Defending the Knowledge Commons

SUPPORT THE KNOWLEDGE COMMONS Scholars are on the front lines in the struggle to keep information free and accessible to those without access to well-resourced university libraries. This is a rapidly growing population as publishers consolidate their control of the scholarly publishing industry. Here are resources to help scholars be part of a collective effort to defend the knowledge commons and protect open access to scholarly work for everyone. (The following tips come from presentation by Erin McKiernan-see below)

Support for publishing Open Access

• Some funders have started charities to cover OA fees.
• Self-archiving costs nothing and is a great way to be open. You have many options, such as through figshare, arxiv, bioRxiv , institutional repositories, and personal websites.
• There are increasingly more institutional repositories for open data across the globe, including LA Referencia, REMERI, and Redalyc. These repositories also allow you to generate bibliometric and usage data for evaluation at no cost.
• Document your altmetrics
• Seek out support for student and early career researchers

Don't lock up your research!

• Learn about the creative commons
• Resources for authors-keep your research accessible
• Pledge to be open!
• I will devote most of my reviewing and publishing efforts to Open Access journals.

* I will blog my work and post preprints, when possible.
* I will encourage my colleagues to take a similar pledge.
* I will encourage my co-authors to publish in Open Access journals.
* If I am going to 'make it' in science, it has to be on terms I can live with.

Change the Academic Culture

• Get your department to consider making a pledge similar to that of American Society for Cell Biology’s Declaration on Research Assessment, which commits to:

1. Not to consider journal-based metrics (Journal Impact Factor) in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions
2. The content of a paper will be weighed more heavily in evaluations than the journal in which it was published
3. To consider the value and impact of all research outputs

• U.S. universities such as Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of North Texas have adopted formal statements supporting and encouraging Open Access publishing.

More Resources & Background on Academic Publishing and Open Access

• The Open Access Movement and Activism for the “Knowledge Commons”(Jackie Smith, American Sociological Association //Footnotes Forum May/June 2014)
• Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist George Monbiot, //The Guardian
• Culture Change in Academia: Making Sharing the New Norm (Open Access Week event at the University of Pittsburgh)--//Erin McKiernan, an early career researcher in experimental and computational neuroscience and a leading advocate for Open Access, Open Data, and Open Science. McKiernan explores the powerful, positive benefits of openness in scholarly research, the tension between personal success as a researcher and Open Science, and the need for reform in our academic evaluation and incentive systems. McKiernan is a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Access video recording of lecture and McKiernan’s resourceful presentation slides here >> Summary of McKiernan's slides with link

• Sociologie du travail, one of France’s most longstanding sociology journals, recently left leading commercial publisher Elsevier to choose Open Access.The move was in response to the prohibitive costs of scholarly journals.
• Open Access Week—is organized by the International Open Access Week alliance at the end of October each year. This year was the 7th celebration of Open Access Week.
• Creative Commons: Use Creative Commons licenses to prevent companies from limiting your potential readership and to protect open access to knowledge for everyone—regardless of their ability to pay.
• Defending the Knowledge Commons, Open Democracy.net (Jackie Smith, March 2015)

• Use and promote Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Here are some especially useful tools for scholars and activists:
  • Online meetings-video & audio and desktop sharing technology: Jitsi.org
  • Open Office
  • Libre Office

Organizing Tools

• • Say no to Skype—Use Jitsi: Jitsi, an open source, secure online video-audio connection for meetings of 2-many people. No software to download, online notepad, secure and no user data is collected. Just share the meeting URL with participants. [1]
  • Email that doesn’t share your data with advertisers or the NSA: Don’t give in to Google: www.riseup.net
  • Open source survey program [2]
  • Meeting/ webinar program: https://ptp.ourpowerbase.net

• Other Readings and Resources
• Let’s Stop Google from Gobbling Up Our Schoolsby Jackie Smith - Alfredo Lopez
• Innovations and Transparency in Scholarly Peer Review Open Access Week 2015 Panel--Experts discuss novel approaches to pre- and post-publication peer review that advances research and innovation.
• Social Science Research Network: SSRN's networks encourages the early distribution of research results by distributing Submitted abstracts and by soliciting abstracts of top quality research papers around the world.
• Manisha Desai, Chapter on cyber-activism and new cultures of globalization
• In Trump's America, Black Lives Matter Activists Wary of Smartphone Use //Washington Post June 1, 2017