Slides used to argue against the motion that the majority of academic publications should be in open access journals. Debate held at The Open University, UK in November 2016.
2. Arguing against the motion: 'This
house believes that the majority of
academic work carried out by the
Learning Teaching and Innovation
portfolio should be published in
openly accessible journals.’
10. If you should publish open access,
should you do it “mostly”?
11. 'This house believes that the
majority of academic work carried
out by the Learning Teaching and
Innovation portfolio should be
published in openly accessible
journals.’
14. Three possibilities:
1) The case for OA publication is not
made, therefore reject the motion
2) The case for OA is made, but the
motion is insufficient, therefore reject
the motion
3) The motion is too vague, therefore
reject the motion
15. Has the case for
OA been made?
No
Reject the
motion
Yes
Motion is
insufficient:
reject
Too vague
Reject the
motion
It is typically suggested that members of the public have a right to access research they have published – but open access makes it available to others as well. This is unjust.
There can be no such thing as free access to academic research. Academic research is not something to which free access is possible. Academic research is a process – a process which universities teach (at a fee).
OA publication is fundamentally unsustainable and parasitic on profitable publishing – every act of OA publication harms the future sustainability of academic publishing
In some disciplines certain prestige journals are not open access – does this mean we should just ignore them?
The number of journals increases, the quality of journals declines, the papers become less widely readable, the job of editing becomes less rewarding – journal publication stops being academic discourse and becomes about metric manipulation
OA publication without proper editorial oversight lowers quality of publications – reducing accessibility
Majority is a vague term. Does it mean 80%? 51%?
What is ‘academic work’? Not clear. Could be research, could be scholarship, could be teaching
Should be? Does that mean you don’t have to do it, only think it?
Openly accessible (like open access) is ultimately a subjective term – green vs gold, publication fees§
If you believe in open access then you should only publish in open access journals – ‘mostly’ publishing OA just reinforces proprietary models
Openness much broader than just ‘publish in OA journal’
No mention of institutional repositories
If you’re convinced of something, do it 100%. Don’t pay lip service
Bad compromises fragment everything. Openness is something that risks being taken away if we allow commercial publishers to reclaim the language of open