Political economics

Knowledge and equity: analysis of three models

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Update July 15: a 10-minute YouTube video overview of this work by Dr. Rahman & I can be viewed here.

Abstract:

The context of this paper is an analysis of three emerging models for developing a global knowledge commons. The concept of a ‘global knowledge commons’ builds on the vision of the original Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) for the potential of combining academic tradition and the internet to remove various access barriers to the scholarly literature, thus laying the foundation for an unprecedented public good, uniting humanity in a common quest for knowledge. The global knowledge commons is a universal sharing of the knowledge of humankind, free for all to access (recognizing reasons for limiting sharing in some circumstances such as to protect individual privacy), and free for everyone qualified to contribute to. The three models are Plan S / cOAlition S, an EU-led initiative to transition all of scholarly publishing to an open access model on a short timeline; the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS), a recent initiative that builds on Ostrom’s study of the commons; and PubMedCentral (PMC) International, building on the preservation and access to the medical research literature provided by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to support other national repositories of funded research and exchange of materials between regions. The research will involve analysis of official policy and background briefing documents on the three initiatives and relevant historical projects, such as the Research Council U.K.’s block grants for article processing charges, the EU-led OA2020 initiative, Europe PMC and the short-lived PMC-Canada. Theoretical analysis will draw on Ostrom’s work on the commons, theories of development, under-development, epistemic / knowledge inequity and the concepts of Chan and colleagues (2011) on the importance of moving beyond north-to-south access to knowledge (charity model) to include south-to-south and south-to-north (equity model). This model analysis contributes to build a comparative view of transcontinental efforts for a global knowledge commons building with shared values of open access, sharing and collaboration, in contrast to the growing trend of commodification of scholarly knowledge evident in both traditional subscriptions / purchase-based scholarly publishing and in commercial open access publishing. We anticipate that our findings will indicate that a digital world of inclusiveness and reciprocity is possible, but cannot be taken for granted, and policy support is crucial. Global communication and information policy have much to contribute towards the development of a sustainable global knowledge commons.

Full text: https://ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/40664

Cite as: Morrison, H. & Rahman, R. (2020). Knowledge and equity: analysis of three models. International Association of Communication and Media Researchers (IAMCR) annual conference, July 2020.

SpringerNature and Macmillan: one company, two directions: open access and IP maximization

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Second update July 30 (thanks to Springer’s Katie Baker): this Holtzbrinck.com site helps with how it all sits. SpringerNature is first on the page of companies owned, Macmillan Publishing is second.

Update July 30:

To help readers “see” the overall SpringerNature business, I’ve included the following screen shots which lists of Springer Nature brands captured from the SpringerNature group website on July 30, 2019 and the Macmillan.com site which that states that “Macmillan Publishers is a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a large family-owned media company headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany”. According to the SpringerNature group history, “Springer Nature was formed through the merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan Education and Springer Science+Business Media. The main shareholders of Springer Nature are Holtzbrinck Publishing Group and BC Partners. Holtzbrinck, a family-owned company based in Stuttgart, holds a majority share of 53 per cent” (from https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/aboutus/our-history). According to Springer representative Katie Baker (see comment), Macmillan Publishing is not associated with SpringerNature group. This is no doubt correct, however both report to the same owners, unless the Macmillan.com website is out of date, in which case an update on the business’ current ownership would be helpful.

SNG_trusted_brands_20190730

macmillan.com_20190730

When we interact with a large global business, whether as staff, customers, partners, or others, it is quite common that we only interact with a small portion of the company and have little or no knowledge of the company as a whole. Why does this matter?  Two examples:

  • When a country is having consultations on topics such as open access and copyright, a complex company like SpringerNature may be lobbying for opposing positions. SpringerOpen staff may only be aware of the open access position.
  • The nature of the mix of sub-companies owned by SpringerNature is such that SpringerOpen open access policies such as open licensing might be feeding commercial profit interests at another sub-company such as macmillan education without the knowledge of SpringerOpen staff, authors, and their acquaintances. For example, I would be surprised if SpringerNature sent staff from macmillan education to talk about downstream benefits of commercial re-use in textbook sales and rentals at OASPA or other open access / open education conferences. If open access advocates refer exclusively to downstream open educational uses of openly licensed material, it is not in the best financial interests of the parent company to discuss the potential for downstream toll access re-use.

Original post:

SpringerNature, owner of Springer Open, Nature, and BioMedCentral, positions itself as a leader in the open access movement. However, Springer, Nature, and BMC are only 3 of the brands of the parent company, SpringerNature Group. The purpose of this post is to raise awareness about the dual approach of the parent company with respect to copyright and intellectual property – positioning itself as both a leader in open access and a leader in IP maximization, and to encourage those with a sincere interest in the goal of open access to learn about, and question, organizations with an interest in serving this area.

While the SpringerNature site today states that it is:

“A new force in research publishing
Springer Nature is the world’s largest academic book publisher, publisher of the world’s most influential journals, and a pioneer in the field of open research” (from: https://group.springernature.com/gp/group”

…another of the company’s brands, Macmillan, is sending letters to creators complaining that library lending is cannibalizing sales, and is further restricting paid library use of works. See the Canadian Urban Libraries’ Council on this matter here:
http://www.culc.ca/cms_lib/CULC%20Statement%20on%20Macmillan%20US%20Lending.pdf

Following are the brands listed on the SpringerNature group site as of today:

Our brand sites
Springer
Nature Research
BiomedCentral
Palgrave Macmillan
Macmillan Education
Springer Healthcare
Scientific American

In addition to open access, this company is involved in toll access textbook publishing and rentals and educational services that appear to compete with public education services. Even among the 3 brands involved in open access, 2 (Springer and Nature Research) have a long history of making money through subscriptions and sales. Even today, this is probably a much larger source of income than open access, and one of these brands’ main assets is copyright ownership of a large corpus of works.

To understand the potential futures of open access, it is important to understand the nature of the players involved. The friendly staff of Springer Open are no doubt a pleasure to work with for people in the OA movement, and sincere in their embrace of OA. However, when they tell you that true open access requires open licensing granting blanket downstream permission for commercial uses, they might not be aware that some of these commercial uses could involve for-profit textbook sales and rentals.

Unlike Elsevier, SpringerNatureGroup does not post financial information on its website. As a publicly traded corporation, Elsevier is obliged to provide this kind of transparency, including profits and business strategy. The corporation as a form of business can be viewed as an early form of openness in business; anyone can buy shares and participate in profits and decision-making. Springer is privately owned, and has no such obligation. In this respect, Springer is far less open than Elsevier.

Originally posted on the Global Open Access List and the Radical Open Access List.

Cite as: Morrison, H. (2019). SpringerNature and Macmillan: One company, two directions: open access and IP maximization. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/07/29/springernature-and-macmillan-one-company-two-directions-open-access-and-ip-maximization/

The dialectic of open

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Presentation to the Canadian Communication Association, Vancouver, British Columbia, June 6, 2019.

Abstract

In contemporary Western society the word open is used as if the concept were essentially good. This is a logical fallacy; the only concept that is in essence good is the concept good itself. In this paper I will argue that this is a dangerous fallacy that opens the door to misdirection and co-optation of genuine advocates of the public good accidentally through misconception and deliberately by actors whose motives are far from open, that a critical dialectic approach is useful to unravel and counter such fallacies, and present a simple pedagogical technique that I have found to be effective to teach critical thinking to university students in this area. The province of Ontario under the Ford government describes itself as open for business. In this context, open means open for exploitation, and closure is protection for the environment and vulnerable people. This is one example of openwashing, taking advantage of the use of the term by large numbers of “open” advocates whose work is based on very different motives.

Open access, according to the Budapest Open Access Initiative, is a potential unprecedented public good, a collective global sharing of the scholarly knowledge of humankind. A sizable portion of the open access movement is adamant that open access requires nothing less than all of the world’s scholars making their work not only free of charge, but free for downstream manipulation and re-use for commercial purposes. This frees up knowledge for creative new approaches to more rapidly advance our knowledge; it is also a new area for capitalist expansion and can be seen as selling out scholarship. Is this necessary, sufficient, or even desirable to achieve the vision of global sharing of open access? Open education can be seen as the next phase in the democratization of education, a new field for capitalist expansion, a tool for authoritarian control and/or a tool for further control of the next generation proletariat or precariat. Open government can facilitate an expansion of democracy, to further engage citizens in decision-making, a means of enhancing and improving government services, and/or another means of transitioning public services to the private sector that is typical of the (perhaps post) neoliberal era. Proactive open government can mean more transparent, accountable government; it can also mean open access to the documents and data that those in power choose to share. This paper will analyze the rhetoric of key documents from the open movements, evidence presented to support these beliefs, and explore whether these belief systems reflect myth based on misconception and/or misdirection by actors with ulterior motives using a theoretical lens drawn from the political economics, particularly Hegelian dialectics in the tradition of the Frankfurt School and contemporary Marxist analysis.

Link to full presentation:

https://ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/39300

Cite as:

Morrison, H. (2019). The dialectic of open. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/06/12/the-dialectic-of-open/

Open access versus the commons, or steps towards developing commons to sustain open access

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by Heather Morrison

Abstract

The concept of open access is complementary to, and in opposition to the commons. The similarities and overlap appear to be taken for granted; for example, many people assume that open access and Creative Commons just go together. The purpose of this post is to explore the essential opposition of the two concepts. The so-called “tragedy of the commons” is actually the tragedy of unmanaged open access. Understanding this opposition is helpful to analyze the potential of commons analysis to develop and sustain actual commons (cool pool resources) to support open access works. Ostrom’s design principles for common pool resources are listed with comments and examples of open access supports that illustrate the principles and a proposed modified list design to meet the needs of open access infrastructure is presented.

Details

The purpose of the Sustaining the Knowledge Commons research program (and blog) is to advance our knowledge of how to build and sustain a global knowledge commons. I define the knowledge commons as a collective sharing of the knowledge of humankind that is as open access as possible, in the sense of free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. My vision of the knowledge commons is one that is inclusive, that is, all who are qualified are welcome to contribute. The vision is simple. Understanding and articulating what is necessary to achieve the vision is not simple, and I argue that it will require developing new theoretical and empirical knowledge.

The purpose of this post is to focus on the relationship between two basic concepts, “open access” and “the commons”. There is an intuitive complementarity between the two concepts that might be best understood as an outcome of recent historical developments. The open sharing of Web 2.0 or social media, the open access movement, renewed interest in the concept of the commons, and the development and growth of Creative Commons, have all occurred in the past few decades. The nature and title of this research program Sustaining the Knowledge Commons reflects an ellipse of the two concepts. To advance our knowledge, sometimes it is necessary to question our basic assumptions. For this reason, acknowledging the complementarity of the two concepts, this post focuses on open access and the commons as oppositional in essence. I explain why this matters and how commons design principles might be used to develop and sustain open access organizations and infrastructure (as opposed to open access works).

As Ostrom (2015) points out in the second chapter of her ground-breaking Governing the Commons, the example of the “tragedy of the commons” as presented by Harding in an influential article – a pasture where any herdsman can graze – is not a commons, but rather a pasture that is open to all, an open access resource. A commons is not an open access resource, but rather a resource that is collaboratively managed by a group of people who benefit from the resource who develop, monitor and enforce rules for collective management of the resource. Ostrom presents empirical examples of successful and unsuccessful commons or common pool resources (CPRs) and articulates design principles for successful CPRs.

Ostrom’s research focuses on limited physical resources such as fisheries and water, and acknowledged that research on such CPRs is at a very early stage. The extent to which design principles based on physical CPRs can be employed to understand the potential for electronic commons, where there is no limit to the re-use of resource per se is not known. A few researchers have made an effort at this analysis. For example, Hess and Ostrom (2007) edited a book on understanding knowledge as a commons, one of the influences inspiring my own work and the title of this research program and blog.

Resources versus infrastructure

To understand why it matters that open access and the commons are oppositional concepts, consider the difference between open access works (articles, journals, books, data etc.) and the infrastructure that is needed to create and sustain open access resources. The only restriction to use of an open access resource is reader-side infrastructure (computer and internet) and ability to read and understand. However, the creation and ongoing support of open access works requires resources (hardware, software, internet connectivity, editors). This – the infrastructure to build and sustain open access works – is where Ostrom’s design principles for common pool resources is most likely to be fruitful. Examples of open access infrastructures that are, or could be, managed as common pool resources include: OA journals produced by independent scholars or groups of scholars (e.g. society or university-based); open source journal publishing (e.g. Open Journal Systems); university consortia sharing of infrastructure and /or support for open access (e.g. Scielo, Ontario’s Scholar’s Portal, Open Library of the Humanities).

Design principles for common pool resources

Table 3.1 of design principles is Ostrom’s (2015, p. 90) summary of her findings of characteristics of successful CPRs. Following are proposed minor modifications of the design principles for open access infrastructure, and examples of how these design principles might be useful for open access infrastructure (as opposed to open access works).

“Table 3.1. Design principles illustrated by long-enduring CPR institutions

  1. Clearly defined boundaries
    Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself.
  2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money.
  3. Collective-choice arrangements
    Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rules.
  4. Monitoring
    Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators.
  5. Graduated sanctions
    Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.
  6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms
    Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.
  7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize
    The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities.

For CPRs that are parts of larger systems:

  1. Nested enterprises
    Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises”.

Can Ostrom’s CPR design principles might be applied to OA resources? Examples, comments, and proposed modified design principles

Ostroms’ design principle “1: Clearly defined boundaries
Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself”.

Proposed modified design principle:

1: Clearly defined boundaries
Individuals or organizations who have rights to participate in and benefit from CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself.

Examples

Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library Online): Criteria, policies and procedures for admission and permanence of scientific journals in the SciELO <country> Collection https://wp.scielo.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Criterios_Rede_SciELO_jun_2018_EN.pdf

  • Anyone with internet access can read the Scielo journals. Journals that wish to be included must meet the criteria.

PubMedCentral: How to include a journal in PMC https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/pub/addjournal/

  • Anyone with internet access can read the journals included in PMC. To be included, journals must meet scope, technical and quality requirements.

Ostrom’s Design Principle 2: “Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions. Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money”.

Proposed modified design principle:

2: “Congruence between participation and provision rules and local and/or disciplinary conditions. Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local and/or disciplinary conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money”.

Examples

Institutional repositories such as uO Recherche https://ruor.uottawa.ca/ are very well aligned with design principle 2. Policies are set by the university and reflect regional practice and law (e.g. copyright law). Staff are paid local wage rates in local currency. Decisions about software, hardware and support can reflect local preferences (e.g. for open source software or proprietary solutions, stand-alone or collaborative repositories) and budgets. In the case of my own university, the University of Ottawa, the institutional repository reflects the official French / English bilingualism of the university.

The HAL archives-ouvertes.fr https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ is a collaborative repository reflecting the research community and language of France.

Ostrom’s Design Principle 3: “Collective-choice arrangements
Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rule

This principle fits smaller CPRs; see design principle 8 on nested enterprises for global open access. For example, university-based researchers can participate in policy consultations for the local institutional repository; members of the editorial board of a journal can participate in setting policy (the principle is the same whether the journal is open access or not).

Ostrom’s Design Principles 4:, 5, and 6 are treated together as OASPA provides examples of all:

“4. Monitoring
Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators”.

5. Graduated sanctions
Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.

6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms
Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials”.

Example: the Open Access Scholarly Publisher’s Association (OASPA) Membership Applications, Complaints and Investigations https://oaspa.org/membership/membership-applications/ displays characteristics of a CPR where members (appropriators) actively practice monitoring, graduated sanctions, and conflict-resolution mechanisms. Even after being accepted as members, OASPA members may be identified by other members as not meeting the criteria for acceptance (monitoring); these complaints trigger a conflict-resolution mechanisms that involves a series of graduated sanctions, investigation, possible requirement for the member to alter policies and/or practice and potential termination of membership.

Ostrom Design Principle “7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize
The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities”.

Proposed modified Design Principle “7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize
The rights of participants to devise their own organizations are not challenged by external authorities or bodies”.

Comment: this principle could be applied in the context of open access to the rights of researchers to develop their own institutions or organizations (e.g. based on common disciplinary requirements) and/or rights of local institutions to develop their own approach (as opposed to global open access policy).

Example

The Open Library of the Humanities https://www.openlibhums.org/ was developed by scholars in the humanities to support open access in the humanities. Design Principle 7 recognizes the right of scholars to organize in this fashion.

Ostroms’ Design Principle 8. “Nested enterprises
Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises”.

Comment: this is the principle that most needs development for sustainable open access on a global scale. Every country, region, and discipline needs to contribute to create and sustain open access. This requires many organizations of different types and sizes, each with its own set of principles and approach to monitoring, sanctions, and conflict resolution. This needs to be coordinated (but not controlled) at a higher level for permanent open access to succeed.

Proposed modified design principles for a global knowledge commons

  1. Clearly defined boundaries
    Individuals or organizations who have rights to participate in and benefit from CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself.
  2. Congruence between participation and provision rules and local and/or disciplinary Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local and/or disciplinary conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money.
  3. Collective-choice arrangements
    Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rules.
  4. Monitoring
    Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators.
  5. Graduated sanctions
    Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.
  6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms
    Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.
  7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize
    The rights of participants to devise their own organizations are not challenged by external authorities or bodies”.
  8. Nested enterprises
    Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises.

Acknowledgement

This post builds on conversations with prior SKC research collaborator Alexis Calvé-Genest.

References

Hess, C. & Ostrom, E., eds. (2007). Understanding knowledge as a commons: from theory to practice. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Ostrom, E. (2015). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Canto Classics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781316423936

Cite as:  Morrison, H. (2019). Open access versus the commons, or steps towards developing commons to sustain open access. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2019/04/23/open-access-versus-the-commons-or-steps-towards-developing-commons-to-sustain-open-access/

Open to closed: how releasing government data into the public domain can result in loss of free public access

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Boettcher & Dames (2018) raise some important issues regarding public domain government data. In brief, the U.S. federal government releases data into the public domain by default. This raises 2 potential types of issues:
  • privacy and security of individuals’ data
  • potential for enclosure / privatization of free public services if the government’s data is released as open data but the government does not maintain a free human readable version
From:
Boettcher, J. C., & Dames, K. M. (2018). Government Data as Intellectual Property: Is Public Domain the same as Open Access? Online Searcher, 42(4), 42–48.

https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1051174

Abstract
Public domain and open data policies and how they are made. Current status of open data policies in the Federal government are changing with new laws. What is HR4174/S4047 and what does it say and mean? What are trends in government data policies regarding access to that statistical data? This article will give the reader an understanding of federal policies and laws regarding data.
Citation: see “From” above, this post is just a pointer to the Boettcher & Dames article. Recommended: read the original article first.

Taylor & Francis bought Co-Action Publishing

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In the last year, Taylor and Francis announced that Co-Action Publishing will be part of their portfolio for 2017.

Caroline Sutton, co-founder of Co-Action Publishing is now the Head of Open Scholarship Development in Taylor & Francis Group. It appears that the journals that were published by Co-Action Publishing are now merged in Taylor & Francis’ brand and not as a separate imprint.

According to Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, Co-Action Publishing was publishing 34 journals and more than 2000 open access articles per year.

References :

http://taylorandfrancis.com/co-action-message

http://oaspa.org/member/co-action-publishing/

Cite as:

Laprade, K. (2017). Taylor & Francis bought Co-Action Publishing. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2017/04/11/taylor-francis-bought-co-action-publishing/

Elsevier: now the world’s largest open access publisher

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Elsevier: the world’s largest open access publisher as of May 2016

** draft ** by Heather Morrison

Summary

Elsevier is now the world’s largest open access publisher as measured by the number of fully open access journals published. Elsevier has 511 fully open access journals. De Gruyter is second with 435, Hindawi third with 405. These figures are based on data from the publishers’ own websites. 315 of the 511 journals (63%) have an APC of 0 and indicate “fee not payable by author”. Sampling of the open access journals indicates that a very large percentage (90%) of the fully open access journals are sponsored by actively involved societies and institutions with most owning copyright. I argue that society copyright ownership is not a bad thing; the alternative may not be vision of pure OA but rather Elsevier copyright.

In addition, 2,149 Elsevier journals have hybrid options at 2,149 journals. There is a marked difference in pricing patterns between hybrid and open access journals. Fully open access journals are clustered at the low end of the $0 – $5,000 USD price range while hybrids’ pricing is skewed toward the higher end.

A sampling of 50 journals from the full list of Elsevier journals found that 70% feature a “supports open access” button on the about the journal page; 38% have indications of society involvement, but clear indication of society copyright ownership is much less common. There is very limited historical information provided about Elsevier journals on the freely available website, making it difficult to assess past society or institutional involvement for a large percentage of journals.

Finally, an analysis is presented of the potential for Elsevier to achieve a full flip to open access APC while retaining current revenue. Reasonably realistic estimates range from a low of $5,000 USD to a high of over $11,000 USD to cover the 2015 Elsevier annual revenue of $3 billion USD from STM and enjoy the current 37% profit rate. These rates are not realistic. Libraries and those wishing to further the transition to open access should anticipate that Elsevier will seek to continue to receive subscriptions revenue, even with broad-based support for APCs, for a long time to come.

For full details see the draft in PDF:

Elsevier and open access publishing May 2016

Data from the study of 50 Elsevier journals can be downloaded from the dataverse.

Morrison, H. (2016). Elsevier: Now the world’s largest open access publisher. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2016/05/13/elsevier-now-the-worlds-largest-open-access-publisher/

Top 10 publishers in DOAJ (by number of titles) 2014 to 2015

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by Heather Morrison & Guinsly Mondésir

There have been a few changes in the collection of fully open access journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals in the past year, as demonstrated by the following chart. While Hindawi and BioMedCentral remain the largest publishers (by number of journals, not number of articles), traditional publisher De Gruyter has gone from no titles in DOAJ in 2014 to 3rd largest DOAJ publisher and Elsevier is now the 7th largest DOAJ publisher by number of journals. Figures are based on an analysis of publisher by size drawn by DOAJ metadata downloaded in May 2014 and May 2015. Full data is available in the OA APC dataverse

Note that publisher size by title offerings is different from publisher size by number of articles published, which is outside the scope of our study. The percentage of journals in DOAJ published by the top 10 publishers has increased slightly, from 14% to 16%. This is likely not a significant difference, but perhaps an indication of a trend to watch. Note that we have made no attempt to correct for variations in publisher name listings; we recommend instead that publishers update their information in DOAJ and ensure correct entry for future research and researchers.

Publisher Frequency_2014 Publisher Frequency_2015
Hindawi Publishing Corporation 438 Hindawi Publishing Corporation 539
BioMed Central 238 BioMed Central 271
Scientific Research Publishing 119 De Gruyter Open 212
Bentham open 99 MDPI AG 121
MDPI AG 95 Springer 108
Springer 95 Dove Medical Press 105
Dove Medical Press 91 Bentham open 81
Medknow Publications 80 Medknow Publications 78
Libertas Academica 49 Elsevier 72
PAGEPress Publications 47 Libertas Academica 56
Total top 10 publishers 1,351 1,643
DOAJ total 9,709 10,532
% published by top 10 14% 16%

 

Update: This article influenced two articles Reblog: Top 10 publishers in DOAJ (by number of titles) 2014 to 2015 and DE GRUYTER – Traditional Scholarly Publisher’s Shift Towards Open Access. The Facts Behind the Numbers

Cite as:

Morrison, H., & Mondésir, G. (2015). Top 10 publishers in DOAJ (by number of titles) 2014 to 2015. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/10/22/top-10-publishers-in-doaj-by-number-of-titles-2014-to-2015/

Market Economy and Social reality – A pragmatic view from a well known author

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The pragmatics of having a market economy deal with social realities are highlighted in an interview with award winning author David Simon. Link to article including the interview: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/25/the-wire-creator-us-drug-laws

Why we need more than market economy theory to understand social stability.

Without commenting on David Simon’s conclusions on the American war on drugs, this interview highlights the importance of understanding social realities from a holist perspective. This has the effect of trying to identify little known influences on social reality. Knowledge commonly available through media outlets or public discourse does not necessarily shed light on the full consequences of using a market economy to regulate social interactions.

The critical view of Simon, seeing the war on drugs thrive along the poverty line, can be appreciated as a description of a reality where a segment of the American population has distanced itself from another. This distancing could be read as a consequence of criminal activity if Simon did not reverse this perception and present it with brutal pragmatism. Simon talks about how American society is splitting itself with the criminalization of the only working opportunity available to pockets of people left behind after the golden days of the American middle class.

We can see why, for Simon and political economists such as Karl Polanyi long before him, a market economy cannot be relied upon for social stability and in fact erodes the social fabric. Morality, as Simon describes it in the American context, is the expression of rejection from one group to another and I would argue, sign of the absence of moral obligation between those groups, that is, between two groups where one could be said to be privileged in relation to the other. In addition, a “pure form” of capitalism, says Simon, does not exist nor solve those issues.

Needless to say the marginalization and repression of a group by another is an all too common occurrence. What Simon does is to awaken the listener to the need to question market economy solutions to social problems. The lessons of this awakening are yet to come in his opinion, as the current system has not yet reached a point where the people has had enough. This was two years ago. Current events in Baltimore and elsewhere lead me to think we North Americans are living a sudden awakening to underlying social tensions in part resulting from market logics applied to social reality.

Questioning the free market notion is nothing new. On this blog, and in a recent publication (http://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/3/1/1), the Sustaining Knowledge Commons team explores various Open access alternatives to the current publication system. By researching a transition of published scholarly works to a knowledge commons, the project may help avoid some of the pitfalls of a market economy for scholarly works such as the enclosure of knowledge or a segmented participation to the public good due to prohibitive publication costs.

Cite as:

Calvé-Genest, A. (2015). Market Economy and Social reality – A pragmatic view from a well known author. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/05/13/market-economy-and-social-reality-a-pragmatic-view-from-a-well-known-author/

L’économie du don

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par Alexis Calvé-Genest & Heather Morrison (English)

Y a-t-il d’autres modes d’échange que l’échange marchand? Surestimons-nous la place de ces échanges lorsque nous tentons de jeter un regard sur la nature des transactions humaines? Si tel est le cas, quelques leçons peuvent-elles en être tirées aux fins de soutenir un projet de savoirs communs?

Il y a près de cent ans déjà, ce questionnement faisait l’objet d’un texte qui a depuis été pour ainsi dire redécouvert par les anthropologues et autres intéressés de la question humaine. Bien entendu, ce texte est au fondement d’une question beaucoup plus large sur la nature humaine que nous éviterons ici. Retenons cependant la possibilité que les échanges humains soient empreints d’une qualité qui perdure après que l’échange soit conclu, que cet échange soit entre groupes ou individus. En sommes, retenons l’idée de réciprocité dans les échanges par contraste à un échange fini où les parties impliquées se doivent d’en rester sur leurs gains.

Un échange basé sur le don, tel que conçu par Marcel Mauss il y a déjà très longtemps, implique une obligation morale, sociale, qui établit un enchevêtrement de relations entre groupes et individus intéressés sans pour autant paraître obligatoire. Cette relation en est une de prestige et de rivalité et elle sous-tend les échanges en société de manière universelle, tel que tente de le concevoir Mauss en 1924. Sans pour autant nier l’échange marchand, Mauss le pose comme superficiel à un type de transaction qui lui, est plus répandu dans toutes les sociétés de son temps, y compris celles du passé. Évidemment, nous faisons ici un bon en avant en posant que cela n’a que peu changé depuis son analyse quasi centenaire.

L’obligation de donner, de recevoir et de redonner est à la base de son économie du don, pour ainsi dire. En rivalisant par le don, les groupes et individus créent des liens et les renforcent sous peine de mort, si ce n’est que symbolique. Rappelons que la perception des anthropologues étudiant les sociétés dites primitives (qui ne le sont pas du tout d’ailleurs) est que l’accumulation y est bien malvenue. Le principe de la redistribution y règne et les cérémonies et événements du type potlatch, sur lesquels Mauss se base pour conceptualiser un système d’échange basé sur le don socialement obligé, sont des phénomènes cruciaux pour comprendre la cohésion sociale des groupes et leurs relations à autrui.

Si l’on considère que Mauss a mis le doigt sur un rouage important des échanges humains nous nous devons alors de considérer les notions de rivalité de prestige et d’obligations sociales comme parties prenantes de toute compréhension des transactions humaines qui dépassent le simple troc ou l’échange marchand. Il en va de même si l’on veut changer la nature d’une transaction humaine ou en créer de plus soutenables, réciproques, juste.

Est-ce que la théorie de l’économie du don peut s’appliquer à l’érudition? Prenons en considération le réseau international des établissements et des dépôts institutionnels, il y en a plus de 2600 répertoriés sur OpenDOAR http://opendoar.org/, et les plus de 72 millions de documents érudits qui furent légués de par le monde par les dépôts répertoriés par le Bielefeld Academic Search Engine http://www.base-search.net/about/en/index.php.

Chaque érudit fait don de son propre travail – un article, un livre, un ensemble de données – sans s’attendre à un retour sur investissement immédiat, mais plutôt avec l’espoir d’avoir un impact sur leur discipline ou une autre, de voir des contributions d’autres chercheurs à leurs travaux et de les voir reconnus comme apport à un savoir humanitaire collectif. Cela satisfait l’obligation de donner. D’autre lisent et utiliser ces dons, qui peuvent être applaudis et appréciés, ou tournée en dérision et critiqués. Peu importe ; ces actions satisfont l’obligation de recevoir. La réception du don contient avec elle l’obligation morale et sociale d’ajouter au don et de partager son travail, pas avec le donateur original, mais plutôt avec le monde entier ; c’est l’obligation subséquente de donner (ou redonner). Comme le potlatch, le prestige s’accroit au donateur des meilleurs dons. Ce n’est pas un troc direct, mais plutôt un réseau mondial de donateurs et de donataires qui ressemble beaucoup aux bases d’une économie du don émergente dans le monde de l’érudition.

Référence

Mauss, M. (1924, 2002 version numérique). Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés primitives. Disponible via Les Classiques des sciences sociales http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1522/cla.mam.ess3

Calvé-Genest, A., & Morrison, H. (2015). L’économie du don. Sustaining the Knowledge Commons / Soutenir Les Savoirs Communs. Retrieved from https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2015/04/28/leconomie-du-don/