Science Ethics

OA publishing initiatives have the potential to lead to:

1. More rapid scientific progress (e.g., Bermuda Principles);
2. Reduction in unnecessary duplication of scientific effort;
3. Critically reflective communities of publishing practice;
4. Spaces for constructive criticism and epistemological economies;
5. New forms of research collaboration.

The findings of research funded by the public should, it is argued, be made freely available to those who have paid for it. The current subscription based model of scholarly publication limits access to those in institutions or with the resources to cover the cost of subscriptions. It has been argued that subscription-based models of publishing are unfair and exploitative because they require publicly-funded academics to submit their work to commercially run journals, to carry out peer-review and sit as members of editorial boards, and then to pay to access the fruits of their own intellectual labor. Some also suggested that the current subscription-based system is inherently conservative and has the potential to lead to a narrowing of intellectual and scholarly life. By contrast, models of open-access publishing offer the possibility of moving away from an approach to publication driven by the branding and marketing imperatives of journals and their overly rigid views about disciplinary boundaries and publication formats.

(adapted from Parker, M. The ethics of open access publishing. BMC Med Ethics 14, 16 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-14-16)

OA publishing initiatives have the potential to:

1. Make scientific collaborations unsustainable (Fort Lauderdale Agreement);
2. Damage the established "scientific etiquette";
3. Fail to support high quality research;
4. Generate asymmetry in the amount of research produced and consumed by private vs. public sectors;
5. Entrench divisions between richer and poor institutions due to inability of selected authors to pay APCs (Article Processing Charges).

The current APC-based model where authors (which in practice means their institutions) have to pay for publishing OA, similarly to subscription based model, favors the financial interests of publishers - public continues to pay both for the production of knowledge and for access to it, while commercial publishers continue to profit because the costs charged by the journals do not reflect the true costs, as much of the key labor is carried out for free by publicly funded academics. For APC-based model to be justified, publishers need to be more transparent about its real costs to ensure good value for public money. Additionally, OA journals shall implement a wider use of fee waivers or means-tested subsidies to make it possible for under-funded researchers to publish.

(adapted from Parker, M. The ethics of open access publishing. BMC Med Ethics 14, 16 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-14-16)

This virtual workshop for STEM and Health Sciences disciplines will cover multiple opportunities available to U-M authors that wish to learn more about or publish in Open Access venues. In this webinar, you will learn about: 

• Global and local OA initiatives;

• APC-waivers available to U-M authors;

• Strategies for selecting an appropriate OA journal, repository, or preprint,

Presented by: Yulia Sevryugina (Chemistry Librarian) and Sara Samuel (Health Sciences Informationist)

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1x1PP5W6HPOsOE5fQaP3Xl0ZfkZ6jAR98w0des7CpcME/edit?usp=sharing