Crises and opportunities: The futures of scholarly publishing (original) (raw)
2017
Since the Second World War, academic publishing practices have had to cope with enormous changes in the scale of the research enterprise, in the culture and management of higher education, and in the ecosystem of scholarly publishers. The pace of change has been particularly rapid in the last twenty-five years, thanks to digital technologies. This has also been a time of growing divergence between the different roles of academic publishing: as a means of disseminating validated knowledge, as a form of symbolic capital for academic career progression, and as a profitable business enterprise. This briefing paper aims to provide a historical perspective that can inform the debates about what the future of academic publishing should look like. We argue that current policy regarding open access publishing, and many of the other proposals for the reform of academic publishing, have been too focused on the opportunities and financial challenges of the most recent changes in digital communi...
Current Dynamics of Scholarly Publishing
Scholarly publishing is an essential vehicle for actively participating in the scientific debate and for sustaining the invisible colleges of the modern research environment, which extend far beyond the borders of individual research institutions. However, its current dynamics have deeply transformed the scientific life and conditioned in new ways the economics of academic knowledge production. They have also challenged the perceived common sense view of scientific research. Method: Analytical approach to set out a comprehensive framework on the current debate on scholarly publishing and to shed light on the peculiar organization and the working of this peculiar productive sector. Result: The way in which scientific knowledge is produced and transmitted has been dramatically affected by the series of recent major technosocietal transformations. Although the effects are many, in particular the current overlap and interplay between two distinct and somewhat opposite stances—scientific and economic—tend to blur the overall understanding of what scholarly publishing is and produces distortion on its working which in turn affect the scientific activities. The outcome is thus a series of intended and unintended effects on the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge. Conclusion: The article suggests that a substantial transformation characterizes science today that seems more like a thrusting, entrepreneurial business than a contemplative, disinterested endeavor. In this essay, we provide a general overview of the pivotal role of the scholarly publishing in fostering this change and its pros and cons connected to the idiosyncratic interplay between social norms and market stances.
Academic publishing in the modern era
This paper looks at a variety of issues surrounding current academic publishing and asks if they are contributing to the demise of what was once a respected and authoritative process. It also looks at scam and predatory publishing in the context of the increasing commercialisation of education generally, including commercialisation of academic journals, universities, and research.
An academic perspective on changes in publishing
Scholarly and particularly journal publishing seems to be a classic case of path dependence (David, 1985: 332). I suggest the core issue is whether commercial academic journals are like the qwerty keyboard in persisting long after their rationale ends, or whether they are more like print newspapers, which seem to being displaced by electronic newsletters. I conjecture that the interwebs are changing not only publishing but also the way that scholars conceive, do and communicate research. If this turns out to be true the long and possibly medium future is with institutions’ digital repositories, as Harnard (2012a, b) argues.
Challenges to scholarly publishing
Publishing Research Quarterly, 2001
Threats to professional and scholarly publishers abound since publishing is at a strategic inflection point. The inability of users to identity quality information, the advent of new technologies and services, and the fact that users want a variety of experiences all threaten your well-being. However, focusing on marketing, editorial, reputation, and by partnering effectively, publishers can avail themselves of the marketing opportunities presented, ironically enough, by the very threats themselves.
Future of Scholarly Publishing: A Perspective
Science Insights
The academic publication takes on an increasingly relevant place to shape, on the one hand, the scholar’s prestige, and on the other, the prestige of the institution to which he or she is attached. In addition, academic publishing is vital for the development of scientific knowledge and the contribution to the community. This paper analyzes several dimensions that may be central to academic publishing in the near future. To this end, in methodological terms, a qualitative approach was favored, namely through the documentary analysis of scientific writings that analyze this topic. The results of this analysis reveal that this is a process in constant and accelerated development, but there will have to be criteria and processes for selecting what is scientifically relevant from what is called “noise” in scientific publishing. Increasing quality will have to be a fundamental element in this process.
1997
The costs of scholarly publishing have become unsustainable for both research libraries and university presses. This paper discusses how the transition to electronic journal publishing changes the ways in which these two participants in the scholarly communication process begin to analyze and attempt to control their cost structures in order to remain economically viable. Libraries and their users will be reluctant to abandon a known archival format, and capital investments in the technical infrastructure needed to deliver scholarly information electronically may be made slowly. For publishers, the need to cover first copy costs and to continue serving a market demand for print will create a significant transitional period during which both print and electronic formats must be produced and funded. The transition to fully electronic publication, although likely to reduce operational costs for libraries slightly in the short run and significantly in the long run, creates potential revenue interruptions for presses. Many publishers have proposed pricing models for electronic journals that are based on existing print subscription prices and that include multi-year guarantees of price adjustments to cover both inflation and expansion in the content offered. Libraries are caught in the dilemma posed by many publishers' current pricing structures for electronic journals: the offer of a multi-year reduction in the rate of inflation in high-value commercial journals is attractive when compared to the anticipated inflation in print journals; yet accepting that model would protect a rising share of library collection budgets for high-inflation journals which would then rapidly crowd out other scholarly publications. The short-term measures that the library and press individually might rationally employ to maintain fiscal stability may have far reaching negative implications for the economic viability of the system of scholarly communication as a whole, particularly for the university presses. (Contains 22 references.
Ten Hot Topics around Scholarly Publishing
Publications
The changing world of scholarly communication and the emerging new wave of ‘Open Science’ or ‘Open Research’ has brought to light a number of controversial and hotly debated topics. Evidence-based rational debate is regularly drowned out by misinformed or exaggerated rhetoric, which does not benefit the evolving system of scholarly communication. This article aims to provide a baseline evidence framework for ten of the most contested topics, in order to help frame and move forward discussions, practices, and policies. We address issues around preprints and scooping, the practice of copyright transfer, the function of peer review, predatory publishers, and the legitimacy of ‘global’ databases. These arguments and data will be a powerful tool against misinformation across wider academic research, policy and practice, and will inform changes within the rapidly evolving scholarly publishing system.
Drowning in Information and Starving for Knowledge': 21^ s^ t-Century Scholarly Publishing
SOUTHERN REVIEW-ADELAIDE-, 2007
This essay draws on scholarly and public-policy literature, along with personal experience, to examine academic publishing in the global North, especially the United States. It does so in the hope of interesting academic readers, writers, presses, and distributors. The piece is idiosyncratic in its blend of impressionistic experience with, let us say, book learning.
The university as publisher revisited
Insights: the UKSG journal, 2014
This article explores the growing involvement of libraries in providing publishing services for the informal scholarly outputs traditionally referred to as 'gray literature'. By envisioning institutional repository (IR) infrastructure as a publishing platform, libraries can bring conference proceedings, technical reports, niche journals, white papers and other hard-to-source materials into the mainstream. The opportunities of such an approach for scholars, libraries and university presses open to collaboration are considered. Several directions for future expansion of this activity, such as the publication of student scholarship and the development of more formal products linked to gray literature, are suggested.
Is scholarly publishing going from crisis to crisis?
Learned Publishing, 2013
In an open access world, will journal subscription inflation simply be replaced by APC inflation? Librarians have long complained of a 'serials crisis'. That crisis they contend has been based on one thing: price. Year-on-year price hikes for journal subscriptions far exceeding consumer price inflation that have meant that, even in electronic form, academic journals easily become unaffordable for many and as a result the dissemination of scholarly research is impaired.
European Review, 2009
Scholarly publishing serves the formal communication needs of scholars or researchers and derives from, and is constructed to reflect, their aspirations and behaviour. Specifically, journal publishing was invented by Oldenburg in 1665 to solve some of the competitive jealousies that existed between the experimentalist founding fathers of the Royal Society. The solutions he came up with have endured to the present day and have even survived the transition to electronic delivery. This article surveys the reasons why this should be so and examines the modern world of electronic journal publishing with particular reference to the players in the publishing cycle, the digital transition, economics and the advent of open access.
Review of "Getting the Word Out: Academic Libraries as Scholarly Publishers"
Libraries large and small are developing services to support the creation of scholarship as part of a broader trend in redefining librarianship in the 21st century. Getting the Word Out: Academic Libraries as Scholarly Publishers documents the current state of academic library publishing; including its justifications, methods, and products, providing an essential and timely snapshot of the state of library publishing. In a growing number of cases university presses are reporting to their institutional libraries, or working with libraries to build meaningful collaborations that benefit both parties, and more importantly, authors and consumers. Many libraries are building services to meet a broad range of publishing needs within their institutional communities, with outputs ranging from traditional products such as peer-reviewed journals and monographs to undergraduate research and grey literature.
Evolution of the visibility of scholarly monographs in the academic field
El Profesional de la Información
Scholarly monographs provide a good example to show the evolution of the impact that digital publishing has had over the last few decades in the transmission and communication of scientific information. On the one hand, in the area of Social Sciences and Humanities relevance in quantitative terms has been undermined, giving prominence to other document types such as research papers published in academic journals. Moreover, their visibility and accessibility have been conditioned by a number of factors that form an intrinsic part of the digital medium itself. Based on these two fundamental premises, this paper aims to analyze only the situation of scholarly monographs in institutional systems for research assessment and tenure, from the perspective of the various proposed requirements regarding accreditation for the different figures of university teaching staff and the request for Spanish recognition of six-year research periods.