Digital publishing hasn’t resulted in the free and open access to information many envisioned. Universities are increasingly fed up with a system they see as charging them for their own scholars’ labor.
“Soft” infrastructure includes the services, policies or practices that keep academic research working and open. Without a funded, coordinated national approach the private sector may take control.
Mark C. Wilson, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Universities in New Zealand spent close to US$15 million on subscriptions to just four publishers in 2016, data that was only released following a request to the Ombudsman.
A focus on collaboration among African universities and research institutions is crucial in developing national policies that meet the principles of open data while keeping it safe from exploitation.
In our institutions of higher education and our research labs, scholars first produce, then buy back, their own content. With the costs rising and access restricted, something’s got to give.
Could the real open access please stand up? If more research was published according to true open access principles, we’d see better application of evidence for everyone’s benefit.
South Africa has become the first country on the continent to purchase a national licence to the Cochrane library – giving everyone access to evidence-based information about health care.
Partly in response to the so-called ‘reproducibility crisis’ in science, researchers are embracing a set of practices that aim to make the whole endeavor more transparent, more reliable – and better.
Biologists have a centuries-old tradition of publishing on rare and endangered species. But poachers are using open-access information to target valuable and fragile new species.
A leading website that monitored predatory open access journals has closed. This will make it harder to keep tabs on this corrosive force within science.
It’s not enough to do groundbreaking research if the results are kept from the public. So CERN is making its results available to everyone via open access, showing how science should be done.
The outgoing president leaves behind some solid accomplishments in the world of science, tech and medicine. But the biggest departure from his predecessors might have been in his approach.
The public pays for academic research and then again to read the published results of that research. A new initiative proposes a radical Open Access model. Can it work?
Medical entries on Wikipedia are widely consulted across the world. Doctors and medical researchers need to make efforts to ensure the content on the online collaborative encyclopedia is accurate.
The public loses when their only choices are inaccessible, impenetrable journal articles or overhyped click-bait about science. Scientists themselves need to step up and help bridge the divide.
The academic medical community largely views Wikipedia with suspicion. But some traditional journals are starting to take the site more seriously – and some journals work very closely with it.