Joshua Chalifour

Gautama Mehta's recent article "[Proposal to install spyware in
university libraries to protect copyrights shocks
academics](https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/spyware-in-libraries/)"
is an important read. I appreciate the many issues it raises and the
great links to additional commentary about Elsevier's and Springer's
problematic Scholarly Networks Security Initiative (SNSI).

Although the article mentions digital rights advocates and scientists, I
did not see much written about the fact that ***librarians** are not
passive recipients of technology* in their libraries.

The article says "...the proposal to install surveillance software in
university libraries is only hypothetical." but nobody gets to come in
and just install software in university libraries. Librarians actively
engage in making well-informed technology decisions. As an academic
librarian, I would like to call attention to the perspective that
librarians could be expected to have with respect to the SNSI's
hypothetical proposals.

Libraries are the living results of ongoing development, change, care,
and preservation by many people in collaboration. We make *intentional*,
*studied decisions* on how we go about our work. Generally speaking, we
aim to provide equitable and safe access to information for everyone.

In fact, librarians have professional codes of ethics. For example, the
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
[Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information
Workers](https://www.ifla.org/faife/professional-codes-of-ethics-for-librarians)
explicitly guides against the sort of scheme being proposed by the
SNSI's oligopolistic publishers. Within the code, a section titled
"Privacy, secrecy, and transparency" states:

> "The relationship between the library and the user is one of
> confidentiality and librarians and other information workers will take
> appropriate measures to ensure that user data is not shared beyond the
> original transaction."

The guidance here closes the door on permitting a third party to collect
additional biometric data about people using the library's tools or
services. In fact, it asks that we **take measures against that
possibility**. And we do. Discussions about ensuring user privacy are
not uncommon when we consider how we implement services.

Librarians take very seriously the implications of what might happen if
data about a person's research interests were to be obtained by third
parties that might sell or use it in unexpected, detrimental ways to
that person's academic freedom, well-being, or personal security.
Although I'm not arguing that libraries are perfect in this regard,
librarians have a history of advocating for privacy and security rights
alongside rights to access information.

We also have a professional responsibility to ensure that people respect
the rights of authors, publishers, or other creators (see the section in
the IFLA code on "Open access and intellectual property"). We fulfill
that responsibility in various ways, including educating people on legal
access.

Respecting intellectual property rights does not conflict with the
responsibility to protect privacy or confidentiality nor should the two
be deceptively pitted against each other as the SNSI appears to be
attempting. One avenue that can help alleviate misconstrued tensions in
these two objectives is to advocate for open access publishing and
reasonable copyright terms, which we put considerable effort into, but
that is another story.

Keep in mind those ethical guidelines that professional librarians
consider while implementing technology in libraries. How then, can these
SNSI publishers imagine that we would possibly entertain implementing
such a privacy-leaking, invavise technology as they have described? One
possibility that was mentioned is that they would dangle discounts to
their databases in front of us. That sort of mafia-protection style
scheme is a non-starter from this librarian's perspective. I suspect the
answer is that they know we would not support any of this and that is
why their stategy instead appears to be targetting overall university
security.

Mehta's article notes that the SNSI has made a "...mandate of protecting
higher education from cybercriminals..." Furthermore, the FAQ on the
SNSI website asks "Why should I be worried about security within
university networks?" and provides this response:

> "The higher education sector is particularly vulnerable to
> cyber-attack due to the large amount of personal and research data
> that universities, including library systems, routinely store...."

All of this strikes me as a strategy to position sales of their
invasive, surveillance technology as a means to protect the university's
data and IT systems against potential attacks. In other words, to go
around libraries by engaging other segments of their institutions.

That approach misleads, as was linked elsewhere in Mehta's article.
University security is unlikely to be under much of a threat due to the
sort of activity the SNSI's tech would supposedly operate on.

I hope that knowing about librarians' professional codes of ethics and
our overarching aims suggests something useful about the proposed
surveillance technologies from the SNSI. Specifically, we would
challenge such technologies, reducing the likelihood of them leaving the
realm of the hypothetical or succeeding in production environments.


Gautama Mehta’s recent article “Proposal to install spyware in university libraries to protect copyrights shocks academics” is an important read.

Publishers Proposing Surveillance Tech on Libraries

Björn Brembs

The recent publication of the "[Ten Principles of Plan
S](https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/)" has sparked numerous
discussions among which one of several recurring themes
[was](https://wisspub.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/appeal-kamerlin-et-al.pdf)
[academic](https://101innovations.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/plan-s-response-kamerlin-alternatives/)
[freedom](https://wisspub.net/2018/09/17/plan-s-antwort-auf-die-kritik/).
The cause for these discussions is the insistence of the funders
supporting Plan S that their grant recipients only publish in certain
venues under certain liberal licensing schemes.

Germany is likely among the countries with the strongest protection of
academic freedom, as article five of our constitution explicitly
guarantees academic freedom. Historically, this has always included free
choice of publishing venue. As modern internet technology keeps
encroaching on academic traditions, there is now a lawsuit pending at
the constitutional court of Germany in which way open access mandates,
requiring scholars to deposit a copy of their published article in an
institutional repository, violates academic freedom. The lawsuit was
started by several law professors with support of the DHV (main
organization representing academic interests in Germany) and the
publishers' organization "Börsenverein". It will be interesting to see
if the [traditional and widespread
mandates](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vWPssX-WmzRCd8mbzFZl-mvfxySeXY72RYJ8U3Uyl1I/edit#heading=h.al3r04h3jzbt)
on publishing in certain venues (by sanction of unemployment) will be
brought before the court.

I have asked the law professors behind the lawsuit on their opinion
about the current infringements on academic freedom by employers, but
did not receive a reply. An independent question to a practicing lawyer
specialized in constitutional law was answered with the current
requirements being in principle equivalent infringements on academic
freedom, as open access mandates, if they even are considered
infringements. However, the lawyer advised to wait until the current
ruling has been published and that a suit could only be brought by
affected parties. In Switzerland, a law professor recently
[confirmed](https://www.plaedoyer.ch/artikel/d/freie-bahn-fuer-open-access/)
the conclusion of the German lawyer that both funder mandates and
employer requirements can be considered equivalent. In this case, his
conclusion was that *neither* infringe on academic freedom.

Thus, even in Germany, a country with arguably one of the strongest,
constitutional protections of academic freedom, it is far from certain
if any/all requirements for publication venue may constitute an
infringement on these constitutional rights. Ongoing legal proceedings
will help clarify this question. As a non-lawyer I would tend to argue
that in case open access mandates are considered as violations of
academic freedom, also the requirements to publish in certain journals
must fall. Conversely, if current practice is no infringement, neither
are open access mandates.

For the main argument of this post, however, let's assume both funder
and employer mandates were considered an infringement of academic
freedom, i.e., the German constitutional court bans all and every
*policy* to push academics into publishing in certain places, whether
that be funder or employer requirements. Would such a strong
interpretation of academic freedom automatically entail that the
tax-payer has to fund every possible publication venue an academic might
choose?

Let's imagine some amusing hypothetical scenarios. The scenarios are not
meant to be realistic, but exemplify the difficulty to negotiate
individual freedoms with responsible spending of public funds:

1.  A group of ecologists makes an exciting discovery about local
    wildlife and they decide to exercise their academic freedom and
    publish their discovery by buying billboard space across the region,
    to alert the general public of the precious finding.
2.  A group of biomedical researchers finds a novel drug target for a
    deadly disease and they decide to exercise their academic freedom
    and publish their discovery by publishing it in double page
    advertisements in major newspapers to make sure every drug maker in
    the world receives enough information to develop the cure.
3.  A group of social psychologists discovers that cluttered
    environments promote racist language and theft. They decide to
    exercise their academic freedom and publish their discovery in a
    prestigious subscription journal. The collective price of the
    subscriptions to this journal averages to about 100 times the
    technical publishing costs of the article. On top of the exorbitant
    price tag, the journal paywall and policies limit both access to the
    research and the data upon which the publication rests.
4.  A group of geneticists discovers a new mechanism of inheritance and
    they decide to publish their results in a prestigious journal. The
    journal recently flipped from the subscription model to author-pays,
    'gold' open access. Because their chosen journal is highly
    selective, which is the basis of its prestige, the author-side fee
    is 200 times that of the technical costs of publishing the article.

Obviously, all four of these scenarios are 'batshit crazy' and nobody in
their right mind would even try to defend any of these against tax-payer
(or general accounting office) scrutiny or try to align them with
university spending rules. And yet, scenario number three is current
reality and number four may soon be reality, if Plan S and other such
funder policies that support 'gold' open access were to become standard
practice (see
[here](https://bjoern.brembs.net/2016/04/how-gold-open-access-may-make-things-worse/)
for more reasons why this aspect could lead to severe unintended
consequences).

Arguing from a strong point of academic freedom, would one, therefore,
to be consistent, require that all scenarios should be funded by the
tax-payer, or none? If all should be funded, where should the funds come
from to pay even the most outrageously extravagant venues academics
might choose? If none ought to be funded, what are the rules based on
which these decisions are to be made?

Squaring constitutional rights with public spending is not an easy task.
Since I am no legal scholar by any stretch of the imagination, I would
tend to argue with the common notion that my freedom to swing my arms
ends at your nose (a saying I learned from Timothy Gowers). Publicly
funded institutions commonly have to obey strict spending rules. This
has a long tradition as this
[document](https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4546&context=clr)
from 1942 shows:

> The awarding of contracts by municipal and other public corporations
> is of vital importance to all of us, as citizens and taxpayers.
> Careless and inefficient standards and procedures for awarding these
> important community commitments have increased unnecessarily the tax
> burdens of the public. To secure a standard by which the awarding of
> public contracts can be made efficiently and economically, and with
> fairness to both the community and the bidders, the constitutions of
> some states, and the statutes regulating municipal and public
> corporations provide for the award of public contracts to the lowest
> responsible bidder.

 

Who would argue that academic freedom should exempt academics from such
spending rules? On the contrary, shouldn't these spending rules require
public institutions to find the most cost-effective way to fulfill their
mission, regardless of what venue academics might prefer to publish in?
This latter consequence would entail that buying subscription access to
publicly funded scholarly works does not qualify as a cost worth
spending public money on. How can institutions escape such violation of
their spending rules while simultaneously allowing their faculty to
exercise their academic freedom?

Here, I suggest that the current, rational, modern resolution of the
conflict between academic freedom and spending rules is to provide
academics with a
[cost-effective](https://bjoern.brembs.net/2016/01/how-much-should-a-scholarly-article-cost-the-taxpayer/)
[publishing
infrastructure](https://bjoern.brembs.net/2015/04/what-should-a-modern-scientific-infrastructure-look-like/)
and provide them with the freedom decide whether they want to use it or
not. The infrastructure would be maintained by the institutions and
either serviced by them or by bidding contractors, as any other
infrastructure. Scholars have the choice to either use this
infrastructure at no cost to them or find funds to choose any other
venue. Given the current [abysmal
state](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/03/seven-functionalities-the-scholarly-literature-should-have/)
of publishing functionality, together with the extinction of existing
journals without subscription funding, a quite [rapid shift in
publishing
culture](https://bjoern.brembs.net/2018/05/after-24-years-when-will-academic-culture-finally-shift/)
would be expected.

As current subscription spending is roughly ten times of what is needed
to keep publishing going at current levels, so one would not expect much
of a disruption from obeying spending rules also in academic publishing.
On the contrary, 90% of current funds would, if these spending levels
were sustained, help improve upon current publishing user experience and
help innovate to implement a modern infrastructure that services not
only our [text, but also our data and
code](https://bjoern.brembs.net/2014/03/what-is-the-difference-between-text-data-and-code/).


The recent publication of the “Ten Principles of Plan S” has sparked numerous discussions among which one of several recurring themes was academic freedom. The cause for these discussions is the insistence of the funders supporting Plan S that their grant recipients only publish in certain venues under certain liberal licensing schemes.

Does academic freedom entail exemption from spending rules?

In Germany, the
[constitution](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forschungsfreiheit)
guarantees academic freedom in article 5 as a basic civil right. The
main German funder, the German Research Foundation (DFG), routinely
points to this article of the German constitution when someone suggests
they should follow the lead of NIH, Wellcome et al. with regard to
mandates requiring open access (OA) to publications arising from
research activities they fund.

The same argument was recently made by Rick Anderson in his THE article
entitled "[Open Access and Academic
Freedom](https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/12/15/mandatory-open-access-publishing-can-impair-academic-freedom-essay)".
When it was pointed out both in the comments on his article and on
Twitter that the widespread tradition of hiring/promoting/rewarding
scientists for publishing in certain venues constituted a much worse
infringement, Mr. Anderson
[replied](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m18F3m2ubgAoTTP2ghV4tQxf8APe6BmISLCOq8O975s/edit#)
with a very formalistic argument: such selection by publication venue
were mere "professional standards", which, by definition, cannot impede
academic freedom (even if they essentially force scientists to publish
in certain venues), while only "official policies" actually can infringe
on academic freedom (even if they are not actually enforced, such as
many OA mandates, and thus have little/no effect on the choice of
publication venue). This *potential* infringement is thus considered
more of a threat to academic freedom than *actual* infringements, as
long as the actual infringements due to 'professional standards' are not
explicitly written down somewhere and labeled 'policy'.

While one may take such a formalistic approach, I fail to see how such a
position can be either valuable or convincing.

If everyone took that position, it would only mean that our institutions
would make their policies less specific and called them "professional
standard". Then our institutions can fire us at will without ever
touching our academic freedom: they just need to define professional
standards loosely enough. Hence, there is no academic value in such a
formalistic approach: an infringement of an academic freedom is always
an infringement, no matter what you call it. The important aspect of
such infringements (which may be unavoidable) is not whether or not they
are written down as explicit 'policy', but that we must have very good
reasons for them, such as tangible benefits for science and/or society.

I also doubt this argument will be very convincing, as it is just too
plain obvious that such a formalistic approach is too far from reality
to be worth seriously considering. Imagine two scholars, both working in
the same field, collecting the same data, making the same discoveries
and solving the same problems. One of them would feel forced to publish,
against their own will, their work in a piecemeal fashion in the venues
implicitly prescribed by their field on an ongoing basis, the other
would decide to exercise their academic freedom and publish the exact
same discoveries and solutions in one big text on their blog at the end
of their career. From this example, it is clear that we already have a
very tangible and real choice: either exercise your academic freedom or
have a job in academia, both are incompatible.

Today, it seems unavoidable that the current society likely won't accept
the value of the "full academic freedom" of the
[AAUP](https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure)
that Rick Anderson
[referenced](https://twitter.com/Looptopper/status/677122868765847552),
and hence won't tolerate us exercising it. But this society better
provide some pretty darn good reasons for curtailing our 'full' civil
rights. I can see how forcing us to share our work with the society that
funded us would entail such a reason. I cannot see how forcing us to
publish, e.g., in venues with a [track record for fraud and
errors](https://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00291/full)
would entail such a reason.


In Germany, the constitution guarantees academic freedom in article 5 as a basic civil right. The main German funder, the German Research Foundation (DFG), routinely points to this article of the German constitution when someone suggests they should follow the lead of NIH, Wellcome et al. with regard to mandates requiring open access (OA) to publications arising from research activities they fund.

How free are academics, really?

Cameron Neylon

There has been much talk about both "academic freedom" as well as the
responsibilities of scholars over the past few weeks. Both of these are
troublesome concepts, not least because one person's "freedom" is
another's irresponsible conduct. But particularly in the context of
"academic freedom" the question of freedom to do or say what, and what
responsibilities come with that is complex. And of course the freedom to
speak is not the right to an expectation to be taken seriously. Any such
right or authority is also tied to certain, usually unspecified
responsibilities.

The question of academic freedom has been most visibly raised in the
context of Tim Hunt's reported comments at a Korean conference. As it
happens I have my own story involving Hunt and misintepretation, once
which might provide a useful way in to the issue.

At the closing panel of the Berlin11 meeting I spoke in a discussion
panel about the progress towards open access and the future of scholarly
communications. The meeting, in Berlin, was held in an old building that
had been wonderfully refurbished as a conference space. In my remarks I
drew an analogy with the building, the idea of taking the best of the
past and repurposing it to support the future, noting that the building
literally showed the scars of history, in this case the damage inflicted
by allied bombing in World War II.

It was later related to me that Hunt had said that this was a very
eloquent defence of journals like *Nature* and *Science*. Of course
anyone who knows me will know that was absolutely not my intended
meaning. What I meant, and what I said, were not congruent with what was
heard. My intent was to provoke thought on what was worth keeping, not
to defend the status quo. But who is responsible for the
misunderstanding? What is my responsibility for greater clarity?

It may seem like a trivial misunderstanding, but it could have not been.
We were in Berlin. The building might have a very dark history,
certainly it is a near statistical certainty that some members of the
audience had lost family members to allied bombing. My comments could
have been misintepreted as saying that the building was more important
than their relative's suffering. That issue did not occur to me at the
time, and looking back today I am ashamed by that. It may not have
changed what I said, but it would certainly have changed the way I said
it. As a sufficient authority to be asked to offer my views in the final
session of an important meeting I had a responsibility to take care that
my comments *were* authoritative but also that they were responsible.

Nobel Laureates travel a lot. They are in demand as speakers because
they have authority. They have authority obviously in their area of
research but also as senior members of the research community they bring
a perspective as leaders who have been involved in the governance and
strategic development of the research community. When that authority is
assumed without sufficient care, or in areas where the person in
question is not well informed, the result tends to rebound badly â€" Jim
Watson's comments on race, Pauling's on vitamin C come to mind.

To those who are given great authority, whether in the form of Nobel
prizes or large twitter followings, is also given great responsibility.
Sometimes discharged well, sometimes not. Academic authority and
academic freedom are not easy bedfellows. The right to speak one's mind
is freedom of speech. The ability to deploy one's authority is not a
right. Authority is the ability to be *listened to* not the ability to
speak freely. And that ability comes with responsibility. Academic
freedom is *not* the right to speak one's mind. It is rather the
responsibility to speak on issues, with the authority that arises from
scholarly rigour. It is the tradition that *employment* should not be at
risk when a scholar speaks in their area of expertise.

The most damning indictment therefore of the cries of "Academic Freedom"
in the defense of Hunt is *that his comments were bad science*. They
were spectacularly uninformed by the large quantity of literature that
shows virtually the opposite of what he said (see [Curt Rice's
blog](http://curt-rice.com/) for an up to date summary). Further the
defence that "it was just a joke" can only be made by failing to engage
with the literature that shows that not only do jokes surface real bias
and real issues, but that asking a disdvantaged group to accept
something as a joke normalises that disadvantage. Hilda Bastian has
covered this in [her excellent
post](http://blogs.plos.org/absolutely-maybe/2015/06/22/just-joking-sexist-talk-in-science/).

The question of responsibility has also been raised in the furore of
John Bohannan's recent exposes, first on [fly by night scholarly
publishers](http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.342.6154.60) seeking to
fleece researchers, and [more
recently](http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800)
on the reporting, review and publicity around poorly run "medical"
studies. In both cases questions are raised of methodology. In the Open
Access sting many commentators, myself included, excoriated Bohannan for
not running a proper control, in essence not running a proper scientific
study. In the more recent chocolate study issues of ethical oversight
and risk to participants were raised. If Bohannan was a scientist,
speaking with the authority of a scholar then this would be a reasonable
criticism. His own claim of the title "gonzo scientist" raises some
interesting questions in this regard but fundamentally he is a
journalist and writer, governed by different rules of authority and
responsibility.

In the case of the OA sting those questions of authority were muddied by
the publication of the piece in *Science*. Online the distinction
between this journalistic piece and a research article is not
immediately clear. To be fair, in the piece itself John does make the
point that conclusions on the prevalence of poor peer review practices
in subscription vs open access journals cannot be drawn from this work.
Indeed his aim is a different kind of "proof", in this case an existence
proof of the problem â€" there are "journals" that do little to no peer
review, and many of them are open access.

The problems I have with the piece, and they are many, arguably conflate
my expectations of a piece of scholarly research and the
responsibilities of a scholar â€" the need to tell us something *new*
orÂ *useful* *â€"* with the very different aims of a journalist, to
expose an issue to a wider audience. Indeed the very establishment power
structures moving into place to defend Hunt are the ones that I,
arguably hypocritically, deployed to combat Bohannan. "The problem has
been known for some time" "Quiet work was being done on it" "Leave our
community to get on and sort out our problems". But did we need an
outsider to make it public enough and urgent enough to drive real
action? Did Bohannan have responsibilities to the Open Access community
to tell us more about the problem, to do a proper study, or as a
journalist was his responsiblity to publicly expose the issue?

Alice Goffman is another researcher facing a different set of tensions
over responsibility, freedom and authority. Her book *[On the
Run](http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo18039324.html)*
gives a challenging account of inner city life amongst deprived black
american youth. Published in 2014 it can be seen as a warning of the
subsequent events in Ferguson and Baltimore and other places.

Goffman is an enthographer and her book started life as a scholarly
monograph, but one that has gone on to have success as a mainstream
non-fiction book. Ethnography involves working closely with, often
living with research subjects, and the protection of the privacy of
subjects is held as a very high principle. As described [in this Slate
article](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/06/alice_goffman_s_on_the_run_is_the_sociologist_to_blame_for_the_inconsistencies.single.html)
(which is my main source) this generally means obscuring locations,
names, even the chronology of events to create a narrative which
surfaces a deeper underlying truth about what is going on. Goffman took
this responsibility particularly seriously given she observed events
that could land people in jail, going so far as to destroy her notebooks
so as to protect her research subjects.

But as this uncomfortable narrative became more public and transformed
into a mainstream non-fiction book the responsibilities of the author
(no longer a scholar?) seemed to change. General non-fiction is supposed
to be "true" and Goffman's rearrangement of facts, people and timelines
breaks this expectation. What is interesting is that was in turn is used
to raise charges of *scholarly* misconduct. The responsibility of the
author to the reader is in direct conflict with the responsibility of
the scholar to their subjects, yet the critic chooses to attack the
scholarship. Indeed, given that the criticism and claims of misconduct
are based on a forensic analysis of the text in some sense Goffman is
under attack because she didn't do a good enough job of hiding the
process of discharging her scholarly responsibilities, leaving
inconsistencies in the timelines and events.

Which responsibility trumps which? What does "integrity" mean in this
context, or rather disparate and competing contexts, and how does a
public scholar working on important and challenging problems navigate
those competing issues? Where is Goffman's academic freedom and where do
her academic responsibilities lie? In restricting her space for
communication to the academic world? In speaking (her) truth to power?
Or is that space left for those licensed to speak through mainstream
books? Is it left for Bohannan because only the outsider can make that
transition?

The question of research integrity in Goffman's case is challenging. Her
destruction of notebooks certainly disturbs me as someone concerned
primarily with the integrity of the research record. But I can respect
the logic and to the extent that it is seen as reasonable within her
disciplinary context accept that as appropriate scholarly practice.

The question of fraud in natural and social science research may seem
much clearer. [Diederik
Stapel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diederik_Stapel) (I could have
easily chosen Jan Hendrik SchÃ¶n or many others) simply made up
datasets. Here it seems there are clear lines of responsibility. The
scholar is expected to add to the record, not muddy it. As we move
towards digital records and data sharing these expectations are rising.
Reproducible research is a target that seems plausible at least in some
disciplines, although ironically we are perhaps merely returning to the
level of record keeping recommended by [Robert Boyle in
1660](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A29007.0001.001/1:3?rgn=div1;submit=Go;subview=detail;type=simple;view=fulltext;q1=Boyle).

Does academic freedom mean the right to publish results based on made up
data? Of course not. The scholar has a responsibility to report
accurately when speaking in a scholarly context. It is not a crime to
make up data, even in a research context. Ideas might be expressed
though imagined or constructed datasets, they may even be an integral
part of the research process as test sets, statistical tools or training
sets. It is a "crime" to misrepresent or mis-use them. Even carelessness
is treated a significant misdemeanour, leading as it does to retraction
and consequent embarassment. Where does "carelesness" of the type that
leads to retraction become "foolishness" that only requires mild rebuke?

But the idea of a "complete record" and "reproducibility" is a slippery
one. In Goffman's case reproducibility is impossible even in principle.
Ethnographers would I imagine regard it as deeply problematic. The
responsibility here is not even to report true facts, but the deeper
truth â€" as the scholar sees it â€" that underlies the events they
observe. Stapel may well have thought he was also telling "a truth",
just one for which the data wasn't quite clean enough. A serious issue
behind Bohannan's chocolate expose is that p-value hacking, searching a
weak dataset for "a truth" to tell, is endemic in many disciplines and
that peer review as currently constructed is impotent in tackling it.
Peer review assumes that authors have taken on board the responsibility
to tell the truth (something Bohannan explicitly didn't do for instance
in the [correspondence he had with PLOS One
staff](http://scicomm.scimagdev.org/data/journals/530/) in the technical
checks done before formal peer review).

Many of the technical discussions of reproducibility and data sharing
founder on issues of reproducible for who? At what level? In what way?
Bohannan shared his data, but you could not now reproduce his
"experiment" precisely. His actions make that impossible. Goffman's data
does not exist but events in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere arguably
confirm her claims and narrative. Does [Amgen's failure to
reproduce](http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/483531a) the vast majority of
findings published on cancer biology in "top journals" mean we have a
crisis?

Perhaps better to ask, what is the responsibility of authors publishing
in cancer biology to their readers. To tell the truth as they see it?
Obviously. To use all the tools at our disposal to prevent us fooling
ourselves, to prevent us seeing what we want to see? Certainly. To
provide the data? Increasingly so. To ensure the materials (cell lines,
antibodies, reagents) are available to those who do want to do direct
replication? Oh, that might be too much to expect. Today at least, but
tomorrow? This is a discussion about responsibilies. Not technical
details. Responsibilities to who, and for what, and how does that vary
across disciplines. Perhaps focussing on "reproducibility" is the wrong
approach.

As freedom of speech is merely right to a voice, not to a listener,
academic freedom has its limits. The boundaries between scholarly
speech, within a scholarly community, and wider public speech is
blurring, as Goffman and Hunt have found, and as Bohannan has shown us.
Context matters, whether the context of my previous writing on the
merits and de-merits of *Nature*, the history of a building, or in the
choice to make a joke of the wrong type in the wrong place. And the
authority that comes from experience and responsibility in one space
does not always travel well into a different context.

Does this mix of contexts and expectations mean we should simply give
up? Just be quiet and retreat? That would be the easy answer. But the
wrong one. Academic Freedom, or Academic Responsibility comes with the
responsibility to speak. But it is a responsibility to be exercised with
care. And with empathy for the different contexts that different
audiences may find themselves in. Showing our working and showing our
thinking. Showing the disciplinary traditions and expectations, the
responsibilities that we have assumed, explicitly will help.

Above all, speaking from a position of authority (and I have chosen to
use the word authority, rather than power deliberately) means assuming a
higher level of reponsibility. This is perhaps best summed up in the
direct advice "never punch down". When speaking from a position of
scholarly authority the limits of that authority, the limits of the
experience, and the care expected in having mastery of the evidence are
higher. And this is reasonable. And more and more important if
scholarship is to be part of the wider world and not something that is
done to it. If, after all, scholarship is about informed criticism and
discussion, we all have a responsibility not just to speak, with care,
but also to listen.

*This piece has been very strongly shaped by a range of recent
discussions, most strongly with Michael Nielsen (on John Bohannan's
work) and Michelle Brook (on diversity, power relations, integrity and
the tensions between them), but also the ongoing discussion on twitter
and more generally about Tim Hunt's comments and Bohannan's recent
"sting".*


There has been much talk about both “academic freedom” as well as the responsibilities of scholars over the past few weeks. Both of these are troublesome concepts, not least because one person’s “freedom” is another’s irresponsible conduct. But particularly in the context of “academic freedom” the question of freedom to do or say what, and what responsibilities come with that is complex.

Rogue Scholar Beiträge

Publishers Proposing Surveillance Tech on Libraries

Does academic freedom entail exemption from spending rules?

How free are academics, really?

Freedoms and responsibilities: Goffman, Hunt, Bohannan and Stapel