Category: Scholarly Publishing

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Editor’s Choice: Openness as Tool for Acceleration and Measurement: Reflections on Problem Representations Underpinning Open Access and Open Science

Editor’s Choice: Haider, J. (2017). Openness as Tool for Acceleration and Measurement: Reflections on Problem Representations Underpinning Open Access and Open Science. In U. Herb, & J. Schöpfel (Eds.), Open Divide?:
Critical Studies on Open Access. Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books. Source: Openness as Tool for Acceleration and Measurement: Reflections on Problem Representations Underpinning Open Access and Open Science

Abstract: Open access has established itself as an issue that researchers, universities, and various infrastructure providers, such as libraries and academic publishers, have to relate to. Commonly policies requiring open access are framed as expanding access to information and hence as being part of a democratization of society and knowledge production processes. However, there are also other aspects that are part of the way in which open access is commonly imagined in the various policy documents, declarations, and institutional demands that often go unnoticed. This essay wants to foreground some of these issues by asking the overarching question: “If open access and open science are the solutions, then what is the problem they are meant to solve?” The essay discusses how demands to open up access to research align also with processes of control and evaluation and are often grounded in ideas of economic growth as constant acceleration.

In this chapter, Haider argues that the open access rhetoric adopted by policymakers frames open access as “a business model for managing relations between public funders and private enterprise.”  This framing of the issue has helped to accelerate the privatization of open access.  Additionally, the emphasis on policy makers and publishers has downplayed the role of researchers and librarians.

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Editor’s Choice: Predatory publishing from a global south perspective by Reggie Raju

Predatory publishing is under discussion at CUNY. This article by Reggie Raju–who was a featured speaker in the LACUNY Scholarly Communications Roundtable International Webinar Series– presents viewpoints from the global south. This post was originally published in the Library Publishing Coalition Blog, Feb. 7, 2018:

Source: Predatory publishing from a global south perspective

 

Author: Reggie Raju

Abstract: The unilateral determination of a definition of predatory publishing, by Jeffrey Beall, has sent the research publishing world into a tizz. Even though Beall has withdrawn his list, unfortunately in the current technological age this list is not cleared from the web archive nor is there a prevention of the rehashing of the list by someone else. Nor, has there been subsequently an adequate reconceptualization of predatory publishing to ensure that it is not discriminatory to open access or the global south.

Writing as a Fellow of the LPC from the global south, I feel a sense of obligation to follow the call that African academics and intellectuals (not that I am either), on the continent and in the diaspora, play a role in countering the prejudice and misinformation about Africa. Be that as it may, I think there are significant lessons for both the global south and north by interrogating the concept of predatory publishing. The recently published article by Olivarez and others (2018) highlight the need for interventions to remedy the insensitive generalization of predatory publishing.

Citation: Raju, Reggie (2018). “Predatory publishing from a global south perspective.” Fellows Journal, LPC Blog. https://librarypublishing.org/predatory-publishing-global-south-perspective/

 

 

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The Road to OA

Happy New Year

from the Open @ CUNY Team!

 

If you’re looking to add more open access (OA) to your publishing endeavors in 2018, you can probably accomplish that in more than one way. While it’s great to publish your scholarship in an OA journal, don’t think that’s the only road to OA. If you have to take another road, I think that’s ok too. I took the secondary road to OA myself.

 

For my very first attempt at publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, I wanted to respond to a call for papers that perfectly matched an article I just started writing. But before I submitted my proposal—being the OA advocate that I am—I looked at how I could squeeze some OA from a journal that not only required a subscription to access its print or electronic version, it was embargoed in our online databases. I didn’t have access to any articles online for that journal until a year-and-a-half after they were published (and we didn’t have a print subscription). OA roadblock!

 

I did find a detour where the publisher gave authors the option of paying a few thousand dollars to make their articles freely available online (the hybrid OA road). So far, I was not feeling optimistic about the possibility of OA for me from this journal. Would I pass up this otherwise stellar opportunity if there were no OA options open to me?

 

Before I had to cross that bridge, I turned to the other main route to OA. If the journal itself wasn’t open access (the gold OA road), there was still the possibility of self-archiving in a repository (the green OA road) to investigate. Here road conditions turned favorable. The publisher allowed authors in my discipline to post the accepted manuscript (aka postprint) to an institutional repository—like CUNY Academic Works—without the embargo. Therefore, if I were to publish with this journal, I could submit the version of my article that had been through peer review (but not yet formatted for the issue) immediately upon publication. I could work with that.

 

I went on to submit my proposal and was accepted for the special issue (I told you it was a perfect fit). When my article is published, you can bet my postprint will be up in Academic Works and free for anyone to read not long after. My road to OA wasn’t the one I preferred, but I didn’t hesitate to take an alternate route. I will arrive at my destination in the end.