What

A great deal of academic publishing is controlled by a few dominant publishing companies. According to couture (2017) “five giants – Elsevier, SpringerNature, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis and Sage – which, through mergers and acquisitions in the interest of greater profitability, now publish the majority of academic papers, accounting for the lion’s share of a market worth in excess of US$10 billion.” 

So What

Having control over what is published, as far as academic literature is concerned, results in a great deal of power, not only over those researchers seeking to be published, but in terms of the articles and knowledge the academic world is able to access. This places a huge burden on researchers that are seeking to be published, as it is vital to be recognized by a publisher with prestige to have your work recognized. It then follows that this system henceforth places another, perhaps even larger burden on institutions which then need to purchase subscriptions to all of these journals to provide access for their learners. 

Now What

A way in which Couture proposes to combat the current system is by “prioritizing the public good.” This means, having researchers publish to open access journals and digital media. There are, unfortunately, a number of difficulties with this proposition. It is true that we need to do something meaningful to obtain access to information. It is also important to recognize that researchers need to receive wages and prestige for their research to advance in their careers. As such, some sort of governing body needs to be in place to ensure the efficacy of, and to manage open journal publications. Without some sort of organizing structure, and an effective peer review system, we may see a decline in research quality. It is true, the more open access the public has to published education the better, but without some sort of overarching public management of this literature that seeks to maintain rigor in research, I do not see a purely open publication system working.Â