[open-science] ‘Transformative’ open access publishing deals are only entrenching commercial power

[Jon Tennant]

Hi list-dwellers,

With apologies for any cross-posting.

My latest piece is out in Times Higher Education
<https://www.facebook.com/timeshighereducation/?__tn__=%2CdK-R-R&eid=ARBapf88MHoy7JL4dws2B2ad9qfZTBxyJ2oOCEoHstbXHGWK_vM5g0X8-46NoDB2uejDdSmzGiVdBZBk&fref=mentions>
today. It's something I've been wanting to write for a while now.

Every year, we waste billions of euros of taxpayers money on inefficient
systems with outrageous profit margins. When we KNOW there are more
sustainable, non-profit, and more effective solutions out there.

The current model of scholarly publishing contains a disastrous blend of
Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance. Researchers are helplessly
locked into the system because of an over-reliance on journal brands for
their evaluations, including for promotion, grants and tenure. As such, we
are forced to continue to support the notion that where we publish is more
important than what we publish – despite all having been told as children
not to judge a book by its cover. I find it absurd that the most supposedly
intellectual people in the world cannot find an evaluation system better
than this.

We are continuing to actively work against efforts to return control of
publishing to the academic community. "Plan S" does not seem to make this
situation better. It is time to take a step back and to think again about
what we really want.

Any thoughts or feedback on this would be deeply appreciated. Also, don't
miss the latest video for the Open Science MOOC
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QleYAELAiKY>, with Eloy Rodrigues from
COAR!

Have a great day, all.

Jon
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Rogue Palaeontologist; PhD, MEarthSci, MSc - *
*Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, Paris.*

*Latest research papers*: Ten hot topics around scholarly publishing
<https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/7/2/34>; Open Access in Palaeontology
<https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2019/2548-open-access-in-palaeontology>;
Ten simple rules for researchers collaborating on Massively Open Online
Papers (MOOPs) <https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/et8ak>.

   - Founder of the *Open Science MOOC* <https://opensciencemooc.eu/> (open
   Slack <https://osmooc.herokuapp.com/> channel)


<https://eliademy.com/catalog/catalog/product/view/sku/02d7338a7e>

   - Founder of *paleorXiv* <https://paleorxiv.org/>, a free, open source
   digital publishing platform for all Palaeontology research (companion
   Website) <https://paleorxiv.github.io/>
   - Independent open science communicator and consultant
   <http://fossilsandshit.com/open-scholarship/>
   - Author of Excavate! Dinosaurs
      <http://www.amazon.co.uk/Excavate-Dinosaurs-Paper-Toy-Palaeontology/dp/178240144X>
and
      World of Dinosaurs (coming 2018)

*Personal website <http://fossilsandshit.com/> - Home of the Green Tea and
Velociraptors blog.*

*ORCID:* 0000-0001-7794-0218 <http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7794-0218>
*Twitter:* @protohedgehog
<https://twitter.com/Protohedgehog>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-science/attachments/20190815/b9ce3baf/attachment.html>