Sometimes you read something that is so out there that you have to read it two, three, or more times just to understand it, in this particular case I had to read it six times. What is it?
Why open access makes no sense– by Professor Robin Osborne
I have read many critiques of Open Access and arguments against it, most of which are thinly veiled arguments of I get lots of money from how things are so let us keep it that way. This is something different. It is as if the Professor is arguing against the whole academic world. I had to read it six times over just to make sure it was not that dry British humour and he was just ‘taking the piss’ our of everyone and I am pretty sure he is serious.
His writing oozes academic privilege e.g like the concept of white privilege, but for academics. Right out of the gate his first argument is this-
When I propose to a research council or similar body that I will investigate a set of research questions in relation to a particular set of data, the research council decides whether those are good questions to apply to that dataset, and in the period during which I am funded by that research council, I investigate those questions, so that at the end of the research I can produce my answers. The false assumption behind open access that this is exactly parallel to what would happen if I were a commercial researcher. In that case a company would commission me to do market research; they would pay me on the basis that I spent my time doing that market research; I would carry out that market research during whatever period I was paid for; and at the end I would deliver my results to the company who had paid me.
The problem is that the two situations are quite different. In the first case, I propose both the research questions and the dataset to which I apply them. In the second the company commissioning the work supplies the questions and may supply or determine also the dataset to which the questions are applied. In the first case the researcher wants to do the work, and the research council is persuaded that that research has more claim on its funds than other research proposals it has before it. In the second case the company commissioning the research wants that research done and the researcher does it because that is what they are employed to do.
So as I understand it, Osborne’s arguing because he thought of an idea he is more privileged than other (commercial) researchers and thus should be privileged to withhold his results from the wider public. emm… not sure how to say this but Mr. O is coming off a bit ….. elitist. Next, I am not sure he understands how research happens outside of his ivory tower. Lots of companies and organizations, including those in the humanities, accept unsolicited research applications but they, the proposing researcher, don’t get to keep the results hidden for their eyes only.
It gets better-
The size of journals increases, the quality of journals declines, the papers become less widely readable, the job of editing becomes less rewarding – indeed the most important quality of the editorial department becomes its value for money, that is how many articles can be handled by how few staff.
One of the comments to the article says it better than I can-
Finally (and I admit I am getting a bit personal here and will deserve whatever I get for saying it), if your language is so difficult to understand without heavy editing by the publishers, it might be time for you to invest in your own education again.
The professor goes on-
There can be no such thing as free access to academic research. Academic research is not something to which free access is possible. Academic research is a process – a process which universities teach (at a fee). Like it or not, the primary beneficiary of research funding is the researcher, who has managed to deepen their understanding by working on a particular dataset. The publications that result from the research project are only trivially a result of the research funding, they come out of a whole history of human interactions that are not for sale. Not even in a slave society.
Trivially? Polio vaccine! Penicillin! are not trivial. Ok, so that’s not the humanities but the Rosetta Stone! Time Team! are not trivial outcomes of research, even in the humanities.
For those who wish to have access, there is an admission cost: they must invest in the education prerequisite to enable them to understand the language used. Current publication practices work to ensure that the entry threshold for understanding my language is as low as possible.
WTF! As you can see, I was wondering if this was a joke piece. However, I am afraid that Mr O believes that
- He should be more privileged than others.
- Other people should pay to improve his writing, instead of him doing it on his own.
- He should be the only person who benefits from his work, that other people pay for.
- Other people should be denied the same privileges he has unless they jump through rings.
- The general public is stupid
Maybe its a conspiracy to turn the public against university staff so that less permanent positions will be offered. I can not think of a better example of someone trying to come off elitist. To be honest, if I was a politician and he tried to argue why universities need to be funded, I would burn them all down. Luckily, I have met many great people working at universities and know the value of them. However, I think that Mr O has made one of the greatest arguments about how irrelevant his work and position is.
Doug's Archaeology 
Erik van Rossenberg
July 12, 2013
Famous last words: “Open access will raise that entry threshold. Much more will be downloaded; much less will be understood.” I’m so glad that open access is helping to break down barriers of access within academia, too, if you get it, he would probably not. And he’s an archaeologist, he should know how difficult is to collect even the most basic information.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
July 12, 2013
it he framed it slightly differently he could have made it into a great satire, that is how out of touch it seems to be.
Erik van Rossenberg
July 13, 2013
or a failure of judgement picking the right ghost writer?
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
July 13, 2013
🙂
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
July 27, 2013
Hey Arch in Tenn.
It turns out that this piece of writing was truncated from a longer piece which explains why it comes off as satire and not well writen. I will post about it but it turns out he is very clearly against OA.
PS- just a clarification. I am an american living in the UK so bullshit is my term of choice
Cheers
Doug
Anonymous
August 2, 2013
As a recent graduate from an anthropology program, I think I know the cause of this problem. Academia has created a system where students are required to generally write to a certain number of pages, words or characters. I remember my anthropology and archaeology classes requiring 30, 40, 50 page papers that I could easily sum up in a much clearer and more precise 5 to 10 page argument. The only way to satisfy these requirements is to-as my friends and I have termed it-bullshit the whole thing. Truthfully these papers, articles and publications are mostly useless filler with intermittent pieces of actual knowledge and facts. Unfortunately these facts get lost in all the bullshit filler that is around them making them borderline useless. This writing style follows from undergraduate to graduate to postgraduate levels in academia; and that does not even begin to discuss the use of purposeless, coined technical terms that the public cannot understand. I, myself, could not understand any archaeological or anthropological writing till several years into my undergrad b/c or the technical terms and learning to pick through the junk to find useful facts.
My biggest realization to this was in my first museum studies class when I had an assignment to write panels. Our teacher told us it would be difficult b/c it was far different than writing a paper due to limited space. Contrary, I found it much easier. It essentially eliminated a step in my whole writing process which is as follows (in simplest form): research, outline, draft of all import facts/arguments, second draft adding filler and far less useful information, final draft. In writing museum labels and panels there was no step in adding filler b/c there is no room for it. In fact, at times I needed to eliminate the facts and details I felt were less pertinent leaving only the best that there was space for.
Our biggest problem in research academia, when it comes to writing, is that we teach early this ability to take a basic piece of information and expand it into 2, 4, 5 or more pages when it is unnecessary to do so. The point of academic research should be to understand that which is around us in order to better ourselves and the world. It is not helpful if the world cannot understand whatever it is you are saying. Academics often seem to believe that their work is inherently meaningful rather than a means to making us better as people.
hamish
August 3, 2013
I’m well known for not reading things properly and getting the wrong end of the stick.
I think what Robin is trying to get at at the top of the page is that the researcher who applies to funding from the research council has a level of impartiality as to what the results of the research will be. The researcher who is commissioned is more likely to produced biased results to favour the interests of the commissioners of that research.