{"id":12028,"date":"2018-02-07T20:00:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-07T14:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/?p=12028"},"modified":"2023-07-10T17:39:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T11:39:10","slug":"pirate-black-open-access-disrupting-green-gold-open-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/pirate-black-open-access-disrupting-green-gold-open-access\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Pirate Black Open Access Disrupting Green &amp; Gold Open Access?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Efforts to create open scholarly communications are an ongoing process within academic publishing, amid conflicting views on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.plos.org\/open-access\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">open access models<\/a>. In this context, publications directly made open via the publisher are considered <em>Gold open access, <\/em>while those made available via institutional repositories are <em>Green open access<\/em>. However, a majority of scholarly records <a href=\"https:\/\/insights.uksg.org\/articles\/10.1629\/uksg.333\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">still remain behind paywalls<\/a>,\u00a0because publishers hold the ownership to intellectual property in journals.<\/p>\n<p>Inevitably, a third and more controversial model, pirate black open access, has gained precedence over the green and gold models of open access. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/how-is-sci-hub-affecting-academic-publishing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sci-Hub<\/a> is a website that infamously enabled pirate black open access to the usually paywalled academic journals. The site gained admission through institutional proxies to bypass publisher paywalls and permit broad public access to academic articles. Although academic publishers have sued the website for blatant piracy, some researchers consider this approach to be an effective and necessary means of civil disobedience. The controversy has, therefore, prompted many traditional academic publishers to reconsider their existing models of gold and green open access.<\/p>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/leap.1116\/full#leap1116-bib-0005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">Op-ed on Wiley<\/a> articulates the multifaceted problem, to ask hard-hitting questions that evaluate the drawbacks of the conventional models.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is green and gold open access inherently flawed?<\/li>\n<li>In light of the rising popularity of black open access, could gold and green open access have achieved more?<\/li>\n<li>Could the academic publishing models be refined to eliminate piracy?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The Piracy Conflict<\/h2>\n<p>To begin with, Sci-Hub has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/does-sci-hubs-pirated-papers-mean-the-end-of-subscription-journals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">impeded conventional open access<\/a> frameworks through illegal enabling of nearly all scholarly literature\u00a0thereby making it freely accessible. Comparatively speaking, stakeholders in scholarly communication have only managed to enable access to select research articles, while the rest remain behind paywalls. Statistically, a <a href=\"https:\/\/figshare.com\/articles\/License_and_funder_Crossref_data_for_250_000_articles_published_in_2016\/5220676\/5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">large cohort of publications<\/a> will remain unavailable via legal channels for most people in 2017. As an example, when the music industry was rife with pirates, the business model needed a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/node\/14845177\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">revolutionary change<\/a> to attract users beyond free downloads. These efforts succeeded with the advent of iTunes and other streaming options targeting pay-to-download services. This concept has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/academic-piracy-revolution-or-robbery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">direct implications<\/a> for the existing green and gold open access models\u00a0because they appear conventionally inept at present.<\/p>\n<p>The existing models are far from the revolutionary business frameworks required in the present intellectual landscape. The ideal open access model would have &gt;80% of the market share, mitigating the pirates, to create a sustainable platform. While certain platforms such as BioMed Central, PLoS, and ArXiv are sustainable, the share of all articles remains marginal. However, the concept of academic piracy or \u201cguerrilla open access\u201d can be progressive, driving development and intellectual curiosity. How then must remodeling occur to upgrade the conventional models and overcome their inherent flaws while also allowing for a revolutionary change?<\/p>\n<h2>Coordinating Change<\/h2>\n<p>A recent report on research consulting identified at least five stakeholders and roadblocks requiring elimination to deliver 100% open access. This indicates significant amounts of change at the level of each stakeholder; therefore, the change appears almost implausible. For instance, one stakeholder, the author, must coordinate green open access with the journal of interest to avoid conflicting models of publishing.\u00a0Because of the lack of effort at the single stakeholder level, just 13% of Spanish researchers published green versions. Conversely, more researchers enabled <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/leap.1099\/abstract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">full-texts on ResearchGate<\/a> regardless of simultaneous copyright infringement.<\/p>\n<p>Since the number of new articles published in gold open access is less than 20%, authors do not prefer this model. To transfer between green and gold open access, the following stakeholders are required to initiate change:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Author<\/li>\n<li>Author\u2019s Institution<\/li>\n<li>Funder<\/li>\n<li>Librarian (reader-side)<\/li>\n<li>Publisher<\/li>\n<li>Reader<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the changes require concerted execution, thereby withholding internal workflows, leaving the conventional open access models unaltered. Perhaps the airline industry could offer the next clue to resolve this academic conflict.<\/p>\n<h2>Unbundling Publishing Services<\/h2>\n<p>Incidentally, the airline industry model is not entirely different\u00a0from the multi-stakeholder, global, and policy-bound environment of scholarly communications. Air travel too has evolved from its traditional model to produce an unbundled product with additional costs beyond the core service. Unbundling allowed <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/travel\/article\/budget-airline-trends-2016\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">low-fare airlines<\/a> to expose extras to the market\/passenger, for a cost-effective strategy based on the passenger\u2019s decision. Similarly, a large number of services in scholarly communication can become unbundled. To achieve basic levels of open access, publishers could freely offer basic read-only services first while seeking revenue from surrounding services. This would qualify as <a href=\"http:\/\/legacy.earlham.edu\/~peters\/fos\/newsletter\/08-02-08.htm#gratis-libre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cost-free open access<\/a>, requiring only one stakeholder, the publisher, to deliver the change.<\/p>\n<p>However, beyond the unbundled basic free service to readers, what other services may separately provide an income for scholarly communication? It is possible to provide unbundled options to stakeholders for select services. For authors,\u00a0these could include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/publication-support-services\/peer-review-process\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"115\" title=\"Peer Review\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">peer review<\/a> management, copy-editing, and language services for refined context. Readers could\u00a0get access to downloadable citations tools, alerting services, and online analytics. Librarians could be provided with metadata for catalog databases and funders offered reports by subject area. All these are possible avenues for unbundled revenues. Eventually, the publishing industry too can democratize scholarly communication, based on what works, much like the airline industry does. The concept will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.altmetric.com\/blog\/attentionoa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">result in increased readership<\/a>, stimulating the market for services and enabling new budgets. The niche audience can further increase revenue via digital advertisers targeting a scholarly demographic.<\/p>\n<h2>In Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>In the \u201cage of digital disruption,\u201d the conventional structure of green and gold open access remains inflexible, requiring a revolutionary change. Pirate black open access has recognized this need to create a revolutionary, albeit illegal change in response. It is, therefore, time for academic research publishers to follow the course and alter the stakeholders view to achieve the necessary and legal changes.<\/p>\n<p>In order to facilitate this process among stakeholders, initiatives such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chorusaccess.org\/about\/about-chorus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">CHORUS<\/a> have implemented smooth and streamlined processes. Similarly, Springer\u2013Nature is experimenting with the concept of free-article sharing via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.springernature.com\/gp\/researchers\/sharedit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SharedIt<\/a>. Furthermore, unbundling the product would allow all content to be freely available, thereby allowing publicly funded research to gain an increased readership. The concept of unbundling, starting with the publisher, would present stakeholders the choice to pay for individual benefits of communication. This concept would be more sustainable, less expensive, and exponentially less controversial than the ongoing versions, in the end.<\/p>\n<div style=\"display:flex; gap:10px;justify-content:\" class=\"wps-pgfw-pdf-generate-icon__wrapper-frontend\">\n\t\t<a  href=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12028?action=genpdf&amp;id=12028\" class=\"pgfw-single-pdf-download-button\" ><img data-src=\"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-generator-for-wp\/admin\/src\/images\/PDF_Tray.svg\" title=\"Generate PDF\" style=\"width:auto; height:45px;\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\"><\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Efforts to create open scholarly communications are an ongoing process within academic publishing, amid conflicting&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[751,754],"tags":[1264],"ppma_author":[1894],"class_list":["post-12028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publication-stages","category-publication-ethics","tag-copyright-infringement"],"better_featured_image":{"id":12863,"alt_text":"Pirate Open Access","caption":"","description":"In recent times, a new form of open access called pirate open access (black) has risen due to the popularity of Sci-Hub in the research community.","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":850,"height":330,"hwstring_small":"height='50' 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The team, which comprises subject matter experts, academicians, trainers, and technical project managers, are passionate about helping researchers at all levels establish a successful career, both within and outside academia."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43049,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12028\/revisions\/43049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12028"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enago.com\/academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=12028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}