Rather than splitting this into multiple threads, I just had two more preprints uploaded too.
The first is about creating a value-proposition for Open Science: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/k9qhv/ and is related to @rebecca’s recent post too on the different frames within ‘open science’.
Abstract: Open Science has become commonly understood in terms of its practices. Open Access, Open Data, and Open Source software are all becoming commonplace in academia. However, unlike the Free and Open Source Software movement, Open Science seems to have become largely divorced from its pluralistic philosophical and ethical foundations, which seem to have reignited from the humanities at the turn of the Millennium. To close this gap, I propose a new value-based proposition for Open Science, that is akin to the “four fundamental freedoms” of Richard Stallman that catalysed the Free Software movement. In doing so, I hope to provide a more common, unified, and human understanding to notions of openness in science.
The second is about the exploitation of free academic labour during peer review, and was inspired by @surya. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/6quxg
Abstract: Commercial publishing houses continue to make unbounded profits while exploiting the free labour of researchers through peer review. If publishers are to be compensated financially for the value that they add within a capitalist system, then all others who add value should be similarly, including reviewers. I propose that peer review should be included as a professional service by research institutes in their contracts with commercial publishers. This would help to recognise the value of peer review, and begin to shape it into a functional form of quality control.
What, did you all think I was going to just sit back and let OpenCon take my life from me? 