How open access helps.

Earlier this week, there was a mini-workshop in Paris called Couperin’s open science days 2018. (Original title in French: Journées sciences...

Although Finland and South Korea have agreed deals with the publisher, European sectors are looking to take a harder line

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When I first began working with electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), the conversation in libraries appeared to revolve around open access and publication embargoes. It seemed to me that the primary task for scholarly communication librarians in this area was to broaden access to graduate research while protecting future publication opportunities for individual authors. As graduate students begin to publish earlier in their careers, the relationship between the doctoral dissertation and scholarly publishing is evolving. Many students now include their own previously published work in a dissertation, requiring instruction in publication contracts and copyright transfer agreements at the point of submission to the graduate school.

State officials are investigating whether CUNY professors improperly scored tenure and promotions by publishing research papers with the help of shady, pay-to-play companies, The Post has...

Excellent, historically-aware explainer. DOES NOT explain the Big Deal, however.

The 2.5% Commitment Mike Roy and David W. Lewis CNI Washington, DC December 11, 2017 © 2017 Mike Roy and David W. Lewis. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license

In trying to thwart predators, the government is penalizing researchers who publish in genuine open-access journals.

Nature - Negotiations to reduce journal prices and promote open access are progressing slowly.

Librarians have a key role to play in educating users about predatory publishing. Predatory publishing can be described as low quality, amateurish, and often unethical academic publishing that is usually Open Access (OA). Understanding predatory publishing helps authors to make more informed decisions about where to publish. In the process of educating our users, librarians can set the ground for important conversations that encourage critical thinking about the scholarly communications process. Predatory publishing stems from broader problems including overemphasis on publication quantity, an OA models based on traditional, for-profit publishing, and resource disparities in the Global South. When users take fuller responsibility and ownership of scholarly communications, knowledge can be a public good and not a commodity. A more sustainable and just scholarly communications ecosystem can be a reality. As effective advocates for OA, librarians need to be ready to respond to those who conflate OA and predatory publishing. It is helpful to contextualize predatory publishing as an aspect of evaluating publishers and the quality of scholarship. This helps promote the idea that due diligence is the responsibility of all scholars, whether as authors, peers, or administrators. Additionally, positioning (deliberate) predatory publishing in the broader arena of unethical and fraudulent scholarly practices helps to decouple predatory publishing from OA and boosts our ability to communicate effectively with non-librarians.

Far from being duped, researchers with few resources are turning to “predatory” journals to publish articles and polish resumes.

Ownership of intellectual property rights for a large proportion of the scholarly record is held by publishers, so a majority of journal articles are behind paywalls and unavailable to most people. As a result some readers are encouraged to use pirate websites such as Sci-Hub to access them, a practice that is alternately regarded as criminal and unethical or as a justified act of civil disobedience. This article considers both the efficacy and ethics of piracy, placing ‘guerrilla open access’ within a longer history of piracy and access to knowledge. By doing so, it is shown that piracy is an inevitable part of the intellectual landscape that can render the current intellectual property regime irrelevant. If we wish to actively construct a true scholarly commons, open access emerges as a contender for moving beyond proprietary forms of commodifying scholarly knowledge towards the creation of an open scholarly communication system that is fit for purpose.