic appraisal of the ethical roles of all stakeholders in enhancing the peer review process.

As the peer review system is far from being perfect, identifying and developing core competencies among reviewers, continuing education of researchers, reviewer education and training, and professional engagement of the scientific community in various disciplines may help bridge gaps in an imperfect but indispensable peer review system.

URL : Innovative Strategies for Peer Review

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e138

Dear Reviewer 2: Go F’ Yourself

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Author : David A. M. Peterson

Objectives

The objective of this study was to empirically test the wide belief that Reviewer #2 is a uniquely poor reviewer.

Methods

The test involved analyzing the reviewer database from Political Behavior . There are two main tests. First, the reviewer’s categorical evaluation of the manuscript was compared by reviewer number. Second, the data were analyzed to test if Reviewer #2 was disproportionately likely to be more than one category below the mean of the other reviewers of the manuscript.

Results

There is no evidence that Reviewer #2 is either more negative about the manuscript or out of line with the other reviewers. There is, however, evidence that Reviewer #3 is more likely to be more than one category below the other reviewers.

Conclusions

Reviewer #2 is not the problem. Reviewer #3 is. In fact, he is such a bad actor that he even gets the unwitting Reviewer #2 blamed for his bad behavior.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12824

The role of metadata in reproducible computational research

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Authors : Jeremy Leipzig, Daniel Nüst, Charles Tapley Hoyt, Stian Soiland-Reyes, Karthik Ram, Jane Greenberg

Reproducible computational research (RCR) is the keystone of the scientific method for in silico analyses, packaging the transformation of raw data to published results.

In addition to its role in research integrity, RCR has the capacity to significantly accelerate evaluation and reuse. This potential and wide-support for the FAIR principles have motivated interest in metadata standards supporting RCR.

Metadata provides context and provenance to raw data and methods and is essential to both discovery and validation. Despite this shared connection with scientific data, few studies have explicitly described the relationship between metadata and RCR.

This article employs a functional content analysis to identify metadata standards that support RCR functions across an analytic stack consisting of input data, tools, notebooks, pipelines, and publications.

Our article provides background context, explores gaps, and discovers component trends of embeddedness and methodology weight from which we derive recommendations for future work.

URL : The role of metadata in reproducible computational research

Original location : https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.08589