Open access advocates have the natural high ground and are gradually winning the debate over the future of academic publishing.

FORBES: Aaron Swartz's Reckless Activism

We had a quick look at the economics of the academic publishing model back here, when the subject first came to prominence.

FORBES: The Coming Collapse of the Academic Publishing Model

The Massachusetts-based conglomerate was already a big player in military electronics, but generated much of its revenues from other lines such as Beechcraft business jets, Amana appliances, and academic publishing.

FORBES: How The Pentagon's Top Ten Contractors Dealt With The Last Downturn

Some have been set up by academics who are unhappy with the way academic publishing works. (Since January some 9, 500 researchers have joined a boycott of Elsevier.) In several cases the entire editorial boards of existing journals have resigned to start new ones with lower prices and less restricted access.

ECONOMIST: Academic publishing

Donald Green, who heads the Institution for Social and Policy Studies that housed YIISA, released a statement explaining that YIISA, like all other programs, was evaluated by two set criteria: Its success in publishing articles in top-tier academic journals and its success in attracting a large number of students to its courses.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Yale, Jews, and Double Standards

Is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.

UNESCO: Global Open Access Portal

And he scored another hit by publishing a report from Lord Norton, a Tory academic, containing scores of suggestions for improving the performance of Parliament.

ECONOMIST: The constitution bites back

The lawsuit called attention to academic research that suggests that Netflix indirectly exposed the movie preferences of its users by publishing anonymized customer data.

FORBES: Netflix Settles Privacy Lawsuit, Cancels Prize Sequel

On this front, there is much room for improvement: writings by business faculty in academic journals can be bad enough to be meaningless, as they seek tenure in their institutions through their publishing records.

ECONOMIST: The Gordon-Howell report of 1959