The Achilles’ heel of open access mandates
Luckily, there are many roads to open access to publicly funded research. Currently, none of them are really sustainable by themselves, but in cooperation, they keep pushing for more open access and...
View ArticleWhat should a modern scientific infrastructure look like?
For ages I have been planning to collect some of the main aspects I would like to see improved in an upgrade to the disaster we so euphemistically call an academic publishing system. In this post I’ll...
View ArticleUniversity libraries in the digital age: what stays, what has to go?
Today, I spent most of my day listening to three public talks by candidates for the head of the university library of my university, the University of Regensburg. That there are public presentations...
View ArticleWhither now, Open Access?
The recently discussed scenario of universal gold open access brought about by simply switching the subscriptions funds at libraries to have the libraries pay for author processing charges instead,...
View ArticleHow much should a scholarly article cost the taxpayer?
tl;dr: It is a waste to spend more than the equivalent of US$100 in tax funds on a scholarly article. Collectively, the world’s public purse currently spends the equivalent of US$~10b every year on...
View ArticleHow gold open access may make things worse
Due to ongoing discussions on various (social) media, this is a mash-up of several previous posts on the strategy of ‘flipping’ our current >30k subscription journals to an author-financed open...
View ArticleWhy haven’t we already canceled all subscriptions?
The question in the title is serious: of the ~US$10 billion we collectively pay publishers annually world-wide to hide publicly funded research behind paywalls, we already know that only between...
View ArticlePractical roads to infrastructure reform
A recurrent topic among faculty and librarians interested in infrastructure reform is the question of whose turn it is to make the next move. Researchers rightfully argue that they cannot submit their...
View ArticleOpen Science: Too much talk, too little action
Starting this year, I will stop traveling to any speaking engagements on open science (or, more generally, infrastructure reform), as long as these events do not entail a clear goal for action. I have...
View ArticlePlease address these concerns before we can accept your #OA proposal
Below, I’ve taken the liberty to “peer-review” recent proposals to ‘flip’ subscription journals to open access The applicants have provided an interesting proposal of how to ‘flip’ the current...
View ArticleWith the access issue temporarily solved, what now?
After almost 25 years since Stevan Harnad’s “subversive proposal“, now, finally, scholars and the public have a range of avenues at their disposal to access nearly every scholarly article. Public...
View ArticleThe scholarly commons: from profiteering to servicing
These days, many academic publishers can be considered mere Pinos: ‘Publishers in name only’. Instead of making scholarly work, commonly paid for by the public, public, as the moniker ‘publisher’ would...
View ArticleWhy academic journals need to go
In his fantastic Peters Memorial Lecture on occasion of receiving CNI‘s Paul Evan Peters award, Herbert Van de Sompel of Los Alamos National Laboratory described my calls to drop subscriptions as...
View ArticleAfter 24 years, when will academic culture finally shift?
It’s now been 24 years since Stevan Harnad sparked the open access movement by suggesting in his “subversive proposal” in 1994 that scholars ought to just publish their scholarly articles on the...
View ArticleDoes academic freedom entail exemption from spending rules?
The recent publication of the “Ten Principles of Plan S” has sparked numerous discussions among which one of several recurring themes was academic freedom. The cause for these discussions is the...
View ArticleMaybe try another kind of mandate?
Over the last ten years, scientific funding agencies across the globe have implemented policies which force their grant recipients to behave in a compliant way. For instance, the NIH OA policy mandates...
View ArticleProviding recommendations for Plan S implementation
Since cOAlition S is asking for recommendations from the community for the implementation of their Plan S, I have also chipped in. In their feedback form, they ask two questions, to which I have...
View ArticleImproved Plan S principles raise hope of more effective policies soon
Yesterday, cOAlition S published their updated principles and implementation guidelines for #PlanS, together with the rationale behind the update. This constitutes a very much welcome effort, as...
View ArticleScholarship has bigger fish to fry than access
Around the globe, there are initiatives and organizations devoted to bring “Open Access” to the world, i.e., the public availability of scholarly research works, free of charge. However, the current...
View ArticleWho’s responsible for the lack of action?
There are regular discussions among academics as to who should be the prime mover in infrastructure reform. Some point to the publishers to finally change their business model. Others claim that...
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