Tag: Scholarly communication

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Editor’s Choice: Linking impact factor to ‘open access’ charges creates more inequality in academic publishing

This article appeared originally on the Times Higher Education blog, May 16, 2018. 

Linking impact factor to ‘open access’ charges creates more inequality in academic publishing

By Bianca Kramer and Jeroen Bosman

The prospectus SpringerNature released on April 25 in preparation of its intended stock market listing provides a unique view into what the publisher thinks are the strengths of its business model and where it sees opportunities to exploit them, including its strategy on open access publishing. Whether the ultimate withdrawal of the IPO reflected investors’ doubt about the presented business strategies, or whether SpringerNature’s existing debts were deemed to be too great a risk, the prospectus has nonetheless given the scholarly community an insight into the publisher’s motivations in supporting and facilitating open access.

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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 Even though Beall has withdrawn his list, unfortunately in the current technological age this list is not cleared from the web archive nor is there a prevention of the rehashing of the list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/