This podcast episode, produced for International Open Access Week, features a conversation between Ragna Björk Kristjánsdóttir, Library Director at Reykjavík University, and Professor Jack James, exploring the theme “Who owns our knowledge?” The discussion critically examines the evolution of academic publishing from its early ideals of freely shared knowledge to the current reality of monetised open-access systems dominated by commercial publishers.
Professor James argues that the commodification of scholarly work—largely funded by taxpayers—has led to inflated costs, declining editorial standards, and widespread ethical concerns. He highlights the rise of predatory journals, paper mills, and the peer review crisis as symptoms of a broken system, and calls for coordinated national and international action to reclaim public ownership of academic knowledge.
Dr Jack James is Professor and former Head of the Department of Psychology at Reykjavík University. Before that, he was Professor and Head of the School of Psychology, University of Galway, Ireland, and before that, he was Professor and Head of the Department of Behavioural Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. As an experienced educator, practitioner, and researcher, Professor James has become increasingly concerned about the demonstrably harmful effects monetised “open access” publishing is having on the integrity of knowledge creation and dissemination across all fields of scientific enquiry. Reflecting the scale of the problem, Professor James argues that the journal assets of the major commercial academic publishers worldwide must, as a matter of urgency, be reclaimed by non-profit scholarly and scientific communities and associations.
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Ragna Björk Kristjánsdóttir, forstöðukona bóksafns Háskólans í Reykjavík, ræðir við prófessors Jack James, í tilefni af alþjóðlegri viku opins aðgangs sem hefst í dag. Fjögur háskólabókasöfn gerðu hlaðvarpsþætti, Landsbókasafn - háskólabókasafn, Háskólinn í Reykjavík, Háskólinn á Akureyri og Listaháskólinn.
Ragna og Dr James ræddu þemað Hver á þekkinguna okkar? á gagnrýninn hátt um þróun fræðilegrar útgáfu allt frá upphaflegum hugsjónum um frjálsa miðlun þekkingar fram til þess að í dag er opinn aðgangur orðinn hluti af arðvænlegu kerfi útgefenda.
Dr. Jack James er prófessor og fyrrverandi deildarforseti sálfræðideildar við Háskólann í Reykjavík. Áður starfaði hann sem prófessor og deildarforseti sálfræðideildar við Háskólann í Galway á Írlandi, og þar áður sem prófessor og deildarforseti við Department of Behavioural Health Sciences við La Trobe-háskóla í Melbourne, Ástralíu.
