The debate over the meaning, and value, of open movements has intensified. The fear of co-option of various efforts from Open Access to Open Data is driving a reassessment and re-definition of what is intended by “open”. In this article I apply group level models from cultural studies and economics to argue that the tension between exclusionary group formation and identity and aspirations towards inclusion and openness are a natural part of knowledge- making. Situating the traditional Western Scientific Knowledge System as a culture-made group, I argue that the institutional forms that support the group act as economic underwriters for the process by which groups creating exclusive knowledge invest in the process of making it more accessible, less exclusive, and more public-good-like, in exchange for receiving excludable goods that sustain the group. A necessary consequence of this is that our institutions will be conservative in their assessment of what knowledge-goods are worth of consideration and who is allowed within those institutional systems. Nonetheless the inclusion of new perspectives and increasing diversity underpins the production of general knowledge. I suggest that instead of positioning openness as new, and in opposition to traditional closed systems, it may be more productive to adopt a narrative in which efforts to increase inclusion are seen as a very old, core value of the academy, albeit one that is a constant work in progress.

1. Openness in Scholarship
A return to core values?
@cameronneylon
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0068-716X

2. 1. Two questions

3. 2. Is all this “open” talk
just reactive whining?

4. Openness is conceived as a new mode of
being, applicable to many areas of life and
gathering significant momentum –
‘changing the game’ as it were.
Tkacz (2012)

5. 3. Cultural Science as a Model

6. CULTURE
GROUP
Hartley and Potts (2014)
Cultural Science

7. CULTURE
GROUP
ENVIRONMENT
Hartley and Potts (2014)
Cultural Science

8. [I will answer Linus’ objections] partly,
because the Learned Author, whoever he be
(for ‘tis the Title-Page of his Book that first
acquainted me with the name of Franciscus
Linus) having forborne provoking Language
in his Objections, allowes me in answering
them to comply with my Inclinations &
Custom of exercising Civility, even where I
most dissent in point of Judgement.” Boyle (1662)

9. 4. Knowledge as a product of translation

10. ESOTERIC
EXOTERIC
Ludwig Fleck (1981 [1935])
Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact

13. *

14. Lotman’s stages of reception
1. Exoticism
2. Translation/Adaption
3. Abstraction
4. Dissolution
5. Re-transmission
Yuri Lotman (2009)
Dialogue Mechanisms in Universe of the Mind

15. *

16. *

17. 5. The (Political) Economics of Clubs

18. Elinor Ostrom (1990)
Governing the Commons

19. He who receives an idea from me, receives
instruction himself without lessening
mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson

20. Elinor Ostrom (1990)
Governing the Commons

21. Elinor Ostrom (1990)
Governing the Commons

22. What is the return to the club?

23. 6. Institution as underwriter

24. graduate
by
Paulo
Sá Ferreira
from
the
Noun
Project
Harvard
University
by
NATAPON
CHANTABUTR
from
the
Noun
Project

25. 7. Openness as an old aspiration

26. “that not alone scientific readers, but those
of every class, [...] to approach the source
from whence this species of knowledge is
derived”
James Samuelson and William Crookes

27. “merely an amateur, a lover of truth, who
was impelled by curiosity ”
Grant Allen

28. “Of my being somewhat prolix in many of my
Experiments, I have these Reasons to
render[…] That in divers cases I thought it
necessary to deliver things circumstantially,
that the Person I addressed them to might,
without mistake, and with as little trouble as
is possible, be able to repeat such unusual
Experiments”
Boyle (1627) New Experiments

29. 1. Two questions

30. New (improved, evolved) institutions,
New (improved, evolved) culture

32. Inside
Scholarly
Communications
Today
Scholarship
in
the
21th
Century
Building
an
Open
and
Information-­‐rich
Research
Institute
Research
Reproducibility
in
Theory
and
Practice
When
'Global'
is
Local:
Scholarly
Communications
in
the
Global
South
Starting
Out:
Skills
and
Tools
for
Early
Career
Knowledge
Workers
Data
in
the
Scholarly
Communications
Life
Cycle
Data
Citation
Implementation
for
Data
Repositories
Open
Annotation
Tools
and
Techniques
Communication
and
Advocacy
for
Research
Transparency
Opening
the
Sandbox:
Supporting
Student
Research
as
a
Gateway
to
Open
Practice
Opening
Up
Research
and
Data
The
Sci-­‐AI
Platform:
Enabling
Literature-­‐Based
Discovery
Perspectives
on
Peer
Review
Altmetrics:
Where
Are
We
Now
and
Where
Are
We
Headed
Next?
Technology
and
Tools
for
Academic
Library
Teams
Building
Public
Participation
in
Research http://force11.org/fsci

33. @cameronneylon
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0068-716X

34. References
1. Tkacz (2012) From open source to open government: A critique of open politics,
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/open-source-open-government-critique-open-politics-0
2. Hartley and Potts (2014) Cultural Science, https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/cultural-science-a-natural-
history-of-stories-demes-knowledge-and-innovation/
3. Boyle (1627-1691) A defence of the doctring of the spring of the air,
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A28956.0001.001/1:6?rgn=div1;view=toc
4. Fleck (1981[1935]) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact,
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo25676016.html
5. Lotman (2009) Dialogue Mechanisms in Universe of the Mind,
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=21492
6. Ostrom (1990) Governing the Commons, http://www.cambridge.org/cy/academic/subjects/politics-international-
relations/political-theory/governing-commons-evolution-institutions-collective-action-
1?format=PB&isbn=9781107569782#Ii164gTK70IeIoy0.97
7. Buchannan (1965) An Economic Theory of Clubs, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2552442
8. Lightman (2017) Popularizers, participation and the transformations of nineteenth-century publishing: From the
1860s to the 1880s, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2016.0029
9. Collins and Evans (2016) Why Democracies Need Science, http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-
1509509607.html
10. Neylon (2017) Openness in Scholarship: A return to core values? (this paper),
http://ebooks.iospress.nl/publication/46638