Category Archives: oa.ethics

Frontiers | Toward an open access genomics database of South Africans: ethical considerations

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Abstract:  Genomics research holds the potential to improve healthcare. Yet, a very low percentage of the genomic data used in genomics research internationally relates to persons of African origin. Establishing a large-scale, open access genomics database of South Africans may contribute to solving this problem. However, this raises various ethics concerns, including privacy expectations and informed consent. The concept of open consent offers a potential solution to these concerns by (a) being explicit about the research participant’s data being in the public domain and the associated privacy risks, and (b) setting a higher-than-usual benchmark for informed consent by making use of the objective assessment of prospective research participants’ understanding. Furthermore, in the South African context—where local culture is infused with Ubuntu and its relational view of personhood—community engagement is vital for establishing and maintaining an open access genomics database of South Africans. The South African National Health Research Ethics Council is called upon to provide guidelines for genomics researchers—based on open consent and community engagement—on how to plan and implement open access genomics projects.

 

How Scientific Publishers’ Extreme Fees Put Profit Over Progress | The Nation

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“On April 17, the premier journal NeuroImage’s entire editorial team, comprising more than 40 scientists, resigned over the “unethical fees” charged by the journal’s academic publisher, Elsevier. With more than $2 billion in annual revenue, the publisher’s profit margin approaches 40 percent—rivaling that of Apple and Google. “Elsevier has become kind of like the poster child for evil publishing companies,” said neuroscientist Kristen Kennedy, one of the recently resigned senior editors.

Kennedy relies on taxpayer money to study the aging brain. At the University of Texas at Dallas, federal grants help fund the staff, equipment, and experiments in her lab. But this public money, largely from the National Institutes of Health, is being drained by exorbitant publishing fees….”

Paper mills research | COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics

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“Recommended actions

A major education exercise is needed to ensure that Editors are aware of the problem of paper mills, and Editors/editorial staff are trained in identifying the fake papers.
Continued investment in tools and systems to pick up suspect papers as they are submitted.
Engagement with institutions and funders to review incentives for researchers to publish valid papers and not use services that will give quick but fake publication.
Investigation of protocols that can be put in place to impede paper mills from succeeding in their goals.
Review the retraction process to take account of the unique features of paper mill papers.
Investigate how to ensure retraction notices are applied to all copies of a paper such as preprint servers and article repositories….”

40 editors at a scientific journal just resigned in protest of their publisher’s “greed”

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“This came to a boil on April 17, when more than 40 scientists resigned from their editorial positions at a journal called NeuroImage — one of the world’s leading publications concerning brain imaging. Founded in 1992, the journal publishes around 1,000 articles per year with an impact factor of 7.4, which is a metric for how often the journal’s research is cited by others. NeuroImage has been open access since 2020, a mode of scientific publishing that eschews paywalls, allowing anyone to read the research, share it and build upon it….”

Editors of neurology imaging journal resign to start new publication in protest at author fees | The BMJ

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“All 42 editors at the Elsevier journal NeuroImage and its companion journal NeuroImage: Reports have resigned from their posts to collaborate on a new non-profit open access journal called Imaging Neuroscience, aiming “to replace NeuroImage as the top journal in our field,” they said in a joint statement.1

The editors decided to stop working with Elsevier after the publisher refused their request to reduce article processing charges for authors publishing open access articles in NeuroImage and NeuroImage: Reports. These were set at $3450, roughly average for a medical journal of NeuroImage’s circulation and impact factor. But the departed editors estimate the actual cost of publication at $1000 or less….”

‘Too greedy’: mass walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees | Peer review and scientific publishing | The Guardian

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“More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the “greed” of publishing giant Elsevier.

The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage, including professors from Oxford University, King’s College London and Cardiff University resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.

Academics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start of a rebellion against the huge profit margins in academic publishing, which outstrip those made by Apple, Google and Amazon.

Neuroimage, the leading publication globally for brain-imaging research, is one of many journals that are now “open access” rather than sitting behind a subscription paywall. But its charges to authors reflect its prestige, and academics now pay over £2,700 for a research paper to be published. The former editors say this is “unethical” and bears no relation to the costs involved….”

Editors quit top neuroscience journal to protest against open-access charges

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“More than 40 editors have resigned from two leading neuroscience journals in protest against what the editors say are excessively high article-processing charges (APCs) set by the publisher. They say that the fees, which publishers use to cover publishing services and in some cases make money, are unethical. The publisher, Dutch company Elsevier, says that its fees provide researchers with publishing services that are above average quality for below average price. The editors plan to start a new journal hosted by the non-profit publisher MIT Press.

The decision to resign came about after many discussions among the editors, says Stephen Smith, a neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, UK, and editor-in-chief of one of the journals, NeuroImage. “Everyone agreed that the APC was unethical and unsustainable,” says Smith, who will lead the editorial team of the new journal, Imaging Neuroscience, when it launches….”

‘It Feels Like Things Are Breaking Open’: High Publishing Charges Spur Neuroscientists to Start Their Own Journal

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“The editors of a prominent neuroscience journal are sending a clear message to their publisher — and, they hope, to the broader academic-publishing community — by resigning en masse to begin a new journal in protest of what they say are “unethical and unsustainable” publishing fees.

More than 40 handling editors, associate editors, senior editors, and editors in chief for NeuroImage and its companion journal NeuroImage: Reports, which are published by Elsevier, on Monday announced they were leaving their positions to assume similar roles at the newly formed Imaging Neuroscience, which will be published by the nonprofit MIT Press. They plan for the new journal to eclipse NeuroImage in standing, saying the fact that the entire editorial staff is making the shift will ensure the new journal’s quality.

The high-profile move is the latest chapter in the long-unfolding battle over who pays and who benefits in the academic-publishing world. The departure from a well-regarded journal, and the plan to mount direct competition to it, also highlight the complex ecosystem that surrounds journals’ prestige and impact — and the interplay of a publisher’s reach and scale with the academic bona fides of the scholars who run a title….”

How to cultivate good closures: ‘scaling small’ and the limits of openness | Samuel Moore

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Text of a talk given to the COPIM end-of-project conference: “Scaling Small: Community-Owned Futures for Open Access Books”, April 20th 2023.

Open access publishing has always had a difficult relationship with smoothness and scale. Openness implies seamlessness, limitlessness or structureless-ness – or the idea that the removal of price and permission barriers is what’s needed to allow research to reach its full potential. The drive for seamlessness is on display in much of the push for interoperability of standards and persistent identifiers that shape the infrastructures of openness. Throughout the evolution of open access, many ideas have been propagated around, for example, the necessity of CC BY as the one and only licence that facilitates this interoperability and smoothness of access and possible reuse. Similarly, failed projects such as One Repo sought to create a single open access repository to rule them all, in response to the perceived messy and stratified institutional and subject repository landscape.

Yet this relationship between openness and scale also leads to new kinds of closure, particularly the commercial closures of walled gardens that stretch across proprietary services and make researcher data available for increasing user surveillance. The economies of scale of commercial publishers require cookie-cutter production processes that remove all traces of care from publishing, in exchange for APCs and BPCs, thus ensuring that more publications can be processed cheaply with as little recourse to paid human labour as possible. Smoothness and scale are simply market enclosures by another name.

[…]

 

open-access.network: Elsevier: Protest gegen zu hohe Publikationsgebühren

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From Google’s English:  “In a letter dated April 18, 2023, the 40 members of the editorial board of the open access journal NeuroImage , which is considered a leader in the field of neuroscience , announced that they – including the four chief editors – had resigned jointly. With this step, they are protesting what they consider to be excessive publication fees ( Article Processing Charges – APC ) of $3,450 that the scientific publisher Elsevier charges for publications in the journal. According to its own statements, the editorial board had previously tried in vain to persuade the publisher to reduce the fees. The entire former team is now founding theOpen access journal Imaging Neuroscience with the aim of becoming the leading journal in the field of neuroscience….”

open-access.network: Elsevier: Protest gegen zu hohe Publikationsgebühren

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From Google’s English:  “In a letter dated April 18, 2023, the 40 members of the editorial board of the open access journal NeuroImage , which is considered a leader in the field of neuroscience , announced that they – including the four chief editors – had resigned jointly. With this step, they are protesting what they consider to be excessive publication fees ( Article Processing Charges – APC ) of $3,450 that the scientific publisher Elsevier charges for publications in the journal. According to its own statements, the editorial board had previously tried in vain to persuade the publisher to reduce the fees. The entire former team is now founding theOpen access journal Imaging Neuroscience with the aim of becoming the leading journal in the field of neuroscience….”

Imaging journal editors resign over ‘extreme’ open-access fees | Spectrum | Autism Research News

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“The entire editorial boards of two leading neuroscience journals, NeuroImage and NeuroImage:Reports, resigned en masse on Monday over what they say are exorbitant article fees from their publisher, Elsevier.

The group intends to launch a new nonprofit open-access journal called Imaging Neuroscience, “to replace NeuroImage as the top journal in our field,” according to a statement posted 17 April to Twitter by an account called Imaging Neuroscience EiC. The statement was signed by all 42 editorial board members of both journals….”

Imaging journal editors resign over ‘extreme’ open-access fees | Spectrum | Autism Research News

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“The entire editorial boards of two leading neuroscience journals, NeuroImage and NeuroImage:Reports, resigned en masse on Monday over what they say are exorbitant article fees from their publisher, Elsevier.

The group intends to launch a new nonprofit open-access journal called Imaging Neuroscience, “to replace NeuroImage as the top journal in our field,” according to a statement posted 17 April to Twitter by an account called Imaging Neuroscience EiC. The statement was signed by all 42 editorial board members of both journals….”