The world’s leading cancer charity to stop funding open access publishing because of hybrid journals
As numerous posts on this blog have emphasised, the underlying idea of open access (OA) – allowing anyone to read and share published academic research for free –…
Fans of open access, unite: you have nothing to lose but your chained libraries
When books were rare and extremely expensive, they were often chained to the bookcase to prevent people walking off with them, in what were known as “chained libraries”.…
Trump’s war on knowledge requires re-inventing academic publishing as diamond open access
A year ago, Walled Culture wrote about a growing risk that we will lose access to the world’s knowledge, because of a failure by traditional academic publishers to…
India spends $715 million on academic journals, but with the wrong kind of open access
Numerous articles here on Walled Culture have chronicled the struggles to turn the aspirations of open access to knowledge into reality. The central reason people do not have…
Where open access has failed to reform academic publishing, perhaps antitrust law will succeed
The open access movement has been trying for over 20 years to promote the widest access to knowledge. Sadly, as numerous Walled Culture posts have chronicled, what should…
Another sign that gold open access was a mistake, and that diamond open access is the future
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the most influential funding bodies in the world. According to one ranking, it is the second largest charitable foundation,…
Research suggests more open access training for academics could help boost its uptake and support
Open access publishing, which allows people to read academic papers without a subscription, seems such a good idea. It means that anyone, anywhere in the world, can read…
Another reason why diamond open access is best: no economic barriers to publishing rebuttals
Walled Culture has written numerous posts about the promise and problems of open access. An important editorial in the journal Web Ecology raises an issue for open access…
Taking open access to the next level, by giving control to researchers, instead of to academic publishers
Back in February 2022, Walled Culture wrote about diamond open access (OA), perhaps the “purest” form of open access publishing, since there are no charges for either the…
Here’s another important reason why academics should publish in open access titles: self interest
Open access has been discussed many times here on Walled Culture. There are several strands to its story. It’s about allowing the public to access research they have…
Mass resignation by top academics over “too greedy” publisher, as Council of the EU calls for open access
It’s no secret that academic publishers are making fabulous profits by exploiting the work provided free of charge by researchers and funded by taxpayers. This is still happening,…
What Professor Litman’s classic open access book “Digital Copyright” teaches us
The central theme of Walled Culture the blog and the book (free digital versions available for download) is how copyright is a bad fit for the digital world.…
Peer review has failed, and that’s great news – for diamond open access, science and society
Over on his Experimental History blog, which he describes as “cognitive sneezing and interior design for your head“, Adam Mastroianni has two great posts about peer review in…
Open access is taking over, but academic institutions are paying as much money as ever: what happened?
The good news is that open access publishing, which allows anyone to read academic papers without needing a subscription, is taking over. The bad news is that academic…
Interview | Jean-Sébastien Caux: Rethinking Academic Publishing, Open Access & SciPost
Jean-Sébastien Caux is Professor in theoretical condensed matter physics at the University of Amsterdam. A Canadian citizen, he obtained his PhD in Oxford, was postdoctoral Fellow in All…
Why moving to diamond open access will not only save money, but also help to protect privacy
Back in September last year, Walled Culture mentioned the consistently high profit margins of 30-40% enjoyed by the academic publisher Elsevier. That’s problematic because these profits flow from…