AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Openness, Publication, and Scholarship

There’ a great conversation going on among Mark, Paul (more), Tim (more), and Stephen (more) about “open scholaship” (and sundry variations on that theme — be sure to check out the paper on “publishing” by David Clines, to which Mark links). It’ exciting to see the topic generate such interest and activity — especially since that’ one of the premises on which the Disseminary is based.

One of the topics involves the question of what the various conversants mean by “open,” which I’d summarize with the following list of opennesses:

1. “open source” (Stephen Carlson’ emphasis): primary texts freely available online.


2. “open access”: Scholarship should be available to the reading public apart from the impedimenta of high prices and libraries or bookstores in remote locations.


3. “open entry” (Paul’s emphasis): Scholarship should take place on the basis of interest and capacity, without according privileged standing to those with Ph.D.s in specialized fields, or academic appointments. Anyone may join in.


4. “open data” Scholarship should be archived in open, easily-indexable data formats.


5. “open discourse”: Scholarship should conduct its business in public, where interested parties (who aren’t necessarily aiming to participate) can watch. learn, and pose interesting “outsider” challenges.

I don’t hold to a very strong distinction between “primary sources” and “econdary sources” (except in an obvious, rough-and-ready sense), ao I’m not more determined to attain sense 1 than Sense 2. I’m committed to working toward a more general transparency in scholarly discourses. As the prices of printed materials continue to rise — for some plausible, and other implausible, reasons — the importance of free online publication grows.

All my illustrious colleagues agree that peer-review is a problem, although I see that more as an ideological problem (nonetheless real) than a structural problem. Reputable presses publish bad books; some of the most prestigious series and presses produce notably idiosyncratic works. Likewise, some very weighty works haven’t found a home among the prestigious publishers, but have exercised far-reaching influence after having been published by non-selective presses. Peer-reviewed journals exercise a somewhat more reliable degree of evaluation, but they benefit from a peculiar institutional situation: they often operate from a solid base of academic subscribers, ensuring that the “market” for a particular article doesn’ make much difference; the overall quality of the journal matters much more than the appeal of a single article (or issue). Journals of professional associations can soft-pedal even that concern, to some extent, since the readership is locked-in by membership in the guild. (That’s not to suggest that, for instance, the Catholic Biblical Quarterly can afford to publish drivel because its subscribers have to pay for the journal no matter how bad low its standards —simply that the texture of accountability is different, less financially-determined, for a guild journal.)

I think the greatest obstacles to free scholarship (in both senses of the word “free”) are inertia and the institutional conservatism structured into academia by such characteristics as the tenure system and evaluation-by-publication. At the Disseminary, we’re trying to dislodge the former by offering relatively generous honoraria — so far to no avail, but we think that our prospective re-jiggering may enable us more effectively to elicit publishable material. The latter, we can’t do anything about.

All this has taken place without specific reference, so far as I can see,to George Soros’s Open Access Initiative, which I wish would drop a few thousand of its megadollars on the Disseminary. . . .

Meanwhile, in the comments to a previous post, Clancy challenges me gently on the Disseminary’s use of a “no derivative works” Creative Commons license. Touché! Quite ironic, given my participation in the Lessig read-a-thon. Trevor and I will revisit this and, by the time we generate more than our present tiny amount of material, we’ll change the license. And in recognition of our cooperative gesture, maybe Clancy will write something for us — popular-culture reviews, perhaps?

Posted by AKMA at May 28, 2004 03:07 PM | TrackBack