I certainly perceive that the future will be a more open place, thanks to what is already happening online. I prefer to think, though, that we might achieve this alongside our 'professional thinkers' with academic tenure and, dare I suggest it, the ivory tower perspective. I question the extent to which ideas are currently 'closed', as I am free to examine others' ideas now - I just need to be careful not to pass them off as my own, or to misrepresent them.While I have much sympathy with what he says, I think also that it reflects a priviledged Western point of view. Ideas (in disciplines like education and theology - Nichthus' areas of professional interest currently) are open, because as he says "I am free to examine others' ideas now". What he does not say, but presumably assumes, is that this implies that I can either buy the book or journal in which these particular ideas are circulated, or have access to a library or online database (like EBSCO) from which I can access the material. In a Western academic context this is (more or less*1) true. Where I have been working recently access to these commercial databases is not available, even Colombo Theological Seminary, which has superb facilities and a good library compared to what is possible at KKBBSC. In such places the cost of a subscription even to a minimal Journal database is simply not affordable.
A scholar or student here is limited to those ideas which are available locally, or freely online - since both sites have Internet access. Any other idea, even when published in a Journal like JBL*2 which is very widely available is not "open" here! Ideas which must be bought are not "open" but restricted, access is determined by priviledge or wealth!
As long as most publication is in books and closed-access journals, Western education and scholarship is fundamentally something which is bought and sold, and not something which is "open". Theological (and educational) ideas are only "open" to the rich or priveledged, or if their author has chosen to publish them in an open journal!
1. It is more true in well-endowed institutions, like large public universities, or "rich" private colleges, it is less true in other places. Access to journal articles outside the "normal" theological disciplines is for example much less easy and quick for me now that I have access only to the Carey library resources, than it was last year when the University of Auckland library offered a much broader collection for my use. Even in the West many theological training institutions can not afford to offer the level of access that Carey does. [RETURN]
2. As an example of this a Google search for "Journal of Biblical Literature" leads directly to the JSTOR page - I no longer have access to JSTOR, so I can see the journal details, but not the article for which I was searching - it is NOT "open" to me. By contrast anyone with an Internet connection can read Philippe Guillaume, "The Unlikely Malachi-Jonah Sequence (4QXIIa), Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 7: Article 15 (2007) [RETURN]
Labels: open.access.scholarship
¶ 4:21 PM
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Hi Tim,
True, true, true! Let me dig deeper into my rationale. What concerns me in part is that 'open' does not reward effort in the same way that 'closed' does, nor does it have the same degree of filtering (peer review). I am still wrestling with what this means epistemologically, even anthropologically. For example, is 'free' valued? To a point, yes - beyond that, no. I'm not trying to suggest that we should somehow secretly guard knowledge to the point of elitism. I just wonder - aloud, as you've seen in the blog post - what we actually stand to lose by all of this openness. Also, in my post my issue was with maintaining the ivory tower "perspective". Abstract theory - which tends to result from the (metaphorical) ivory tower - is still an important element of scholarship, and it is my conviction that those who provide this theory should be rewarded for it. If this means an element of 'closedness', well, that's what I fear the trade-off might be. So, at the heart of it, I guess I see the potential for the disestablishment of the professional academic... a jump too far? I am yet to see any theory of open (Web 2.0-BASED) education that does not allay this concern. I am not yet convinced that 'openness' is disruptive to distribution but not to the professionalism of academia. Now, there's another interesting topic for discussion - why do we need to pay people like you? If we do, where will the funding come from? How will your ivory tower perspective - and I do not intend the term to be understood as devaluing academia, not at all - be reimbursed in this new economy?
;o)
By 
Nichthus, at
March 21, 2008 5:03 PM
