Tag Archives: publishing

The Cost of Knowledge: Researchers taking a stand against Elsevier

Posted on January 31, 2012 by | 1 comment

The Cost of Knowledge: Researchers taking a stand against Elsevier

Academics have protested against Elsevier’s business practices for years with little effect. The main objections are these:

  1. They charge exorbitantly high prices for their journals.
  2. They sell journals in very large “bundles,” so libraries must buy a large set with many unwanted journals, or none at all. Elsevier thus makes huge profits by exploiting their essential titles, at the expense of other journals.
  3. They support measures such as SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, that aim to restrict the free exchange of information.

Sign the petition here.

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A Call for Copyright Rebellion

Posted on November 6, 2009 by | Comments Off on A Call for Copyright Rebellion

From Inside Higher Ed: A Call for Copyright Rebellion

DENVER — The manner in which copyright law is being applied to academe in the digital age is destructive to the advancement of human knowledge and culture, and higher education is doing nothing about it.

That is what Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard University law professor and renowned open-access advocate, told a theater of higher ed technologists Thursday at the 2009 Educause Conference here. In his talk, Lessig described how digital and Web technology has exploded the conditions under which copyright law had been written.

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Consider joining the Workplace Collective

Posted on July 21, 2009 by | Comments Off on Consider joining the Workplace Collective

As I’m sure many readers of the Workplace Blog know, Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor has new home, new outlook, new publishing system. Co-editors Stephen Petrina, Steven Wexler, and I encourage you to read or browse the new Workplace journal.

The co-editors also express our deep appreciation to all past members of the Workplace Collective and in particular the founding and previous editors and special section editors of Workplace. Your contributions to the journal have made it an important and dynamic site for the analysis of higher education.

We are in the process of reconstituting the Workplace Collective and invite interested persons to consider making a commitment to the work of the journal. In particular, we request that members of the new Workplace Collective make a commitment that goes beyond reviewing manuscript submissions and includes submitting articles, reviews, and other forms of scholarship to Workplace for consideration.

We also encourage you to consider making an even deeper commitment to the journal by proposing to guest edit a special section of Workplace. (You can find the guidelines for special section proposals and two current CFPs here.

If you are interested in renewing your commitment to the journal as a member of the Workplace Collective or have questions about the direction the journal is going please email E. Wayne Ross.

In addition, we request that everyone go the Workplace website and become a “Registered user”.

On the new site you will find a number of new articles and reviews, which have been published in advance of the official launch of Issue No. 16. You will also find several archived issues of the journal on the new site. Please note that we are in the process of migrating all back issues of Workplace to the OJS platform.

We are looking forward to continuing our collective work and taking Workplace to the next level as the site for committed activist scholars in higher education.

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Who Profits From For-Profit Journals?

Posted on June 12, 2009 by | Comments Off on Who Profits From For-Profit Journals?

Inside Higher Ed: Who Profits From For-Profit Journals?

WASHINGTON — It’s time to shake loose from commercial journal publishers. That was the message here Thursday at the meeting of the American Association of University Professors, which urged academics to seek nonprofit venues for their work.

The proliferation of nonprofit publishing options should be driving down submissions to corporate journals, according to Salvatore Engel-DiMauro, professor of geography at the State University of New York at New Paltz, who, along with Rea Devakos, information technology services coordinator at the University of Toronto library, discussed the “Corporate Appropriation of Academic Knowledge” at the annual meeting of university professors yesterday. But that’s not happening.

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Taylor & Francis reverses controversial publication deal

Posted on June 11, 2009 by | Comments Off on Taylor & Francis reverses controversial publication deal

Inside Higher Ed: Et Tu, New Publisher?

Nearly four years after an academic journal nixed plans to publish a piece about sex between adult and adolescent males of antiquity, the controversy is erupting again. This time, however, it’s not conservative critics yelling the loudest. A group of classicists, now twice thwarted in efforts to publish on the provocative subject, have taken aim at one of the world’s largest publishers, saying Taylor & Francis Group has placed reputational concerns above the legitimate scholarly pursuits it ought to promote.

The story dates to 2005, when Haworth Press announced amid heavy criticism that its Journal of Homosexuality wouldn’t publish an article or book chapter about sexual relationships between men and boys in antiquity. Critics had learned of a particularly controversial piece in the forthcoming collection, which would argue that such relationships “can benefit the adolescent” in certain circumstances, prompting allegations that the author was advocating child molestation. Those allegations were trumpeted first and loudest by the Web site World Net Daily, whose readers vigorously complained to Haworth.

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Posted in Academics

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For Adjuncts Only: A New Literary Magazine Denies Tenure

Posted on June 4, 2009 by | Comments Off on For Adjuncts Only: A New Literary Magazine Denies Tenure

The Chronicle: For Adjuncts Only: A New Literary Magazine Denies Tenure

For once, it pays to be an adjunct. Well, wordriver, a new literary magazine, doesn’t actually pay its contributors, but tenured or tenure-track professors need not apply.

Beth McDonald an adjunct professor of English at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, has spent years trying to think of a way to spotlight the literary work of adjunct instructors. She and Susan Summers, a member of the English department’s support staff, found a way this April, when the first issue of a magazine they expect to publish annually came out.

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Law Professors Sue Publisher Over ‘Sham’ Book Supplement

Posted on April 16, 2009 by | Comments Off on Law Professors Sue Publisher Over ‘Sham’ Book Supplement

The Chronicle News Blog: Law Professors Sue Publisher Over ‘Sham’ Book Supplement

Two law professors are suing West Publishing in federal district court for putting their names on a book supplement they did not write, arguing that it is a “sham” that could damage their reputations.

For nearly 20 years, David Rudovsky, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and Leonard Sosnov, a professor of law at Widener Law School, have compiled an annual supplement to their 1988 book, Pennsylvania Criminal Procedure: Law, Commentary and Forms.

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