On the Cost of Knowledge: Evaluating the Boycott against Elsevier

Abstract

In the pre-Internet era, commercial publishers, such as Elsevier and Wiley, played an important role in disseminating new scientific ideas and discoveries. The emergence of the Internet has forced publishers to rethink their business model (Cope and Phillips, 2014), partly because scientists could, in principle, easily reach a broad audience and cut out the proverbial middleman. It is fair to say that commercial publishers adapted quite successfully as they arguably remain key players in the scientific publishing landscape (Cope and Kalantzis, 2014; Lariviere et al., 2015). However, academics have been criticizing publishers’ business practices for over a decade now [e.g., Dyer (2004)] and the call for reform has grown even louder in the past couple of years (Corbyn, 2012; Flood, 2012; Cope and Kalantzis, 2014). A prime example of such a reform initiative is the Cost of Knowledge campaign. Launched in response to a blog post by prominent mathematician Gowers (2012), the campaign specifically targets the publishing house Elsevier, denouncing its attempts to restrict the free exchange of information, the exorbitantly high prices for subscriptions, and the practice of selling journals in large bundles featuring many unwanted titles.1 Signatories of the petition pledge to not referee for, publish in, or do editorial work for Elsevier journals. Roughly 4 years after the boycott started, it seems appropriate to evaluate its impact and contemplate its future. As a result of the boycott, several academics resigned from the editorial boards of numerous Elsevier journals. Moreover, the entire editorial board of the Elsevier journal Lingua resigned and started a new, open access journal called Glossa (Greenberg, 2015). The boycott thus changed the publishing landscape to a certain extent but not as drastically as the organizers might have hoped. More importantly, however, over 80% of the nearly 16,000 signatories pledged to not publish in an Elsevier journal. This could gradually reduce the quality and thus the relevance of those journals. However, such a process takes time, and its effects may not be readily discernible. One might, therefore, wonder whether it provides much leverage in persuading Elsevier, or any other publisher for that matter, to change its policies. Moreover, one could question the feasibility of such a (long-term) commitment, especially the “won’t publish” pledge. Given the seemingly ever-growing emphasis in academia on publishing papers in high impact journals, it might put a non-trivial burden on one’s career. From previous studies, and perhaps personal experience, we know that good resolutions sometimes run aground (Norcross et al., 2002). But what about the “won’t publish” commitment? Do signatories stick to their guns and indeed refrain from publishing in Elsevier journals? This is an interesting question because the success of such an initiative largely depends on the persistence of its signatories. Put differently, a petition such as the Cost of Knowledge can influence policy decisions to the extent that its signatories remain committed.