The Culture of Openess in HE (Argentina and the UK)
I spent eleven years living in the culturally vibrant and economically unstable land of Tango, Beef and Malbec. Prepped on the plane by my Argentinian partner, I was pre-warned that I would soon be asked on landing for my passport and soon after my opinion about The Queen, British politics, Maradona’s infamous ‘Hand of God’, Falklands/Malvinas conflict, food, music, everything and anything and that politely choosing to sit on the fence and diplomatically not give my opinion (as I was accustomed to doing as a Brit’) would be frowned upon. This was my first lesson into Argentine culture.
By living in a culture so different to my own, I learnt first hand that cultural practices reflect underpinning values and belief systems. Giving your opinion about something in Argentina, carries more kudos than being diplomatic or saying nothing, because sharing opinions around the dinner table is much more entertaining than polite nodding. The majority of Argentines have Spanish and Italian heritage so loud debates around the dinner table is the cultural norm’.
As part of the MPH Public Health Programme at The University of Manchester (UoM), I lead a course on Intercultural Public Health which looks at the impact of Culture on health and healthcare. In week one of this course, we discuss how difficult it is for us to look at our own culture and ‘cultural norms’ with objectivity. Just like the goldfish below, we are so immersed swimming in our own culture that we fail to see the values and beliefs it is made up from.

Looking at ‘Openess’ within the Culture of Higher education, I wonder why we are still talking about it as if it’s something new, when it’s been around for a couple of decades. If we’re still discussing it after two decades, then it must have something still worth talking about and be of value. However, if we’re still discussing it, then it’s clearly not yet been fully embedded within the culture of HE and become a ‘cultural norm.’
In order to understand why UoM and other HE Institutions within the UK might still not have fully embedded ‘Openess’ within their culture, I contacted a former student of mine and Argentine academic, Carlos Belvedere (CB); hopeful, that by looking through his Argentine cultural lens at Open Access, I might be able to see more clearly what ‘Openess’ meant within the culture of HE in the UK and why it hasn’t yet been fully embedded.
An Argentinean persepective
Belvedere, Senior Researcher and Lecturer in Sociology and Phenomenology at The University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has been involved in Teaching and Research in HE for over 30 years and kindly agreed to answer my questions below:
Is OA encouraged by Argentine Universities?
CB: Yes! Argentinian Universities, and especially the National Agencies for Scientific Research (CONICET), encourage OA. Journals are better ranked if they are OA and papers published in OA are better evaluated. The idea is that research conducted with national funds must be accessible for everybody. Otherwise private publishing houses would benefit from the national budget in a not intended way.
Hear, hear! In the UK, many of us in HE also think private publishing houses are exploitative.
Is it free or cheaper to publish in Argentine OA journals?
CB: It’s not necessarily free or cheap to publish in OA journals. Sometimes they are free for readers but they charge the authors for editing and administrative tasks. And the best (non OA) journals don’t charge the authors, unless they want to go OA. This is becoming more frequent: if you want your paper to be OA, many journals will charge you (a lot). But it’s not a good thing because it can be interpreted that you’re not confident enough in your paper and you think that no one will pay to read it. So, since good journals don’t charge authors, and nothing can be cheaper than for free…
So what do your colleagues say about OA?
In foreign countries, they are suspicious about OA. They consider that only ‘losers’ would publish there. In Argentina, most colleagues know that, but they also think that’s the way to go. And they know that in our country and even in the Latin American region, that’s the way to go. So no one’s ashamed of publishing OA. And they would get extra credit for that in their research reports.
Losers? Humph.
Which foreign countries are you referring to? US, Europe, Japan? I’m thinking about the colleagues you mentioned from conferences in past conversations.
CB: I don’t know if it is polite that I say this in an interview, but yes: those are the main countries I have experience with. Mostly US, Germany, France and Japan. But I would say the whole ‘First World’ or ‘Developed Countries’ think that way.
Some ‘First world’ academics, then, don’t rate Argentine academics who publish in OA journals?
Do you encourage your students to read/publish in OA journals?
I encourage them to publish in good journals, many of which happen to be OA. But I recommend them because they’re good, not because they are OA.
Is there a pro OA group/policy or anti OA voices/policies within your University?
I believe in the past it was part of a debate among policy makers and in consultation with research centers and top researchers. Nowadays it has become a Government policy, so what we have is more a kind of awareness raising and publicity about it than really a debate.
Government backing of OA appears to be stronger than in the UK.
I don’t know any anti OA voices. The only sceptical person was me. I had second thoughts because it could easily become something trucho (of inferior quality or fake), you know? And because it means going in the other direction than the rest of the world. So, you could be well evaluated in Argentina but in other countries your CV might not look so good if you published much in OA. Happily there are excellent OA journals so I was mistaken about that, but I still have the feeling that colleagues from other countries do not respect OA journals. So I can talk to my colleagues in Argentina about my OA papers but not to those abroad.
If a journal is OA it gets better rated. Can you give an example of this rating please?
The Argentine Centre for Scientific and Technological Information (CONICET) is the National office that ranks the journals:
They’ve being telling for several years now that they give better grades if a journal goes OA. That encourage[s] most of Argentinian journals to go that way.
Some incentives and rewards for publishing in OA are working it seems.
If Belvedere’s perspective is typical, ‘Openess’ in Argentina aligns itself with the values of ‘The United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) whose policy, How Openess Impacts On Education talks about “open Government” and “freedom of information.”
The Ministry of Science and Technology in Argentina plays an active role in the development of the Open Access movement and created a National System of Digital Repositories.
‘Openess’ in Higher Education in Argentina also seems to be in keeping with the values, beliefs and assumptions covered in Catherine Cronin’s presentation Considering Open Education: where she speaks of:
access and public good — assumptions about shareable knowledge — assumptions about enabling technology
Developing Countries, such as Argentina, with comparatively limited resources compared to the UK, have strong reasons to back ‘Openess’ given their weaker global position, realising that access to “Knowledge as Power” as discussed in John Winter’s OKHE 2 is essential for a global democracy and very much in their interests as Global Citizen argues that education is the way out of poverty.
A UK perspective
By looking at Argentina’s culture of Openess in HE, we can see the UK in comparison still lacks Governmental support and policy needed to really embed OA and other dimensions of Openess in Teaching and Learning and Open Source Software into HE.
Revolution stalled? Open Access, Scholarship and the State (2016) tells a hopeful and then crushing account of how David Willits, the Minister of State for Universities and Science (2010 – July 2014) appeared as a beacon of hope for OA in the UK’s HE sector, backing the Finch Report and believing:
Removing paywalls that surround taxpayer funded research will have real economic and social benefits…and keep the UK at the forefront of global research to drive innovation and growth.”
This attempt to raise the profile of OA by Willits and provide policy direction was it seems motivated by cost-savings rather than a moral or philosophical debate, as he spoke of growth in relation to capital, rather than the sharing of knowledge for the common good.
The Business of Openess
GEMS Education is an international education company, quaintly marketed as being “founded in 1959 by two teachers and owned by a third generation education family” and known to be “an Indian billionaire owned global advisory and educational management firm.” It’s both big business:
GEMS schools are established in various price brackets, to serve all markets and income levels.
with a ‘philanthropic arm’ aiming to produce:
global citizens and stresses the importance of giving back to others both locally and globally.
Following another Argentine lead, I managed to speak to the Senior Vice-President of Strategy and Corporate Development for Global Operations, Sergio Abramovich (an Argentine who lives in New York) and who has recently joined GEMS Education after previously working in buying and selling private Universities globally. As this is a world of business soooo different to mine and as he had been involved in HE globally, I was interested to hear his take on OA and Openess.
He opened with a rather tongue-in-cheek:
OA is very important for developing our world and developing our societies.
He went on to clarify:
Most of us all agree sharing is good but we’re preaching to the choir. How are we going to make it easier? Incentives. Universities talk a lot about sharing but they don’t do that. People are suspicious if there’s no clear IP framework. We see the use of Open Access Software in ‘Developing countries’ but economic drivers are driving the usage. When you see real usage the OA is useful.
He made sense. Operating in a world where education is closely linked to profit, I was surprised at how much I agreed with him. His closing, amusing comment below on MOOCs, reminded me of John Smith’s analysis in his OKHE1 MOOCs or MOCs, that so called ‘Openess’ isn’t always what it purports to be and that:
MOOCs are really just a book on steroids and suit just one type of learning.
So is it the lack of these “economic drivers” and “real usage” that is preventing OA and Openess from being higher on the agenda in UoM and fully embedded in HE within the UK?
Oxbridge and Manchester
I looked at Oxford and Cambridge Universities realtionship with ‘Openess’, clear leaders in academic prestige and topping the academic tables, yet lagging behind their trailblazing US counterparts: Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare and Harvard University’s Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) in terms of innovation and investment in all things Open.
Cambridge University Press are proud to claim on their website that they’re “actively engaged with OA.” Click into MIT OpenCourseWare and there’s no need to mention how engaged they are, it’s evident. Any user is able to openly access their course material.
Open Access Oxford on their website, signpost you to their Green route repositories and talk about the University’s updated policy and preference for ‘green route’ OA. Similar to The University of Manchester, they state “the University’s continued support for the academic freedom of its authors to publish in the journal of their choice,” implying there is no clear push forward for everyone to get on board. Harvard University’s opt out clause described in the Harvard Model Open Access Policy shows us how it’s done.
The University of Manchester’s position towards OA in terms of policy and funding is outlined in the Open Access Factsheet with the Library service offers hands-on, practical support to students and Lecturers on how to be more open in practice at Open Access at Manchester. When compared to MIT OpenCourseWare and Harvard University (DASH), it all seems a bit half-hearted on this side of the pond, disappointing and not very radical. Adjectives not usually associated with The University of Manchester.
So does it take two to tango?
Where does Dame Nancy Rothwell, who once advocated “Break the rules and see what happens,” stand on this? She’s keen to hear from staff, reminding us:
Our current vision for our University runs until 2020 so as we approach our third century, it is timely to reflect on the University’s purpose and place in the world.
We are urged to:
think boldy and freely so that all of the experience and expertise from across our University can shape our future vision.

Alexandra Elbakyn of SciHub has been clearly following Dame Nancy’s advice and breaking the rules for a long time now.
Sci-Hub: the Pirate Bay of science. The black sheep of academia.
Sci-Hub also ironically fits Sergio Abramovich’s business model of “real usage” and “making it easier” whilst aligning itself with the Open Access philosophy and moral argument held by Elbakyn and other OA stalwarts that:
Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation.”
Could Sci-Hub be the ‘outsider’ encompassing the winning combination of cost-free, “real usage” and ease needed to fully embed ‘Openess’ in HE? Could this boldness and free thinking be what Dame Nancy wants to hear and part of the 2030 vision? Sci-Hub doesn’t run on fresh air. If UoM wants to truly embed ‘Openess’ in their culture by 2030, it requires investment.
Openess and Inequity
The inequity in resources for Higher Education in ‘First World’ and ‘Developing countries’ is more than marked. There are more incentives for Argentina to support OA and benefit from global sharing of knowledge than the UK, given the economic disparity and lack of resources. Staff in HE in both countries may share a similar philosophy on ‘Openess’ being a good thing, but the Institutions manifest this in different policies (Argentina) and commercial models (UK).
The Recommendations from the Regional Conference of HE in Cordoba, Argentina warned,
Commercial models by countries in the Northern Hemisphere (i.e. US and Europe) are damaging for LATAM (Latin America) which has created an International level of example of very good results with Open and Inclusive Models for Science and Academic Communities in OA.
Equality and Equity

Whilst the Culture of HE may or may not fully embed ‘Openess’ by 2030, there are simpler, more modest and more human ways to embed ‘Openess’ and Sharing of Knowledge within our day to day culture as academics, learning technologists and operational staff. By sitting and talking, sharing ideas over coffee or tea or sipping Argentine mate (Mat-tay) we may make small steps in the right direction and find that Coffee Leads to Collaboration.

