California academics quit Elsevier journals in open access row | Times Higher Education (THE)

peter.suber's bookmarks 2019-08-15

Summary:

"More than 30 University of California faculty have quit editorial positions at Cell and other leading academic journals owned by Elsevier in an escalating showdown with the publishing giant over open access.

The editors include many leading figures in their fields, compounding the pressure on Elsevier as it battles a major statewide university system that produces 10 per cent of the US’ academic research papers....

In making their move, the editors talked more about the inconvenience that California faculty now face than they did about any determined commitment to global efforts aimed at making science articles freely available to all users.

In a three-paragraph letter to Elsevier, the participating faculty said simply that they were protesting against the lack of a contract between the California system and Elsevier, and their resulting inability to directly access the company’s library of 2,500 scientific journals....

By other measures, however, Elsevier may have little reason for urgency. The quarterly earnings report issued last month by its parent company, RELX, showed that Elsevier’s operating profit remained at about 36 per cent – a level many academics see as proof that the company is not treating them fairly – with reported increases in both contract renewals and new subscription sales...."

Link:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/california-academics-quit-elsevier-journals-open-access-row

From feeds:

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

Tags:

oa.new oa.u.california oa.cancellations oa.elsevier oa.resignations oa.boycotts

Date tagged:

08/15/2019, 09:22

Date published:

08/15/2019, 05:22