The phenomenon of 'value extraction' in Open Access

Area of Science:

• Scholarly communication
• Research integrity
• Academic publishing

Background:

• Open Access (OA) agreements aim to reduce financial barriers and promote equitable knowledge access.
• Article Processing Charges (APCs) are increasingly covered by institutions, creating an unevenly distributed asset.
• This shift impacts access to OA publishing across different institutions, countries, and career stages.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce and define "value extraction" in OA publishing.
• Examine the use of APC coverage as leverage for authorship without proportional contribution.
• Identify this practice as a distinct integrity risk within academic publishing.

Main Methods:

• Conduct a conceptual and normative analysis.
• Examine the interaction between OA agreements and academic evaluation systems.
• Analyze existing research integrity frameworks to identify governance gaps.

Main Results:

• Value extraction in OA is facilitated by centralized APC control, metrics favoring publication counts, and integrity frameworks overlooking publishing infrastructure.
• Researchers at less-resourced institutions, early-career scholars, and those in the Global South are particularly vulnerable.
• Current authorship guidelines do not address infrastructural access as a form of leverage for academic credit.

Conclusions:

• Implement safeguards at institutional, publisher, and systemic levels.
• Establish procedural firewalls between APC decisions and authorship.
• Reform evaluation frameworks to decouple infrastructural access from academic credit.