Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The Trouble With Institution-Led Boycotts

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Last week in a memo entitled Important Notice Regarding Elsevier Journals UCLA leaders urged faculty to consider "declining to review articles for Elsevier journals until negotiations are clearly moving in a productive direction." The University of California system is engaged in a dispute with Elsevier over the publisher charging the institution for access to papers authored by its own staff. John Villasenor opposes the UCLA memo, arguing that institutional leaders should not be endorsing boycotts in general. He then makes the ridiculous leap to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which he also does not support. Tying the Elsevier dispute to a complex international debate does not make it clearer, and the effect here isn't to further debate, it is to hinder it.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 23, 2024 5:56 p.m.

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