Protect the integrity of scholarly writing: an open letter to academic publishers
Keith S. Taber
I have recently been invited to sign a contract offered by a major academic publisher – very well established and of high reputation, OUP, a department of the University of Oxford – which asked me to waive one of the moral rights authors get in law: the right to protect the integrity of their work.
Scholars' reputations are in a large part determined by their writing, and therefore it is important to scholars, and those who read and cite them, that the works purporting to be authored by particular academics do actually represent their scholarship. The right to protect the integrity of one's authored works prevents an author's work being substantially changed and yet still presented as their work. Authors who agree to waive this right are allowing publishers to change their work, potentially without their knowledge or approval, yet still present it as the work of that author.
A respectable academic publisher is unlikely to ever deliberately make changes that substantially alter an author's work in ways that misrepresent that author's thinking (and this would not be in their interest), however, in asking authors to waive their right to protect the integrity of their work it becomes almost inevitable that such misrepresentation will inadvertently happen once publishers habitually take it upon themselves to modify and update scholarly writing without the input of the named author (as this waiver allows).
When an academic publisher commissions an academic to write a specialised article, they do so because (a) they recognise that the author is an expert who can offer a work that brings the authority of their expertise; and (b) they believe that the wider community will also recognise that the work has been authored by an expert, and so it is the publisher's interest to be able to publish work under the name of that author. If publishers wish to claim those goods then they need to respect the integrity of the expert's own words. If they do not feel that there is sufficient value in employing named experts, the publisher can instead contract on the basis of a work-made-for-hire, retain the authorship rights (and so the right to modify the work) but not recognise the writers as authors. I suspect most academics would have less interest in contributing on that basis.
Of course, if the intention is to produce authoritative reference works (as was the case where I was recently asked to accept the waiver) there is a good reason to want the readership to think that the article they are reading was written (in the form they are reading it) by an expert. If that is so, then the cost of having named expert authors should be that their work should not be modified without their consent or knowledge.
I appreciate that on-line works offer a potential for updating that is in the interest of all concerned: however it would be possible to develop an approach
- (i) which never changes work appearing under a scholar's name without first seeking their input, or at least approval of the changes, and
- (ii) that where this proves impossible, to at least indicate to readers where a work has been updated by a party other than the named author.
Such an approach would be more honest with readers of your publications, as well as respecting the rights of your authors and their status as experts.
I am hoping that other academics will appreciate the logic of this argument, and so appreciate the risks to their reputation of selling their name to publishers to use, to give authority to works that could be changed in whatever ways the publisher later feels appropriate. If so, experts will preferentially agree to write for those publishers who find an alternative approach that does not ask authors to waive the protections they are given in law.
Yours faithfully …
Sign a petition
Update – a petition on this issue has been started at https://chn.ge/2wy8Nmd: if you agree that publishers should respect authors' moral rights, then you may wish to sign this petition.
Read more about this topic at Defend the moral right to the integrity of your scholarly work.
First published 11th April 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/