[GOAL] Re: [SIGMETRICS] The Science Sting and Pre-Green Fee-Based Fool's Gold vs. Post-Green No-Fault Fair-Gold
On Sun, Oct 6, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Paul Colin de Gloucester colin_paul_glos...@acm.org wrote: *SH:* The natural way to charge for the service of peer review then will be on a no-fault basis, with the author's institution or funder paying for each round of refereeing, *regardless of outcome (acceptance, revision/re-refereeing, or rejection)*. This will minimize cost while protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality standards. *CPG:* The cost of refereeing would be more than nothing, and many journals do not pay referees. I didn't say it would be nothing; I said it would be minimal (compared to subscription revenues, per article: $1000-5000+). I also did not say referees would be or should be paid: it is the management of the refereeing process (picking referees and adjudicating referee reports and revisions) that I estimated would cost about $200 per round of no-fault refereeing. Many thanks for the references to the non-OA stings, below. Stevan Harnad More stings of refereeing of non-open-access journals: Seidl, C., Schmidt, U., Grösche, P. (2005). The performance of peer review and a beauty contest of referee processes of economics journals. Estudios de Economía Aplicada, 23(3): 505-551, HTTP://DialNet.UniRioja.Es/**descarga/articulo/1394347.pdfHTTP://DialNet.UniRioja.Es/descarga/articulo/1394347.pdf de Gloucester, P. C. (2013). Referees Often Miss Obvious Errors in Computer and Electronic Publications. Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance, 20(3), 143-166. Also see: Labbé, C., Labbé, D. (2013). Duplicate and fake publications in the scientific literature: How many SCIgen papers in computer science? Scientometrics, 94(1): 379-396. Newton, D. P. (2010). Quality and Peer Review of Research: An Adjudicating Role for Editors. Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance, 17(3), 130-145, this is available as open access: WWW.TandFonline.com/doi/full/**10.1080/08989621003791945#**tabModulehttp://WWW.TandFonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08989621003791945#tabModule Regards, Paul Colin de Gloucester ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
And the result of this effective market is that wealth will become an important factor in the determination of scientific prestige. In fact, this coupling of prestige and financing is exactly what the Grand Conversation of science should never accept or accommodate. If, moreover, you measure prestige through impact factors, you sink into a completely absurd world. There is a French song that would fit this scenario perfectly: Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise... Jean-Claude Guédon Le dimanche 06 octobre 2013 à 08:28 +1100, Arthur Sale a écrit : I fully agree Sally. Where there is an APC for fully Gold journals (or free which is simply a limiting case) in a fully Gold publication industry, the normal economic processes will kick in to make an effective market. They don’t with institutional subscription journals where the payers are non-beneficiaries, or only at second remove. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Sally Morris Sent: Sunday, 6 October 2013 5:12 AM To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Dear Heather The point I was trying to make is that - unlike with subscriptions - there is a direct connection between the person who benefits from the value offered (the author) and the publisher. Thus the marketplace should operate normally. 'Profits' are not in themselves bad - they are what businesses (including nonprofits) need to keep going Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk __ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: 05 October 2013 17:48 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way. For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line. The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group. best, Heather Morrison On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk __ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Dana Roth Sent: 04 October 2013 20:00 To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits In defense of Jeffrey Beall … the
[GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits
Very true, Jean-Claude. It is the sole value of the subscription publishing industry is that it does not cost the author or his/her institution anything. Cost burdens are pushed on those who can pay (but have second-order interest in paying). Institutional presses and professional societies address this situation differently, with subsidies. I believe that Gold journals will behave like page-charge journals always have: make exemptions for authors and countries that are impecunious. This does not distort the market too much. The market is less that of journals competing for author copy, but more of authors seeking value for money in journal dissemination. But, of course, we arent there yet. I decline to extend this discussion to objective measures of journal quality such as JIF, SJR, SNIP or Eigenvector. Best wishes Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Jean-Claude Guédon Sent: Monday, 7 October 2013 6:08 AM To: goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits And the result of this effective market is that wealth will become an important factor in the determination of scientific prestige. In fact, this coupling of prestige and financing is exactly what the Grand Conversation of science should never accept or accommodate. If, moreover, you measure prestige through impact factors, you sink into a completely absurd world. There is a French song that would fit this scenario perfectly: Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise... Jean-Claude Guédon Le dimanche 06 octobre 2013 à 08:28 +1100, Arthur Sale a écrit : I fully agree Sally. Where there is an APC for fully Gold journals (or free which is simply a limiting case) in a fully Gold publication industry, the normal economic processes will kick in to make an effective market. They dont with institutional subscription journals where the payers are non-beneficiaries, or only at second remove. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Sally Morris Sent: Sunday, 6 October 2013 5:12 AM To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits Dear Heather The point I was trying to make is that - unlike with subscriptions - there is a direct connection between the person who benefits from the value offered (the author) and the publisher. Thus the marketplace should operate normally. 'Profits' are not in themselves bad - they are what businesses (including nonprofits) need to keep going Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: 05 October 2013 17:48 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Scholars jobs not publisher profits There's nothing odd about companies wanting to profit off of the work of others. What is unusual about scholarly publishing is that the costs are not connected with the impact of the costs in an obvious way. For example it would be most surprising if, at the University of Alberta, discussions about the deep cuts and the need to cut academic programs and jobs occurred at the same meetings where people at the university need to figure out how to pay even more for the big deals of publishers already enjoying 30-40% profit margins in an inelastic market where the deep cuts to their authors, reviewers, and customers have no impact on their bottom line. The situation for universities today really is difficult. That is why I am working to help us all connect the dots. If a university is looking for voluntary severance from faculty members while at the same time paying even more above inflationary cost increases to publishers with high profit margins, that is wrong and needs to stop. Many not-for-profit publishers never did gouge universities. At one time, Sally, you were the Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, and represented the interests of this group. best, Heather Morrison On 2013-10-05, at 11:25 AM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Many of you have argued that Gold OA - at last - creates a genuine marketplace between publishers and authors. In any marketplace, sellers price according to what they consider their offer is worth to buyers. Some journals are worth more than others to authors (indeed, publishers generally follow this principle when pricing subscriptions - I don't know of any publishers who price all their subscription journals the same). So what's odd about it? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham,
[GOAL] Re: Fool's Gold vs. Fair Gold
On 5 October 2013 23:31, Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.comwrote: In an author-pays model, the author is paying in part for the peer-review, editing, production, distribution - which are all replicable and comparable services between publishers, and in part the reputation of the journal they are being published in That's with pre-Green Fool's Gold. Well, it was a response to what author-pays and subscription based options exist today. What opportunities the market may develop in the future aren't really practical to comment on. But with post-Green Fair Gold, the production and distribution and their costs are gone -- offloaded onto the global network of Green OA IRs. And the peer review costs are paid for as a service (most sensibly, a no-fault service for the review, regardless of outcome). There would of course be no implications to the quality of production, discoverability or usability of the research. It's as if you are saying simply making a PDF is good enough, when PDFs are not all created equal, and aren't always as portable as they should be. And the reason you choose to be reviewed first by this journal is because of its track-record for quality (as reflected in its title). No extra charge. Maintaining a track record will inevitably involve higher (per-paper) costs than having a low standard - even if you were only paying for peer-review, on a per round basis. The editorial function of evaluating the submission, picking referees, and adjudicating the referee reports and revision is part of the peer review service. (There's not much else going on by way of editing and copy-editing any more anyway, with journals, hence nothing worth paying for.) Ah. Right. If you say so. https://scholasticahq.com/innovations-in-scholarly-publishing/announcement/one-of-the-biggest-bottlenecks-in-open-access-publishing-is-typesetting-it-shouldn-t-be Pre-Green Fool's Gold, with all that other stuff bundled in, can cost from $1000-$5000+ per accepted articles. My guess is that post-Green Fair Gold should cost around $200 per round of no-fault refereeing (because the costs of rejected or multiply revised and re-refereed papers will not have to be borne by the accepted papers only). Based on what? Is that the cost, or the price? What margins are you allowing for? How many rounds are there going to be (on average)? And you've still not factored in the costs of running the IRs, of them being able to provide for all the accesses on top of what they do right now, or any provision for quality control, typesetting, etc. that somebody really ought to be doing if you want this to be useful. And that's without any provision for being able to innovate in the delivery services provided - making things accessible from mobile devices, or possibly even in just making them accessible at all (nobody wants to fall foul of disability discrimination laws). . If it's hybrid Fool's Gold, then their payments may even be double-dipped. The only evidence I've seen - e.g. Wellcome Trust's presentation - indicates the contrary. And besides - if you are paying an APC for an article to be made open access, then you have entered into a contract with the publisher whereby they have to make it available openly, in accordance with the terms in that contract. They are only double-dipping if they are making it closed access and charging for it - in which case they are in breach of contract. What do you normally do when vendors are in breach of contract? The much lower cost of post-Green Fair Gold (for peer review) will be single-paid out of a fraction of the institutional windfall subscription cancellation savings. And it will all be fair, affordable, scaleable and sustainable. When you really look at the total of what will need to be provided - even if you aren't paying a publisher for all of those services - then I don't believe the true costs will be a fraction (not globally anyway - there may be some small institutions that could benefit). But lets see how we get to those subscription cancellations. In order to do that, we have to look at publisher incentives. As you submitted to the BIS report: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/99we07.htm The UK’s new policy of funding Gold OA pre-emptively ... encouraging publishers to adopt or lengthen Green OA embargoes in order to makes sure UK authors must choose the paid Gold option. Or, as stated here: http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html You would offer to “allow” your authors to pay you for hybrid Gold OA ... you would ratchet up the Green OA embargo length ... to make sure your authors pay you for hybrid Gold rather than picking the cost-free option or even http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/open-access-emeralds-green-starts-to.html publishers like Emerald are also
