Étiquette : open access publishing

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Knowledge Production and Intellectual Property: A Perspective on Scientific Publications in the Capitalist System

Author : Sofia Guilhem Basilio

The digital revolution has reshaped the production, dissemination, and accessibility of scientific knowledge. However, capitalist logic persists, commodifying intellectual labour and concentrating market power within a few mega-publishers.

This article critically examines scientific publishing through the lens of Marx’s theory of value, focusing on intellectual property rent as a mechanism of capital accumulation.

By highlighting the Brazilian higher education system – where public resources are redirected to private publishers via paywalls and Article Processing Charges (APCs) – the paper exposes the contradictions of contemporary academic publishing.

It critiques the dual exploitation of researchers as producers and consumers of knowledge and argues for alternative, equitable models like Open Access. Situating the analysis within global and local contexts, the article advocates for the democratisation of scientific knowledge as a resistance to commodification and privatisation.

URL : Knowledge Production and Intellectual Property: A Perspective on Scientific Publications in the Capitalist System

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v23i1.1520

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Diamond Open Access Landscape in Croatia: DIAMAS Survey Results

Authors :  Jadranka Stojanovski, Danijel Mofardin

As open science initiatives address the crisis in scholarly communication driven by commercialisation, diamond open access publishing—promoting equity for authors and readers—has emerged as a focal point in open access scholarly publishing. This study examines the landscape of institutional publishing in Croatia, focusing on the community-owned diamond open access model.

Through the DIAMAS project survey, which targeted 251 institutional publishers and achieved a response rate of 77, the research identifies the distinct features of Croatian institutional publishing. Institutional publishers are characterised by governance structures, funding challenges, voluntary staffing, and alignment with open science principles. Notable traits include reliance on public funding, use of the national open access journal platform, and a strong diamond open access publishing tradition.

Key findings emphasise the critical role of national infrastructure, services, and multilingual publishing. Persistent challenges include meeting indexing criteria, advancing open science practices, and ensuring metadata quality. This study provides a comprehensive mapping of Croatian institutional publishers, offering insights into their strengths and weaknesses while proposing strategies for improvement.

The findings underscore the importance of national policy frameworks, capacity building, and international collaboration to ensure the sustainability and visibility of Croatian institutional publishing.

URL : Diamond Open Access Landscape in Croatia: DIAMAS Survey Results

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications13010013

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Academic Quality or Commercial Concern? The Role of APCs in Open-Access Communication Studies Journals

Author : Burak Ili

Despite the positive effects of the open access (OA) movement on academic publishing, commercial publishers’ profit-driven policies continue to prevail, making the publishing process increasingly difficult for many researchers, particularly those from developing countries. T

his study critically examines open-access Q1 and Q2 journals listed in the Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) within the field of Media and Communication Studies.

Despite the OA movement’s goal of increasing access to information, the capitalist academic publishing model transforms knowledge production into a commercial activity through article processing charges (APCs). The research reveals that high APCs demanded by high-impact journals represent a significant barrier, especially for researchers with limited financial and institutional support.

This situation underscores the urgent need for institutional reform in the structure of academic publishing, particularly within the field of Media and Communication Studies.

The proposed reforms should focus on critical areas such as increased support for OA models, freeing journals and editorial boards from Western monopolies, fairly compensating the labour of reviewers and editors, and offering greater language support.

Steps taken in this direction will contribute to the creation of a more transparent, fair, and inclusive structure for academic production and sharing processes.

URL : Academic Quality or Commercial Concern? The Role of APCs in Open-Access Communication Studies Journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v23i1.1547

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Open Access APCs Are Already a Scam”: Knowledge and Opinions of Open Access and Article Processing Charges From Faculty at a Large Public University

Authors : Heidi M. Winkler

Introduction:

In the 2020s, open access (OA) continues to act as a challenging force in the ever-shifting landscape of scholarly communication. The objective of this study was to survey faculty at an R1 research institution about their perspectives on OA publishing, article processing charges (APCs), and knowledge of the institutional repository (IR).

Methods:

This study employed an anonymous online survey of 415 faculty members, with a response rate of 12.77% (53 responses). The survey collected both quantitative and qualitative data from respondents.

Results and Discussion:

Results showed engagement with OA publishing but skepticism of APCs as a reasonable alternative to subscription-based funding models. Survey respondents were also mostly unaware of the library’s IR self-archiving service.

Conclusion:

For-profit OA business models do not serve academics, and they and scholarly communications librarians should better collaborate to advocate for transitioning away from APCs. The article concludes by sharing how the author changed practice based on the results of the study.

URL : Open Access APCs Are Already a Scam”: Knowledge and Opinions of Open Access and Article Processing Charges From Faculty at a Large Public University

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.17647

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Two scholarly publishing cultures? Open access drives a divergence in European academic publishing practices

Authors : Leon Kopitar, Nejc Plohl, Mojca Tancer Verboten, Gregor Štiglic, Roger Watson, Dean Korošak

The current system of scholarly publishing is often criticized for being slow, expensive, and not transparent. The rise of open access publishing as part of open science tenets, promoting transparency and collaboration, together with calls for research assesment reforms are the results of these criticisms. The emergence of new open access publishers presents a unique opportunity to empirically test how universities and countries respond to shifts in the academic publishing landscape. These new actors challenge traditional publishing models, offering faster review times and broader accessibility, which could influence strategic publishing decisions.

Our findings reveal a clear division in European publishing practices, with countries clustering into two groups distinguished by the ratio of publications in new open access journals with accelerated review times versus legacy journals. This divide underscores a broader shift in academic culture, highlighting new open access publishing venues as a strategic factor influencing national and institutional publishing practices, with significant implications for research accessibility and collaboration across Europe.

Arxiv : https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.06282

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Diamond open access and open infrastructures have shaped the Canadian scholarly journal landscape since the start of the digital era

Authors : Simon van Bellen, Lucía Céspedes

Scholarly publishing involves multiple stakeholders having various types of interest. In Canada, the implication of universities, the presence of societies and the availability of governmental support for periodicals seem to have contributed to a rather diverse ecosystem of journals. This study presents in detail the current state of these journals, in addition to past trends and transformations during the 20th century and, in particular, the digital era.

To this effect, we created a new dataset, including a total of 1256 journals, 944 of which appeared to be active today, specifically focusing on the supporting organizations behind the journals, the types of (open) access, disciplines, geographic origins, languages of publication and hosting platforms and tools. The main overarching traits across Canadian scholarly journals are an important presence of Diamond open access, which has been adopted by 62% of the journals, a predominance of the Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines and a scarce presence of the major commercial publishers.

The digital era allowed for the development of open infrastructures, which contributed to the creation of a new generation of journals that massively adopted Diamond open access, often supported by university libraries. However, journal cessation also increased, especially among the recently founded journals. These results provide valuable insights for the design of tailored practices and policies that cater to the needs of different types of periodicals and that take into account the evolving practices across the Canadian scholarly journal landscape.

Arxiv : https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05942

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The Costs of Open Access Publication: A Case Study at Catalan Universities

Authors : Ángel Borrego, Lluís Anglada

This article explores the financial dynamics of open access (OA) publication in Catalan universities by combining four data sources: publication data coupled with article processing charge (APC) estimates; information on journal subscriptions, transformative agreements and APC payments made by universities; acknowledgements of APC funding sources in OA scholarly outputs; and a survey of authors.

The findings reveal a consistent increase in OA publication across Catalan universities, with 60% of the articles indexed in the Web of Science being published in either gold or hybrid OA in 2022. In parallel, investment in the research publishing system shows an upward trend. Resources allocated to journal subscription licenses have been redirected towards transformative agreements, leading to a rise in hybrid OA publications. Additional budget allocations have been made to accommodate APCs for gold OA journals.

Authors employ varied funding sources for gold and hybrid OA, with university funding programmes and research grants commonly facilitating gold OA, while transformative agreements often support hybrid OA. Authors associated with Catalan universities frequently benefit from funding schemes and transformative agreements that are accessible to their coauthors.

However, survey responses underscore the multifaceted nature of researchers’ financial support, including personal assets and waivers. Authors express frustration with the evolving OA landscape, particularly concerning the exorbitant publication fees.

Nevertheless, the allure of high-impact journals and expedited peer review processes continues to incentivize authors towards gold OA. Researchers voice concerns regarding the lack of equitable funding programmes and potential conflicts of interest within gold OA models, which signals the risk of compromising peer review integrity to prioritize profits.

This study underscores the need for further research to deepen our understanding of scholarly publishing expenditure and inform strategies for fostering a sustainable, equitable OA ecosystem.

URL : The Costs of Open Access Publication: A Case Study at Catalan Universities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.19069