Inequality in Knowledge Production: The Integration of Academic Infrastructure by Big Publishers

A tale of two 'opens': intersections between Free and Open Source Software and Open Scholarship

“…Here, commodification and privatisation of research has become the de facto norm for much of the industry, which relied on exclusionary business models to support itself. Because of this, some actors in the private sector, as well as a number of professional academic societies, have even taken active stances to subvert, co-opt, or even stop progress towards more inclusive and open systems (Posada and Chen 2018;Tennant 2018a). The hyper-competitive reward system only seems to have exacerbated this, instead promoting secrecy and individualism rather than any form of collective collaboration for knowledge generation (Merton 1968).…”

“…the non-profit side, comprising services such as those via the Joint Roadmap for Open Science Tools ( JROST ); and the proprietary side, with alternatives offered by publishers such as Elsevier and Springer Nature (via Digital Science) and service providers like Clarivate Analytics. A major criticism of the latter is that the services they offer around data and analytics represent their ownership of key elements of scholarly infrastructure that create lock-ins for users and their workflows (Posada and Chen 2018;Tennant and Brembs 2018;Campfens 2019). The result of this has been that, despite the best intentions of Open Scholarship, much of the infrastructure it relies on has now been captured by commercial entities and subject to market control as a system of organised competitiveness (Odlyzko 2013;Anderson and Squires 2017).…”

“…As part of the Open Data movement, the increase in the implementation and promotion of the FAIR Similar to what has happened for OA, there is now a growing concern that Open Data too is being 'hijacked' by commercial organisations, who increasingly offer a range of research data services including repositories and management plans for researchers or research institutes as part of service packages (Posada and Chen 2018). This is part of a growing trend within the publishing sector, towards recognition of the commercial value behind such data.…”

“…They are leveraging rare traits within scholarship, such as open development, networked collaboration, strong, value-based frameworks, and inclusivity, as a sort of counter-culture to traditional research processes(Moshontz et al 2018). Such developments come during a critical time when there is increasing capture and enclosure of vital components of the global scholarly infrastructure by private entities, which has further consequences on inclusive participation and epistemic diversity, particularly against researchers from the 'global south'(Posada and Chen 2018).Examples of these communities include The Carpentries , the Software Sustainability Institute , and indeed the broader research software community(Hettrick 2016). Open Journal Systems , created by the Public Knowledge Project and launched in 2001, is FOSS for the management of peer reviewed journals, and released under the GNU general license (Edgar and Willinsky 2010).…”

‘Publication favela’ or bibliodiversity? Open access publishing viewed from a European perspective

“…However one looks at the situation, there are challenges for both sides. If for the commercial companies, the main challenge is global competition and rent-seeking to increase profit and reduce risks in their business models (Chen & Posada, 2018;McCabe, 2004), the challenge for the many small projects and publishers is how to collaborate more and find ways to work together for the common good. The recent trend in the UK of individual new OA university presses springing up to serve their own institutions appears to be following a more competitive model, although organizations such as Jisc are working to support them with infrastructure in services, while in continental Europe, the trend has seen more collaborative, and sometimes national, initiatives.…”