From the open road to the high seas? Piracy, damnation and resistance in academic consumption of publishing

Abstract

Armin Beverungen conducts research on how universities retain their charitable status in a market environment, and on the teaching of ethics in business schools. Steffen Böhm has a particular interest in the economics and management of sustainability. He has also founded an open access journal and an open access press, MayFlyBooks. Christopher Land works on artists and the management of their creativity.

Managing the transition to open access publishing: a psychological perspective

“…For example, UK funders' policies promoting journal-mediated OA model have been scrutinised and their potential consequences discussed. These include universities (weighed down by financial pressures) making decisions about which publications are openly accessible the responsibility of university committees in charge of allocating funds for APCs (Beverungen et al, 2013), and also the potential of editorial boards to leave a publisher and set up replacement journals in order to bring down charges.…”

“…This stream of work points to the ethical and political unacceptability of the traditional academic publishing system and considers the role of the OA model for bringing about changes to the system (Harvie et al, 2013, Beverungen et al, 2013. These works examine the socio-political dynamics of change, focusing on the bottom-up strategies adopted by academics to resist what they see as the profiteering practices of commercial academic publishers (Harvie et al, 2013) and the top-down policies of national governments and research funders aimed at improved dissemination and utilisation of scholarly knowledge (Harvie et al, 2013, Beverungen et al, 2013. For example, UK funders' policies promoting journal-mediated OA model have been scrutinised and their potential consequences discussed.…”

“…Gao and Haworth, 2016), open disclosure practices such as publications (Kapeller and Steinerberger, 2016) and, more recently, production of open data (Perkmann and Schildt, 2015). As the academic publishing industry undergoes significant changes driven by the open access (OA) mandates of public research funders (Harvie et al, 2013;Beverungen et al, 2013), OA publishing is emerging as a new knowledge disclosure practice (Houghton and Oppenheim, 2010;Suber, 2012). This new practice makes research outputs openly and freely accessible and, it is believed, makes it easier to evaluate, replicate and build upon knowledge produced by others and, thus, to facilitate scientific and technological advancements and the mobilisation of knowledge for social and economic benefits (Gaulé and Maystre, 2011;McKiernan et al, 2016;European Commission, 2016).…”