[Foundation-l] Journal Boycott

[Andrea Zanni]

2012/2/1 Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org>

> Hi Andrea,
>
> could you perhaps elaborate how exactly the Free Knowledge would benifit
> from boycotting non-OA journals? (Not meant sarcastic, I really want to
> know)
>

Hi Lodewijk,
thanks for the engaging question ;-)
Boycotting non-OA journals is not what I had in mind (as others explained),
here the aim is to point as Elsevier as an example of a wicked system.
Free knowledge could benefit from a renewed scholarly publishing world,
in which every research would be open to the public to be read and studied,
and the datasets of that research would be open to be tested again.
Scientific research is the cutting/bleeding edge of human inquiry, and you
perfectly understand how it would be important to have results of that
inquiry to be available to anyone who wants to access it.


> Also, how would you imagine such support? I could imagine that with any
> support by Wikimedia for a boycott, people would assume automatically that
> we would start blocking citations of said journals. Or are you thinking
> about that Wikimedia related scholars are asked to public Open Access? (I
> could imagine this is already the case)
>

This is more difficult.
I don't have many concrete ideas, but if Wikimedia related scholars could
add their name to the boycott list, and WMF would say that clear and loud,
that would be a small but significant step. Many others could follow.
Boycott citations to important articles or journals is not really a good
move (it's complicated): better would be for any editor to check if there
is an open access article which provide similar results, but this would be
very time-consuming, I think, and not always effective.


>
> In the past Wikimedia has always taken the stance that if people or
> companies want to exercize their copyright within legal limits, we have no
> objection to that (although we may challenge some of the legal limits).
> Would you propose a standpoint that goes further than that? (because then,
> it would imho certainly require much more community discussion before we
> take such step)
>
> I would like to point out that Open Access and in general Open Science are
movements wants "science" results open and available for all.
Traditional copyright is not the "main enemy": the enemy is a publishing
system that exploit the work of researchers (which write, review, and buy
articles) and public funds (through universities and libraries) with a very
too high profits. The system is wicked because there is a monopoly of few
huge publishers which decide prices of journals, which force you to buy
journals you don't want (the "bundle system").
Moreover, the are the Impact Factor issues, and the fact that these
publishers agree with SOPA, ACTA, etc.

I would like also to hear from Daniel, our beloved Wikimedian In Residence
for Open Access :-)

Aubrey



> Best regards,
> Lodewijk
>
> No dia 1 de Fevereiro de 2012 17:32, Andrea Zanni
> <zanni.andrea84 at gmail.com>escreveu:
>
> > I don't know if it's the case,
> > but it would be very interesting to have the Foundation
> > support officialy the campaign (single scholars can do decide to boycott,
> > of course).
> > But "universal access to universal knowledge" is pretty Open Access to
> me,
> > and this think is taking momentum,
> > hopefully will be effective.
> >
> > Aubrey
> >
> > 2012/2/1 Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net>
> >
> > > Another article:
> > >
> > > http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-See-Published/130403/
> > >
> > > > "Elsevier has supported a proposed federal law, the Research Works
> Act
> > > > (HR 3699), that could prevent agencies like the National Institutes
> of
> > > > Health from making all articles written by grant recipients freely
> > > > available."
> > > >
> > > > http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.03699:
> > > >
> > > > "Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting,
> > > > maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy,
> program,
> > or
> > > > other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network
> > > > dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior
> > > > consent of the publisher; or (2) requires that any actual or
> > prospective
> > > > author, or the author's employer, assent to such network
> dissemination.
> > > >
> > > > Defines "private-sector research work" as an article intended to be
> > > > published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of
> > > > such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government,
> describing
> > or
> > > > interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency
> > and
> > > > to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered
> > into
> > > > an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer
> > review
> > > > or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs
> > > > routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a
> > funding
> > > > agency in the course of research."
> > > >
> > > > Fred
> > > >
> > > >
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