Category Archives: oa.academic_freedom

West Texas A&M says it won’t charge for textbooks next fall

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“West Texas A&M University’s president made a splashy announcement late last week: effective next fall, his university would no longer charge students for “textbooks.”…

“I wrote an op-ed published on October 26, 2018, entitled Text-Book Free, Not Free Textbooks,” Wendler wrote. “I waited and prodded for campus responses for five years. In some areas, faculty worked diligently to help reduce the use of textbooks and have succeeded in varying degrees. During the ensuing five years, the world has changed remarkably as more information is available from web search engines and generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs, which make possible the development of teaching materials for every course we teach.” …

The [no-confidence] resolution also criticized Wendler’s “encouraging faculty to invest significant time” to create “open-access materials rather than developing or revising materials with traditional publishers.” …”

FINAL STATEMENT from the 16th Berlin Open Access Conference

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“The statement that follows represents the strong consensus of all delegations present at the meeting.

The global open access transition must advance at a far greater pace.
Through its open access negotiations, research communities in all continents are making research outcomes more visible and accessible at no cost to readers or authors, for the benefit of all but want to move faster. Publishers must offer transformative and transitional open access agreements to all as the default and work at pace and scale to effect a full, rapid and permanent transition away from paywalled access to research results.  

Inequity is incompatible with scholarly publishing.
Progress in removing subscription paywalls must not risk creating barriers to participation in open science and scholarship. The open access transition must be truly inclusive and reflect the plurality of research disciplines, topics, languages, and outputs. Differentiated regional pricing (geopricing) of open access publishing services, that reflect the cultural, policy and financial positions of all communities, is in the interests of the entire global research community and supports the goals of scholarship. One size fits all open access publishing models based on high publishing charges are inequitable. Pricing for publishing services must be globally fair, transparent, affordable and sustainable.

Academic self-governance is an imperative in scholarly publishing.
Quality assurance in the process of scientific peer review must be clearly separated from the processes associated with the provision of publishing services to prevent practices that lower standards in order to increase publisher revenue. Editorial independence must be guaranteed.

Author choice and author rights must be fully enabled.
We strongly support retention of copyright and all rights therein by authors. Open access agreements with publishers should stipulate that authors only grant “limited” or “non-exclusive” licenses to publishers, and liberal Creative Commons (CC) licenses (e.g., CC BY) should be applied as the default choice. In keeping with the spirit and goals of open access, more restrictive CC licenses (e.g., CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, and CC BY-NC-ND) should function as originally intended, in respect of the author’s disciplinary needs; consequently, author “license to publish” agreements should not limit the author’s rights in any way. The author’s choice of license should not affect the price of publication services….”

G7 Science and Technology Ministers’ Communique

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“We share a growing concern that some actors may attempt to unfairly exploit or distort the open research environment and misappropriate research results for economic, strategic, geopolitical, or military purposes. This undermines the principles and values that underpin open, transparent, reciprocal, and accountable international research cooperation and the integrity of research and may pose security risks….

The G7 will collaborate in expanding open science with equitable dissemination of scientific knowledge and publicly funded research outputs including research data and scholarly publications in line with the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles. This is so that researchers and people throughout the world can benefit from them as well as contribute to the creation of new knowledge, stimulation of innovation, democratization of access to knowledge by society and the development of solutions for global challenges. This will also help to build more reproducible and trusted research results.

We recognize openness, freedom, and inclusiveness should be enhanced globally for the sound development of scientific research. When making decisions about openness, the respect for universal human rights and the protection of national security are essential, and principles and rules related to academic freedom, research integrity, privacy, and protection of intellectual property rights should be applied and upheld.

We acknowledge that open science platforms can allow the rapid sharing of pathogen samples and pathogen genetic sequence data on a global scale. They should also enable early development and more rapid, effective, and equitable access to MCMs for the prevention and control of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Robust multilateral data sharing is needed to ensure continued societal resilience to the global issues of today and the future….

The G7 also supports immediate open and public access to government-funded scholarly publications and scientific data, and supports the endeavors of the scientific community to address challenges in scholarly publishing for broader sharing of appropriate scientific outputs. To this end, we support the efforts of the G7 Open Science Working Group in promoting the interoperability and sustainability of infrastructure for research outputs, supporting research assessment approaches that incentivize and reward open science practices, and encouraging “research on research”, aimed at helping to shape a more effective evidence-based research policy…. ”

Das Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht und die Causa Konstanz – iRights.info

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From Google’s English:  “Finally, in 2023, the Federal Constitutional Court wants to decide in the dispute over the right of secondary publication. The core question is whether scientists can be required to publish their articles freely accessible a second time after twelve months. What makes the regulation so offensive that law professors complained about it? …

In the open letter, the new statutes are described as “legally encroaching”, as a “violation of the fundamental right to academic freedom” and as “a violation of the guarantee of intellectual property”. Although one is “not against the idea of ??open access itself”, as the letter says literally, “but against the path taken by the university of converting the possibility of secondary publication into a compulsory instrument that is discredited in this way.” The new The regulation is therefore unanimously ignored by the professors of the law faculty. They would not republish their publications in the Open Access repository of the University of Konstanz….”

Can publishers resist self-censorship in China? | Times Higher Education (THE)

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“Five years on from Cambridge University Press’ controversial compliance with a Chinese government request to make more than 300 articles unavailable to Chinese readers, publishers are increasingly self-censoring content on ‘sensitive’ topics….

The issue came to light five years ago, when it emerged in the UK’s national press that Cambridge University Press (CUP) had removed “sensitive” content from its prestigious China studies journal, China Quarterly. Since then, other publishers have faced similar accusations of bowing to pressure from Beijing. Springer Nature has restricted access to more than 1,000 articles, while Taylor & Francis, Sage Publishing and Brill have navigated strict content restrictions.

Although some publishers have found routes to navigate these restrictions without self-censoring their online platforms, others appear to be more deeply enmeshed in China’s censorship apparatus – and in recent years, the access constraints facing so-called controversial papers have gone much further than many believe, straying beyond familiar red-flag topics on an unprecedented scale.

By comparing UK-based and China-based IP addresses and the content discrepancies between the two, I’ve managed to gain some handle on the scale of publication data that is now inaccessible in China. My analysis suggests that more than 28,000 records of publication have been suppressed on publisher platforms accessible by Chinese scholars or the public….”

 

Can publishers resist self-censorship in China? | Times Higher Education (THE)

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“Five years on from Cambridge University Press’ controversial compliance with a Chinese government request to make more than 300 articles unavailable to Chinese readers, publishers are increasingly self-censoring content on ‘sensitive’ topics….

The issue came to light five years ago, when it emerged in the UK’s national press that Cambridge University Press (CUP) had removed “sensitive” content from its prestigious China studies journal, China Quarterly. Since then, other publishers have faced similar accusations of bowing to pressure from Beijing. Springer Nature has restricted access to more than 1,000 articles, while Taylor & Francis, Sage Publishing and Brill have navigated strict content restrictions.

Although some publishers have found routes to navigate these restrictions without self-censoring their online platforms, others appear to be more deeply enmeshed in China’s censorship apparatus – and in recent years, the access constraints facing so-called controversial papers have gone much further than many believe, straying beyond familiar red-flag topics on an unprecedented scale.

By comparing UK-based and China-based IP addresses and the content discrepancies between the two, I’ve managed to gain some handle on the scale of publication data that is now inaccessible in China. My analysis suggests that more than 28,000 records of publication have been suppressed on publisher platforms accessible by Chinese scholars or the public….”

 

Threats to Academic Freedom under the Guise of Open Access – Verfassungsblog

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“Developments in the publishing system increasingly suggest that the access revolution is much less revolutionary than expected. Reports gradually bring to light the extent to which publishers started to use the data tracking tools developed by “pioneers” such as Google and Facebook (see e.g. this informative briefing paper under the umbrella of the DFG, the German Research Foundation). This development could not only be the final blow for the Open Access movement’s potential to more radically and structurally change the way knowledge is being disseminated in the digital age – namely with a less prominent role played by commercial publishers. It furthermore means a systematic threat to the autonomy of the science system and academic freedom in the digital age….”

How UiT The Arctic University of Norway protects researchers’ freedom to choose whatever publication venue they want | Plan S

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In 2008 Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences voted unanimously to adopt a ground-breaking open access policy. Since then, over 70 other institutions, including other Harvard faculties, Stanford and MIT, have adopted similar policies based on the Harvard model. In Europe such institutional policies have, so far, been slow to get off the ground.

We are beginning to see that situation change. In 2021 the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) adopted an Open Access policy that came into force on 1st January 2022.

Here, UiT members Camilla Brekke (Prorector for Research and Development), Johanne Raade (Library Director), Tanja Larssen (Open Science Advisor) and Per Pippin Aspaas (Head of Library Research and Publishing Support), tell us about the process of creating and implementing their policy….”

bjoern.brembs.blog » Why publication services must not be negotiated

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“Recently, the “German Science and Humanities Council” (Wissenschaftsrat) has issued their “Recommendations on the Transformation of Academic Publishing: Towards Open Access“. On page 33 they write that increasing the competition between publishers is an explicit goal of current transformative agreements:

publishers become publication service providers and enter into competition with other providers

This emphasis on competition refers back to the simple fact that as content (rather than service) providers, legacy publishers currently enjoy monopolies on their content, as, e.g., the European Commission has long recognized: In at least two market analyses, one dating as far back as 2003 and one from 2015, the EC acknowledges the lack of a genuine market due to the lack of substitutability…

Without such prestige, the faculty argue, they cannot work, risk their careers and funding. Arguments that these ancient vehicles are unreliable, unaffordable and dysfunctional are brushed away by emphasizing that their academic freedom allows them to drive whatever vehicle they want to their field work. Moreover, they argue, the price of around one million is “very attractive” because of the prestige the money buys them.

With this analogy, it becomes clear why and how tenders protect the public interest against any individual interests. In this analogy, it is likely also clear that academic freedom does not and should not trump all other considerations. In this respect, I would consider the analogy very fitting and have always argued for such a balance of public and researcher interests: academic freedom does not automatically exempt academics from procurement rules.

Therefore, ten experts advocate a ban on all negotiations with publishers and, instead, advocate policies that ensure that all publication services for public academic institutions must be awarded by tender, analogous the the example set by Open Research Europe and analogous to how all other, non-digital infrastructure contracts are awarded.”

Academic freedom and responsibility: why Plan S is not unethical | Reciprocal Space

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by Stephen Curry

Since its announcement on 4th September the European Commission’s plan to make a radical shift towards open access (OA) has caused quite a stir. Backed by eleven* national funding agencies, the plan aims to make the research that they support free to read as soon as it is published. This is a major challenge to the status quo, since the funders are effectively placing subscription journals off limits for their researchers, even if the journals allow green OA (publication of the author-accepted manuscript) after an embargo period; Plan S also specifically excludes hybrid open access except in cases where journals have an agreed schedule for flipping to OA. The plan has been welcomed as “admirably strong” by OA advocate Peter Suber, though he has also offered cautionary notes on some aspects. Others have been less enthusiastic. A central charge, from some publishers and some academics is that Plan S is an infringement of academic freedom to choose how and where your work is published and is therefore unethical. 

I disagree. The claim that Plan S is unethical derives from an understanding of academic freedom that appears to me to rest on foundations that, if not shaky, are at least highly questionable.

Open Science | UNESCO

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“In the fragmented scientific and policy environment, a global understanding of the meaning, opportunities and challenges of open science is needed for its fair and equitable operationalization at the individual, institutional, national, regional and international levels.

The UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science provides an international framework for open science policy and practice that recognizes disciplinary and regional differences in open science perspectives. It takes into account academic freedom, gender-transformative approaches and the specific challenges of scientists and other open science actors in different countries and in particular in developing countries, and contributes to reducing the digital, technological and knowledge divides existing between and within countries….”

Open Access Publication and Academic Freedom in the Field of the Social Sciences and Humanities from a Constitutional Law Perspective in Italy | SpringerLink

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Abstract:  Few scholars are aware of the meaning of open access (OA), especially in the field of the social sciences and humanities, where the rates of OA-publication are remarkably low. The chapter gives an overview of the situation in Italy in order to outline the relation between OA and academic freedom. Also from the viewpoint of academic freedom, it emerges that public funding, university networks and awareness-raising among scholars enhance OA more than does imposition by law.

 

Journal Open Access and Plan S: Solving Problems or Shifting Burdens? – Kamerlin – – Development and Change – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  This academic thought piece provides an overview of the history of, and current trends in, publishing practices in the scientific fields known to the authors (chemical sciences, social sciences and humanities), as well as a discussion of how open access mandates such as Plan S from cOAlition S will affect these practices. It begins by summarizing the evolution of scientific publishing, in particular how it was shaped by the learned societies, and highlights how important quality assurance and scientific management mechanisms are being challenged by the recent introduction of ever more stringent open access mandates. The authors then discuss the various reactions of the researcher community to the introduction of Plan S, and elucidate a number of concerns: that it will push researchers towards a pay?to?publish system which will inevitably create new divisions between those who can afford to get their research published and those who cannot; that it will disrupt collaboration between researchers on the different sides of cOAlition S funding; and that it will have an impact on academic freedom of research and publishing. The authors analyse the dissemination of, and responses to, an open letter distributed and signed in reaction to the introduction of Plan S, before concluding with some thoughts on the potential for evolution of open access in scientific publishing.

 

 

 

Six Questions (with Answers!) about UC’s and Elsevier’s New Transformative Deal – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“As is so often the case with transformative deals, this one is complex; it’s also somewhat controversial, and the scholarly communication discussion space has been buzzing with questions. The good news is that the UC-Elsevier MOU is publicly available and it answers quite a few of them — while also fully illustrating the complexity of the deal.

Here I’d like to focus on six questions that I’ve had about the new UC-Elsevier deal, and share the answers I was able to find….”

Open Access and Academic Freedom: Teasing Out Some Important Nuances – Anderson – – Development and Change – Wiley Online Library

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Abstract:  Discussion of the ways in which open access (OA) and academic freedom interact is fraught for a number of reasons, not least of which is the unwillingness of some participants in the discussion to acknowledge that OA might have any implications for academic freedom at all. Thus, any treatment of such implications must begin with foundational questions. Most basic among them are: first, what do we mean by ‘open access’; second, what do we mean by ‘academic freedom’? The answers to these questions are not as obvious as one might expect (or hope), but when they are answered it becomes much easier to address a third, also very important, question: in what ways might OA and academic freedom interact? With every new OA mandate imposed by a government agency, institution of higher education, or funding organization, careful analysis of this issue becomes more urgent. This article attempts to sort out some of these issues, controversies and confusions.