Welcome to the latest edition of our Open Science Round-up, curated by Moumita Koley. Join us as she brings you the key reads and news in the world of Open Science.
In this issue,
We feature an editorial by Ashley Farly, Programme Officer of Knowledge and Research Services at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As the Foundation recently announced its new Open Access (OA) Policy, Ashley shares her insights on what the Foundation has learned on OA over the last decade.
A Decade of Open Access Policy: Our Learnings
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will soon celebrate a decade of Open Access Policy. In this policy space, it feels as though everything is constantly changing, yet simultaneously remains unchanged. I believe this is why it’s such updated 2024 mobile phone number data an interesting focus area and I’m grateful to spend my career championing for change.
The Foundation
Recently announced their open access pop-up creatives to add color to your 4th of july sales policy refresh set to take effect from 1 January 2025. In taking time to think through what an Open Access Policy refresh could look like, the bulk data Foundation reviewed internal data, learnings, and external research to inform our thinking.
Here are what I think are the most important takeaways:
The academic publishing machine is slow to change – experimentation is difficult, yet the problems require urgent solutions.
Due to the academic incentive system researchers are reluctant to participate in new or novel publishing models or platforms. Similarly, due to legacy systems, such as indexing, it can be hard for publishing alternatives to take root and grow.
Policy does drive
The behavior change of researchers – less so for publishers.
I think this is the way it should be, but we should be very careful in thinking that policy can change business models. What we pay for is what we value.
Focusing solely
on the journal version of record is impeding opportunities for a better model – it then becomes even more important to support multiple routes to achieving open access. For the career incentives to change emphasis on journal reputation measured in terms of journal impact factor has to be deprioritized. This is the only way to avoid paying steeply for journal brand or prestige. Otherwise, we are quickly solidifying a system where only the privileged will achieve open access at any and all costs.