Democratising Knowledge: a report on the scholarly publisher, Elsevier, by Dr. Jonathan Tennant
Education International just released a new report as part of their global response to the growing commercialisation and privatisation of education, Democratising Knowledge: a report on the scholarly publisher, Elsevier, by Dr. Jonathan Tennant. The report was officially launched on Tuesday 13th of November 2018 during the Education International’s 11th International Further & Higher Education & Research Conference in Taipei, Taiwan.
The report aims to provide the foundations for a critical study into Elsevier’s business model and practices. As the largest and most powerful scholarly publisher, Elsevier’s has a long history of fighting against public access to knowledge. Recently, its control over higher education and academic research keeps increasing while impinging upon basic concepts of intellectual property, academic freedom, and infringing the principles of scholarly communication.
The study also aims at contributing to developing policy objectives relating to open public access to research and educational materials, academic freedom, researcher autonomy, and the scholarly communication system. The report provides an analysis of Elsevier’s business practices as well as provides some national resistance case studies and finishes by recommending some policies for stakeholders engaged in scholarly communication.
This research will form a key part of Education International’s Global Response campaign on the commercialisation and marketisation in and of education aimed specifically at the further and higher education and research sector.
Read a summary of the key findings and recommendations and download the report.