Untangling Academic Publishing — How to take back control
‘Untangling Academic Publishing’ is a recently published report from Aileen Fyfe et. al discussing the academic publishing landscape. The report takes a lot of things observers and commentators on academic publishing have noted — the slow pace of change, the power of the big publishers, the sway of big name journals — and has put them into a historical context to help examine how different actors in the industry can help it move forward.
It is often said that no-one would design a scholarly communication system that functions as our current one does. Fyfe et al’s report shows the historical development of the system and highlights how we came to be where we are now. In this blog post we summarise and discuss the report, with an eye to how Veruscript can help with the report’s recommendations.
Establishing Academic Cultures
The report describes how academic publishing was initially supported by organisations with missions for scholarship rather than profit, such as university presses and societies. Sponsored publishing existed on a spectrum, work was often published with a combination of sponsorship and commercial funding. In the 18th Century a list of publications became an acceptable way to gain entry into academic societies, and by the late 19th Century this became the typical way to earn entry. At the same time research became the preserve of universities, rather than independent scholars, and publications became a useful way for universities to evaluate staff.
The 19th Century brought about the creation of a professional academic community with the growth of new universities. The creation of new universities brought new professors, who participated in the voluntary cultures of the established academic communities, but were loyal to their institutions. Academic identity and culture were forged through the adaption of voluntary scholarly cultures to the context of professional employment in universities.
Commercialisation of Academic Publishing
Academic publishing only became profitable during the early cold war when it became an income generator for publishers. This coincided with the increased role of research outputs to demonstrate excellence, and with prestigious publications being used to validate this ‘excellence’. The rise in profitability of academic publishing was, for a period, mutually beneficial. The increase in the number of journals and papers published matched the increase in number of professional researchers and broadening academic coverage.
As part of the commercialisation process academic publishers sought to be the main publishers of primary research papers. They focused on selling to institutions rather than individuals and on the international market. The increased market size, increased prices to institutions and economies of scale vastly increased the profitability of academic publishing. In this environment university presses were also recast as income generators for their institutions.
Smaller societies couldn’t invest in the same economies of scale that the larger publishers utilised. This led them to co-publish with the big publishers under profit-sharing agreements. Under these arrangements, strategies (including pricing, marketing and sales) are usually driven by the concerns of the publisher. The societies themselves have little insight or access to information about how their income is derived.
Prestige
During the strong growth of the Higher Education sector, universities used research activity and ‘excellence’ as a way to distinguish themselves from their rivals and research became a strong focus for ranking universities. This in turn lead to appointment and promotion decisions being focused on research. Institutional processes of evaluating researchers through ‘prestigious’ publications became codified and entrenched. Internationalisation also made the scholarly community much larger, which has reinforced the trend of evaluation through publication, as people could no longer be assessed through personal reputation.
Peer review used to be owned by the academic communities for whom it worked, however it was increasingly adopted by academic publishers to be sold as the added value that they provide. Since the 60s and 70s control of the measures of academic prestige — starting with the management of peer review, and extending to the development of metrics — has been silently transferred from communities of academic scholars to publishing organisations.
Divergence of Interests
The growth of the scholarly community also led to a growth of output. In the 1980s the contraction of core university funding left libraries unable to keep up with the the growth in output — what is commonly termed the ‘serials crisis’. With the crisis in library funding, the interests of libraries and publishers diverged. Library funding cannot keep pace with the increasing number of journals, and the continuing crisis exacerbates inequalities within and between academic communities.
The wide scale adoption of the internet brought different opportunities for different groups. for publishers it gave them new opportunities — to monetise content and lock-in institutions. For academics it brought the promise of faster, international communication. New digital technologies now offer the academic community the opportunity for low cost digital circulation of knowledge on a global scale. But there is still a lack of credible, prestige-generating alternatives to the old system of publishing.
The control of the measures of prestige by publishers helps ensure that academics are still heavily invested in traditional publishing outlets, and meant that they more easily acquiesced to the movement of existing structures online, rather than insisting on any radical or new approaches.
At Veruscript we are working to return this control to the academic community — as the report notes:
“For valid historical and cultural reasons, academic systems of reward and recognition privilege the established forms of academic publication… As long as prestige is associated with established journals and presses, most academic publishing will continue to be done under the auspices of the big publishers, despite the now well-established tension between commercial goals and effective systems of research communication.”
We are working with institutions and societies to change this.
Recommendations
What can we do to change the current system? The report came up with several recommendations, some of which are discussed here.
Universities
The report recommends the establishment of the communities own publishing venues. Universities should lead, rather than react to, changes in academic publishing practices. They should also shoulder the responsibility for making academic work in those fields known more widely. At Veruscript we have been working to help universities set up their own presses with our Partner Presses Publishing Service.
Societies
Societies should consider the balance between income generation and the long term consequences of the current publishing model. They are in a position to use their authority to develop and legitimise alternative publishing models. They should examine whether their current co-publishing model is really a good fit for their mission. Are there other models that can keep your income generation but simultaneously open up research to all? (hint: Veruscript Publishing Services)
The points made in this report highlight why Veruscript started its Publishing Services — to help academics, societies and institutions take back control of academic publishing. The technology and services are there to allow for the publication of your own journals for no risk and at low cost. So take action today, act on the recommendations of the report and get in touch with us at partnerships@veruscript.com.
Adapted from:
Fyfe, Aileen, Coate, Kelly, Curry, Stephen, Lawson, Stuart, Moxham, Noah, & Røstvik, Camilla Mørk. (2017). Untangling Academic Publishing: A history of the relationship between commercial interests, academic prestige and the circulation of research. Zenodo.
