Opening the Black-box of Academic Research: Assessment, Publishing and Critical Perspectives

Abstract

What does it mean today to take a critical stance on scientific knowledge, its production and its dissemination? And what tactics should one adopt for this purpose? These questions are relevant to all disciplines; but for STS they are crucial, because the processes by which knowledge is produced and institutionalized are among the main themes of the entire STS field of study. This paper tries to answer the above questions by outlining the main features of the scenario in which the production and assessment of scientific knowledge today take place. It then concentrates on a concrete case in the field of open-access scientific publishing in order to show some of the tactics useful for pursuing a critical perspective on both the production and dissemination of knowledge at academic level.

Keywords

• Science & Technology Studies
• Scientific publishing
• Open access