N.H. scientists join global boycott in debate over ‘open access’ research

“Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A big industry built on gathering information from paid and unpaid contributors, then packaging it and selling it to customers, is struggling with changes caused by the Internet, leading to disputes and even a global boycott. It must be the music industry, right? Or maybe book publishing. Hollywood? Newspapers? Nope. In this case, it’s academic research, and the debate has generated a high-profile boycott of publishing giant Elsevier, a protest that includes at least four academics in New Hampshire. ‘I’m an advocate of open information, and academic publishing is changing,’ said Jayson Seaman, a professor of kinesiology and education at the University of New Hampshire.He has pledged not to publish, referee or do editorial work for any Elsevier publication ... At least two other UNH researchers and a Dartmouth College grad student are also among more than 8,200 academics worldwide who have signed the pledge to boycott Elsevier publications. The pledge is more of a sacrifice than it may sound, because publishing your work in prominent journals, and doing related and usually unpaid work such as critiquing other scientist’s papers, is how researchers succeed... Elsevier has been targeted because of specific practices, notably the high cost of its journals, a profit level much higher than the industry average, its aggressive bundling of publications that jacks up the cost for school libraries, and support of a copyright-tightening federal bill called the Research Works Act... As big as it is, however, the boycott is only part of a bigger picture created as the Internet has made it easier for academics to distribute their research online without going through publishing houses... As big as it is, however, the boycott is only part of a bigger picture created as the Internet has made it easier for academics to distribute their research online without going through publishing houses – just as it allows bands to avoid record companies and “citizen journalists” to avoid newspapers. The loose term for the movement is “open access,” implying a shortage of copyright issues and subscription costs that get in the way of finding what you want to know when you want to know it. It’s not a new idea for science. For two decades, a resource called ArXiv (pronounced ‘archive,’ since the X is the Greek letter chi) has been making research preprints, or early copies, available online at little cost. Now the push is on to do something similar with peer-reviewed research, which is the heart of all science. Seaman, for example, is on the editorial team for a free publication called Democracy & Education, which started as a publication for K-12 teachers but is now more of an academic research journal ... Its articles are peer-reviewed before publication. ‘We have made a commitment to making this journal free and online, as the best way to facilitate open conversation about academic topics,’ Seaman said. ‘I see trends going in that direction for many areas... Actually, the issue is even bigger than this, because open access goes beyond print publication. Many schools are putting recorded lectures online to be viewed for free, creating a sort of open-access college education. It’s far from clear where this is all going. We don’t want science to turn into a sort of high-level Wikipedia, but sharing ideas easily is part of what makes science mankind’s greatest creation...”