The idea of ‘open knowledge’ and everyday academic research practice

Embracing ‘openness’ in academic research shouldn’t be too difficult. After all, although the idea of ‘open’ knowledge in higher education seems new, it has also been around a long time. Sharing knowledge has always been at the core of intellectual endeavours, or at least, we like to say it is a core value of the scholarly community.

From Socrates debating with fellow citizens in the agora in order to attain knowledge and educate, to 19th century gentlemen scientists freely sharing their findings, we recognise that the best ideas are those that we open up to the scrutiny of our peers. Scholars have extolled the value of attaining knowledge for knowledge’s sake, rather than for personal gain, with academic life promoted as a unique vocation (Weber [1922]1946), to be used for public good rather than as a source of personal profit.

At the same time, the development of the modern university has also been underpinned by the state and supported by business. To fund research, we rely upon state and corporate funding – it is for companies that our scientists produce patented discoveries and on behalf of the government of the day that we investigate social problems and recommend policies for how to manage them. These are not unproblematic associations, in which the production of knowledge for particular interests is intrinsically bound up with power (see, O’Connor 2014).

We publish in academic journals for the profit of publishing companies – and their dominance has been increasing (Larivière et al 2015) – and generate wealth for private sector businesses by training their future workers. Universities are key generators of the wealth of nations. Despite our autonomy and universal outlook, we have always been closely tied to national interests.

And so, there is a hidden conflict underlying our daily academic practice. We are already somewhat open in our research, whether engaging in intellectual conversations over coffee or presenting our ideas to peers. But we also work for an institution with its own commercial interests, engaged in competition with rival institutions domestically, and for a national HE sector that competes with others around the world. We share our knowledge, and we peer-review the work of others, but we do it for profit-making journals that limit access to privileged readers.

This conflict isn’t always explicit, because we simply go about our daily work without giving it much thought. We don’t need to consider what is entailed by knowledge production that is not entirely open, because it is to our institutions and our peers that we are immediately accountable. Our institutions tell us that must publish in well-respected journals, with high impact factors, so we do, without really considering how we feel about benefitting multi-national corporations. We tailor research towards state-driven national research agendas, because we need funds to do research and because attracting funds benefits our careers.

Producing high quality research is difficult and incredibly time-consuming. The demands upon us to continuously produce these research outputs are also very strong. Therefore, once we publish some results, rather than think about how to open up that knowledge to outsiders, we leave it swiftly behind in order to move on to the next project. And we know that any project might take years. And it’s entirely possible that it might not work out in the end – oh no! So, despite apparently having bags of time to turn our knowledge into newly accessible form for lay readers, we feel as though we never have any time at all and are always under pressure (Martin‐Sardesai et al, 2017).

I also think that academics – perhaps surprisingly to those outside, looking in at a world of smart, confident knowledge-producers – very often assume that few people could possibly be interested in the work they produce. Many scholars are introverted and even diffident when it comes to their own achievements, which is quite normal, given that we are trained to question everything and always be sceptical about knowledge. Scholars live in a rarefied world but they are very aware of it, having spent much of their lives inside educational institutions. Asking a shy mathematician who spends her days writing equations to bring her knowledge to the outside world, and in digestible form, might be akin to asking David Beckham to give a university lecture on the technique of crosses from the right-wing. How would he explain it in academic terms? Why would he think we would be interested?
And there is another source of hesitancy in being open – what do we do about the public reaction to our research? On the one hand, we might feel miffed if few people are interested. However, there is also a fear that we might attract critical attention and be found to be mistaken, or become the subject of a controversy.

Attention is not always welcome. I was pleased but also apprehensive when a blog I published about the Hillsborough disaster and the implications for governance of the UK government’s response to it gained a lot of attention on social media. It’s a controversial topic and some of the social media posts were by people who verged on angry conspiracy theories in their anti-government stance. Another time, I published a blog on modern slavery that hasn’t attracted much traffic, and I’m left wondering if readers are interested in our work.

Ultimately, I think many academics support the idea of open knowledge and would be pleased to see their work available to the public. But it is in their daily practice that the obstacles lie: a combination of institutional pressures, immersion in everyday activities, and uncertainty about outcomes mean that many are reluctant to invest time and effort in making their work open. We don’t usually have time to reflect upon our everyday practices and to think about how to do things differently.

Under time pressure and uncertainty, academics will tend to stick with what they know, if this will be enough for career progress. Policy changes from above, like the Research Excellence requirement to make our publications open access, have been very effective. But we also need a culture change within institutions to give more positive support for open knowledge and more recognition for those who do it.

References

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Broad, R. and N. Turnbull (2018) UK modern slavery policy: the structure of the problem and government commitment. Manchester Policy Blogs: Growth and inclusion. Available: http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/growth_inclusion/2018/06/uk-modern-slavery-policy-the-structure-of-the-problem-and-government-commitment/ (accessed 15 May 2019).

Harris, S. (2014) International Students in UK Higher Education: The UK and its competition. Universities UK. Available: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Pages/international-students-uk-he-its-competition.aspx (accessed 15 May 2019).

Larivière, V., Haustein, S. and P. Mongeo (2015) The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era. PLoS ONE 10(6): e0127502. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0127502. Available: http://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC4465327&blobtype=pdf (accessed 15 May 2019).

Martin-Sardesai, A., Irvine, H., Tooley, S. and J. Guthrie (2017) ‘Accounting for Research: Academic responses to research performance demands in an Australian University’, Australian Accounting Review, 27(3): 329-343. Available by request: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332428267_Accounting_for_the_constructin_of_research_quality_in_Australia%27s_research_assessment_exercise (accessed 30 May 2019).

O’Connor, A. (2001) Poverty Knowledge: Social science, social policy, and the poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. history. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

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Turnbull, N. and D. Richards (2016) On the politics of lying: does the Hillsborough cover-up reveal a wider institutional malaise in the UK? British Politics and Policy, LSE Blog, June 10. Available: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/on-the-politics-of-lying-hillsborough/ (accessed 23 April 2019).

Weber, M. ([1922]1946) ‘Science as a Vocation’, in HH. Gerth and C.W. Mills (trans. and eds), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, pp. 129-156, New York: Oxford University Press.

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