Death To Open Access! Long Live Open Access! « The Disorder Of Things

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-11-13

Summary:

"A few weeks ago at the Millennium conference, some of us got together to talk about open access and the political economy of knowledge (re)production in our little corner of academia (“us” being Colin Wight, David Mainwaring, Nivi Manchanda, Nathan Coombs, Meera and me). Over the remainder of this week, we’ll be posting those reflections here for your delectation because, some discussion notwithstanding, labourers in today’s university-factories need to get talking about these things, and fast.  Open Access appears to be here. The Finch Report has recommended it, the Government has endorsed it, and there even seem to be some monies newly available for it. The battle is won, and the age of unfettered academic-public intercourse is upon us. Well, not quite. Finch’s preference for Gold Open Access, in which journals continue to receive revenues and make profits and in which academics (or their institutions) pay a fee of several thousand pounds per article for the pleasure (the so called Article Processing Charge (APC) system, which will receive greater attention in later posts), is deeply problematic (well-reasoned explanations for why available from Stevan Harnad and Peter Coles (Telescoper), with more qualified views, even cautious support, from Stephen Curry and Repository Man). Also, the monies aren’t new, and have instead been extracted from existing research budgets (and what a complete and utter surprise that is).   This is all cause for serious concern ...  There are three kinds of arguments for opening up the journal system, arguments from accessethics and cost, and we are in danger of letting the first overwhelm the different, and better, cases made in the name of the second and third..."

Link:

http://thedisorderofthings.com/2012/11/12/death-to-open-access-long-live-open-access/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.gold oa.business_models oa.publishers oa.policies oa.comment oa.government oa.green oa.elsevier oa.libraries oa.uk oa.impact oa.costs oa.fees oa.profits oa.recommendations oa.funds oa.budgets oa.finch_report oa.hefce oa.repositories oa.journals

Date tagged:

11/13/2012, 15:54

Date published:

11/13/2012, 10:54