Dissemination vs. Assessment

University of Sussex. 11th November 2015.

A book

Dr. Martin Paul Eve, Birkbeck, University of London

Why do we publish?

To be read. To be assessed.

A research paper

Dissemination: Quality Control, Validation and Space-Time Compression

  • Dissemination of work
  • Preservation of record
  • Footnotes and scholarly genealogy (vs. science?)
  • Labour of reading: reading-avoidance techniques
  • Dissemination at a distance
    • Difference to conferences?

Assessment

Symbolic Economy

The Symbolic Economy Maps onto the Real Economy

Library Economy

Reading and assessment are in conflict

  • Drive to produce ever more work
  • Hyper-inflationary price increases
  • Libraries cannot afford to purchase
  • Micro-monopolies

Dual crises of supply and demand

For assessment to work, we must restrict publication volume to size of academic job market: predicated on teaching

Open Access (OA)

  • Peer-reviewed research
  • Free to read online
  • Permission to re-use

  • Gold: at publisher/source
  • Green: institutional/subject repository

  • Gratis: free to read
  • Libre: free to re-use
Background image © PLOS. Used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

Monographs and OA: harder

  • Monographs acknowledged as different
    • e.g. HEFCE mandate
  • Higher barriers to entry for new publishers
  • Open source platform development in infancy
  • Different discoverability and value-conferral sites
  • Different selection process and sites of risk

Monographs and OA: some solutions

  • Knowledge Unlatched / OLH consortia
  • Book Processing Charges (won't scale)
  • Green OA for books
  • Freemium
  • Multi-stage OA

The End

Thank you!

Presentation licensed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license. All institutional images excluded from CC license. Available to view online at http://meve.io/Sussex2015.