GOLD FEVER AND FINCH FOLLIES The biggest risk from Gold OA (and it's already a reality) is that it will get in the way of the growth of Green OA, and hence the growth of OA itself. That's Gold Fever: Most people assume that OA means Gold OA, and don't realize that the fastest, surest and (extra-)cost-free way to 100% OA is to provide (and mandate) Green OA.
The second biggest risk (likewise already a reality, if the Finch Follies are Followed) is that Gold Fever makes sluggish, gullible researchers, their funders, their governments and even their poor impecunious universities get lured into paying for pre-emptive Gold OA (while still paying for subscriptions) instead of providing and mandating Green OA at no extra cost. The risk of creating a market for junk Gold OA journals is only the third of the Gold OA risk factors (but it's already a reality too). Gold OA's time will come. But it is not now. A proof of principle was fine, to refute the canard that peer review is only possible on the subscription model. But paying for pre-emptive Gold OA now, instead of mandating and providing Green OA globally first will turn out to be one of the more foolish things our sapient species has done to date (though by far not the worst). Stevan Harnad On 2012-07-11, at 3:48 PM, Richard Poynder wrote: > Jeffrey Beall, a metadata librarian at the University of Colorado Denver, > maintains a list of what he calls “predatory publishers”. That is, publishers > who, as Beall puts it, “unprofessionally exploit the gold open-access model > for their own profit.” Amongst other things, this can mean that papers are > subjected to little or no peer review before they are published. > > Currently, Beall’s blog list of predatory publishers lists over 100 separate > companies, and 38 independent journals. And the list is growing by 3 to 4 new > publishers each week. > > Beall’s opening salvo against predatory publishers came in 2009, when he > published a review of the OA publisher Bentham Open for The Charleston > Advisor. Since then, he has written further articles on the topic, and has > been featured twice in The Chronicle of Higher Education. > > His work on predatory publishers has caused Beall to become seriously > concerned about the risks attached to gold OA. And he is surprised at how > little attention these risks get from the research community. As he puts it, > “I am dismayed that most discussions of gold open-access fail to include the > quality problems I have documented. Too many OA commenters look only at the > theory and ignore the practice. We must ‘maintain the integrity of the > academic record’, and I am doubtful that gold open-access is the best > long-term way to accomplish that.” > > An interview with Jeffrey Beall is available here: > > http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-interviews-jeffrey-beall-university.html
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