The Challenge
Scientific progress is theoretically a gradual process that involves many researchers building on one another’s work. However, subscriptions to journals are only affordable to the world’s wealthiest institutions. To make matters worse, between 75% and 90% of publications are in English. These disparities severely limit who has access to scientific knowledge, and who can engage in the cumulative scientific process, hampering the scientific process and creating an unjust system.
Readings
- MIT news release re: ending negotiations with Elsevier.
- Chris Bourg’s colloquium talk in BCS, April 2021. Chris Bourg is the director of MIT Libraries and led negotiations between MIT and Elsevier.
- Plan-S: An Alliance of European funders mandating Open Access. The Wikipedia article includes a description of some of the concerns, and why the US refused to join.
- “Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone.” Science.
- A short quiz on ‘what costs more.’
In your response paper, describe something you didn’t know about publishing that you learned from these sources, and/or a personal experience you had with the costs and benefits of open-access publishing.
