scholarly journals Message from the Grassroots

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Camille Nous
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Scholarly Journal ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Journal Publishing ◽  
Use Of Knowledge

Librarians have responded to the decades-long “serials crisis” with a common narrative and a range of responses that have failed to challenge the ideology and structures that caused it. Using Walter Rodney’s theory of a guerilla intellectual, we critically examine the dominant understanding of this so-called crisis and emphasize the role that capital plays within it. The imperial nature of scholarly journal publishing and some of its many contradictions are discussed. “Transformative” agreements receive special attention as a hyper-capitalist manifestation of these contradictions at the heart of commercial publishing.The politics of refusal are one response to the commercialism, prestige, and power imbalances that drive the academic publishing system. Highlighting the differences between refusal and reform, this paper explores the protagonistic role that librarians can play in a protracted struggle within and beyond the confines of our profession. Select open access efforts are identified at the end as examples of different forms of refusal. This paper is intended to move beyond the traditional discourse of laying blame solely at the feet of the academic publishing oligopoly and also expounds on the bourgeois academy’s use of knowledge production for capital accumulation.

scholarly journals GO-PUB: Open-Select-Submit

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dasapta Erwin Irawan ◽  
Andri Putra Kesmawan ◽  
Mochammad Tanzil Multazam ◽  
Eric Kunto Aribowo
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Mobile Devices ◽  
Spatial Database ◽  
Scholarly Journal ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Public Repository ◽  
Journal Publishing

An online ride-hailing app is a must-have app on your mobile devices, because it's features have been extended to meet almost modern urban needs. What if we could adopt the same features and functionalities for the academic publishing ecosystem. We proudly introduce the conceptual of GO-PUB. GO-PUB is an online app that provides a spatial database of scholarly journal publishers and to connect it with potential authors. Potential authors could find the perfect journal near their locations, complete with supporting pieces of information about the journal publishing system. The concept of GO-PUB is open source and cross platforms, hosted in public repository to make sure everyone could share their knowledge and contribution to the project.

scholarly journals Liberation through Cooperation: How Library Publishing Can Save Scholarly Journals from Neoliberalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave S. Ghamandi
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Scholarly Journal ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Scholarly Journals ◽  
Journal Publishing ◽  
Article Processing Charges ◽  
Systems Of Domination ◽  
Fair Deal

This commentary examines political and economic aspects of open access (OA) and scholarly journal publishing. Through a discourse of critique, neoliberalism is analyzed as an ideology causing many problems in the scholarly journal publishing industry, including the serials crisis. Two major efforts in the open access movement that promote an increase in OA funded by article-processing charges (APC) —the Open Access 2020 (OA2020) and Pay It Forward (PIF) initiatives—are critiqued as neoliberal frameworks that would perpetuate existing systems of domination and exploitation. In a discourse of possibility, ways of building a post-neoliberal system of journal publishing using new tactics and strategies, merging theory and praxis, and grounding in solidarity and cooperation are presented. This includes organizing journal publishing democratically using cooperatives, which could decommodify knowledge and provide greater open access. The article concludes with a vision for a New Fair Deal, which would revolutionize the system of scholarly journal publishing by transitioning journals to library publishing cooperatives.

scholarly journals Editorial

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Dawn Ad�s ◽  
Fiona Williams
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Online Journal ◽  
Journal Publishing ◽  
Cultural Interest ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Interdisciplinary Journal ◽  
Research And Policy

Welcome to the start of the 2021 volume (Volume 9) of the Journal of the British Academy, our multi- and interdisciplinary journal publishing articles in the humanities and social sciences. It was in 2013 that the British Academy added to its academic publishing portfolio �an open access online journal that would meet the expectations of modern scholars and be more easily available for new readerships�. The Journal of the British Academy has continued the tradition of publishing articles drawn from the Academy�s own programme of lectures. But in the last few months of 2020 the Journal extended its range of content to include important contributions on the COVID-19 pandemic drawn from other Academy research and policy programmes. These articles demonstrate the expanded vision that we now have for the Journal of the British Academy. We are looking to strengthen the Journal as a platform for high-quality informed comment by scholars working in the humanities and social sciences, on matters of political, social and cultural interest. It will tap new and exciting thinking and research. It will provide space for reflection on current scholarship, and the exploration of new areas. It will highlight the international range of the British Academy�s interests.

scholarly journals Evolution of the scholarly mega-journal, 2006–2017

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e4357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo-Christer Björk
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Longitudinal Studies ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Scholarly Journal ◽  
Journal Publishing ◽  
Market Shares ◽  
Publishing Services

Mega-journals are a new kind of scholarly journal made possible by electronic publishing. They are open access (OA) and funded by charges, which authors pay for the publishing services. What distinguishes mega-journals from other OA journals is, in particular, a peer review focusing only on scientific trustworthiness. The journals can easily publish thousands of articles per year and there is no need to filter articles due to restricted slots in the publishing schedule. This study updates some earlier longitudinal studies of the evolution of mega-journals and their publication volumes. After very rapid growth in 2010–2013, the increase in overall article volumes has slowed down. Mega-journals are also increasingly dependent for sustained growth on Chinese authors, who now contribute 25% of all articles in such journals. There has also been an internal shift in market shares. PLOS ONE, which totally dominated mega-journal publishing in the early years, currently publishes around one-third of all articles. Scientific Reports has grown rapidly since 2014 and is now the biggest journal.

scholarly journals A Marxist Account of and Suggested Alternative to Capitalist Academic Publishing

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Peekhaus
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Academic Journal ◽  
Academic Publications ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Capitalist Control

This paper examines and situates theoretically from a Marxist political economic perspective the capitalist model of academic publishing using Marx’s concepts of ‘primitive accumulation’ and ‘alienation.’ Primitive accumulation, understood as a continuing historical process necessary for capital accumulation, offers a theoretical framework to make sense of contemporary erosions of the knowledge commons that result from various enclosing strategies employed by capitalist academic journal publishers. As a theoretical complement, the article further suggests that some of the elements of alienation Marx articulated in respect of capitalist-controlled production processes capture the estrangement experienced by the actual producers of academic publications. After offering a short assessment of the open-access movement as a remedial response to the enclosing and alienating effects inherent in the capitalist-controlled academic publishing industry, the article briefly outlines a suggested alternative model for academic publishing that, building on open-access projects, could radically subvert capitalist control.

scholarly journals ‘Predatory’ Open Access Journals as Parody: Exposing the Limitations of ‘Legitimate’ Academic Publishing

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 651-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Bell
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Open Access Journals

The concept of the ‘predatory’ publisher has today become a standard way of characterizing a new breed of open access journals that seem to be more concerned with making a profit than disseminating academic knowledge. This essay presents an alternative view of such publishers, arguing that if we treat them as parody instead of predator, a far more nuanced reading emerges. Viewed in this light, such journals destabilize the prevailing discourse on what constitutes a ‘legitimate’ journal, and, indeed, the nature of scholarly knowledge production itself. Instead of condemning them outright, their growth should therefore encourage us to ask difficult but necessary questions about the commercial context of knowledge production, prevailing conceptions of quality and value, and the ways in which they privilege scholarship from the ‘centre’ and exclude that from the ‘periphery’.

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