Controversy surrounding academic publications continues amidst the backdrop of institutes of higher education facing uncertainty in public opinion. Specifically, this discussion is occurring where the cost of public, educational institutions is the highest. The Detroit News reported in an article entitled "Crushing the Dream" on Thursday, February 2012, that the tuition cost of public institutions is causing invariable unhappiness for students who must grapple with the consequences of these hikes. In this article, Phil Power claimed that "tuition at Michigan public colleges is higher than for nearly every comparable school around the country."
One surprising educational cost?
The pricing platforms of subscriptions to academic journals.
Why
Many rely on these periodicals to enhance their research, gain earn publishing experience on their CVs and learn more about their field. The funding for these materials is generally budgeted by the libraries of these institutions. Notably, the academic community has raised objections to these publishing materials and the UK battle against the Dutch publishing publishing company, Elsevier, has drawn particular notoriety within this professional sect.
Tim Gowers
The movement can be traced back to Tim Gowers, an academic who objected to the publisher in late January. On Gowers's Weblog, he detailed his involvement in questioning the mechanics of the company and explained his decision to avoid publication in the journals. His main objection to the publisher seemed to encompass a look at the practice of "bundling" by libraries. According to the practices of the publisher, a library is more-or-less required to purchase several installments of various periodicals. The materials are sold in sets and libraries are required to finance an entire assemblage of magazines rather than one or two popular journals.
The Gowers post also revealed that part of the frustration with the publisher traces back to problems within the peer-reviewing system itself. Some contributors to this site noted that the academics are not being paid to individually review, edit, or otherwise receive compensation by the company for their edits. The unpopularity of Elsevier in the UK and Springer in France can be somewhat attributed to internal quarrels within the scholastic editing process, but this is not the sole means of the publishers' late unpopularity. Gowers further objected to the support Elsevier, of late, showed in regards to SOPA, PIPA, and other regulatory bills. For all of these reasons, Gowers expressed his disdain for the periodicals.
The Genesis of the Cost of Knowledge
He next suggested that the tactic displeased academics should adopt is one of protest. He opined that the academics should be for the academics should refuse to be published on the site, join an editorial board, edit theseor a combination of the three actions. Gowers outlined that this should be documented on a public site. Indeed the website, The Cost of Knowledge, was founded to specifically organize signatures against this publisher and indicate academics who chose not to associate with it. While Gowers acknowledged that signing up in support of this action could ultimately be seen as criticisms of the individual authors or editors who require such services, it was a gesture against this specific publisher. One can trace these actions back to the original post Gowers made on January 20th.
Gowers wrote, "If all libraries were prepared to club together and negotiate jointly, doing a kind of reverse funding... accept this deal or none of us will subscribe to any of your journals... the Elsevier's profits... would be genuinely threatened." He conceptualized that after the action of the libraries, the academics would get involved. The development of the site allowed the academic crowd to "be encouraged to take a stand if they could see that many others were already doing so and that it would be a good way of making that stand public." But, what's notable about this debate is not what a sizable portion of academics think or do not think about the manner of the academic periodicals.
Not all academics are unhappy with the practices of their journals. Some pointed out that machine learning and bio journals, at least, provide less restrictive forms of subscription. Others appreciated that Elsevier allows writers to retain copies of their preprints. No, what is upstanding about this debate is the platform of discussion created on behalf of these academics in terms of organizing themselves in protest. Gowers wrote in the article that that it was an attempt to coordinate academics and demonstrate their collective bargaining power. It will be interesting to see what the formal response from Elsevier. Such a coordinated movement could dynamically influence their publishing tactics, increase outreach to academics and libraries, and create an ultimately rewarding debate for consumers and producers of journals alike.
While Gowers might suggest that these academic journals are "rubbishy mathematics journals," he raises a point about the exclusivity of peer journals. Perhaps, those in the academy should take note of Alan Cann of Leicester University who had an innovative approach to publishing his own publication. Cann (and undoubtably others) published his work on a site and encouraged the other commenters to respond with their edits in an open peer review. Like any digital community, the commenters reply with their remarks and professional critiques. While Cann's approach doesn't resolve the issue of pay to anyone with their editorial critique, it does demonstrate that the blur between the academy and authors becomes enhanced in a tumultuous economic climate.
Image courtesy of jscreationzs.
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While it's true that open peer reviewers don't get paid, they don't for profit-making Elsevier journals either. What they receive is reciprocity - reviews of their own work in return. In theory, that's exactly the same as "conventional" academic publishing.
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