Étiquette : Scholarly Publishing

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The Enclosure and Alienation of Academic Publishing Lessons…

The Enclosure and Alienation of Academic Publishing: Lessons for the Professoriate :

« This paper interrogates and situates theoretically from a Marxist perspective various aspects and tensions that inhere in the contemporary academic publishing environment. The focus of the article is on journal publishing. The paper examines both the expanding capitalist control of the academic publishing industry and some of the efforts being made by those seeking to resist and subvert the capitalist model of academic publishing. The paper employs the concepts of primitive accumulation and alienation as a theoretical register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the knowledge commons through the enclosure effects that follow in the wake of capitalist control of academic publishing. Part of my purpose with this discussion will be to advance the case that despite a relatively privileged position vis-à-vis other workers, academic cognitive labourers are caught up within and subject to the constraining and exploitative practices of capitalist production processes. »

URL : http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/395

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Freedom for scholarship in the internet age …

Freedom for scholarship in the internet age :

« Freedom for Scholarship in the Internet Age examines distortion in the current scholarly communication system and alternatives, focusing on the potential of open access. High profits for a select few scholarly journal publishers in the area of science, technology, and medicine contrast with other portions of the scholarly publishing system such as university presses that are struggling to survive. Two major societal trends, commercialization and irrational rationalization, are explored as factors in the development of distortion in the system, as are potential alternatives, including the commons, state subsidy, DIY publishing, and publishing cooperatives. Original research presented or summarized includes the quarterly series The Dramatic Growth of Open Access, an empirical study of economic possibilities for transition to open access, interviews with scholarly monograph publishers, and an investigation into the potential for transition to open access in the field of communication. The similarities and differences between open access and various Creative Commons licenses are mapped and analyzed.

The conclusion features a set of recommendations for open access. Carefully transitioning the primary economic support for scholarly publishing (academic library budgets) from subscriptions to open access is seen as central to a successful transition. Open access changes the form of the commodity with respect to commercial publication, from the scholarly work per se to the publishing service; a major improvement that overcomes the trend towards enclosure of information, but not necessarily the dominance of the commercial sector. A multi-faceted approach is recommended as optimal to overcome potential vulnerabilities of any single approach to open access. The open access movement is advised to be aware of the less understood societal trend of irrational (or instrumental) rationality, a trend that open access initiatives are just as vulnerable to as subscriptions or purchase-based systems. The remedy for irrational rationality recommended is a systemic or holistic approach. It is recommended that open access be considered part of a potential for broader societal transformation, based on the Internet’s capacity to function as an enabler of many to many communication that could form the basis of either a strong democracy or a decentralized socialism. »

URL : http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/files/2012/12/Morrison-library-copy.pdf

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Open access and development Journals and beyond …

Open access and development : Journals and beyond :

« This following report sets out to explore what Open Access means, how it has evolved as a philosophical and practical tool for scholarly communication, and how these publishing modes are currently being used to redress some of the imbalances, which currently exist within the traditional models of scholarly communication. It then goes on to examine the current and potential uses of open access in the context of the developing world; questions if, within these contexts, a different open access-based approach is required, and makes recommendations for this. »

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/11105/159

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Digital distribution of academic journals and its impact…

Digital distribution of academic journals and its impact on scholarly communication: Looking back
after 20 years :

« It has been approximately 20 years since distributing scholarly journals digitally became feasible. This article discusses the broad implications of the transition to digital distributed scholarship from a historical perspective and focuses on the development of open access (OA) and the various models for funding OA in the context of the roles scholarly journals play in scientific communities. »

URL : http://www.openaccesspublishing.org/apc4/final.pdf

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One publisher’s journey through the public access debate…

One publisher’s journey through the public access debate :

« This paper presents the content of my closing address given at the Academic Publishing in Europe 2012 Conference. I share my perspective of the public access debate, as CEO of American Institute of Physics, a medium-size scientific publisher and my observations on our industry’s most important customers – the libraries. The origin of the often contentious public access debate can be traced back to a worthy goal shared by all stakeholders: the expansion of access to and broad use of scholarly publications. Starting with principles and recommendations set forth in the 2010 Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report, I outline a productive and pragmatic path forward and identify appropriate and cost-effective options for expanding access. Furthermore, I review the major elements of public access policy development in the US since 2005, leading up to January 2012, a year after President Obama signed into public law the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. This essay has been expanded to include additional information, covering the issue through September 2012 (submission date of this article), and addresses related government initiatives that appeared in the UK and the European Union. »

URL : http://iospress.metapress.com/content/9318j0n53511043p/fulltext.pdf

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L’implication des bibliothèques universitaires francophones dans l’évaluation de…

L’implication des bibliothèques universitaires francophones dans l’évaluation de la recherche au travers du traitement des publications scientifiques: Belgique – France – Suisse – Canada :

« Depuis de nombreuses années la révolution numérique touche directement les professionnels de l’information et de la documentation. Plus récemment de nouvelles pressions pèsent sur les bibliothèques. Les contingences économiques, institutionnelles et scientifiques poussent le secteur à se remettre en question jusque dans ses fondements. A travers une enquête adressée au personnel des bibliothèques universitaires francophones de Belgique, France, Suisse et Canada, ce mémoire tente d’évaluer dans quelle mesure le personnel des BU perçoit les mutations en cours dans son environnement professionnel en général, et en particulier concernant l’évaluation de la recherche et le traitement des publications scientifiques. Les résultats font apparaître des disparités nationales et déterminent des observations globales. Généralement le personnel est favorable aux changements en matière de traitement des publications scientifiques et à l’évaluation de la recherche. Mais globalement, il n’est ni impliqué, ni préparé à une plus grande intégration de ses activités dans le contexte de la recherche au sein de son institution. »

URL : http://memsic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/mem_00741049

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Anatomy of open access publishing a study of…

Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development and internal structure :

« Background : Open access (OA) is a revolutionary way of providing access to the scholarly journal literature made possible by the Internet. The primary aim of this study was to measure the volume of scientific articles published in full immediate OA journals from 2000 to 2011, while observing longitudinal internal shifts in the structure of OA publishing concerning revenue models, publisher types and relative distribution among scientific disciplines. The secondary aim was to measure the share of OA articles of all journal articles, including articles made OA by publishers with a delay and individual author-paid OA articles in subscription journals (hybrid OA), as these subsets of OA publishing have mostly been ignored in previous studies.

Methods : Stratified random sampling of journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (n = 787) was performed. The annual publication volumes spanning 2000 to 2011 were retrieved from major publication indexes and through manual data collection.

Results : An estimated 340,000 articles were published by 6,713 full immediate OA journals during 2011. OA journals requiring article-processing charges have become increasingly common, publishing 166,700 articles in 2011 (49% of all OA articles). This growth is related to the growth of commercial publishers, who, despite only a marginal presence a decade ago, have grown to become key actors on the OA scene, responsible for 120,000 of the articles published in 2011. Publication volume has grown within all major scientific disciplines, however, biomedicine has seen a particularly rapid 16-fold growth between 2000 (7,400 articles) and 2011 (120,900 articles). Over the past decade, OA journal publishing has steadily increased its relative share of all scholarly journal articles by about 1% annually. Approximately 17% of the 1.66 million articles published during 2011 and indexed in the most comprehensive article-level index of scholarly articles (Scopus) are available OA through journal publishers, most articles immediately (12%) but some within 12 months of publication (5%).

Conclusions : OA journal publishing is disrupting the dominant subscription-based model of scientific publishing, having rapidly grown in relative annual share of published journal articles during the last decade. »

URL : http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/124