Gatekeeping should be conserved in the open science era

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

Autoren

  • Hugh Desmond

Organisationseinheiten

Externe Organisationen

  • Universiteit Antwerpen (UAntwerpen)
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Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Aufsatznummer160
Seitenumfang26
FachzeitschriftSYNTHESE
Jahrgang203
Ausgabenummer5
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 6 Mai 2024

Abstract

The elimination of gatekeepers for scientific publication has been represented as a means to promote the core moral values of open science, including democratic decision-making and inclusiveness. I argue that this framing ignores the reality that gatekeeping is a way of structuring prestige hierarchies, and that without gatekeeping, some other structuring would be needed: the flattening of prestige hierarchies is not possible given scientists’ need to navigate information overload. I consider two potential restructurings of prestige hierarchies, one based on citation count and the other on search algorithm rank. These are shown to simply reintroduce status biases and hierarchies in ways that either do not further the open science ideals of democracy and inclusiveness, or else involve some de facto gatekeeping. Gatekeeper elimination should not be thought of as an intrinsic part of the open science movement. In fact, insofar as gatekeeping is guided by professional ideals of impartiality and diligence, it can be thought of as an ally of open science values.

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

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Gatekeeping should be conserved in the open science era. / Desmond, Hugh.
in: SYNTHESE, Jahrgang 203, Nr. 5, 160, 06.05.2024.

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftArtikelForschungPeer-Review

Desmond H. Gatekeeping should be conserved in the open science era. SYNTHESE. 2024 Mai 6;203(5):160. doi: 10.1007/s11229-024-04559-2
Desmond, Hugh. / Gatekeeping should be conserved in the open science era. in: SYNTHESE. 2024 ; Jahrgang 203, Nr. 5.
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