Thanks Stevan - very nice of you to say so. Rest assured I'll keep following this valuable forum - and contributing if I feel I have anything worthwhile to add!
Cheers Richard. -----Original Message----- From: Stevan Harnad [mailto:har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk] Sent: 21 June 2012 13:43 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: Apology to Richard van Noorden Dear Richard, The moderator of the GOAL forum, Ricard Poynder, has kindly pointed out to me what I should have noticed myself, which is that my rant about about the price-tag on quantity looked as if it was directed against you, and on your very first posting to GOAL! I just wanted to say that I am delighted that you posted, your postings are most welcome, and that my rant was about a long series of messages this morning, not yours! I very much appreciated your Nature articles. I think it was clear, fair and insightful. And your posting here was faithfully restating what many people are saying and thinking. I am so sorry that, as Richard Poynder said to me, it felt as if I had "cudgelled" you as the reward for making your first contribution to GOAL, and a valuable and fair one at that! Yours contritely, Stevan Harnad On 2012-06-21, at 8:02 AM, Stevan Harnad wrote: > I'm all for reducing the quantity and increasing the quality of peer-reviewed > research articles too. > > But wouldn't the way to accomplish that be to raise peer review quality > standards rather than to raise the quantity of money it costs to publish? > > And it's not at all obvious that reducing publication quantity or raising > publication quality is a research access issue at all, any more than peer > review reform, copyright reform, or publication reform are research > access issues -- or at least not in the near-term. > > All these ancillary issue (none of them new: publication quantity was > already among the 38 prima-facie worries that have kept researchers' > fingers in a state of "Zeno's Paralysis" since 1995 (when Peter > Murray-Rust says Green OA would have worked, if it had worked!) > See Info-Glut: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#4.Navigation > > But the attempt to reduce publication quantity by putting a price tag > on publication, though it (unflatteringly) resembles pollution-control > taxes, is probably more like the Chinese demographic control strategy > for limiting child births to one per family. (Rather Draconian: one > wonders whether we can do better than that!) > > Besides, a country cannot limit publication quantity unilaterally without > shooting itself in the foot, and benefiting the competition. A typical > "evolutionarily unstable strategy" that quickly prices itself off the > market. > > No, I disagree with most of the learnèd opinions being voiced in this > latest round of opining, all familiar ones, all in the self-archiving FAQ > for years now. > > The solution is simple, tried, tested, and proven effective, > and it's been staring us in the face for at least a decade: > Mandate Green Open Access (effectively: ID/OA, > Liege-style) and all the other problems (including publication > quality, thanks to OA metrics) will take care of themselves. > > Keep fussing instead about ancillary theoretical issues and we > face yet another decade of needless, costly access-denial. > > But the Finch Report seems to have brought all the old > forms of Zeno's Paralysis out of the woodwork again, so it > looks like yet another round of opining instead of opening > lies before us... > > Stevan Harnad > > On 2012-06-21, at 7:16 AM, Van Noorden, Richard wrote: > >> My first email to this list. Hello! >> >> Regarding Richard Poynder's discussion about funders and universities >> potentially rationing the number of peer-reviewed publications - yes, I can >> also imagine this happening in the future. Personally, I think a formal >> rationing would be insupportable - more likely, subtle pressure could be put >> on academics to think about how many papers they are publishing. >> >> In future, when academics apply for grants, I imagine they would include in >> their grant application the publishing costs and volume of papers 'expected' >> to emerge from that research grant. Libraries would then keep an eye on how >> many papers were being published by which academics, and at what cost. >> >> Hence the line in my Nature article on the Finch report >> [http://www.nature.com/news/britain-aims-for-broad-open-access-1.10846]: >> "Whatever the solution, academics will be much more aware of the costs of >> publishing. This could, in turn, modify their behaviour, with researchers >> submitting papers to the journals they can afford to publish in, or trying >> to publish fewer, broader articles." >> >> This will be an interesting issue to watch. >> >> Richard. >> >> Richard Van Noorden >> Assistant news editor >> +44 (0)20 7843 3670 >> r.vannoor...@nature.com >> Web: www.nature.com/news >> Twitter: @naturenews >> Nature, 4 Crinan St, London, UK >> N1 9XW >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf >> Of goal-requ...@eprints.org >> Sent: 21 June 2012 12:00 >> To: goal@eprints.org >> Subject: GOAL Digest, Vol 7, Issue 42 >> >> Send GOAL mailing list submissions to >> goal@eprints.org >> >> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to >> goal-requ...@eprints.org >> >> You can reach the person managing the list at >> goal-ow...@eprints.org >> >> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >> than "Re: Contents of GOAL digest..." >> >> >> Today's Topics: >> >> 1. Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from >> institutions and funders (Thomas Krichel) >> 2. Adam Tickel on Finch Report, Green OA and Peer Review Costs >> in Times Higher Ed (Richard Poynder) >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:30:43 +0200 >> From: Thomas Krichel <kric...@openlib.org> >> Subject: [GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers >> but from institutions and funders >> To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal@eprints.org> >> Message-ID: <20120621093043.ga7...@openlib.org> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >> >> Peter Murray-Rust writes >> >>> Nature "has to charge" 10000 USD for an open-access paper because it is >>> selling glory. Glory commands whatever price people are willing to pay. >> >> Exactly. That's why publishers will stay in business whatever the >> fate of the subscription model. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel >> http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 >> skype: thomaskrichel >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> Message: 2 >> Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:53:57 +0100 >> From: Richard Poynder <ri...@richardpoynder.co.uk> >> Subject: [GOAL] Adam Tickel on Finch Report, Green OA and Peer >> Review Costs in Times Higher Ed >> To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal@eprints.org> >> Message-ID: <4fe2ef35.9090...@richardpoynder.co.uk> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >> >> What I find striking about Adam Tickell's comments in the THE article is >> his suggestion that funds for publishing will have to be "managed" and >> that "Quite a large number of people publish a huge volume of papers. If >> they were to reduce that, it may not make any significant difference to >> the integrity of the science base." >> >> It reminds me that when I spoke to David Sweeney, HEFCE's directorof >> research, innovation,and skills, >> (http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/big-deal-not-price-but-cost.html >> <http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/big-deal-not-price-but-cost.html>) >> last >> year he said that it was not obvious to HEFCE "that a constraint on the >> volume of material published through the current scholarly system would >> be a bad thing and that is why, in our research assessment system, we >> only look at up to four outputs per academic." >> >> He added, "The amount of research deserving publication 'for the record' >> is much less than the amount deserving publication 'for immediate debate >> within the community' and whereas print journals have met both needs in >> the past the internet offers the prospect of decoupling the two, leading >> to a drop in the amount of material requiring/meriting the full peer >> review and professional editing service." >> >> This suggests to me a scenario in which universities and research >> funders follow the Finch Committee's advice: opt for Gold OA and agree >> to pay to publish papers, but then severely restrict the number of >> papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Researchers who want to >> publish more than, say, one paper a year might be told to either pay the >> publication fees themselves, or to use services like arXiv (or perhaps >> their institutional repository, or even a blog) for any they wish to >> publish beyond their ration. >> >> As Sweeney put it, "[T]here is a question about the point of publishing >> material using the full panoply of quality-assured journal publication. >> Our view is that we should look at research quality as an issue of >> excellence rather than an issue of volume of publications. I can't speak >> for the [UK] Research Councils on this but, for us, one publication >> which is ground-breaking and world-leading is worth more than any number >> of publications which would be recognised internationally but not as >> excellent or as world-leading." >> >> And indeed, that is what the title of the THE article implies: "Open >> access may require funds to be rationed." >> >> Richard Poynder >> >> Stevan Harnad writes: >> >> >> These are comments on Paul Jump's article in today's Times Higher Ed., >> quoting Adam Tickel on the Finch Report, Green OA and Peer Review Costs >> http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=420326&c=1 >> >> <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=420326&c=1> >> >> <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=420326&c=1 >> >> <http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=420326&c=1>> >> >> THE COST OF PEER REVIEW: PRE-EMPTIVE GOLD VS. POST-GREEN-OA GOLD >> >> Professor Tickell is quite right that peer review has a cost that must be >> paid. But what he seems to have forgotten is that that price is already >> being paid *in full* today, handsomely, by institutional subscriptions, >> worldwide. >> >> The Green Open Access self-archiving mandates in which the UK leads >> worldwide (a lead which the Finch Report, if heeded, would squander) >> require the author's peer-reviewed final draft to be made freely accessible >> online so that the peer-reviewed research findings are accessible not only >> to those users whose institutions can afford to subscribe to the journal in >> which they were published, but to all would-be users. >> >> The Finch Report instead proposes to pay publishers even more money than >> they are already paid today. This is obviously not because the peer review >> is not being paid for already today, but in order to ensure that Green OA >> itself does not make subscriptions unsustainable as the means of covering >> the costs of publication. >> >> To repeat: the Finch Report (at the behest of the publishing lobby) is >> proposing to continue denying access-denied users access to paid-up, >> peer-reviewed research, conducted with public funding, and instead pay >> publishers 50-60 million pounds a year more, gradually, to make that >> research Gold OA. The Finch Report proposes doing this instead of extending >> the Green OA mandates that already make twice as much UK research OA (40%) >> accessible as the worldwide average (20%) at no extra cost, because of the >> UK's worldwide lead in mandating Green OA. >> -------------- next part -------------- >> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... >> URL: >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20120621/bd4ecbde/attachment-0001.html >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> GOAL mailing list >> GOAL@eprints.org >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >> >> >> End of GOAL Digest, Vol 7, Issue 42 >> *********************************** >> >> ******************************************************************************** >> >> DISCLAIMER: This e-mail is confidential and should not be used by anyone who >> is >> not the original intended recipient. 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