Transparency agendas are being used to legislate against consortial open-access models even though it has good cost outcomes | Martin Paul Eve | Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing

peter.suber's bookmarks 2019-07-05

Summary:

"Some open-access advocates argue that transparency and accountability are key for open access (meaning: the removal of price and permission barriers to reading academic research). Indeed, this is one of the many points when the discourses of neoliberal* governmentality intersect with open academic publication. For, it is argued, by opening up and ensuring that bodies are accountable, we will ensure the lowest prices for the “customer” and the best use of public funding. It is particularly important, it is often argued by those of a more libertarian persuasion, that governments are accountable for the way that they spend their taxpayer dollars. This is indeed why, again, some argue, taxpayer-funded research should be openly available (for the record: I think such research should be openly available, but I also think all university research – even that only funded by the institution – should be openly available for the benefit of humankind).

Peter Suber has written before about the taxpayer argument for OA and the refinements and specificities that are needed to make it work. Yet there is a deeper problem with the taxpayer argument: it is embedded within a specific economic regime that has emerged over the past 40 years that states that markets are the best and only true practical arbiter of all aspects of social life and will determine the best price outcome for participants.

I disagree with this assertion...."

Link:

https://eve.gd/2018/06/03/transparency-agendas-are-used-to-legislate-against-consortial-open-access-models/

Updated:

07/05/2019, 10:59

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.markets oa.consortia oa.objections oa.debates risks

Date tagged:

07/05/2019, 14:59

Date published:

06/03/2018, 10:59