These preLights posts are the work of students who have attended the Populism and Publishing course run by Dr Jamie Hinks and which is a component of the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) summer school. Populism and Publishing aims to explore the dissemination of academic work through the lens of academic disenfranchisement with scholarly publishing houses. The course asks students to consider if traditional publishing models still add value to the community, what alternatives there are, and, most importantly, how do we main the quality and integrity of academic work in the brave new world of modern academic publishing.