Privilege, prestige and power: does open really foster equality?
Mostly, I am of the disposition that Open Knowledge, Open Education and the Open Movement in general, are good, positive forces; enabling us all, wherever we are in the world, to access to information, research and education. For this post, I wanted to explore some of the themes I mentioned in response to the question posed to us at the start of the course: what does open mean to me? In my comment, I said that to me, open meant inclusion. Inclusion to those less privileged than ourselves. Open meant the crossing of boundaries and borders. People from different places, backgrounds interacting and accessing information and knowledge and ultimately co-producing knowledge. I also mentioned challenges I felt were prevalent: ethical, social and global considerations that have led me to the question and focus for this post on whether ‘open’ is benefiting everyone, and in particular those living in developing countries.
All information is not created equal
In considering Open Knowledge in OKHE1, and how it relates to our local, professional practice, I touched upon the some of the issues facing myself and my colleagues as practitioners in the quest to be open with what we do, the materials we create and in the ways that we teach. For libraries and librarians, access to information (and therefore knowledge) has always been, and still is, at the very heart of the profession. As a Higher Education (HE) librarian, making sure our students not only have access to information, but that they actually know how to access it and in turn, know how to judge, evaluate and interpret it, is paramount to their education, especially if we want them to be successful, both here at University and beyond. Access to information is varied, as we know, even in a developed country such as the UK, access to information is not on a level playing field. Many students are ‘locked out’ of information because their HEIs (particularly smaller HEIs and FE colleges providing HE provision) don’t have a subscription to that content, others are locked out because they aren’t studying a particular course that only those students can access e.g. certain medical and business students. In other countries the situation is no better and in many cases in the developing world, much worse. Access to information is not equal. It is available to the privileged few who have the means to unlock it.
Privileged: to be, or not be, that is the question
Char Booth’s article on ‘information privilege’ is a thought provoking construct which seeks to highlight that if privilege exists then ‘under privilege’ is also alive and well, and is most likely the norm for many. Framed within information literacy, Booth seeks to educate and enlighten students to this inequality making them aware of their own ‘information privilege’ and the financial cost of access to that information (via exorbitant subscription fees) at their own educational institute. By bringing it to the fore, making people confront such issues around the social, economic and cultural context of access to information, this seemingly helps change the attitudes of many of the students she teaches. John Hynes, in his OKHE1 post, discusses this very issue of how we (as HE educators) have an obligation to prepare students for their future endeavours, not just their current studies. There is an obligation to get them thinking about (open) access to information, the moral implications of charging certain people for access to information and the societal impacts of locking, or denying, information to certain parts of society, both nationally, and globally. Our students will one day leave university, and all the privileges this holds, where they themselves will find they are possibly locked out of access to the wealth of information they once had at their fingertips.
Challenging attitudes, challenging policies, being politically and socially aware, and driving change from within our institutes can have huge impact on access to information. Why should universities pay to access information and research that was already publicly funded and created within their own institute? As many people have said before, it seems ludicrous that this has been the academic publishing model for so long. The University of California in their recent efforts are hopefully set to change this, and hopefully pave the way for other institutions to follow suit. But whether this can, and will, change anytime soon, we can only wait and see.
“… librarians and other information professionals are best equipped to shift the dynamic towards a freer flow of knowledge unattached to markers of access privilege”
There are also others who are trying to change things. Advocates for change, defiance and activism have been seen in many forms by selfless individuals such as Aaron Schwatz, and his fight for fairness, which tragically cost him his life. Organisations such as the Public Library of Science in their quest for equal access for all, not necessarily just for HE, but for the public good.
Another individual who refused to be beaten by the paywalls and lockdowns of the big publishers is Alexandra Elbakyan, founder of Sci-Hub, a website that provides free access to millions of research papers for free. Elbakyan explains that the very reason she ended up creating Sci-Hub was because her institution in Kazakhstan, where she was a researcher, did not have subscriptions to the big publishers, and could not access the research papers and information she needed. She explicitly cites the reasons for her actions in a letter to the court, clearly highlighting that many people studying in a developing countries do not have access to information and that “paying $32 for an article is just insane”, but importantly she describes the actions of Elsevier's business model, and monopoly, as morally wrong. Creating her website, albeit out of necessity, has also meant many more people around the world were able to benefit from her deeds. Whether you agree, or not, with her actions, it is clear her intentions were for none other than to aid her education and she has undoubtedly helped many other students, researchers and academics experiencing the same sense of under privilege and frustration. Access to information is not equal. There are many people in parts of the world who simply cannot access information they need.
“Open education is a philosophy about the way people should produce, share, and build on knowledge. Proponents of open education believe everyone in the world should have access to high-quality educational experiences and resources, and they work to eliminate barriers to this goal.”
It is clear that ‘information privilege’ exists, the idea that a person could be denied access to information or research purely because of the place they were born or the place that they live doesn’t sit easy with me, not least because I am a Librarian but also because my family live, work and study in one of those developing countries: India. Whilst researching for this post, Char’s recollection of helping a friend access a paper from subscribed content, that he was locked out of, caused me to reflect upon my own experience some years ago of this same deed I had performed for a family member who was studying for their PhD. At the time I had not thought about this in terms of a privilege. To me it was just simply because I worked at a HEI that I was able to access the paper. It did not occur to me the reasons behind why they couldn’t access it or why their university did not have a subscription, nor had I thought about the implications of ‘lack of access’ to research this might have on my family member’s ability to complete their research thoroughly, or effectively. This has recently only come to forefront of my thoughts that such inequality as this exists, particularly as this family member is waiting for their thesis to pass. One of the reasons cited for failure to pass, is due to the fact they have not had any of their work published in any credible journals. I find this astonishing given the increasing number of open access journals now available to publish in. Although it appears this is not the route recommended to them as a new researcher and only the bigger, more established journals are seen as suitable.
It’s a question of prestige
Surely the ability to publish via open access journals should be benefiting those most in need of publishing such as my family member. Especially in the developing world, this feels like a no brainer to me — a win win situation no less. Nancy Pontika, argues that OA could benefit early career researchers (ECRs)in a number of ways, such as allowing then to disseminate their work more widely than through traditional models; by allowing them to more easily demonstrate the societal impact of their output, and enabling them to create online research portfolios that can be accessed by many including potential employers. But I recalled reading, Paul Shore’s OKHE1 post, about academic prestige and Open Access and so I delved a little deeper. It’s a complicated landscape and despite the negative issues around traditional journal publishing (that seem to dominate discussion), many academics (in the US at least) still want their work published in the more prestigious, established journals. This idea of prestige presents further issues when looking specifically at ECRs and their relationship with open access publishing. In an interview in 2012, Yale University Librarian, Susan Gibbons, explains how this issue is an even more of a difficult, multi-layered situation for them, especially when they are trying to secure tenure. Older, more established academics and researchers have less to lose and are more willing to publish in OA journals. Asking early career researchers (who are usually younger members of faculty) to publish in open and possibly, less prestigious journals, may actually harm their ability to gain tenure. Most of the prestigious journals are still under paid models, meaning many ECRs shy away from publishing in open access journals until they get tenure, causing a perpetuation of the idea of ‘prestige’ still being attached to traditional, paid journals.
Contrary to my perception of open access publishing enabling new researchers to publish more freely in OA journals, the very publications that are meant to be liberating them from the constraints of traditional publishing may indeed have a negative impact for those in both developed, and developing countries. It seems that young researchers still need the prestige of publishing in what are still seen as the ‘elite’ pay journals, rather than taking the OA route in order to further their careers.
Who’s got the power?
In a comprehensive, evidence based review, by Tennant et al., on The Academic, Economic and Societal impacts of Open Access the authors specifically talk about the societal impact in developing countries. There are of course benefits, such as access to non-pay walled content, meaning huge amounts of new information and research is now accessible to students, academics and researchers from those countries. However, the OA model proposed moves the subscription model, to a pay to publish scheme, which has the potential to once again lock out researchers and authors. Many simply don’t earn enough and have insufficient income to pay these charges. Institutional support is also unlikely, and such funding it seems is not well established yet leaving them powerless and without many other options for publishing their work. The study above indicates that some waivers have been put in place for some countries so that they can publish under this model, but these exclude a number of countries, including India.
“How ridiculous is it for authors, experts in their fields, to have to ask permission from publishers to use their own material to teach, share with colleagues, place on a personal or institutional repository, or allow translations or modifications of their works.”
Denise Rosemary Nicholson, Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of the Witwatersrand
I had always thought that the open movement and in particular, OA, could only be a positive for developing countries enabling them to take control of their own publishing and not be at the mercy of the big, and in most cases, western companies. There are organisations such as SHERPA and PLOS doing great work, however, there are also other issues to consider when it comes to providing equal access to information and research for developing countries. Much of the power is still held by the big publishers, looking after their huge financial interests and profits by setting unreasonable policies and placing embargo periods for online content in institutional repositories. And whilst these are issues facing the developed world as well, developing countries have less financial ability to circumvent them. The OA movement by its very nature is meant to break down these barriers.
Plan S which was announced in September 2018, could offer some hope for developing countries to perhaps shift the balance of power back into their hands. Plan S, although made up of mainly European funders known as cOAlition S, is “an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality.” Not just for Europe. but the rest of the world as well. The main guiding principle states, “With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.” Underpinning this are 10 additional principles.
Richard Ponder, in his piece for LSE, about Plan S and the Global South, says in order for it to succeed, it will need other countries to sign up to it. He goes on to question whether countries in the Global South (mostly developing countries) should sign up? He response to this being, “perhaps not”. Citing similar issues raised by Tennant et al. and discussed above, he does however explain in more depth the in-feasibility of the plan and the scheme to which these countries would have to sign up to. Moving to a ‘pay to publish’ scheme would mean researchers essentially would be able to read research that was published, but could not afford to publish in them themselves. The unfairness of this only seeks to confirm my thoughts that perhaps the open movement is not completely the ‘knight in shining armour’ or saviour for everyone, as it often thought of especially for poorer countries. On the issue of waivers, he raises valid points on how European countries would view, and the extent to which, they would be willing to subsidise developing countries, stating that the current model of subsidy by Research4Life for low and middle income countries would not be viable in a pay to publish model as currently qualifying countries get free or discounted access to pay wall content. Effectively, it would mean providing free publishing services to an entire country, something that would surely be impossible.
In trying to understand how open can benefit people and if this movement can seek to level the playing field for many around the world, I can see that there are without doubt huge benefits for many — breaking down of barriers, physical and financial, and opportunities that many simply did not have prior to these shifts to a more open society. But in doing so, it has also exposed the differences and difficulties that many face, even in spite of increased access to information, knowledge, and education. Open does not benefit everyone everywhere. Nor does it benefit everyone in the same way. It does go some way to creating a fairer, more equal society but there is still more that needs to be done.
