Scientific knowledge should be free for all. What does this mean?
I’m not here to answer this question, but I do have a few thoughts I want to raise about the topic.
My academic experience, like the majority of alumni of today, comes from my time studying at university. During the study of almost all topics, students have to wrangle the concept of scientific research. Many programs have an entire module dedicated to instilling these skills into their students because it is specifically a skill that needs to be learned.
Most universities have access to vast libraries of scientific literature through institutional licenses. They purchase these bundles of journals from the publishers of said literature for millions of dollars each year, with prices per university varying greatly. This raises the question, what are universities actually paying for?
Scientific Capitalism
Just five companies published more than half of all research published between 1973 and 2013; Reed-Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, and Sage. It’s estimated that these companies make huge profit margins on selling science, in some cases over 40%. The economics can be complex but before getting to my opinions, I want to summarise:
- Traditional Journals: READER pays.
- Gold Open Access: AUTHOR pays.
- Green Open Access: Both free and paid for.
- Diamond Open Access: NOBODY pays.
A note on Green Open Access. The author is allowed to publish the manuscript themselves on any website they want, for free. But the publisher may charge for access to the manuscript from their library.
Way back, the publisher would arrange for the journals to be printed and disseminated, and would essentially get the research infront of an audience. This is what they charged for.
Thought 1: But now that most research is digital only, what is justifying those high margins?
Trusting Science
Now, this is a topic of HOT debate. Currently, we are in the midst of the ‘AI Revolution’ and it is becoming nearly impossible to believe anything you see online.
Traditionally, scientific papers were reviewed, and reviewed, and peer reviewed, and edited, and reviewed before finally being published. There were only a handful of organisations capable of maintaining the status and reputation needed to run a publishing house, and if most of the science was paid for by the user, it was free from bias on the authors/publishers side.
But we’re not in the traditional times now. Most scientific journals are online only cutting out printing costs and making it easier than ever to get eyes on your publications, after all, your reading the words of one man on a free-of-charge website.
In 2021, Wiley, one of the big five, purchased the publisher formerly known as Hindawi, for $298m. Many knew this would be bad news but it went ahead regardless. Just last year Wiley redacted 11,000 articles and closed down 19 journals, many of which, due to fraud. The short story here is Hindawi was publishing manuscripts which were not properly reviewed. So whats the deal?
In the scientific world we have to deal with Predatory Publishers. These are organisations which charge authors a high price to publish their research, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. Ok, yeah it’s as bad as it sounds. If you cast your mind back to those open access journals you will start to see why this is a problem. You see, scientific journals are perceived as a source to be trusted. So when an unscrupulous actors are able to pay their way into a journal, misinformation can spread.
Thought 2: Authors should not have and financial affairs with regards to publishing their work.
Free Science
So this brings me around to my final thought.
Thought 3: Scientific knowledge should be free for all.
Aside from publisher bias, I have a few other reasons for this belief:
I feel making knowledge available to as many people as possible allows us to best utilise the incredible minds we have here on Earth. Having access to research is critical in advancing our society, be it in the realm of medical care, astronomy, technology, or food. Gating this priceless information behind paywalls, hinders this progress.
Another key considerations is how paid access impacts fair reporting in the media. Most media companies have the funds to access as much research as they need, but as we have seen, different organisations pay different prices. This could be used to bias media outlets on the part of the publisher by hiking the prices for reporting which leans away from their political ideology.
There are big issues with the current system and I think addressing it is going to be critical to a better future.
Until then, the world will have to keep perpetuating shadow libraries and archives.