The Open Scholarship Full Disclosure Initiative: a Subversive Proposal Gary Hall Coventry University, [email protected]

Against the Grain Volume 21 | Issue 3 Article 6 June 2009 The Open Scholarship Full Disclosure Initiative: A Subversive Proposal Gary Hall Coventry University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Hall, Gary (2009) "The Open Scholarship Full Disclosure Initiative: A Subversive Proposal," Against the Grain: Vol. 21: Iss. 3, Article 6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.2306 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. The Open Scholarship Full Disclosure Initiative: A Subversive Proposal by Gary Hall (Professor of Media and Performing Arts, Coventry School of Art & Design, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB United Kingdom) <[email protected]> n 1994 the cognitive scientist Stevan this second subversive proposal — which I’m reason why, for all the supposed rigour of the Harnad made a self-professed “subversive provisionally calling the “Open Scholarship academic editing and peer-review system of Iproposal.”1 He suggested that those authors Full Disclosure Initiative” — I want to say quality control, industry trials might be more who did not want to sell their writing for profit something about where the motivation for successful with their submissions to journals — a category Harnad saw most scientists and it comes from. While it’s partly inspired by which have higher impact figures and which, scholars belonging to — should make copies of Harnad, it’s influenced more directly by two as a consequence, are considered to be the ones their work freely available in globally acces- recent articles: a piece of journalism by Ben publishing the best quality articles: it’s quite sible online archives. Doing so would enable Goldacre on the relationship between fund- simply because many “journals are businesses, those authors to both publish their research and ing source, impact factor and journal prestige run by very huge international corporations, make it available to be read all over the world in medical research; and an academic essay and they rely on advertising revenue from by its intended audience of fellow scientists on cultural studies and the politics of journal industry, but also on the phenomenal profits and scholars. It would also remove one of the publishing by Ted Striphas. generated by selling glossy ‘reprints’ of studies, chief barriers otherwise erected between those Goldacre is a medical doctor who writes and nicely presented translations, which drug authors and their prospective readers: namely the Bad Science column in the UK newspaper reps around the world can then use.” the price-tag that had been placed on their The Guardian. On February 14 this year he Some of the issues raised in Goldacre’s writing in the era of ink-on-paper publication published an item titled “Funding and Find- short piece on funding sources and their rela- to cover the costs of its reproduction. Some ings: The Impact Factor.” In it Goldacre tion to impact factor and the perceived prestige sense of the impact of Harnad’s proposal can discusses a study in the British Medical Journal of journals tally with the work of a cultural be gained from the fact that, although he describes as being “quietly one studies scholar from Indiana University in Peter Suber is able to begin of the most subversive pieces the U.S., Ted Striphas. Striphas has recently his “Timeline of the Open of research ever printed.”3 I undertaken some extremely interesting re- Access Movement” as early think he may just be right. search into the political economy of academic as 1966, it’s Harnad’s “sub- The research in question, journal publishing in general, and that of cul- versive” intervention from by Tom Jefferson et al., tural studies’ journals in particular. In his text, 1994 that is identified as the examined every study “Acknowledged Goods,” Striphas shows how occasion when self-archiving of the influenza vaccine. cultural studies has something of a blind spot was first proposed.2 Specifically, it used sta- when it comes to many of the material condi- From there the idea even- tistics and quantitative tions and practices which make it possible as tually developed into analysis to investigate a field.4 Perhaps nowhere is this more the case what is today known whether the source of than with regard to the relationship between as Green Open Access. funding “affected the quality cultural studies and the academic book and This is where authors do of a study, the accuracy of its journal publishing industries — especially as make their research — which may or may not summary, and the eminence of the journal in those industries have become increasingly con- have already been published elsewhere in a which it was published.” According to Golda- solidated and profit-intensive in recent years. journal or with a publisher of the author’s own cre it’s common knowledge that, when it comes Striphas provides the example of Taylor and choosing — available online for free to anyone to research in medicine, industry-funded stud- Francis/Informa, whose cultural studies list with access to the Internet simply by self-ar- ies are “more likely to give a positive result for currently features a total of 68 journals. Among chiving digital copies of it in central, subject the sponsors’ drug.” This was certainly found them are some of the most highly respected or institutionally-based online repositories, to be the case here with regard to the research titles in the field, including Cultural Studies, such as arXiv or PubMed Central. Indeed, on influenza vaccines. But by looking at where Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural such is the general acceptance of Harnad’s studies are published, what this new research Studies, Communication and Critical/Cultural subversive proposal and the “Green Road” by Tom Jefferson and his colleagues revealed Studies, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Feminist to open access that on March 11, 2009 U.S. is that the impact factor for industry-funded Media Studies, and Parallax. And yet it might President Barack Obama signed into law a studies is more than twice that of government- come as something of a shock to many of those bill making permanent the National Institutes funded studies; and that studies sponsored by in cultural studies — especially those who have of Health Public Access Policy. This man- the pharmaceutical industry are far more likely published in their journals or peer-reviewed dates that any research funded by the NIH is to get into the larger, more prestigious journals manuscripts for them — to learn that: deposited in PubMed Central within a year of supposedly known quality than studies One of Informa’s subsidiaries, Adam of its publication. sponsored by the government. Smith Conferences... specializes in Toward the end of this piece I’m going When it comes to the journal impact factor organizing events designed to open to make a proposal of my own. It’s intended — i.e., how often, on average, research in a the former Soviet republics to private as a modest supplement to that of Harnad, given journal is subsequently cited in other investment. Other divisions of the yet I believe it has the potential to be even research publications according to the ISI Web company provide information, consult- more subversive. Among other things, it of Science database — the average for the 92 ing, training, and strategic planning ser- has radical implications for the very system studies funded by government that were looked vices to major international agricultural, that’s used to provide quality control when at was 3.74, while for the 52 studies with partial banking, insurance, investment, phar- it comes to publishing — not just in open or total industry funding it was a much more maceutical, and telecommunications access repositories and online journals (the significant 8.78; and this despite the fact that corporations, in addition to government latter being Gold Open Access as opposed there was no difference between the two in agencies. Take Robbins-Gioia, for to the Green of self-archiving), but in paper terms of “methodological rigour, or quality,” instance. The United States Army journals, too. I’m referring to peer review and or “where people submit their articles.” This recently tapped this Informa subsidiary editing, particularly by established journals leads Goldacre to conclude that “an unkind during an overhaul of its command and of known quality. However, before I make commentator” might put forward at least one continued on page 36 34 Against the Grain / June 2009 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> making their research and publications avail- in the sciences, such as Stevan Harnad, The Open Scholarship ... able open access is a case in point. proved to be the more apparently progressive, from page 34 Why, given the often overtly radical nature institutionally, socially and politically, in this of the content of their work, have those in respect?12 control infrastructure. The firm was cultural studies been so reluctant to challenge Interestingly, Goldacre and Striphas both brought in to assess how well the Army what John Willinsky rightly describes as end their articles with suggestions for future had achieved its goal of “battlefield the “complacent and comfortable habits of action. For Goldacre, the ideal would be for digitization.” The United States Air scholarly publishing” in this way?10 After all, all drugs research to be made “commercially Force, meanwhile, tapped Robbins- by making the research literature freely avail- separate from manufacturing and retailing” and Gioia when it needed help improving able to researchers, teachers, students, union for all journals to be “open and free.” In the its fleet management systems for U-2 organisers, NGOs, political activists, protest meantime, as academics are already “obliged spy planes.

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