Dear colleagues,
I'm considering developing a campaign to encourage our colleagues to stop writing book chapters for for-profit publishers for free, since I believe this now largely functions to colonialize and entrap our volunteer hours of thinking and writing behind a paywall. What added value do most current "publishers" provide that compares to their enslavement of our generously provided wisdom, moving us from HIFA to Healthcare Information For All-with-the-$.
If we want to publish such valuable summative work, and have it widely available for would-be learners, why not individually and collectively decide to publish our wisdom, in their most customizable learning formats, through freely available platforms (e.g. open access journals, one's professional social media pages, Internet Archive, NextGenU.org), or by creating alternative presses within one's own University press, or some other means?
I've seen so many colleagues who mainly want to get their wisdom endorsed, disseminated, and acknowledged through chapters/books get seduced and crushed by fantasies of abundant "royalties". I think we can fix this inaccurate and harmful thinking. And I think it's a pretty easy sell: pragmatically, chapters fail the "$ + education achieved : time spent" ratio, and are pretty useless in the "public or perish" realm (non-contributory for promotion/tenure).
Anyone else similarly fed up with this equity-reducing exploitation?
Erica
Erica Frank, MD, MPH, FACPM
UBC Faculties of Medicine and Arts
HIFA profile: Erica Frank is the Founder and President of NextGenU.org, the world's first portal to free, accredited higher education, now being used in 193 (of 195) countries, and offering the world's first free degree (a Master's degree in Public Health), as well as a MedSchoolInABox that includes Graduate Medical Education. Erica is Professor and Canada Research Chair of Preventive Medicine and Population Health at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and is a physician specializing in preventive medicine. Her research established the strong and consistent influence of clinicians' health habits on their patients. She was Co-Editor in Chief of the journal Preventive Medicine (1994-1999), and the 2008 President of the Nobel Peace Prize winning (1985 and 2017) Physicians for Social Responsibility. erica.frank AT ubc.ca