SPARC has produced a guide suggesting positive actions that faculty, researchers and other campus stakeholders can take to help contribute to the creation of a more equitable journal marketplace.
This is purportedly inspired by the willingness of the academic community to speak out against practices that limit the accessibility and utility of their scholarship. For instance, frustrated with business practices that limit their ability to share the results of their scholarship, more than 10,500 academics have reportedly signed the Cost of Knowledge’s online boycott of a leading scientific journal publisher. Citing disapproval over exorbitant journal prices and profits, restrictive bundling requirements for journal purchasing, and support for legislation to further limit the free exchange of scholarly information, the number of signatories is seen to continue to grow steadily.
Similarly, the number and visibility of boycott signatories are said to have played a significant role in the recent successful defeat of the Research Works Act (RWA). The RWA was legislation proposed by US reps Issa and Maloney and supported by Elsevier, which would have repealed the 2008 law that mandated PubMed Central deposits for NIH funded research.
The new SPARC document, entitled ‘You’ve Signed onto the Boycott: Now What? A SPARC Guide for Campus Action’ includes various practical suggestions. These include: considering publication in open access journals, understanding one’s rights as an author, and making informed choices about publication venues that one may choose to edit or review for.
The guide also encouraged the signatories of the boycott to remain engaged in the larger policy debates surrounding open access, and encourages support for the Federal Research Public Access Act, (FRPAA, H.R. 4004 and S. 2096) a bill currently in front of Congress that would ensure free, timely, online access to the published results of research funded by 11 US federal agencies.
The guide is available at http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/signed-the-boycott-now-what.shtml
