What exactly is Open Science? Its lack of an appropriate common definition has meant Open Science can be a variety of things; a social justice issue, part of a political capitalist regime, or a form of traditional science. But this lack of consensus leaves room for Open Science to be co-opted and even exploited. In seeking to (re)establish a common […]
Category: Elsevier
Introducing the Free Journal Network – community-controlled open access publishing
Discontent with the scholarly publishing industry continues to grow, as the prevailing subscription model appears increasingly unsustainable and open access big deals, one mooted alternative, unlikely to lead to optimal outcomes either. The Free Journal Network was established earlier this year in order to nurture and promote journals that are free to both authors and readers, and run according to […]
Increasingly collaborative researcher behaviour is the real threat to the resilient academic publishing sector
Traditional academic publishing has been rumoured to be imperilled for decades now. Despite continued criticism over pricing and a growing open access movement, a number of recent reports point to the sector’s resilience. Francis Dodds suggests this is partly attributable to the adaptability of academic publishers but also highlights attitudes of researchers surprisingly committed to the status quo as another […]
Five Minutes with Lambert Heller: “Do we need an open operating system of science?”
Publishing companies such as Elsevier are facing increasing criticism from scientists. And yet they do not only pursue antiquated models such as traditional journals – they are also working towards creating tomorrow’s “operating system of science”. For Lambert Heller the essential question is whether science will be capable of developing open alternatives to such a system. This is an English version […]
Elsevier’s new sharing policy is really a reversal of the rights of authors.
Virgina Barbour takes to task publishing giant Elsevier for their latest round of introduced restrictions on the sharing of academic research. Their new policy states that, if no article processing charge is paid, an author’s accepted version of the article cannot be made publicly available via their institution’s repository until after the embargo period, which can ranges from six months to four […]
Wages of Sin: Open Access is growing in theory but not in substance.
In an age where every other aspect of academia in the UK is being strangled, how is it that publisher profits have continue to rise? Paul Kirby points to the partial embrace of publishing business models that encourage article processing charges mixed with soft policies that reinforce traditional library subscription models. This is not the picture of an industry under threat. […]