Knowledge Unlatched Strikes Again | Jeff Pooley

Pablo Markin, in a recent post touting the Open Research Community‘s 2020 reach:

In the course of 2020, 153 posts and 151 documents have been added to the Open Research Community (ORC), which reflects its intention to serve as a resource for expert knowledge and content in the domain of Open Access.

What Markin does not mention is that the Open Research Community (ORC) is yet another initiative of the stealth for-profit Knowledge Unlatched (KU). Nor does Markin, identified as the ORC’s “Community Manager,” disclose KU’s backing in his original ORC announcement post from a year ago. Nor is there any mention of KU in the platform’s FAQs.

This is not a new pattern for KU. Founded as a nonprofit in 2012, the core of Knowledge Unlatched was acquired by Sven Fund’s for-profit consultancy in 2016. The organization’s new, profit-making status was, in effect, a shadily kept secret which—when revealed—caused an outcry. To this day, despite multiple pleas to Fund and his board, it is still almost impossible to unearth its for-profit status on KU’s flashy .org website.

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