Apologies, David (and Steven): I meant Steven Pinfield, not David. -- SH On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 10:34 AM, David Prosser <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Stevan > > While it is nice to be agreed with, perhaps you are thinking of somebody else > in your third paragraph? Â I don't recall being part of the debate recently. > > Best wishes > > David > > > > On 11 Feb 2012, at 14:31, Stevan Harnad wrote: > >> A HAPPIER ENDING: UNBUNDLING QUALITY CONTROL >> >> Mike Taylor's allegory is brilliant. But its pessimistic ending is not >> inevitable. >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/feb/10/parable-farmers-teleporting-duplicator?CMP=twt_gu >> >> The "distributors" (journals) performed two functions in the >> "pre-teleportation" (Gutenberg, per-web) era: One was (1) to package >> and distribute (but not produce) the produce (articles), for those who >> could afford to pay the price; and the other was (2) to manage (but >> not provide) the quality control (peer review) that would ensure and >> certify that the produce was fit for consumption. (The peers did the >> actual reviewing for free.) >> >> Mike's analogy suggests that the producers (authors) only need the >> quality control (peer review) for their careers (journal prestige). >> But they need it as "consumers" (users) too, so they know what is safe >> to eat (use, apply, build upon). [And (as David Prosser has been >> correctly but so far unsuccessfully trying to explain here) the >> quality control (provided free by the peers) does not just *rate* the >> quality of the produce: it *improves* it, to the benefit of authors, >> users, and public health. ] >> >> Since the peers review for free, the only essential service that >> peer-reviewed journals still perform in the "teleportation" >> (Post-Gutenberg web) era is to manage the peer review. Teleportation >> can now take care of all the rest of the obsolete Gutenberg products >> and services (distribution and storage) for free, but quality control >> itself still has to be managed by a neutral 3rd party honest-broker, >> as farmers cannot be entrusted to "police" their own produce, and that >> still costs a little money (though incomparably less than the whole >> obsolescent bundle now costs). >> >> So here comes another wrinkle in Mike's analogy: Journals, unlike >> food, are purchased by users' institutions (universities) via annual >> institutional journal subscriptions, not by individual consumers. If >> there were a way to unbundle the obsolete products and services >> (distribution and storage) from the sole remaining essential service >> (managing peer review), then institutions could easily pay the far >> lower cost of just the quality control for just their own outgoing >> produce out of their windfall savings from no longer having to pay for >> the incoming quality-controlled produce of other institutions >> (co-bundled in annual journal subscriptions). >> >> So the outcome of the allegory need not be pessimistic if there is a >> way to get from "here" (increasingly unaffordable annual institutional >> subscriptions to obsolete products and services) to "there" >> (downsizing journals to just the costs of managing quality control). >> >> And there is a way. And that way is precisely the one that the >> "distributors" have been vigorously lobbying against: >> >> The institutions and funders of the "farmers" (researchers) need to >> mandate (require) that their quality-controlled produce (peer-reviewed >> final drafts of their articles -- not yet "packaged" by the >> distributor) must be "teleported" (deposited in their institutional >> repositories, free for all online) by their employees and fundees, >> immediately upon being certified as having met the quality control >> standards of the distributor (i.e., upon acceptance by the journal). >> >> This way the full cost of the essential quality control (as well as >> the obsolete packaging and distribution) is still being paid for in >> full (by the institutions that can still afford the journal >> subscriptions), but no one is going hungry, because teleportation >> makes the quality-controlled food accessible free for all ("open >> access"). >> >> Then, if and when institutions decide that they no longer need or want >> the obsolete products and services still co-bundled with the quality >> control, they can cancel their subscriptions. And if and when >> institutional cancelations make subscriptions unsustainable as the >> means of covering their costs, the (former) distributors can cut the >> obsolete costs (per journal) of packaging and distribution, offloading >> them onto teleportation (the global network of mandated institution >> repositories), leaving just the essential service of managing and >> certifying the quality control, which the institutions can then pay >> (per outgoing article) out of a fraction of their annual subscription >> cancelation savings. >> >> Harnad, S. (2007) The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged >> Transition. In: Anna Gacs. The Culture of Periodicals from the >> Perspective of the Electronic Age. L'Harmattan. 99-106. >> http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/13309/ >> >> Public Access to Federally Funded Research >> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/865-guid.html >> >>> CHARLES OPPENHEIM [c.oppenheim -- btinternet.com] >>> Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 6:53 AM >>> To: GlobalOpen Access List ( Successor of Am Sci) >>> Subject: [GOAL] Nice blog post on OA >>> >>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/feb/10/parable-farmers-teleporting-duplicator?CMP=twt_gu >>> >>> Very nice analogy! >>> Professor Charles Oppenheim >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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
_______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
