Social Justice: The Golden Thread in the Openness Movement

Reggie Raju (), Jill Claassen and Kaela De Lillie
Additional contact information
Reggie Raju: Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town Libraries, University of Cape Town, Cape Town 7701, South Africa
Jill Claassen: Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town Libraries, University of Cape Town, Cape Town 7701, South Africa
Kaela De Lillie: Chancellor Oppenheimer Library, University of Cape Town Libraries, University of Cape Town, Cape Town 7701, South Africa

Publications, 2023, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: The current publishing landscape perpetuates biases that continue to exclude those who have been previously marginalized, specifically from the Global South including Africa. Incorporating philanthropy as the only driving principle to openly share knowledge is insufficient to truly empower and be inclusive to those who have been relegated to the periphery of the scholarly communication ecosystem. Social justice principles have to underpin the foundation of this ecosystem, in tandem with philanthropy, to shed light on these exclusionary, systemic publishing practices and processes. This will entail first breaking down these unfair practices and then rebuilding the ecosystem by advancing equity, diversity and inclusion. This paper highlights the current gaps in the openness movement and demonstrates, through an exemplar of a publishing platform, how the publishing landscape can be transformed. The publishing platform employs a multi-tenant model that enables multiple institutions to publish and disseminate knowledge on one shared instance of the software. The continental platform and the tenant model that it utilizes address the technological and infrastructural barriers often experienced in the Global South and Africa, while simultaneously serving as a collective hub for hosting African scholarship. This case study methodology is used to investigate how the alternate publishing route recaptures the philanthropic pillars of the openness movement. The findings provide evidence for a return to the founding principles of the openness movement and, as importantly, demonstrates the impact of open access on student success.

Keywords: open access; openness movement; publishing bias; continental platform; publishing ecosystem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/11/3/36/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/11/3/36/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jpubli:v:11:y:2023:i:3:p:36-:d:1188285

Access Statistics for this article

Publications is currently edited by Ms. Jennifer Zhang

More articles in Publications from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().