comments on the open science recommendation

118 views
Skip to first unread message

Glenn Hampson

unread,
May 12, 2021, 7:05:24 PM5/12/21
to The Open Scholarship Initiative

Dear Colleagues,

 

I just forwarded you the draft text from the UNESCO meeting. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts, on list or off. Of course, reasonable people will disagree on this and have disagreed for years now. What I deeply value about the OSI conversations is that we aren’t pressed by time to develop a full understanding of these complex issues; I hope we can continue to learn more here and continue to help shape open policies and actions that will be widely adopted.

 

I mentioned in an earlier email that there are factual misstatements and hyperbole in this document. The response from UNESCO is that this is “soft law”---only a recommendation from UNESO and not a legal declaration. To me, anyway, this isn’t an entirely responsible argument. For example, the UN Declaration on Human Rights is also “soft law” but it carries enormous weight in international relations. What may gradually evolve from this science policy is a perception and an international relations policy dynamic where there is a right way and a wrong way to do good science, a morally responsible way and a morally suspect way, and good actors and bad actors, both institutionally and internationally. Some will applaud this change. I won’t. Real science doesn’t have these barriers now. It is, perhaps, the greatest and most egalitarian tool ever conceived by man, and to establish a framework that says the products of science now belong to society first and science second is a dangerous precedent that sets the stage for government control of science and a new paradigm in the incentive structure for science that has made this enterprise so successful over the last 500 years.

 

This summary is a bit over the top I realize. But it represents the logical conclusion of establishing an approach to science that is built on a “this is mine and that is mine” approach, rather than an approach that fully recognizes the importance of science as a given and commits us to working more closely together to create better ways of sharing and collaborating on issues of critical importance to the future of humanity. This is the approach that OSI has been championing and will continue to work on, both with UNESCO and with other international partners.

 

I am advised by UNESCO that the merit of a policy like the one just passed is all in how we interpret it---we can focus on the shortcomings, or we can try to see the big picture value. So, I am fully on board with helping connect OSI’s work more fully to this policy, and to developing action items for OSI that can align with making the big picture view of this policy a success. At the same time, I will try to make sure that UNESCO and others remain vigilant about the risks of harming science with ill-advised oversight and requirements, and further diminishing access and equity by establishing regulatory policies that work in the EU but nowhere else.

 

To the extent that this policy received “overwhelming” international support, this is true, in principle. In practice, however, this policy was written by a handful of UN advisors, shaped but not substantially altered by the global consultation process (in which OSI took part), and passed in four days of debate that languished over some language and skipped quickly over other significant points. For example, Marc Schiltz (formerly the President of Science Europe and a major backer of Plan S, and for this meeting, the science delegate for Luxembourg), introduced several amendments that essentially put UNESCO on record as being opposed to any method of science communication where payment stands between science and access. One of these amendments passed with no discussion in less than five minutes. Were that kind of language introduced in OSI we would have debated it for days. Now that it will become “soft law,” it’s hard to know what it means because the passage isn’t explained. Will governments now be called upon to pay for all science publishing? Or will we simply say that some forms of publishing are now “preferred” over others, and hope these decisions work out better than APCs (which OSI and a handful of others warned about in our 2019 Plan S recommendation).

 

In addition to this dynamic, most of the conversation in this meeting was led by just a handful of countries---Germany, Austria, Australia, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg. We heard a little bit from China on days one and two; Russia objected to many items but was always overruled; and the UK, France, Canada, Mexico, Finland and Brazil contributed a modest amount. We heard very little from India after day one, or the US (since it isn’t a UNESCO member), which only attended as an observer (sending Dee Shorts from the US State Department), and we heard nothing from major research countries like Japan and Korea. That leaves about, by my count, 178 countries out of 193 that we heard nothing at all from, nor were their viewpoints represented by proxy, nor did this meeting hear directly from universities, researchers, publishers, and other major stakeholders as a sanity check to the final proposal being discussed. In the chat, there was a frequent dissent happening from WIPO and other observers who were allowed to type into the chat bar but not speak; if their comments were picked up by member states it was only by luck (OSI was lucky enough to have a few comments acted on).

 

So, that’s my take for now. And despite the 920 words I’ve type so far in this email, I’m actually not critical of general outline and intent of this policy. I am, in fact, tremendously encouraged by the commitment of member states to the future of science. If UNESCO can harness this passion and turn what works in this policy into action that helps lead us to an Open Renaissance, then we may indeed be on the verge of an important period. Like any policy document, though, we also need to view this recommendation as a first step on a long journal---not the final destination, but still, an important beginning.

 

Best regards,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

 

 

image001.jpg

Glenn Hampson

unread,
May 12, 2021, 11:44:09 PM5/12/21
to The Open Scholarship Initiative

Folks,

 

I need to edit myself---hopefully this doesn’t steal anyone’s punchline. Science has indeed evolved over the years in response to ethical concerns. We no longer experiment on patients without their consent, or conduct research with wanton disregard for environmental impacts. Science has also become more transparent through better oversight mechanisms, resulting in a better and more trustworthy science.

 

So, is open science just the next frontier in pressuring science to become more ethical?

 

I’ll let you take it from there. I just wanted to remove my shoe from my mouth with regard to that particular point (although more shoes may still be in there).

 

Best,

 

Glenn

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/004201d74783%2448bf1850%24da3d48f0%24%40nationalscience.org.

image001.jpg

Williams Nwagwu

unread,
May 14, 2021, 4:55:09 AM5/14/21
to The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson
In addition to this dynamic, most of the conversation in this meeting was led by just a handful of countries....

Dear Glenn,
I must commend your dynamism and energy, and in fact your "openness" of mind on this subject. That is actually where it should start. In the absence of open mind about what constitutes GLOBAL science, all the soft and hard laws, declarations or charter cannot be considered egalitarian. In my mind, there is nothing GLOBAL about any instrument aimed at fostering global good without any efforts to involve people from various parts of the GLOBE. I am beginning to consider open access and its cousins as inaccessible to Africa, given the absence of Africa in the design of this soft law and other instruments. You have not even mentioned the absence of Africa as any limitation!

I live and work in one of the most science-unconducive country in Africa - Nigeria. But I see the benefits of open science bypassing a huge country of over 220 million people as usual. The instruments are so cosmopolitan, patronage oriented, creator-receiver in orientation, and too modernist in design, and so on.

Open access is a whole lot of contradiction in this continent. We promote open access. But we publish in closed access journals because we cannot afford the cost of APC. The waiver policies are too constraining and too patronising for comfort.

Willie


Bryan Alexander

unread,
May 14, 2021, 7:17:32 AM5/14/21
to Williams Nwagwu, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson
Willie, what makes Nigeria so unconducive to science?

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/236888362.495879.1620982504073%40mail.yahoo.com.


--

ric...@gedye.plus.com

unread,
May 14, 2021, 7:57:33 AM5/14/21
to The Open Scholarship Initiative

An agreement between EIFL and the Company of Biologists is an interesting development – maybe a harbinger if things to come.

 

https://www.biologists.com/library-hub/read-publish/library-consortia/eifl-announcement/

 

There are also some interesting country by country spreadsheets available via the links listed under:-

 

WHERE ELSE CAN I PUBLISH IN OPEN ACCESS?

Click on your country below to get the list of all the journals that EIFL has negotiated open access publishing terms for

 

at https://www.eifl.net/apcs/company-biologists-free-open-access-publishing

 

This won’t be much comfort to you Williams as EIFL doesn’t operate in Nigeria.

 

Nigeria is, however, a Research4Life country and the following articles from Research4Life about Open Access may be of interest:

 

https://www.research4life.org/news/how-research4life-helps-researchers-in-lower-and-middle-income-countries-publish-open-access/

 

https://www.research4life.org/news/open-access-inclusive-as-it-wants-to-be/

 

https://www.research4life.org/partner-resources/apc-waivers/

 

 

Richard

image003.jpg

Glenn Hampson

unread,
May 14, 2021, 12:11:39 PM5/14/21
to ric...@gedye.plus.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Thanks Richard. It looks like this follows up on recent R&P agreements with JISC, UC, MPDL,  and IreL. I assume this agreement was more or less in line with how other R&Ps are structured (see Frequently asked questions | The Company of Biologists)?

 

And more broadly, I assume these agreements need to be supported because they are real-time reactions to real-world pressures.

 

But if we had the luxury of time---and maybe Ivy, Lisa, Roger, Joe, or some of the other R&P experts on this list could weigh in here---there are also those who worry that R&Ps are calcifying the APC approach, solidifying the grip of the big-5 publishers, and creating a permanent authorial underclass (“a stratum of scholars who—thanks to geography or institutional affiliation—don’t get to publish OA”. See Read-and-Publish Open Access deals are heightening global inequalities in access to publication. | Impact of Social Sciences (lse.ac.uk).

 

Are these agreements, in fact, solving one problem but creating a host of other problems?

image001.jpg

Idowu Adegbilero

unread,
May 14, 2021, 5:17:28 PM5/14/21
to Bryan Alexander, Williams Nwagwu, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson
Hi Bryan,
With no intentions to second-guess Willie's response whatsoever, doing proper science can be really tough in Nigeria. For instance, research funding and infrastructure are rare luxuries. And imagine authors having to pay APCs from their salaries? Although, some private universities are stepping up the game providing some funds and improved infrastructure but the story can be so overwhelming for many public schools.
Back to Williams, that Africa was not carried along in the preparation of this draft may not be entirely the case. I belong to a pan-African Open Science group that, like OSI, made submissions which I guess were captured.
And Glenn's conclusion nailed it. It may not be the perfect document but certainly a key one, at least, to end the government apathy towards Open Science in UNESCO member states especially Nigeria, the giant of Africa and other African countries who have over the years shown no concerns about Open Access. They just appear not to be interested!

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/CAJNuR2hyB64UqzHmHRsvA6mA9ibv7xLD8JKC%2BL%3DCOXerpCQAjw%40mail.gmail.com.

Bryan Alexander

unread,
May 14, 2021, 5:28:55 PM5/14/21
to Idowu Adegbilero, Williams Nwagwu, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson
Thank you, Idowu. What a grim situation for scholarship to labor under.

Sara Rouhi

unread,
May 14, 2021, 5:58:38 PM5/14/21
to Glenn Hampson, ric...@gedye.plus.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Hi all,

From my perspective, the R&P deals are definitely perpetuating inequities that, I hope, we as a community are trying to ameliorate.

(I feel a Learned Publishing article coming on so... call this my preprint hypothesis -- and speaking for myself here!)

If I were to roll up the inequities into one thing, it's the Anglo-American focus on individuals -- authors, grants, and papers -- rather than communities. It's unsurprising that despite our awareness that scholarship is a community-based act, the Anglo-American focus on individualism has created a paradigm that privileges ONE instead of the many. The lead author. The lab head. The grant applicant. 

We tend to reduce scholarship to "the work of one" and have built an entire research infrastructure around that because it largely "works" for Global North countries and STM disciplines. (All the caveats included about #notallresearchers).

The result is that a tiny set of resource rich institutions/funders/publishers/libraries can support a paradigm predicated on funding individuals, publishing individuals, and waiving fees for individuals. So R&P deals work for them. And nobody else.

When you get to questions of equity and building a scholarly communication ecosystem that is equitable, the focus must shift from individuals to communities. It's the inherent focus on individuals that creates inequity, which is what makes it systemic. The whole system is built on this.

So, by definition, any agreement that focuses solely on APCs for those privileged enough to be able to work within that paradigm necessarily reinscribes a system that works for the haves. If the have-nots are accounted for at all, it's usually via paternalistic constructs (like waivers).

Does this make any sense? #FridayDeepThoughts

Have a great weekend!

Stay healthy and well,

Sara​


Sara Rouhi

Director, Strategic Partnerships

+1 202 505 0814 

Tw: @RouhiRoo

Remote based in Washington, D.C.

 

PLOS

Empowering researchers to transform science


Learn more about PLOS Community Action Publishing at plos.org


My working hours are 8:30am - 6:00pm ET. They may not be yours. Please disregard messages sent or received outside of YOUR working hours. No need to respond until your official working hours. #LongLiveFlexWork  

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2021 12:11 PM
To: ric...@gedye.plus.com <ric...@gedye.plus.com>; 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>

Lisa Hinchliffe

unread,
May 14, 2021, 6:42:15 PM5/14/21
to Glenn Hampson, Richard Gedye, The Open Scholarship Initiative
"Are these agreements, in fact, solving one problem but creating a host of other problems?" 

Of course the answer is yes.

Though I think TAs arguably solve (address) more than just one problem. 

S2O solves/creates problems. Membership models solve/create problems. Subscriptions solve/create problems. Philanthropic Diamond OA solves/creates problems. CC licenses (each type and collectively) solve/create problems. Copyright transfer/retention solves/creates problems. Preprint servers solve/create problems. Research itself solves/creates problems. 

Did anyone out there think that any of these things only solve problems without creating others? 



___

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
lisali...@gmail.com





To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/008001d748db%24ce888490%246b998db0%24%40nationalscience.org.

ric...@gedye.plus.com

unread,
May 14, 2021, 7:49:09 PM5/14/21
to The Open Scholarship Initiative

And if the world were black or white entirely
   And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
   A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go   
   Or again we might be merely
Bored but in brute reality there is no
   Road that is right entirely.

 

Louis MacNeice

image001.jpg

Glenn Hampson

unread,
May 15, 2021, 12:05:38 AM5/15/21
to ric...@gedye.plus.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Debate by poetry---a new form of communication! (Well, I guess there was this guy named Shakespeare…)

 

Lisa---thank you. Point taken. Of course there are no perfect policies. At the same time, just moving pieces around the chess board without an accurate understanding of countermoves rarely results in a good outcome. As a community, I don’t think we really evaluate these policies with adequate input from all sides, and even when we try to do this, we often don’t truly listen to each other’s perspectives and concerns. And because some stakeholders can’t simply sit around and wait for consensus, and aren’t even convinced that consensus is possible or desirable, they make the moves they think are best, all of which only makes a complicated chess board even more so.

 

At present, from what I’ve heard and read this past year in conferences, papers, consultations, etc., our current global approach to open access is shaping up as Colonialism 2.0. Africa is hurting, India is leaving, and China is inventing its own rules. And a lot of this, I think, is because Plan S sucked the oxygen out of the room for real discussions about what a sustainable open future might look like---a federation of SciELOs for Africa, SE Asia and CAMENA, an international capacity building effort for regional journals, new global indexes, or other ideas. That move by cOAlition S was the equivalent of check, and the international community has been scrambling ever since then to either align themselves with or distance themselves from this approach.

 

So, do all policies have consequences? Yes. But not all consequences are equal, and not all are the result of a strategy that will ultimately create the best overall outcome. Sorry if this is a pedestrian conclusion---I was hoping for something more profound (maybe more poetry would help)😊

 

Have a good weekend all.

 

Sincerely,

 

Glenn

image001.jpg

Anthony Watkinson

unread,
May 15, 2021, 5:21:05 AM5/15/21
to The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, Sara Rouhi, ric...@gedye.plus.com
I do hope you write this up in LP or somewhere Sara. I would like to ponder on what you say at length. It impresses me how you and PLOS are biting the bullet It seems to me that no existing business model (I like to think of business models because I am a former publisher) works ideally for world achievement of Open Science. They all have problems. I am boringly going to remind you that what I mainly do now is work as an information scientist (quite demanding for me) and it is clear to me as one of a team, which includes colleagues in Malaysia, China and Russia as well as the US and four European countries, that ECRs all find major obstacles to being fully open. In the UK APCs even for well funded researchers are much hated which is no surprise to any of us I suspect.


Anthony


To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unsub...@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">osi2016-25+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unsub...@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">osi2016-25+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unsub...@googlegroups.com">osi2016-25+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unsub...@googlegroups.com">osi2016-25+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unsub...@googlegroups.com">osi2016-25+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

--
As a public and publicly-funded effort, the conversations on this list can be viewed by the public and are archived. To read this group's complete listserv policy (including disclaimer and reuse information), please visit http://osinitiative.org/osi-listservs.
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Open Scholarship Initiative" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to unsub...@googlegroups.com">osi2016-25+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/MN2PR18MB315036CBD6B84BEDE654CD4AB4509%40MN2PR18MB3150.namprd18.prod.outlook.com.

Joyce Ogburn

unread,
May 15, 2021, 9:03:55 AM5/15/21
to anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, Sara Rouhi, ric...@gedye.plus.com
Very thoughtful. The pre-OA model was the privileged few had access and you are saying now the shift has been to the privileged few can publish. Is there a balance somewhere? Another model to propose that removes privilege altogether? Joyce 

Joyce L Ogburn 
Prof of Practice
UNC Chapel Hill 
School of Information and Library Science 


On May 15, 2021, at 5:21 AM, 'Anthony Watkinson' via The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com> wrote:




Anthony


<image001.jpg>

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to osi2016-25+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/2e2f1046.1370e.1796f544341.Webtop.108%40btinternet.com.

Joyce Ogburn

unread,
May 15, 2021, 9:16:02 AM5/15/21
to Glenn Hampson, ric...@gedye.plus.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Starting with policy without a prior discussion of values and goals can be empty and meaningless in practice. 

Joyce

Joyce L Ogburn 
Prof of Practice
UNC Chapel Hill 
School of Information and Library Science 


On May 15, 2021, at 12:05 AM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:



<image001.jpg>

Wulf, Karin A

unread,
May 15, 2021, 9:25:12 AM5/15/21
to Joyce Ogburn, anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, Sara Rouhi, ric...@gedye.plus.com
Sara, 

As ever, you are super thoughtful about the big picture.  I often stay smaller picture in emphasizing humanities v STEM but
it is the same essential dynamic.  Small, non-profit humanities publishing which has been cheap to buy and sustainable
to operate is pressured to shift to models which further burden authors.  In a deepening crisis of humanities employment,
and when humanists even in privileged, western academic settings have tiny if any research budgets, the monolithic OA
models are a rolling disaster.  The inequities are compounded, not relieved.

Karin

*****************
Karin Wulf
Executive Director, Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture
Professor of History, William & Mary

(Please be aware that during the pandemic voice messages will be answered more slowly than email.)



David Wojick

unread,
May 15, 2021, 5:56:51 PM5/15/21
to Joyce Ogburn, anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, Sara Rouhi, ric...@gedye.plus.com
In theory that model would be that governments publish the journals. In practice this might create political privilege, with journals following policy.

David

On May 15, 2021, at 10:03 AM, Joyce Ogburn <ogbu...@appstate.edu> wrote:

Very thoughtful. The pre-OA model was the privileged few had access and you are saying now the shift has been to the privileged few can publish. Is there a balance somewhere? Another model to propose that removes privilege altogether? Joyce 

Sara Rouhi

unread,
May 17, 2021, 10:39:47 AM5/17/21
to Wulf, Karin A, Joyce Ogburn, anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, ric...@gedye.plus.com
Karin, I'd be really interested to hear how the monolith agreements are furthering inequities from the humanities perspective. Can you share a bit more?

Stay healthy and well,

Sara​


Sara Rouhi

Director, Strategic Partnerships

+1 202 505 0814 

Tw: @RouhiRoo

Remote based in Washington, D.C.

 

PLOS

Empowering researchers to transform science


Learn more about PLOS Community Action Publishing at plos.org


My working hours are 8:30am - 6:00pm ET. They may not be yours. Please disregard messages sent or received outside of YOUR working hours. No need to respond until your official working hours. #LongLiveFlexWork  

From: Wulf, Karin A <kaw...@wm.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 9:25 AM
To: Joyce Ogburn <ogbu...@appstate.edu>
Cc: anthony....@btinternet.com <anthony....@btinternet.com>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>; Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>; Sara Rouhi <sro...@plos.org>; ric...@gedye.plus.com <ric...@gedye.plus.com>
Subject: Re: [External] comments on the open science recommendation
 

Sara Rouhi

unread,
May 17, 2021, 10:50:44 AM5/17/21
to Joyce Ogburn, anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, ric...@gedye.plus.com
Hi Joyce,

There's no way to remove privilege altogether. As long as we are subjective beings in physical circumstances that convey benefits/costs, we can't wholly remove privilege, but the biggest step is acknowledgment of it, awareness that blind spots exist, and ally-ship to keep us honest and call out the blind spots.

This is why "diversity" is so critical - a diverse range of experiences is the best way to highlight the blind spots and the things we miss when building systems based on "what we know" (bc our knowledge is predicated on our subjectivity yadda yadda yadda). 

Hence PLOS strategy around co-creation and beginning from the assumption that, more often than not, we do not know and cannot presume to know in many cases, so why don't we ask?

Light reading on this particular epistemology? Max Weber, Michel Foucault, Emile Durkheim... in the continental context. In the post-colonial context, Franz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, just to name a few!... but I'm no expert. I'll leave it to the humanists for recommended reading.

Stay healthy and well,

Sara​


Sara Rouhi

Director, Strategic Partnerships

+1 202 505 0814 

Tw: @RouhiRoo

Remote based in Washington, D.C.

 

PLOS

Empowering researchers to transform science


Learn more about PLOS Community Action Publishing at plos.org


My working hours are 8:30am - 6:00pm ET. They may not be yours. Please disregard messages sent or received outside of YOUR working hours. No need to respond until your official working hours. #LongLiveFlexWork  

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Joyce Ogburn <ogbu...@appstate.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2021 9:03 AM
To: anthony....@btinternet.com <anthony....@btinternet.com>
Cc: The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>; Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>; Sara Rouhi <sro...@plos.org>; ric...@gedye.plus.com <ric...@gedye.plus.com>
Subject: Re: [External] Re: comments on the open science recommendation
 

Wulf, Karin A

unread,
May 17, 2021, 11:35:13 AM5/17/21
to Sara Rouhi, Joyce Ogburn, anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, ric...@gedye.plus.com
Thanks, Sara — there are lots of dimensions to this.  Just one is that author charges or management of
OA requirements are challenging for anyone employed within academia.  But for humanists the increasing 
number of precariously employed faculty or scholars (long term of course this has been the case but new
dynamics) working elsewhere even for those in other parts of humanities non-profit world it is even more so.

Karin

*****************
Karin Wulf
Executive Director, Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture
Professor of History, William & Mary

(Please be aware that during the pandemic voice messages will be answered more slowly than email.)


Joyce Ogburn

unread,
May 17, 2021, 2:36:42 PM5/17/21
to Sara Rouhi, anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, ric...@gedye.plus.com
Dealing with privilege is difficult for sure. Both in open/paid access and open/paid publishing the ones already privileged stay privileged because they will find a way both to access and publish. People who lacked access may now have access but can’t publish when it costs to do so. I was wondering if we were exchanging one set of lack of privileges for another. 

Joyce

Joyce L Ogburn 



On May 17, 2021, at 10:50 AM, Sara Rouhi <sro...@plos.org> wrote:



Lisa Hinchliffe

unread,
May 17, 2021, 2:57:12 PM5/17/21
to Sara Rouhi, Wulf, Karin A, Joyce Ogburn, anthony....@btinternet.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative, Glenn Hampson, ric...@gedye.plus.com
I was just talking with an MLS student about this earlier today! Here's a synopsis of our chat.

The issue is less the specific TA contract and more the overall systemic shift. One way that TAs are further marginalizing the humanities is that libraries are directing dollars to supporting faculty publishing with publishers that are at scale sufficient to offer such TAs -- predominately STM -- bc it is a matter of having sufficient publications on off as a big deal/TA plus an institution knowing that these outlets are the places their authors publish. These monies are then unavailable to support publishing (or reading) in fields where the agreements are not found. And, though libraries will also sometimes have APC grants available - they typically cannot be spent on articles in hybrid journals, which of course is *not* the constraint at all in a TAs. So humanities faculty can only get library support for fully OA journals while STM are supported for hybrid journals.  

Pure Publish agreements, which bring onto the libraries budget expenses previously paid elsewhere on campus, can further exacerbate this if these new expenses do not come with new allocations (in theory, for example, the UC model ameliorates this in part by capturing funder dollars into the library contracts). 

So, on the publisher side, if small humanities presses/independently publishing societies wants in on accessing library spend for publishing (and increasingly reading since they are now bundled), the only pathway is consolidation.  

All of this is generalizations/patterns ... you can find exceptions throughout the system of course! 

___

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
lisali...@gmail.com




To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/osi2016-25/MN2PR18MB31500704B45FCAA7FE67C4A3B42D9%40MN2PR18MB3150.namprd18.prod.outlook.com.

Ivy Anderson

unread,
May 17, 2021, 3:41:51 PM5/17/21
to ric...@gedye.plus.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative

I attempted to respond to this thread last week when Glenn invoked my name in response to the COB announcement, but the list rejected my post.  Here it is again:

 

I don’t believe that these deals are, to use Glenn’s words, calcifying an APC approach that solidifies the grip of the big 5 publishers or creates an authorial underclass.  COB is certainly not one of the big 5, and their agreement with EIFL is intended to accomplish exactly the opposite – to enable wider access to OA publishing in less well-resourced communities.  By the same token, those of us working in this space on the library side are actively and intentionally working with publishers of many different kinds to preserve and nurture diversity in the marketplace.  Just as importantly, transformative agreements, read-and-publish deals, and similar arrangements can be extended, further developed, and combined with other approaches, to enable more OA publishing, not less.  I don’t believe that any publisher has to, or indeed should, adopt a one-size-fits-all business model – by entering into agreements that enable us to make a large segment of the published literature openly available, our goal is to create a context for extending those opportunities to more and more author communities, where different funding structures and different geographical approaches can be adopted to enable the greater equity in publishing access we all seek. 

 

Meanwhile I love Richard’s reply and think it is a profound commentary on all of this.

 

Ivy

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages