El$evier Does It Again

The company that brought you the cash for publication scandal is at it again.  This time it is a cash for review scandal.  It is hardly surprising that El$evier does not publish a journal of business ethics.  El$evier does have a statement of ethical guidelines.  These guidelines include the statement:

"We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, Elsevier will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors. Finally, we are working closely with other publishers and industry associations to set standards for best practices on ethical matters ..."

I leave it up to you to judge how diligently El$sevier apply their guidelines.

Open Access to Research

I have written previously about the need for open access in education.  I have come across recently a like-minded group in SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).  They have sponsored a student-prepared pamphlet calling for open access to research sources.  In this pamphlet they highlight that some Elsevier journals cost in excess of USD 20,000 for a subscription.  Elsevier is the company which was implicated in the cash for publication scandal.

This pamphlet makes a convincing case for a total rethink on how research is disseminated and highlights the damage which is being done by the current for-profit publication regime.