I find it very sad that the response on this list has been to denigrate both the Finch report's authors and publishers in general. It would seem that the (relatively small number of) primary contributors to this list take it as an article of faith that publishers are to be hated and destroyed; they do not want a balanced approach or a 'mixed economy' (e.g. of green, gold etc). However, if researchers themselves, both as authors and as readers, didn't value what journals, and their publishers, add to research articles, they would long ago have ceased publishing in, or reading, journals, and contented themselves with placing their articles directly in, and reading from, repositories. If that were to change, those that benefit from the proceeds of the current range of publishing models (not just shareholders, but also learned society members etc...) would indeed face a major challenge. But until it does, the challenge with which publishers are currently engaging is how to enable their authors' work to be as accessible as possible, without making it impossible to continue to do those things that authors and readers value in journals. I don't see how that makes publishers bad? Can't we grow up and have a rather more reasoned discussion? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: [email protected]
_____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jean-Claude Guédon Sent: 20 June 2012 14:05 To: [email protected] Subject: [GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders What I really, and I mean *really* like about this exchange is that priorities are finally being set up right. The business of research is between researchers and the institutions supporting research. Researchers ought to communicate among themselves as they choose, and not as external players (such as publishers) might desire. I really like what all my colleagues have been saying below, and they are all researchers. As for Dr. Wise, her statements amount to reasserting or seeking a role for publishers, but she should understand that the point of research is not publishers, and what researchers need is some form of publication, not publishers. The problem publishers have in this new digital world is that they have trouble justifying their role. To wit: 1. Peer review is performed by researchers, not publishers. Peer reviewers are selected by journal editors that are researchers, not publishers. Managing the flow of manuscripts in peer review often requires tools that publishers may or may not provide; however, free tools are available (e.g. OJS) and are evolving nicely all the time; 2. Linguistic and stylistic editing could provide a small role for publishers, except that they do it less and less for cost-cutting reasons (i.e. profit-seeking reasons). 3. Marketing of ideas is done wrong: it is done through journals and it is handled largely through the flawed notion of impact factors. More and more studies demonstrate a growing disconnect between impact factors and individual article impacts. Researchers do not need a marketing of journals; they need a marketing of their articles through some device that clearly and unambiguously reflects the quality of their visible (published) work. 4. To market their own articles, researchers should have recourse to OA repositories. Once better filled up through mandates, repositories can become platforms for the efficient promotion of articles. Such platforms are entirely independent of publishers. And Stevan is absolutely right: OA policy is not the publishers' business, but the business of institutions carrying on research. Fundamentally, the publishers' problem is that they claim to know the publication needs of researchers better than researchers themselves; they also claim a degree of control over the "grand conversation" of science. Obviously, both propositions are unacceptable. Jean-Claude Guédon Le mercredi 20 juin 2012 à 07:41 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit : On 2012-06-20, at 7:15 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: ...perhaps time to explore opportunities to work with publishers? No, precisely the opposite, I think: It's time for institutions to realize that institutional Green OA self-archiving policy is (and always has been) exclusively their own business, and not publishers' (who have a rather different business...) Negotiate subscription prices with publishers. But do not even discuss institutional OA policy with publishers. (And advise institutional researchers to ignore incoherent clauses in their copyright agreements: Anything of the form "P but not-P" -- e.g. "you retain the right to self-archive, but not if you are required to exercise the right to self-archive" -- implies anything at all, as well as the opposite of anything at all. Don't give it another thought: just self-archive. And institutions should set policy -- mandate immediate deposit, specify maximum allowable OA-embargo-length, the shorter the better, and keep publisher mumbo-jumbo out of the loop altogether. Ditto for funders, but, to avoid gratuitous extra problems as a 3rd-party site, stipulate institutional rather than institution-external deposit.) Stevan Harnad Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access ElsevierI The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: [email protected] Twitter: @wisealic From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:31 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? Laurent makes an important point. OA policies are between the funders or institutions and the researchers. These agreements come before any agreement regarding copyright assignment between authors and publishers. So, it is the job of publishers to decide if they are willing to live with the deposit agreement between the funder/institution and researchers, not the job of funders and institutions to limit their policies to match the needs of publishers. David On 20 Jun 2012, at 11:04, Laurent Romary wrote: Not that I know. I think the French Research Performing Organizations are not planning to put negotiation with editors as a premise to defining their own OA policy. Laurent Le 20 juin 2012 à 11:45, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit : Hi Laurent, Institutions already do have agreements with publishers via their libraries and/or library consortia.. This is certainly the case for INRIA. With kind wishes, Alicia From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Laurent Romary Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:11 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? This definitely makes no sense. Institutions are not going to start negotiating agreements with all publishers one by one. Does Elsevier have so much man power left to start negotiating with all institutions one by one as well. The corresponding budget could then probably used to reduce subscriptions prices ;-) Laurent Le 20 juin 2012 à 09:53, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit : Hi all, Just a quick point of clarification . Elsevier doesnt forbid posting if there is a mandate. We ask for an agreement with the institution that has the mandate, and there is no cost for these agreements. The purpose of these agreements is to work out a win-win solution to find a way for the underlying journals in which academics choose to publish to be sustainable even if there are high posting rates. With kind wishes, Alicia Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: [email protected] Twitter: @wisealic From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Peter Murray-Rust Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:23 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Why should publishers agree to Green OA? I have some simple questions about Green OA. I don't know the answers. * is there any *contractual* relationship between a Green-publisher and any legal body? Or is Green simply a permission granted unilaterally by publishers when they feel like it, and withdrawable when they don't. * if Green starts impacting on publishers' revenues (and I understand this is part of the Green strategy - when we have 100% Green then publishers will have to change) what stops them simply withdrawing the permission? Or rationing it? Or any other anti-Green measure * Do publishers receive any funding from anywhere for allowing Green? Green is extra work for them - why should they increase the amount they do? * Is there any body which regularly "negotiates" with publishers such as ACS, who categorically forbid Green for now and for ever. Various publishers seem to indicate that they will allow Green as long as it's a relatively small percentage. But, as Stevan has noted, if your institution mandates Green, then Elsevier forbids it. So I cannot see why, if Green were to reach - say - 50%, the publishers wouldn't simply ration it and prevent 100%. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084 (England and Wales). _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal Laurent Romary INRIA & HUB-IDSL [email protected] Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084 (England and Wales). _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal Laurent Romary INRIA & HUB-IDSL [email protected] <ATT00001..txt> Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084 (England and Wales). _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
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