[GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-07 Thread Heather Morrison 
SpringerOpen is currently publishing 13 journals sponsored by the Government of 
Egypt. This is an opportunity to discuss some issues of relevance to the goals 
and sustainability of open access, starting with academic freedom. As described 
by Holmes and Aziz (2019) there are very serious problems with academic freedom 
in Egypt, ranging from tight government control over what is studied and 
published to extrajudicial killings of 21 students in the last few years. The 
University of Liverpool considered, then rejected, a lucrative offer to set up 
a campus in Egypt due to concerns about reputational damage. This raises some 
interesting questions. Academic freedom is critical to any kind of meaningful 
open access. Nothing could possibly be more in opposite to open access than a 
dead student whose research was destroyed because of what was studied. Why is 
SpringerOpen partnering with the Government of Egypt? Should academics boycott 
SpringerOpen because of this partnership? What, if anything, can academics do 
to support academic freedom in a country like Egypt? Some believe that the 
Creative Commons license CC-BY (attribution only) is the best for open access 
(I don’t agree, but this is a separate topic). If your research could get you 
killed, attribution might not be a good idea. Today, some of us might assume 
that these kinds of problems would never happen in our own countries; but times 
change, and it has happened that places that enjoyed freedom at one point in 
time came under the control of a dictator.


Following is the list of titles which state on the SpringerOpen site that they 
are supported by the “Specialized Presidential Council for Education and 
Scientific Research (Government of Egypt), so author-payable article-processing 
charges do not apply”.


Journals supported by the Government of Egypt published by SpringerOpen as of 
July 2019
Ain Shams Journal of Anesthesiology
Bulletin of the National Research Centre
Egyptian Journal of Biological Pest Control
Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences
Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics
Egyptian Journal of Neurosurgery
Egyptian Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine
Egyptian Pediatric Association Gazette
Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association
Middle East Current Psychiatry
The Cardiothoracic Surgeon
The Egyptian Heart Journal
The Egyptian Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery


Holmes, A. & Aziz, A. (2019). Egypt’s lost academic freedom. Carnegie Endowment 
for International Peace. Retrieved August 9, 2019 from 
https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/78210



This is the full text of the post - here is the link in case anyone would like 
to comment on the blog:

https://wordpress.com/post/sustainingknowledgecommons.org/3522


Dr. Heather Morrison

Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa

Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project

sustainingknowledgecommons.org

heather.morri...@uottawa.ca

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706
___
GOAL mailing list
GOAL@eprints.org
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-08 Thread David Prosser 
Dr Morrison’s arguments against the CC-BY licence are well known to readers of 
this list and I acknowledge her sincerely held, and consistent, views on this.

But I’m afraid that I find using the murder of students to further, however 
tangentially, that argument quite sickening.

David


On 7 Aug 2019, at 23:01, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:


SpringerOpen is currently publishing 13 journals sponsored by the Government of 
Egypt. This is an opportunity to discuss some issues of relevance to the goals 
and sustainability of open access, starting with academic freedom. As described 
by Holmes and Aziz (2019) there are very serious problems with academic freedom 
in Egypt, ranging from tight government control over what is studied and 
published to extrajudicial killings of 21 students in the last few years. The 
University of Liverpool considered, then rejected, a lucrative offer to set up 
a campus in Egypt due to concerns about reputational damage. This raises some 
interesting questions. Academic freedom is critical to any kind of meaningful 
open access. Nothing could possibly be more in opposite to open access than a 
dead student whose research was destroyed because of what was studied. Why is 
SpringerOpen partnering with the Government of Egypt? Should academics boycott 
SpringerOpen because of this partnership? What, if anything, can academics do 
to support academic freedom in a country like Egypt? Some believe that the 
Creative Commons license CC-BY (attribution only) is the best for open access 
(I don’t agree, but this is a separate topic). If your research could get you 
killed, attribution might not be a good idea. Today, some of us might assume 
that these kinds of problems would never happen in our own countries; but times 
change, and it has happened that places that enjoyed freedom at one point in 
time came under the control of a dictator.

Following is the list of titles which state on the SpringerOpen site that they 
are supported by the “Specialized Presidential Council for Education and 
Scientific Research (Government of Egypt), so author-payable article-processing 
charges do not apply”.

Journals supported by the Government of Egypt published by SpringerOpen as of 
July 2019
Ain Shams Journal of Anesthesiology
Bulletin of the National Research Centre
Egyptian Journal of Biological Pest Control
Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences
Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics
Egyptian Journal of Neurosurgery
Egyptian Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine
Egyptian Pediatric Association Gazette
Journal of the Egyptian Public Health Association
Middle East Current Psychiatry
The Cardiothoracic Surgeon
The Egyptian Heart Journal
The Egyptian Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery

Holmes, A. & Aziz, A. (2019). Egypt’s lost academic freedom. Carnegie Endowment 
for International Peace. Retrieved August 9, 2019 
fromhttps://carnegieendowment.org/sada/78210


This is the full text of the post - here is the link in case anyone would like 
to comment on the blog:

https://wordpress.com/post/sustainingknowledgecommons.org/3522

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706
___
GOAL mailing list
GOAL@eprints.org
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal

___
GOAL mailing list
GOAL@eprints.org
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-08 Thread Heather Morrison 
Reader caution: discussion of matters like attacks on academic freedom as found 
in this thread may upset some people. This is a response to David Prosser's 
comments.

Comment: I am sorry that David is not feeling well. If others feel sick about 
what is happening to academics in Egypt, I understand. That's how I feel about 
this, too.
There are many things that happen in the world that I find disturbing. My 
approach, with respect to events that intersect my areas of expertise, is to 
think about such events, ask questions and propose potential solutions to make 
the world a better place.  In this spirit, I repeat the specific question that 
David alludes to.

Question: is attribution necessarily desirable for scholars? This is part of 
the larger question of the relationship between academic freedom and open 
access. My argument is that academic freedom is essential to open access.

We live in a world where academics can be targeted for what they study or what 
they say about what they study. This doesn't only happen in countries like 
Egypt. Governments in North America have recently begun taking exception to 
climate change research. In Canada, under the former Conservative government, 
government scientists were muzzled. In the U.S., I have heard about a 
professor's watchlist targeting liberal professors. No academics have killed in 
North America that I know of, but otherwise there is some similarity with what 
is happening in Egypt today. This is important in the context of scholarly 
publishing because some of the latest technological developments appear to 
assume that matters such as attribution are neutral or beneficial.

best,


Dr. Heather Morrison

Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa

Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project

sustainingknowledgecommons.org

heather.morri...@uottawa.ca

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706


From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of David 
Prosser 
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 5:20:24 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Cc: radicalopenacc...@jiscmail.ac.uk 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Dr Morrison’s arguments against the CC-BY licence are well known to readers of 
this list and I acknowledge her sincerely held, and consistent, views on this.

But I’m afraid that I find using the murder of students to further, however 
tangentially, that argument quite sickening.

David


On 7 Aug 2019, at 23:01, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:


SpringerOpen is currently publishing 13 journals sponsored by the Government of 
Egypt. This is an opportunity to discuss some issues of relevance to the goals 
and sustainability of open access, starting with academic freedom. As described 
by Holmes and Aziz (2019) there are very serious problems with academic freedom 
in Egypt, ranging from tight government control over what is studied and 
published to extrajudicial killings of 21 students in the last few years. The 
University of Liverpool considered, then rejected, a lucrative offer to set up 
a campus in Egypt due to concerns about reputational damage. This raises some 
interesting questions. Academic freedom is critical to any kind of meaningful 
open access. Nothing could possibly be more in opposite to open access than a 
dead student whose research was destroyed because of what was studied. Why is 
SpringerOpen partnering with the Government of Egypt? Should academics boycott 
SpringerOpen because of this partnership? What, if anything, can academics do 
to support academic freedom in a country like Egypt? Some believe that the 
Creative Commons license CC-BY (attribution only) is the best for open access 
(I don’t agree, but this is a separate topic). If your research could get you 
killed, attribution might not be a good idea. Today, some of us might assume 
that these kinds of problems would never happen in our own countries; but times 
change, and it has happened that places that enjoyed freedom at one point in 
time came under the control of a dictator.

Following is the list of titles which state on the SpringerOpen site that they 
are supported by the “Specialized Presidential Council for Education and 
Scientific Research (Government of Egypt), so author-payable article-processing 
charges do not apply”.

Journals supported by the Government of Egypt published by SpringerOpen as of 
July 2019
Ain Shams Journal of Anesthesiology
Bulletin of the National Research Centre
Egyptian Journal of Biological Pest Control
Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences
Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics
Egyptian Journal of Neurosurgery
Egyptian Journal of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine
Egyptian Pediatric Associa

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-08 Thread David Prosser 
Heather

You specifically raised CC-BY in this context.  Do you believe that a 
researcher making a piece of research public under CC-BY is potentially at more 
risk of harm than if they made it public under a different CC licence or even 
under full All Rights Reserved?

David




On 8 Aug 2019, at 14:07, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:

Reader caution: discussion of matters like attacks on academic freedom as found 
in this thread may upset some people. This is a response to David Prosser's 
comments.

Comment: I am sorry that David is not feeling well. If others feel sick about 
what is happening to academics in Egypt, I understand. That's how I feel about 
this, too.
There are many things that happen in the world that I find disturbing. My 
approach, with respect to events that intersect my areas of expertise, is to 
think about such events, ask questions and propose potential solutions to make 
the world a better place.  In this spirit, I repeat the specific question that 
David alludes to.

Question: is attribution necessarily desirable for scholars? This is part of 
the larger question of the relationship between academic freedom and open 
access. My argument is that academic freedom is essential to open access.

We live in a world where academics can be targeted for what they study or what 
they say about what they study. This doesn't only happen in countries like 
Egypt. Governments in North America have recently begun taking exception to 
climate change research. In Canada, under the former Conservative government, 
government scientists were muzzled. In the U.S., I have heard about a 
professor's watchlist targeting liberal professors. No academics have killed in 
North America that I know of, but otherwise there is some similarity with what 
is happening in Egypt today. This is important in the context of scholarly 
publishing because some of the latest technological developments appear to 
assume that matters such as attribution are neutral or beneficial.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org<http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/>
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org<mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org> 
mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org>> on behalf of David 
Prosser mailto:david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk>>
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 5:20:24 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
mailto:goal@eprints.org>>
Cc: radicalopenacc...@jiscmail.ac.uk<mailto:radicalopenacc...@jiscmail.ac.uk> 
mailto:radicalopenacc...@jiscmail.ac.uk>>
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Dr Morrison’s arguments against the CC-BY licence are well known to readers of 
this list and I acknowledge her sincerely held, and consistent, views on this.

But I’m afraid that I find using the murder of students to further, however 
tangentially, that argument quite sickening.

David


On 7 Aug 2019, at 23:01, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:


SpringerOpen is currently publishing 13 journals sponsored by the Government of 
Egypt. This is an opportunity to discuss some issues of relevance to the goals 
and sustainability of open access, starting with academic freedom. As described 
by Holmes and Aziz (2019) there are very serious problems with academic freedom 
in Egypt, ranging from tight government control over what is studied and 
published to extrajudicial killings of 21 students in the last few years. The 
University of Liverpool considered, then rejected, a lucrative offer to set up 
a campus in Egypt due to concerns about reputational damage. This raises some 
interesting questions. Academic freedom is critical to any kind of meaningful 
open access. Nothing could possibly be more in opposite to open access than a 
dead student whose research was destroyed because of what was studied. Why is 
SpringerOpen partnering with the Government of Egypt? Should academics boycott 
SpringerOpen because of this partnership? What, if anything, can academics do 
to support academic freedom in a country like Egypt? Some believe that the 
Creative Commons license CC-BY (attribution only) is the best for open access 
(I don’t agree, but this is a separate topic). If your research could get you 
killed, attribution might not be a good idea. Today, some of us might assume 
that these kinds of problems would never happen in our own countries; but times 
change, and it has happened that places that enjoyed freedom at one point in 
time

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-08 Thread Heather Morrison 
As a reminder, SpringerOpen publishes journals in partnership with the 
Government of Egypt, a government that represses and sometimes even kills its 
scholars. Should we boycott SpringerOpen?

My main point is that academic freedom is essential to open access. The OA 
movement has been around for more than two decades, I argue it is time for more 
nuanced discussion.

A white list of journals based on meeting technical requirements can mask much 
greater problems than it solves.

I do not have a quick fix to protect scholars who might be targeted, rather I 
raise this an important question for discussion and note that attribution, 
generally desirable in scholarship, can sometimes be problematic.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of David 
Prosser 
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 9:26:34 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Heather

You specifically raised CC-BY in this context.  Do you believe that a 
researcher making a piece of research public under CC-BY is potentially at more 
risk of harm than if they made it public under a different CC licence or even 
under full All Rights Reserved?

David




On 8 Aug 2019, at 14:07, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:

Reader caution: discussion of matters like attacks on academic freedom as found 
in this thread may upset some people. This is a response to David Prosser's 
comments.

Comment: I am sorry that David is not feeling well. If others feel sick about 
what is happening to academics in Egypt, I understand. That's how I feel about 
this, too.
There are many things that happen in the world that I find disturbing. My 
approach, with respect to events that intersect my areas of expertise, is to 
think about such events, ask questions and propose potential solutions to make 
the world a better place.  In this spirit, I repeat the specific question that 
David alludes to.

Question: is attribution necessarily desirable for scholars? This is part of 
the larger question of the relationship between academic freedom and open 
access. My argument is that academic freedom is essential to open access.

We live in a world where academics can be targeted for what they study or what 
they say about what they study. This doesn't only happen in countries like 
Egypt. Governments in North America have recently begun taking exception to 
climate change research. In Canada, under the former Conservative government, 
government scientists were muzzled. In the U.S., I have heard about a 
professor's watchlist targeting liberal professors. No academics have killed in 
North America that I know of, but otherwise there is some similarity with what 
is happening in Egypt today. This is important in the context of scholarly 
publishing because some of the latest technological developments appear to 
assume that matters such as attribution are neutral or beneficial.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org<http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/>
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org<mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org> 
mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org>> on behalf of David 
Prosser mailto:david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk>>
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 5:20:24 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
mailto:goal@eprints.org>>
Cc: radicalopenacc...@jiscmail.ac.uk<mailto:radicalopenacc...@jiscmail.ac.uk> 
mailto:radicalopenacc...@jiscmail.ac.uk>>
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Dr Morrison’s arguments against the CC-BY licence are well known to readers of 
this list and I acknowledge her sincerely held, and consistent, views on this.

But I’m afraid that I find using the murder of students to further, however 
tangentially, that argument quite sickening.

David


On 7 Aug 2019, at 23:01, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:


SpringerOpen is currently publishing 13 journals sponsored by the Government of 
Egypt. This is an opportunity to discuss some iss

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-08 Thread Heather Morrison 
This may help to explain the problem:

DOAJ lists the journals published by SpringerOpen that are sponsored by the 
Government of Egypt. We have reason to believe that this government actively 
interferes with academic research and in particular suppresses critique.

This means that people who rely on DOAJ for research on matters pertaining to 
Egypt will be exposed to government approved research and no indication that 
critique is suppressed.

If we do not acknowledge and address this, we are in effect unwittingly 
collaborating with a repressive, censoring government.

DOAJ is not at fault. SpringerNature faces similar dilemmas to other commercial 
companies working in non-democratic countries. This is a difficult problem, but 
an important one and we can start by acknowledging that the problem exists.

Dr. Heather Morrison

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of Heather 
Morrison 
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 10:26:00 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

As a reminder, SpringerOpen publishes journals in partnership with the 
Government of Egypt, a government that represses and sometimes even kills its 
scholars. Should we boycott SpringerOpen?

My main point is that academic freedom is essential to open access. The OA 
movement has been around for more than two decades, I argue it is time for more 
nuanced discussion.

A white list of journals based on meeting technical requirements can mask much 
greater problems than it solves.

I do not have a quick fix to protect scholars who might be targeted, rather I 
raise this an important question for discussion and note that attribution, 
generally desirable in scholarship, can sometimes be problematic.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of David 
Prosser 
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 9:26:34 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Heather

You specifically raised CC-BY in this context.  Do you believe that a 
researcher making a piece of research public under CC-BY is potentially at more 
risk of harm than if they made it public under a different CC licence or even 
under full All Rights Reserved?

David




On 8 Aug 2019, at 14:07, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:

Reader caution: discussion of matters like attacks on academic freedom as found 
in this thread may upset some people. This is a response to David Prosser's 
comments.

Comment: I am sorry that David is not feeling well. If others feel sick about 
what is happening to academics in Egypt, I understand. That's how I feel about 
this, too.
There are many things that happen in the world that I find disturbing. My 
approach, with respect to events that intersect my areas of expertise, is to 
think about such events, ask questions and propose potential solutions to make 
the world a better place.  In this spirit, I repeat the specific question that 
David alludes to.

Question: is attribution necessarily desirable for scholars? This is part of 
the larger question of the relationship between academic freedom and open 
access. My argument is that academic freedom is essential to open access.

We live in a world where academics can be targeted for what they study or what 
they say about what they study. This doesn't only happen in countries like 
Egypt. Governments in North America have recently begun taking exception to 
climate change research. In Canada, under the former Conservative government, 
government scientists were muzzled. In the U.S., I have heard about a 
professor's watchlist targeting liberal professors. No academics have killed in 
North America that I know of, but otherwise there is some similarity with what 
is happening in Egypt today. This is important in the context of scholarly 
publishing because some of the latest technological developments appear to 
assume that matters such as attribution are neutral or beneficial.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org<http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/>
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca<mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/me

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-08 Thread Yvonne Nobis 
Dear All,


Surely the problem is not an Open Access problem but one of whether research 
sponsored by the Egyptian Government should be published at all?


Or am I missing something?


Yvonne


From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of Heather 
Morrison 
Sent: 08 August 2019 16:16:51
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

This may help to explain the problem:

DOAJ lists the journals published by SpringerOpen that are sponsored by the 
Government of Egypt. We have reason to believe that this government actively 
interferes with academic research and in particular suppresses critique.

This means that people who rely on DOAJ for research on matters pertaining to 
Egypt will be exposed to government approved research and no indication that 
critique is suppressed.

If we do not acknowledge and address this, we are in effect unwittingly 
collaborating with a repressive, censoring government.

DOAJ is not at fault. SpringerNature faces similar dilemmas to other commercial 
companies working in non-democratic countries. This is a difficult problem, but 
an important one and we can start by acknowledging that the problem exists.

Dr. Heather Morrison

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of Heather 
Morrison 
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 10:26:00 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

As a reminder, SpringerOpen publishes journals in partnership with the 
Government of Egypt, a government that represses and sometimes even kills its 
scholars. Should we boycott SpringerOpen?

My main point is that academic freedom is essential to open access. The OA 
movement has been around for more than two decades, I argue it is time for more 
nuanced discussion.

A white list of journals based on meeting technical requirements can mask much 
greater problems than it solves.

I do not have a quick fix to protect scholars who might be targeted, rather I 
raise this an important question for discussion and note that attribution, 
generally desirable in scholarship, can sometimes be problematic.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project
sustainingknowledgecommons.org
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of David 
Prosser 
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 9:26:34 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

Attention : courriel externe | external email
Heather

You specifically raised CC-BY in this context.  Do you believe that a 
researcher making a piece of research public under CC-BY is potentially at more 
risk of harm than if they made it public under a different CC licence or even 
under full All Rights Reserved?

David




On 8 Aug 2019, at 14:07, Heather Morrison 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca>> wrote:

Reader caution: discussion of matters like attacks on academic freedom as found 
in this thread may upset some people. This is a response to David Prosser's 
comments.

Comment: I am sorry that David is not feeling well. If others feel sick about 
what is happening to academics in Egypt, I understand. That's how I feel about 
this, too.
There are many things that happen in the world that I find disturbing. My 
approach, with respect to events that intersect my areas of expertise, is to 
think about such events, ask questions and propose potential solutions to make 
the world a better place.  In this spirit, I repeat the specific question that 
David alludes to.

Question: is attribution necessarily desirable for scholars? This is part of 
the larger question of the relationship between academic freedom and open 
access. My argument is that academic freedom is essential to open access.

We live in a world where academics can be targeted for what they study or what 
they say about what they study. This doesn't only happen in countries like 
Egypt. Governments in North America have recently begun taking exception to 
climate change research. In Canada, under the former Conservative government, 
government scientists were muzzled. In the U.S., I have heard about a 
professor's watchlist targeting liberal professors. No academics have killed in 
North America that I know of, but otherwise there is some similarity with what 
is happening in Egypt today. This is important in the context of scholarly 
publishing because some of the latest technological developments appear to 
assume that matters such as attribution are neutral or beneficial.

best,

Dr. Heather Morrison
Associ

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-08 Thread Heather Morrison 
hi Yvonne,


The vision of the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative states: "The public 
good... is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal 
literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, 
scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers 
to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the 
learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this 
literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity 
in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge". (from

https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read)


That was 2002. Since then, OA has moved beyond just peer-reviewed journal 
literature to include books, data, and other open research approaches. I am 
arguing that it is time to move beyond what is published to consider the 
question of what scholars are able to research and share at all (academic 
freedom). This is essential to "uniting humanity in a common intellectual 
conversation and question for knowledge" (the goal of Sustaining the Knowledge 
Commons).


I argue that this is timely for two reasons: 1) the global knowledge commons 
must include scholars at risk and their works and 2) the OA movement has tended 
to be dominated by those who pay for scholarly publishing, policy-makers, and 
publishers, and needs to engage the people who do the work of research, 
academics and organizations that represent academics (faculty associations, 
unions, and scholarly societies).


Attacks on academic freedom are not limited to Egypt. As Reisberg pointed out 
in a 2017 article in Inside Higher Ed: "And then there is the United States. 
For decades, we have prided ourselves for taking “the high road” in matters of 
academic freedom, judging other countries harshly where free speech and 
unrestricted scholarship are not guaranteed...We now have a president who 
undermines science at every turn. In this administration, ideology “trumps” 
science when public research funds are distributed. Influence may also 
accompany financial gifts that come from organizations like the Charles Koch 
Foundation." (the Kochs are conservative libertarians and oil industry 
billionaires). from:

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/world-view/academic-freedom-reconsidered

This is very similar to what has been happening in Canada in the past decade. 
This 2018 piece from Democracy Watch is a good intro to the muzzling of 
government scientists, a problem that began with our previous government but 
has not been entirely addressed - 53% of government scientists still feel 
muzzled:
https://democracywatch.ca/former-information-commissioner-legault-rules-harper-conservatives-violated-policy-by-muzzling-government-scientists-and-trudeau-liberals-ignoring-recommendations-needed-to-stop-muzzling/

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was very helpful 
in raising awareness about the muzzling of government scientists in Canada. The 
OA movement has tended to see transition of scholarly society publishing as 
simply a matter of transitioning the works and has not to date (in my opinion) 
acknowledged the importance of the work of societies and addressed the question 
of economic support for societies in a transition to open access. Loss of 
independent scholarly societies, in my opinion, is loss of an important 
potential source of support for academic freedom at a time when the need for 
this support may be increasing. It is time to bring this into the conversation.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers maintains a website on our 
ongoing fight for academic freedom by university teachers in my country:
https://www.caut.ca/latest/publications/academic-freedom

If authors' governments engagement in human rights violation and suppression of 
information about such violation means that authors' works cannot be shared, an 
honest approach would significantly limit sharing of our knowledge. Canada is 
often critical of human rights violations in other countries, but has only 
recently acknowledged our own genocide of First Nations peoples, and even today 
our First Nations peoples often need to speak to the United Nations to get 
attention to ongoing human rights violations at home.

best,


Dr. Heather Morrison

Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa

Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa

Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project

sustainingknowledgecommons.org

heather.morri...@uottawa.ca

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706


From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of Yvonne 
Nobis 
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 11:47:13 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academi

Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-11 Thread Nicolas Pettiaux 
Le jeudi 08 août 2019 à 15:16 +, Heather Morrison a écrit :
> If we do not acknowledge and address this, we are in effect
> unwittingly collaborating with a repressive, censoring government.
this is exactly how I feel it.

For me, we = the international academic community.
 
> DOAJ is not at fault. SpringerNature faces similar dilemmas to other
> commercial companies working in non-democratic countries. This is a
> difficult problem, but an important one and we can start by
> acknowledging that the problem exists.

indeed. How can we best do it ? (especially the members of this 
goal@eprints.org mailing list to start with)

Best regards,

Nicolas
-- 
Nicolas Pettiaux, phd - nico...@pettiaux.be - portable 0496 24 55 01
Educode - asbl - informer, former & réfléchir aux défis du numérique
https://educode.be & https://wiki.educode.be - ven 27/9 & lun 7/10 2019



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Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom

2019-08-13 Thread Ulrich Herb 
hors' works cannot be shared, an 
honest approach would significantly limit sharing of our knowledge. Canada is 
often critical of human rights violations in other countries, but has only 
recently acknowledged our own genocide of First Nations peoples, and even today 
our First Nations peoples often need to speak to the United Nations to get 
attention to ongoing human rights violations at home. 

best, 



Dr. Heather Morrison 

Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa 

Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa 




Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project 

sustainingknowledgecommons.org 

heather.morri...@uottawa.ca 


[ https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 | 
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 ] 

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of Yvonne 
Nobis  
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 11:47:13 AM 
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)  
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom 
Attention : courriel externe | external email 


Dear All, 




Surely the problem is not an Open Access problem but one of whether research 
sponsored by the Egyptian Government should be published at all? 




Or am I missing something? 




Yvonne 

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of Heather 
Morrison  
Sent: 08 August 2019 16:16:51 
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)  
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom 
This may help to explain the problem: 

DOAJ lists the journals published by SpringerOpen that are sponsored by the 
Government of Egypt. We have reason to believe that this government actively 
interferes with academic research and in particular suppresses critique. 

This means that people who rely on DOAJ for research on matters pertaining to 
Egypt will be exposed to government approved research and no indication that 
critique is suppressed. 

If we do not acknowledge and address this, we are in effect unwittingly 
collaborating with a repressive, censoring government. 

DOAJ is not at fault. SpringerNature faces similar dilemmas to other commercial 
companies working in non-democratic countries. This is a difficult problem, but 
an important one and we can start by acknowledging that the problem exists. 

Dr. Heather Morrison 

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of Heather 
Morrison  
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 10:26:00 AM 
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)  
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom 
As a reminder, SpringerOpen publishes journals in partnership with the 
Government of Egypt, a government that represses and sometimes even kills its 
scholars. Should we boycott SpringerOpen? 

My main point is that academic freedom is essential to open access. The OA 
movement has been around for more than two decades, I argue it is time for more 
nuanced discussion. 

A white list of journals based on meeting technical requirements can mask much 
greater problems than it solves. 

I do not have a quick fix to protect scholars who might be targeted, rather I 
raise this an important question for discussion and note that attribution, 
generally desirable in scholarship, can sometimes be problematic. 

best, 

Dr. Heather Morrison 
Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa 
Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa 
Principal Investigator, Sustaining the Knowledge Commons, a SSHRC Insight 
Project 
sustainingknowledgecommons.org 
heather.morri...@uottawa.ca 
https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706 

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org  on behalf of David 
Prosser  
Sent: Thursday, August 8, 2019 9:26:34 AM 
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)  
Subject: Re: [GOAL] SpringerOpen, Egypt and academic freedom 
Attention : courriel externe | external email 
Heather 

You specifically raised CC-BY in this context. Do you believe that a researcher 
making a piece of research public under CC-BY is potentially at more risk of 
harm than if they made it public under a different CC licence or even under 
full All Rights Reserved? 

David 







On 8 Aug 2019, at 14:07, Heather Morrison < [ 
mailto:heather.morri...@uottawa.ca | heather.morri...@uottawa.ca ] > wrote: 

Reader caution: discussion of matters like attacks on academic freedom as found 
in this thread may upset some people. This is a response to David Prosser's 
comments. 

Comment: I am sorry that David is not feeling well. If others feel sick about 
what is happening to academics in Egypt, I understand. That's how I feel about 
this, too. 
There are many things that happen in the world that I find disturbing. My 
approach, with respect to events that intersect my areas of expertise, is to 
think about such events, ask questions and propose potential solutions to make 
the world a better place. In t