MIT Takes a Stand: No, Not about the Jeffrey Epstein Matter, about Subscription Fees
June 12, 2020
The write up appears on an MIT Web page that states:
MIT has long been a leader in sharing its research, teaching, and scholarship openly with the world.
I asked myself, “Is that because MIT accepts funding from individuals of interesting character like Jeffrey Epstein?”
I don’t know, but could this be an example of “selective institutional ethicality”?
Putting the deceased Mr. Epstein aside, the write up reports with MIT-ness in full flower:
Standing by its commitment to provide equitable and open access to scholarship, MIT has ended negotiations with Elsevier for a new journals contract. Elsevier was not able to present a proposal that aligned with the principles of the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts. Developed by the MIT Libraries in collaboration with the Ad Hoc Task Force on Open Access to MIT’s Research and the Committee on the Library System in October 2019, the MIT Framework is grounded in the conviction that openly sharing research and educational materials is key to the Institute’s mission of advancing knowledge and bringing that knowledge to bear on the world’s greatest challenges. It affirms the overarching principle that control of scholarship and its dissemination should reside with scholars and their institutions, and aims to ensure that scholarly research outputs are openly and equitably available to the broadest possible audience, while also providing valued services to the MIT community.
My goodness, Elsevier, a commercial enterprise, and MIT a really-good outfit dedicated to very, very high standards cannot reach an agreement.
The relationship between tenure track institutions and the publishers surfing the peculiar idea that once a person has the support of peers, that individual is good to go for decades.
That sounds, errr, like a symbiotic relationship. Well, that symbiosis is apparently at an end. The sucker fish is chewed off the fish by bean counters with green eyeshades.
Observations:
- Will students access Elsevier journals from another institution using a borrowed user name and password? Heck, could that happen? Does MIT accept money from interesting people and then look at the latest prank on a roof?
- Will the libraries’ directors have a meeting and figure out how to get access to some of those Elsevier, often tough to replicate articles based on tenure track crazed researchers? I can hear statements like these: “We can cut our cleaning services?” and “We can boost the price of soda in the vending machines?”
- Will Elsevier rethink how it is doing business? Should commercial database publishers be allowed to index the prized Elsevier journals? Should Elsevier become a foundation and scrape funds in ways close to the heart of some non-profit outfits? Should Elsevier try to work out a deal which shifts more of the costs of producing a journal consulted by as few as 100 people a year to the authors? “Hey, if these people want lifetime employment, pay up” makes sense to some.
Net net: Changes are coming down the commercial professional publishing pike and to the tenure track system through which “real” research based articles run. It will be entertaining to watch two outstanding institutions muddle through. That Epstein smile may surface again.
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2020
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