An OA Light Bulb Flickers On
An OA advocate describes everything that has gone wrong
It’s been interesting watching all the OA advocates modify their positions as the untoward primary and secondary effects of Gold OA have become clear, and as few viable options exist beyond merely throwing in the towel on peer-review entirely and making scientific and scholarly publishing into a bazaar of preprints nobody can rely upon for quality or relevance.
A recent article in the new Katina magazine — a name that still cracks me up because I can picture Katina scoffing at the very idea of a magazine named after her — brings a few things together. However, the subject of the interview — Muthu Madhan, Director of Libraries at Jindal Global University — doesn’t quite close the circuit to realize that what he’s saying could be the epitaph of the OA movement someday soon.
- This came on the heels of an annoying “meme-seeking” article in the Conversation about “slow science,” which basically repudiated emphasis on speed and quantity of publications and reintroduces us to quality, reliability, and well-moderated scientific claims
- The meme I wanted? “Tantric science”
I’ve selected quotes from the Katina article on various topics to let you see how the subject of the interview assesses the failures of OA.