The British government plans to allocate 50-60 million pounds to support the "open access" of academic research results. Some observers believe that although Britain's share in the field of academic publishing is very small, this policy may cause a chain reaction on the other side of the Atlantic, and the criticism of traditional academic publishing will be more intense.
On July 6th, Cambridge University Press published an "open access" journal named "Forum of Mathematics", aiming at providing mathematical researchers with peer-reviewed academic papers of the same quality as traditional journals, and establishing the most authoritative international peer-reviewed team on this basis. In order to promote the journal, Cambridge University Press decided to give up publishing profits in the first three years of its publication and provide authors with the right to obtain all articles in the journal.
The vigorous promotion of "open access" journals in Cambridge University is related to the "academic spring" boycott campaign launched by william timothy gowers, one of the founders of the journal editorial committee, an academician of the Royal Society and a famous mathematician, against the Elsevier Group, one of the largest publishers of academic documents in the world.
As early as June+10, 5438, Gals published a blog post, listing several major "crimes" of Elsevier Group, including using commercial "bundling means" to sell digital subscription rights to university libraries, and arbitrarily increasing subscription fees. He said that he would not publish articles in the group's publications and refused to be an external auditor and editor. This blog post has aroused great concern in academic circles. At present, more than 12000 scholars have expressed their support for the boycott movement. The academic and publishing circles have widely discussed the behaviors of commercial publishing, such as profiteering and tightening academic communication channels.
Oxford University terminated its academic cooperation with Elsevier.
Gals criticized Elsevier's business behavior as almost arbitrary. In addition to "bundling" price increases, it also prevented the implementation of open reading and cancelled the subscription qualifications of some university libraries that tried to bargain. However, why does Elsevier Group still maintain its position as an academic publishing giant while hindering academic exchanges and commercial monopoly? Gals believes that many libraries have to "swallow their words" in order to successfully obtain the right to subscribe to academic journals. In addition, many university libraries are isolated and lack of alliances, which also makes Elsevier profitable to "take advantage of the situation."
In fact, some scholars have realized that they have the right to say "no" and resist Elsevier's arbitrary business practices. Surprisingly, the fiercest resistance came from within the group. In 2006, the entire editorial department of Topology magazine owned by Elsevier resigned to protest the high subscription fee. Marc Lackenby, a member of the editorial board and a professor of mathematics at Oxford University, said: "As an academic publishing group, Elsevier does not aim at academic exchanges, but at obtaining commercial benefits. Such a high cost will damage the reputation of the topology. " It is reported that with the resignation of the Topology Editorial Board, Oxford University also interrupted its academic cooperation with Elsevier. Elsevier also reflected on the resignation. "We have published more than a thousand periodicals in the academic circle, and the internal management problems we face are naturally endless, but this is the first time that the editorial board has resigned as a whole, which is worth summing up our experience and lessons."
Academic circles and the public of "open access" periodicals
Janet Finch, a sociologist at Manchester University in England, said in an interview with Reuters that in the long run, the publishing of academic achievements in the future will tend to be "open access". Open access journals have attracted much attention since their birth. Gunther Eysenbach of the Canadian Center for Global Health Innovation concluded that open access journals have three main advantages, namely, easy citation and diverse users, which provide more possibilities for interdisciplinary research. Melissa Trass, director of the Center for Digital Humanities at University College London, believes that "open access" journals with the help of information technology platforms have a bright future. Compared with traditional journals, open access journals based on social media and network communication will bring more convenience to academic research.
However, some scholars have questioned the quality of academic papers in "open access" journals. In this regard, the University of Troms in Norway (University of Troms? Professor Curt Rice said: "Publishers will not significantly reduce the quality of articles by reducing fees. The spread of online media and public supervision will create a growing environment for academic transparency, standardization and rationalization. "
Unlike other scholars, Stephen Curry, a professor of biology at Imperial College London, London, is deeply worried about the new challenges brought by open access journals to academic development. He believes that "scientific papers full of boring professional language are more terrible than high fees." Facing the expansion of readers, scientific papers will also face the dual requirements of readability and popularity. Especially those academic articles such as transgenic, climate, epidemic prevention, drug policy, energy, etc., which are highly professional and have poor readability and lack of interaction with readers, will face more tests in the implementation of open access journals. "
Publishing industry: high fees come from high investment before publication.
After a series of persistent boycotts, the "academic spring" ushered in a staged victory: the British government plans to allocate 50-60 million pounds to support the "open access" of academic research results. Some observers believe that although Britain's share in the field of academic publishing is very small, this policy may cause a chain reaction on the other side of the Atlantic, and the criticism of traditional academic publishing will be more intense.
It is reported that in Britain, publishers charge university libraries about 200 million pounds a year. For this high fee, all walks of life are dissatisfied with the behavior of publishing houses to profit from the scientific research results funded by taxpayers. In the face of many criticisms from academic circles, academic publishing houses responded that in order to change from traditional publishing to "open access" periodicals, the manpower, material resources and financial resources added by publishing houses should be considered first. Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature magazine, said, "I think that behind valuable academic achievements, publishers have done a lot of complicated work, such as screening papers and organizing peer review, so high fees are reasonable. And if you want to operate a digital platform, you need additional funds. "
Odola Bloom, director of the biology editorial department of the Public Library of Science, an open access publishing organization, thinks that the subscription model is meaningful in the reality of print media, considering the increasing printing and mailing costs with the increase of readers. However, in the online world, the related expenses stop at the moment when the results are released, and will not increase because of the increase of readers. Therefore, the high risks undertaken by publishers need to be supported by high fees.
Alicia Wise, the chief visiting director of Elsevier, said that the main reason why academic circles are dissatisfied with the subscription price is that there is a huge gap between the expectations of university libraries for their subscriptions and the fees they can afford. "The existence of this gap does not stem from the price or acquisition we set, but from the gap between the budget of university libraries and the global R&D investment in the past few decades. Global investment in R&D exceeds $1 trillion annually, with an annual growth rate of more than 4%. This makes more and more scientific research projects, and the number of papers reaching the publishing level is also increasing, but the burden capacity of the library is very limited. This problem needs the joint attention of publishers, scholars and sponsors. If the publishing industry does not invest in electronic journals, scholars may still go to the library to inquire about physical materials. Investment in the publishing industry has promoted the development of electronic journals, digital archiving and label classification, greatly improving research efficiency. "