Unlocking Secrets: What Open Science Pioneers Wish They Knew Before Today’s Reality Hit
We wanted to drastically change a system from closed access to open access without financially paying significantly for that shift. But as a result, we have been paying the price with the surge of controversial megajournals, the experiments with APCs and other models, the so-called predatory journals, the rampage of papermills, the money-making special issues, the record growth of retractions, and the delisted or suspended journals.
I believe our basic perception of making academic journals accessible to every person in the world in the name of open access is fundamentally flawed. Do we have any data on how many common, non-academic people read open access articles, and how they use the new knowledge recorded in them? Let’s admit, open access or not, the almost exclusive use of journal articles is to be cited by other journal articles in the future. That’s why almost all metrics measuring journals’, even researchers’, reputation are solely based on citation numbers. In the same vein, publishers and their associations do not appreciate the millions of pieces of grey literature and preprints in open access conversations, because these are not peer-reviewed. The Global South publishes hundreds of free access journals full of valuable national and regional knowledge, but we undermine them not being indexed by reputed indexing agencies. Further, the whole publishing system is not only flawed, but is maintained by false premises. On the one hand, we call knowledge a common good, but tie it either to subscriptions or APCs. We campaign for open access, but can do nothing when publishers make this movement a money-making, rebranding opportunity. Journals publish new knowledge and evidence on numerous issues to make society better, but the publishing industry is continuously overlooking its own exploitative, excessive, profit-driven, unjust practices.
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