ELPUB 2018

Google Docs Session Notes

The DOAJ Ambassador Programme: an example project for promoting cognitive justice in the Global South
Authors:  Tom Olyhoek, DOAJ Editor in Chief; Barbara Porrett, DOAJ Ambassador Canada; Dominic Mitchell, DOAJ Operations Manager
Global scientific publishing, including open access publishing, is heavily biased towards journals and authors from the Global North.  This has resulted in a knowledge gap  between the South and the North. It has led to a situation where scientific knowledge from the Global South is very much underrepresented  in the collective scientific output worldwide: a problem which has been described as cognitive injustice.  Unfortunately this situation is not helped by the fact that many questionable publishers are based in countries in the Global South. To address these issues the Directory of Open Access Journal (DOAJ) started an Ambassador programme in 2016 with the help of funding from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC Canada). The main objective of the programme was to increase the number of quality open access journals published, and the quality of open access publishing, in the Global South.

Inequality in knowledge production: The integration of academic infrastructure by big publishers
Authors: George Chen, Knowledge GAP - University of Toronto; Alejandro Posada, Knowledge GAP - University of Toronto
This paper attempts to illustrate the implications of a simultaneous redirection of the big publishers’ business strategy towards open access business models and the acquisition of scholarly infrastructure utilizing the conceptual framework of rent-seeking theory. To document such a transformation, we utilized financial databases to analyze the mergers and acquisitions of the top publicly traded academic publishers. We then performed a service analysis to situate the acquisitions of publishers within the knowledge and education life-cycles, illustrating what we term to be their vertical integration within their respective expansion target life-cycles. Implications of higher education institutions’ increased dependency towards the companies and increased influence by the companies on the institution and individual researcher were noted from the vertical integration of products. Said vertical integration is analyzed via a rent theory framework and described to be a form of rent-seeking complementary to the redirection of business strategies to open access. Finally, the vertical integration is noted to generate exclusionary effects upon researchers/institutions in the global south.

The Public Knowledge Project: Reflections and directions after its first two decades
Authors:  Juan Pablo Alperin, Simon Fraser University; John Willinsky, Stanford University; Brian Owen, Simon Fraser University; James MacGregor, Simon Fraser University; Alec Smecher, Simon Fraser University; Kevin Stranack, Simon Fraser University
As the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) enters its third decade, it faces the responsibilities of supporting the more than 10,000 journals using its software and are dependent on PKP continuing to develop the code. In the fall of 2017, PKP, with the support of the Arnold Foundation, contracted the consulting services of BlueSky to Blueprint, with its principal Nancy Maron embarking on an exploration of PKP’s standing and prospects among a sample of those involved in scholarly publishing, including current, former, and potential users of its software (Maron 2018). This paper presents BlueSky’s findings and PKP’s responses in what may serve as a lesson on the maturing of, and challenges faced by, an open source software project seeking to sustain increased global access to research and scholarship.