Introduction Open access publishing is one of those revolutionary ideas that seems obvious in hindsight. Who wouldn’t want free and unrestricted access to scholarly knowledge, particularly when much of it is publicly funded? Yet, this movement, now synonymous with modern academic progress, has a murky and complex history. The phrase “open access” itself only entered … Read more
Introduction The world of academic publishing is not as scholarly as it seems. Beneath its refined surface of peer-reviewed journals and citation indices lies a business model that increasingly resembles a fortress of exclusivity. At the heart of this structure is an oligopoly: a small number of powerful publishing houses dominating a global knowledge economy, … Read more
Introduction For decades, academic publishers have operated in a closed, profitable ecosystem where knowledge is packaged and sold back to the institutions that produce it. Scholars write, review, and edit academic content largely without compensation, only to have their own universities pay subscription fees or exorbitant open access charges to access the same work. Critics … Read more
Introduction Academic journals have long been the gatekeepers of scholarly knowledge, shaping careers, setting research agendas, and determining which ideas gain traction in academia and beyond. For centuries, this model remained remarkably stable: researchers submitted manuscripts, peer reviewers vetted them, and publishers printed and distributed the final product, mostly to institutional libraries. Prestige followed citation … Read more
Introduction There’s a bizarre paradox at the heart of academia: governments and institutions spend billions funding research, universities pay scholars to write, peer reviewers work for free, and yet, when it’s time to access the final article, you still have to pay a publisher. Sometimes a lot. How does that make sense? The academic publishing … Read more