[GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber
Am 13.12.12 14:09, schrieb Richard Poynder: Another way would be for DOAJ to start excluding journals but that could become very complicated and resource demanding. This is no doubt true, but isn't it time that some organisation took responsibility for doing this difficult work? at first sight, one is certainly tempted to say: Yes! But which organization? There have been (understandable) advances of funders trying to nail down which journals' APCs are worth funding. However, to me it is a horrible thought of commissions being instituted to decide which journal is a worthy addition to the publishing landscape - considering, as it was proposed, aimsscope, composition of editorial board, method(s) of peer review (open, post publication, ...), ..., business model. Clearly, such commissions would be formed of eminent, well established etc. researchers. Who would most probably be more sceptical of innovation than, say, a publisher. Instead of an abstract argument in support of this conjecture I wish to express thanks to Arne Richter of Copernicus Publications for believing in the future of a journal for data publication in Earth System Science and now Martin Rasmussen for continued support! I would never had gotten as much support as fast with zero overhead of bureaucracy from any funder (or other organization)! The main policy arguments against *organizations* is that they would conglomerate or even monopolize influence as compared to a (pre-big deal, pre-Internet) situation where the success of a journal was determined by independent subscription decisions of thousands of departments and library commissions at universities etc. We simply have to find a better solution than an(!) organization. In this context, I am also frightened by PMR's advocacy of regulation. Peter, do you really think that expanded (and ever-expanding) regulation is to the advantage of *research*? Even if we agree on predators being around - OA as well as non-OA publishers! - we should not endanger the freedom and innovative power of science just for the sake of battling those. Hans ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber
For sure, there is no easy solution. But should the research community give up because the task seems difficult? Moreover, this need not be about forming commissions of eminent researchers. There has been some discussion of the issues and challenges here: http://svpow.com/2012/12/06/crowdsourcing-a-database-of-predatory-oa-journal s/. Note that the proposal is to use a crowd-sourced solution, not a top-down organisation. In this scenario the role of any organisation would perhaps simply be to provide whatever funding was needed to create and manage the necessary platform, and to give the initiative some legitimacy. You will see that a number of people have proposed that the task should come under the aegis of DOAJ. And bear in mind that doing nothing leaves the status quo in place, which is a situation in which a lone librarian decides for the entire research community what journals are good, and what journals are bad. Is that really satisfactory? Richard -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Hans Pfeiffenberger Sent: 14 December 2012 09:25 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber Am 13.12.12 14:09, schrieb Richard Poynder: Another way would be for DOAJ to start excluding journals but that could become very complicated and resource demanding. This is no doubt true, but isn't it time that some organisation took responsibility for doing this difficult work? at first sight, one is certainly tempted to say: Yes! But which organization? There have been (understandable) advances of funders trying to nail down which journals' APCs are worth funding. However, to me it is a horrible thought of commissions being instituted to decide which journal is a worthy addition to the publishing landscape - considering, as it was proposed, aimsscope, composition of editorial board, method(s) of peer review (open, post publication, ...), ..., business model. Clearly, such commissions would be formed of eminent, well established etc. researchers. Who would most probably be more sceptical of innovation than, say, a publisher. Instead of an abstract argument in support of this conjecture I wish to express thanks to Arne Richter of Copernicus Publications for believing in the future of a journal for data publication in Earth System Science and now Martin Rasmussen for continued support! I would never had gotten as much support as fast with zero overhead of bureaucracy from any funder (or other organization)! The main policy arguments against *organizations* is that they would conglomerate or even monopolize influence as compared to a (pre-big deal, pre-Internet) situation where the success of a journal was determined by independent subscription decisions of thousands of departments and library commissions at universities etc. We simply have to find a better solution than an(!) organization. In this context, I am also frightened by PMR's advocacy of regulation. Peter, do you really think that expanded (and ever-expanding) regulation is to the advantage of *research*? Even if we agree on predators being around - OA as well as non-OA publishers! - we should not endanger the freedom and innovative power of science just for the sake of battling those. Hans ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] SAGE Plattform socialsciencespace.com bashes OA: Why Open Access is Good News for Neo-Nazis
Dear all, fyi: a very stupid propaganda piece from socialsciencespace.com (run by SAGE) Why Open Access is Good News for Neo-Nazis http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2012/10/why-open-access-is-good-news-for-neo-nazis/ best regards Ulrich -- Ulrich Herb scinoptica science consulting POB 10 13 13 D-66013 Saarbrücken Germany http://www.scinoptica.com/pages/en/start.php +49-(0)157 84759877 http://twitter.com/#!/scinoptica ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: SAGE Plattform socialsciencespace.com bashes OA: Why Open Access is Good News for Neo-Nazis
gosh, the title of that post says it all really - it's *Reductio ad Hitlerumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum * Thankfully Charles Oppenheim provides some much needed sanity in the comments section on that piece. fyi: a very stupid propaganda piece from socialsciencespace.com (run by SAGE) Why Open Access is Good News for Neo-Nazis http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2012/10/why-open-access-is-good-news-for-neo-nazis/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] {Disarmed} Re: RUSSELL GROUP UNIVERSITY REACHES INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHER SOCIAL SCIENCES DIRECTORY
** Cross-Posted ** The editors of SSD appear to be a former Emerald publisher ( http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/dan-scott/10/b31/903) and a special collections librarian (http://guides.lib.fsu.edu/profile.php?uid=12572), not researchers. The only issue the journal has so far published has 5 papers published by the former publisher, which mainly appear to be marketing literature for the journal itself, and a short number of journals published by the journal's editorial board. Only two papers appear to be from outside the small group that run the journal. Submissions and peer-reviewers are recruited as follows: http://www.socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/article/view/32/69 *Please support us in our efforts. We need submissions and we need volunteers to review them in their areas of expertise. Both can be done by registering with Social Sciences Directory as a User.* University of Nottingham policy-makers are encouraged to read more about SSD: http://www.socialsciencesdirectory.com/index.php/socscidir/index and then to ask themselves: (1) Is this what U. Nottingham means by peer review? (2) Is this how U. Nottingham would assess whether there is a niche or need for a new peer-reviewed journal? (3) Is this how U. Nottingham would have assessed journal quality in deciding whether to subscribe to it? (4) Does U. Nottingham consider that journals should be selected (by authors, subscribers, or members) on the basis of their economic model rather than their quality? If U. Nottingham seeks open access to all peer-reviewed journal articles, perhaps it would be more useful to begin by strengthening Nottingham's own rather weak Green OA mandate (which currently has a mandate strength of 2 out of 12) *All research papers... where copyright allows, should be deposited in the Nottingham ePrints repository upon publication or as soon as possible thereafter* http://roarmap.eprints.org/302/ before spending more money on purchasing inchoate Gold OA journals. (Immediate deposit itself does not need publisher permission, as the hosts of SHERPA/Romeo should know. And *All researchers are required to deposit* is rather clearer than *All research papers, where copyright allows, should be deposited* which makes the publisher, not Nottingham, the arbiter of whether or not Nottingham researchers comply with their own mandate.) Here, for reference, is the 12 out of 12 strength mandate of U. Liège, which is already generating an annual 82.5% deposit rate: *The University of Liege policy is mandatory: the Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access (ID/OA) mandatehttp://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html : **All publications must be deposited [in the institution's repository, ORBi]. Wherever publisher agreement conditions are fulfilled, the author will authorize setting access to the deposit as open access… [O]nly those references introduced in ORBi will be taken into consideration as the official list of publications accompanying any curriculum vitae for all evaluation procedures 'in house' (designations, promotions, grant applications, etc.). *http://roarmap.eprints.org/56/ Gargouri et al (2012) Testing the Finch Hypothesis on Green OA Mandate Ineffectiveness. http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.8174 Stevan Harnad Begin forwarded message: *From:* Dan Scott dan.sc...@socialsciencesdirectory.com *Date:* 11 December 2012 11:45:49 GMT *To:* sparc-oafo...@arl.org *Subject:* *[sparc-oaforum] RUSSELL GROUP UNIVERSITY REACHES INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHER SOCIAL SCIENCES DIRECTORY* *PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE* * * *RUSSELL GROUP UNIVERSITY REACHES INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT WITH OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHER SOCIAL SCIENCES DIRECTORY* * * UK-based ‘gold’ open access publisher Social Sciences Directory Limited today announces that Russell Group member, the University of Nottingham, has become the first university in the world to take up an institutional membership to the multi-disciplinary journal Social Sciences Directory ( www.socialsciencedirectory.com). The institutional membership, which costs GBP 2,000, will allow an unlimited number of manuscript submissions to be made without any additional payments of either article processing charges or subscriptions, up to the end of 2013. The intention is to cut the time taken to publish and disseminate research, whilst maintaining editorial quality controls. All research papers will undergo peer review and be published under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence. Tony Simmonds, Faculty Team Leader – Social Sciences at the University of Nottingham, commented: *“Nottingham has long been a proponent of open access publishing, with an established research fund to pay open access charges. We believe this is a promising and bold venture, and one that deserves backing.”* ** Dan Scott, founder and director, commented: *“This is a landmark agreement and I am very pleased that a university as prestigious as
[GOAL] The open access journal as a disruptive innovation
The open access journal as a disruptive innovation http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/the-open-access-journal-as-a-disruptive-innovation/ I admit it. As a humanist scholar I have not been much inclined to read books or articles on economics. I mean, what could be more boring, right? And all that math. Well, my inclination has been slowly changing since I began writing this blog. My level of sophistication is pretty basic, and I still try to avoid the math whenever possible. But the economics of academic publishing, particularly journals, has become strangely compelling to me as I have learned more about open access and the dissemination of scholarly research as a digital product in an online environment. My first exposure came just a few months after starting the blog. I read an interesting article by Caroline Sutton in College Research Libraries News (December 2011) entitled “Is free inevitable in scholarly communication? The economics of open access.” … Gary F. Daught Omega Alpha | Open Access Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com oa.openaccess @ gmail.com | @OAopenaccess ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber
HansP We simply have to find a better solution than an(!) organization. In this context, I am also frightened by PMR's advocacy of regulation. Peter, do you really think that expanded (and ever-expanding) regulation is to the advantage of *research*? Even if we agree on predators being around - OA as well as non-OA publishers! - we should not endanger the freedom and innovative power of science just for the sake of battling those. For a start I'm talking about things like clear licences, clear undertakings to authors, readers and funders. At present publishers can create whatever they like - it's often self contradictory and inpoerable. There is huge amounts of fuzz and fudge about what Open Access means operationally. If we are paying 3000+ dollars for the pubication and reading of an article don't we have rights?? Or do we trust the publishers absolutely because they are good chaps and fundamentally on the side of academia?? I don't believe either. As an example, hybrid gold is meant to offest subscriptions fees. Is there any objective evidence that this is happening? Or do we trust the publishers because of their wonderful track record? On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:04 AM, Richard Poynder ri...@richardpoynder.co.uk wrote: For sure, there is no easy solution. But should the research community give up because the task seems difficult? Exactly. We have neglected this for 10 years so it's a complete mess. It won't get better unless we DO something. At the least we need clear factula information about practices. Moreover, this need not be about forming commissions of eminent researchers. There has been some discussion of the issues and challenges here: http://svpow.com/2012/12/06/crowdsourcing-a-database-of-predatory-oa-journal s/http://svpow.com/2012/12/06/crowdsourcing-a-database-of-predatory-oa-journals/. Note that the proposal is to use a crowd-sourced solution, not a top-down organisation. In this scenario the role of any organisation would perhaps simply be to provide whatever funding was needed to create and manage the necessary platform, and to give the initiative some legitimacy. You will see that a number of people have proposed that the task should come under the aegis of DOAJ. And bear in mind that doing nothing leaves the status quo in place, which is a situation in which a lone librarian decides for the entire research community what journals are good, and what journals are bad. Is that really satisfactory? And a lone graduate student compiles a list of Open Access practtices. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber
Hi Alicia, Thanks very much for this. I would certainly encourage Elsevier to publish the data. As it is, it all sounds rather hush-hush, or at least nebulous. You have cited a figure produced by a colleague that appears to be somewhat at variance with work that has been done by researchers themselves, and you explain the discrepancy by reference to buckets, definitions, scope and methodology! But without more information, and indeed without the underlying data, those researchers who have come up with very different results will not be able to understand why the figures are different. And the reason for that difference could be important for those who want to understand how the scholarly publishing landscape is changing. Best wishes, Richard From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) Sent: 13 December 2012 17:57 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber Hi Richard, Happy to relay this information from my colleague. Answers interspersed below in black. With kind wishes, Alicia From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Richard Poynder Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 2:00 PM To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber Thanks for this Alicia. Can you put some numbers on the percentage you cite? I.e. the number of articles assumed as the total, the number of articles from this total (3-4%) for which an APC was charged, and then the number of those charged-for articles that were published in hybrid journals vs. the number published in pure Gold OA journals? My colleague conducted an analysis of content on DOAJ - full journals not hybrid journals - categorizing each journal as either author pays or 'subsidized' (to use a different term as Sally, rightly, points out that 'free at the point of use' is ambiguous!) journals. Based on this analysis we estimate 3-4% of all STM articles (2.1M articles published as defined in Scopus) are in 'subsidized' journals. And when you say the start of 2012, what time span was used to arrive at these figures? A year? A month? A quarter? These are estimates for full year 2011. Has your colleague published this data? It would certainly be useful if someone published this kind of data on a regular basis, not least in order to track change over time. These data are gathered for internal tracking/modelling purposes, but thanks for the suggestion that we might publish them periodically. I'll feed this back internally. My colleague notes that We reviewed the fine published work by Bjork and his colleagues. We found the overall uptake numbers quite similar to our internal analysis. However, there were some difference in the proportions of these that are assigned to different OA buckets based on variations in definitions, scope and methodology. Also, is it possible to provide some more information on the free-at-the-point-of-use business models you are referring to, and what percentage of the total market they each represent? Yes, happy to do this. Here are two examples: * titles or supplements where society sponsorship pays for publishing costs rather than APCs or subscriptions * conference proceedings for which the publishing costs are paid by conference organisers and not APCs or subscriptions Richard From: goal-boun...@eprints.org mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) Sent: 12 December 2012 12:59 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber Hi Richard, My colleague does an in-depth annual study on the uptake of different business models, and suggests that this figure was 3-4% of total articles at the start of 2012. Elsevier, and I'm sure a wide array of other publishers, have used a range of business models to produce free-to-read journals for decades. I find it very interesting that these models are now claimed by the open access community as 'gold oa' titles although I suppose that's much less of a mouthful than 'free-at-the-point-of-use' titles! With kind wishes, Alicia From: goal-boun...@eprints.org mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Richard Poynder Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 8:42 AM To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interview with Harvard's Stuart Shieber Thanks for the comments David. Your point about not equating Gold OA with APCs is well taken. But it also invites a question I think: do we know what percentage of papers(not journals, but papers) published Gold OA today incur no APC charge, and what do we anticipate this percentage becoming in a post-Finch world? Richard
