Open access to scholarly knowledge in the digital era (chapter 6.3): The future of learned societies in a world of open access
This article is chapter 6.3 in section 6 of a series of articles summarising the book Reassembling Scholarly Communications: Histories, Infrastructures, and Global Politics of Open Access.
On matters of communality, Jane Winters asks in the third chapter of the global communities section about the future of learned societies in a world of open access, particularly in the United Kingdom. Winters addresses the future of societies in both economic and social terms but also points toward helpful early experiments in open practice from organizations that have, traditionally, been less enthusiastic about open access, such as the Royal Historical Society.
Philosophical Transactions, the world’s first and longest-running scientific journal, was first published in 1665 by the Royal Society. It served several purposes, including signifiers of belonging, enticements to pay an annual member subscription, showcases for both the society and the discipline, and forums for innovation.
For most of the twentieth century, the learned society was a publisher. However, with the development of the web, the learned society has begun to question its role as publisher, and this has led to an over-reliance on a single source of income. Open access caused great concern because it threatened the income from publications, but the initial alarm receded because green open access was accommodated with little disruption to the dominant subscription models.
Scholarly publishing is inextricably entangled with our understandings of academic rigor, reputation, and authority, and is often dominated by university presses and journals published in the name of learned societies. In the UK, the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) FAQs may include a very clear statement that no sub-panel will make any use of journal Impact Factors, rankings, lists or the perceived standing of publishers in assessing the quality of research outputs, but it is difficult to persuade researchers that this is really true.
Learning societies should mediate new developments in scholarly publishing and the broader culture of the academy for their subject and disciplinary communities, and explore new ways of providing and articulating value. The arguments against radical change are often financial ones. However, if learned societies are tackling head on the problems facing their disciplines, influencing policy so that it works for their professional cultures and practices, and helping researchers to investigate and benefit from new ways of communicating research, they can thrive.
The consultation on the second REF confirmed that the open access mandate would be extended to books for the third REF planned for 2029. However, there is no commonly accepted business model for publishing open access books. In the coming years, many different approaches to open access books will be adopted, and many new initiatives will spring up. Some of them will inevitably fail, but most authors want their first book to be part of a growing portfolio of related titles. There is no commonly accepted business model for publishing open-access books, but there is already a degree of experimentation. Notable examples include Knowledge Unlatched, punctum books, Open Humanities Press, Open Book Publishers, and OpenEdition, among others.
One interesting early intervention is that of the Royal Historical Society, which has decided to close its long-running monograph series, Studies in History, and to launch a fresh open access alternative, New Historical Perspectives. This makes open access an option of first choice rather than last resort. The books will be published through the relaunched University of London Press, and will take the familiar form of the PDF, supplemented by print-on-demand and ePub versions. There is not yet much in the way of digital experimentation. The goal is rather to embed open access within the publishing practices of early career historians, and this necessitates a degree of caution. There is nevertheless innovation. Once the series and the publishing platform are more established, there will be options to play with form, to incorporate data and other digital objects in the open-access book, and finally to think beyond the PDF.
This is, of course, just a single example, in a single discipline. It might work for history, where the monograph continues to dominate the academic publishing environment and to determine career progression, but not be quite right for philosophy or classics. Other humanities disciplines will have more or less differing concerns and imperatives. The point is not the type of activity, but the fact that learned societies are beginning to seize the opportunity to rethink the ways in which they can support and develop scholarly communication.
In addition to providing financial assistance and new publishing opportunities, learned societies might equally seek to influence the use of bibliometrics to measure quality, provide guidance around ethical publishing practices, address questions of diversity at all stages of the publishing process, work together to explore the possible evolutions of peer review, or discuss how best to deal with research outputs of all kinds that have multiple authors. These are developments which are already affecting humanities researchers, but which they may have little or no capacity to influence. Their learned societies can speak for them and help to deliver change that builds on the best humanities practice.
If bibliometrics are to become one measure for judging the quality of research, for example, then it is vital both that humanities citation is fully understood, and that robust data is collected for the full range of publications. If altmetrics are to play a role in evaluation processes, the forums in which humanities researchers share their findings online and the networks that they use to engage with their colleagues and the wider public need to be investigated.
Learned societies can play an important role in the reshaping of scholarly communication for the twenty-first century, but they do not have to act alone. Collaboration with other learned societies is key to influencing policy, developing infrastructure, and effecting change. The benefits of sharing knowledge and expertise not just within small consortia but with the sector as a whole would also be enormous.
Commercial publishers have a clear imperative to keep private those aspects of their work that give them an advantage over their rivals. This need not be the case where publishers are learned societies, or libraries, or universities. There is room for many business models, for many ways of publishing, and for many kinds of publisher.
It is a time to experiment, and it would be a missed opportunity for learned societies not to rise to the challenge.
Next part (chapter 6.4): Toward open, sustainable research communities.
Article source: This article is an edited summary of Chapter 24[1] of the book Reassembling scholarly communications: Histories, infrastructures, and global politics of Open Access[2] which has been published by MIT Press under a CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license.
Acknowledgements: This summary has been prepared with the assistance of Wordtune Read.
Article license: This article is published under a CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons license.
References:
- Winters, J. (2020). Learned Societies, Humanities Publishing, and Scholarly Communication in the UK. In Eve, M. P., & Gray, J. (Eds.) Reassembling scholarly communications: Histories, infrastructures, and global politics of Open Access. MIT Press.
- Eve, M. P., & Gray, J. (Eds.) (2020). Reassembling scholarly communications: Histories, infrastructures, and global politics of Open Access. MIT Press.
