Exploring institutional change in a knowledge commons: a longitudinal institutional analysis of journal policies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31iConf64116Keywords:
Knowledge commons, Institutional grammar, Institutional change, PLOS ONE, Open accessAbstract
Introduction. Studies on shared information and its governance, known as knowledge commons, are closely related to open access (OA) initiatives. Understanding institutional changes is critical for knowledge commons, and systematic methods for such analyses are in demand. This study applies such a method to PLOS ONE, a typical OA mega journal, to explore the characteristics of the institutional change of the journal.
Method. This study introduces a research approach of combining content analysis based on Institutional Grammar, a tool for examining the syntactic structure of institutions, with data collection through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, focusing on policies and guidelines of PLOS ONE.
Analysis. Institutional changes of PLOS ONE were analysed by comparing institutional complexity and stringency at two time points.
Results. The analysis revealed that the institutions run by PLOS ONE have evolved toward greater complexity and stringency. This change explains an adaptation to environmental changes in scholarly-communication ecosystems over the past few decades. However, this may also impose additional burdens, especially those on PLOS ONE authors.
Conclusions. The findings support the existing hypothesis on the institutional change in knowledge commons and offer new hypothetical insights into its impact on actors.
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