8 Predictions for the Future of Academic Publishing
University presses and academic journals may perpetuate the world’s
most groundbreaking research, but they tend towards the heavily
conservative when it comes to changing anything and everything about
their organization. But the inevitable influx of digital and new media
ventures has already started trickling into the tightknit institutions,
and many scholars are already calling for a dismantling of the old — and
often unwieldy and inaccessible! Some of the latest experiments will
stick, while others will go all Crystal Pepsi on humanity. Until time
decides to tell, the following represent a few things academics are
saying about where their research might be headed.
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With the popularity of MIT OpenCourseWare, TED, Khan Academy, Open Culture,
and other beloved open access initiatives, academic publishers might
yank some inspiration from their setups. Transitioning from paid
subscriptions to journals will result in some egregious costs — an
estimated £60 million in the UK, for example — but caves to the
precedent already set by open source. Consumers used to snapping up
research for free likely won’t want to pay for it, making the more
traditional models die out over time.
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In the U.S., researchers hope to fight the encroach of open source with
legislation. Known as the Research Works Act, it sought to block
research backed by public schools from free availability — even though,
as many pointed out, such a measure would functionally bar Americans
from accessing the studies for which their taxes paid. While the bill
eventually died out in February 2012, the future could see similar
propositions crop up and completely alter the way citizens access
academic studies. By legally protecting the system allowing (or even
requiring) them to pay even more money for research they already funded,
essentially.
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Somewhere between profiting and populism sits the Creative Commons
suite of licensing options, which economics expert Rajiv Sethi believes
might appeal to many future academic publishers. Creative Commons offers
up many different ways for researchers to choose how readers access and
share their information, making the process far more autonomous than
open source, but more approachable than charging to read. Since the
professor’s 2010 predictions, some publications have experimented with
the format to their ultimate satisfaction, rendering it another possible
route for the scholarly world to take.
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Yet another strategy for delivering research to the masses involves the
authors themselves paying the publishers to make their work available
to readers completely gratis. It’s a form of open source that ensures
the business’ survival without forcing American taxpayers to shell out
once more, and Michael P. Taylor’s opinion column at The Scientist
lauds the process as especially ideal for lesser-funded colleges and
universities who lack the budget for buying up a library full of
expensive journals. Such a solution benefits everyone involved while
remaining true to academic publishing’s (ostensible) core goals.
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Like most publishing these days, the academic variety is expected to
start following suit when it comes to adapting to ebook readers and
other digital technologies. Organizations such as JISC actively
encourage scholarly publications to embrace the latest developments and
bring their knowledge to the more “plugged-in” masses. So far, it seems
to be working, albeit slowly. But the group hopes the relatively recent
release of The Digital Monograph Technical Landscape will offer up even more incentive and information easing the transition to new mediums.
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Way back in the dark ages of 2009, Phil Pochoda was exploring the
possibility of journals courting both digital and traditional media
simultaneously, outlining how they could juggle the two and meet
multiple consumer demands. One of the more interesting uses he posits
revolves around incorporating more and more social media efforts into
the promotional fold. Taking advantage of Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads,
and similar resources means connecting the researchers themselves to
their intended audiences, opening up informal dialogues and allowing for
question and answer sessions. Which might very well lead to even
further research!
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The Elsevier controversy of 2012 prompted blogger, data scientist, and
math enthusiast Cathy O’Neil to reflect on the future of peer-reviewing
and “refereeing” published works. She expresses an eagerness to see that
component of the process spread out to fellow professionals as opposed
to editors, and even sees some value in promoting crowdsourced checks
and balances. However, the system would need considerable regulating and
demarcating to ensure the reliable standards currently in place with
the more traditional system. Any progress towards this possibility will
inevitably crawl at a rather sluggish clip, but it does make sense when
one considers the more democratic open source initiatives gaining
momentum right now.
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Peer reviews typically involve a double-blind process where neither
submitter nor editor knows who wrote up the research at hand in order to
prevent bias. But around 2011, some – such as those published by The
American Economic Association – sloughed off the format altogether in an
obviously quite controversial move. Doing so, they believe, facilitates
greater transparency and accountability on the part of the peer
reviewers. It’s a newer trend, one which might need a little adjusting
over time, but one that could mean a massive shift in how academics
approach their studies.
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