Academic journal debate

Analysis and Comment (16)

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Open-access journals are gaining credibility and prestige. rvm_71

Open access will change the world, if scientists want it to

By Terry Sunderland, Centre for International Forestry Research

While the Australian Research Council considers its policy on open-access publication and others within the scientific community call for the increased sharing of scientific data, the British are already…
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Academic publishing firms have been all too keen to monopolise a crucial public good: academic knowledge. giulia.forsythe

The great publishing swindle: the high price of academic knowledge

By Philip Soos, Deakin University

One of the great outrages of academia in the modern age is the privatisation of the profits accruing to publicly-financed knowledge. One form is that of academic journals, a primary method of disseminating…
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Traditional publishing methods could soon be a thing of the past. Unhindered by talent

Academic publishing must go digital to survive

By Agata Mrva-Montoya

Most forms of publishing across the globe are in a state of flux. But university-based scholarly publishing faces a set of challenges all of its own. How can an industry whose target audience is so highly…
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If the US Research Works Bill passes, public access to US research will be restricted. Flickr/the Firebottle

A small bill in the US, a giant impact for research worldwide

By Danny Kingsley

Over the Christmas period, a short Bill was introduced into the US House of Representatives. The Research Works Act aims to make it illegal to require researchers to make their work publicly available…
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Academic knowledge is boxed in by exclusive, expensive journals.

Scientist meets publisher: the video

By Alex O. Holcombe

Scientists – myself included – are increasingly frustrated by the outmoded academic publishing system. The situation as it stands made sense in the pre-internet era, when one needed a printing press to…
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Universities already stockpile academic papers so they can report their output to the government. But stockpiling the wrong version of the paper can restrict their right to make the paper available on open access. Flickr/Gideon Burton

How one small fix could open access to research

By Danny Kingsley

Providing equitable access to the findings of scholarly research is an expensive and vexed business, as many recent stories here on The Conversation have highlighted. Open access offers a way to freely…
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Breaking free of the stranglehold of academic publishers holds appeal — but what are the dangers? Flickr

The pros and perils of ditching academic publishers

By Dorothy Bishop, University of Oxford

There are three tensions in the field of academic publishing (1) who pays to publish research? (2) who decides what gets published? and (3) who takes any profits? In the traditional model, based on publishing…
Creativecommons
Frustration with copyright restrictions placed on scholarly work in many journals has helped fuel the Creative Commons and Open Access movements. Flickr/TilarX

Copyright or copywrong? How journals control access to research

By Tom Cochrane, Queensland University of Technology

Back in 1991, in the very earliest days of the internet, a group of high energy physicists began sharing their findings on a Los Alamos-based online archive called Arxiv. Their early experiments in the…
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A growing number of academic institutions are building free online databases of their scholarly output. But publication in a big name academic journal still holds cachet for most academics. Flickr/mandiberg

Explainer: Open access vs traditional academic journal publishers

By Stephen Cramond, University of Melbourne

As the cost of accessing academic journal articles increases, a growing number of academic institutions are building publicly accessible databases of scholarly work. But how much of a threat to the traditional…
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How does the high cost of academic journal subscriptions impact the developing world? Flickr/Book Aid International

How academic journals price out developing countries

By Adam Habib, University of Johannesburg

Universities libraries in the developed world are struggling to pay academic journal subscription costs — so how can universities in developing countries hope to pay? In this Q+A, Professor Adam Habib…
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Does the cost of academic journals stymie learning? Flickr/the.Firebottle

Putting a price on knowledge: the high cost of academic journals

By Simon Marginson, University of Melbourne

The phrase ‘publish or perish’ is familiar to all academics, who face enormous pressure to have their work featured in the top academic journals. Career progression, job security and pay rises can depend…
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Kim Carr has canned the journal rankings system: but what should be next? AAP

Why the ERA had to change and what we should do next

By Tim Mazzarol, University of Western Australia and Geoffrey Norman Soutar, University of Western Australia

There was much celebrating around Australia’s university campuses when the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr announced changes to the “Excellence in Research for…
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When is comes to research, it seems quantity has become much more important than quality. Flickr/Iscan

How ‘publish or perish’ is ruining finance education

By Parmendra Sharma, Griffith University

Imagine the following conversation between a finance academic and his or her supervisor during an annual performance review: Academic: So, do you think I am ready for a promotion? Supervisor: Well, I…

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