Hi Russell,
You know what would be a really useful datum, and which probably
exists though I haven't tried to look for such:
Some simple two-color plot or list of the impact factors of journals,
grouped according to whether their copyright agreements do or do not
permit open access. One could complement that by computing various
correlation coefficients of impact factor with a dummy variable for
open/not-open.
My suspicion, which one could start to try to test with such data, is
that this is not a question of what is the advantage in an overall
sense to having research open access, but rather is about the
mechanics of where entrenched power lies, and how that places
constraints on choices across the system.
There have already been several discussions on this list (with useful
pointers to data) about why impact factors can be meaningless, or non-
comparable, or can have meanings that are far removed from the naive
advertisement, but none of that would be to my question here. My
assumption is that, in the research institutional setting as I see it,
everything is driven toward a boundary of as near pure thoughtlessness
as the system can tolerate and still grind along, which means that
what is rewarded is what accountants can accumulate at high volume,
which means impact factors and things like them. If, even just for
purely historical reasons, a high fraction of high-impact-factor
journals are held by publishers who refuse OA, then those journals
have (for now) the power to force a trade-off by authors, between
compliance with a grant regulation, and support by their universities
for promotion/tenure, probably future grants where program managers or
reviewers look at impact factor ratings without taking into account
that they may be in direct conflict with the OA policy, for younger
researchers, hiring decisions in the first place, or start-up support,
teaching loads, etc.
If that is the main driver, then it should be purely a matter of the
combination of institutional design and getting coordination among
enough players in the system to provide power sufficient to push back
against the effectively rent-power (a power inherent in existing
position) of Elsevier, Kluwer, Springer, or whomever.
Like so many other things that seem to fail, it just seems easier to
get coordination in some kinds of systems (firms, markets) than in
other kinds of systems (academic communities, civil society), and the
more-easily organized tend to accumulate power advantages, which can
sometimes become extreme.
But some data and analysis would probably say whether there is any
substance in the above guesses.
Eric
On Apr 16, 2014, at 7:53 PM, Russell Standish wrote:
The question I have is what advantage is there in not having your
research work open access?
Given it is such a pain to download a non-open access paper, the open
access papers percolate to the top of my reading list.
The only answers I can think of
- publishing open access is more expensive (publishers often offer an
open access option for more dollars),
- prestigious journals prevent archiving of papers in arXiv or other
repositories,
- its a fag to upload your paper to arXiv or your institution archive
In my case, uploading my publications to arXiv and linked from my
website is my default option. I will usually amend any copyright
transfer agreement to allow this, if not already allowed. It's a right
PITA when the publisher doesn't accept my amendment, as I then need to
remember that that paper is a special exception :(
Cheers
--
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Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected]
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret
(http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html)
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