[GOAL] Re: Fool's Gold vs. Fair Gold
On 7 October 2013 21:31, Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com wrote: *SH:* But with post-Green Fair Gold, the production and distribution and their costs are gone -- offloaded onto the global network of Green OA IRs. And the peer review costs are paid for as a service (most sensibly, a no-fault service for the review, regardless of outcome). *GT:* There would of course be no implications to the quality of production, discoverability or usability of the research. It's as if you are saying simply making a PDF is good enough, when PDFs are not all created equal, and aren't always as portable as they should be. Nothing of the sort. The only function of post-Green Fair-Gold OA is peer review: no type-setting, no print edition, no online edition, no PDFs, no access-provision, no archiving. -- All of that will be offloaded onto the global network of Green OA repositories. You are very keen to have the market test your hypotheses on Green OA. And yet you ignore all of the market testing of services that are currently being provided. [Major] Publishers are not in the habit of incurring costs unnecessarily. If there was no desire for type-setting, print edition, online edition, PDFs - then they would cut the costs of providing them, and make even larger profits. And so if (and it would be a very big if) publishers were not providing the full range of services, then the global network of repositories would *have* to do a lot more than they currently do. That's going to work out a lot more expensive than you are bargaining for - especially when you fail to cost or even acknowledge it at all. *GT:* https://scholasticahq.com/innovations-in-scholarly-publishing/announcement/one-of-the-biggest-bottlenecks-in-open-access-publishing-is-typesetting-it-shouldn-t-be No type-setting. From that very link - Nonetheless, presentation absolutely still matters to the scholarly community. A scholar writing a blog post about DIY-typesetting says that, I still prefer reading typeset PDFs of journal articles to manuscripts. Despite your assertions, there is value to type-setting - people will pay for it, whoever does it. And it's not necessarily going to be cheaper or better for that to not be a publisher. *GT:* Based on what? Is that the cost, or the price? What margins are you allowing for? How many rounds are there going to be (on average)? Based on 25 years as editor-in-chief of a rigorously peer-reviewed journal. Number of rounds depends on quality of paper. OK, so how about answering the substantive questions? What costs (per paper)? And what costs for providing access? We're talking about a server, disk-space and clicks. You have 25 years experience as editor-in-chief. I have 20 years experience in providing infrastructure, and your description (and presumably cost expectation) is woefully short. *GT:* And that's without any provision for being able to innovate in the delivery services provided - making things accessible from mobile devices, or possibly even in just making them accessible at all (nobody wants to fall foul of disability discrimination laws). And sheltering the homeless and feeding the hungry. Let's cross those bridges when we get to them. This is just about providing Green OA by depositing the refereed draft in the institutional repository immediately upon acceptance for publication... We've already come to those bridges, which is why the publishers are crossing them. Dumping files on an FTP server was revolutionary 20 years ago, when scholarly communication was mainly print. The world has moved on, and what you advocate as necessary is barely acceptable as a minimum standard. In fact, it probably wouldn't even be legal. (Accessability acts, data protection, etc.) *SH: *If it's hybrid Fool's Gold, then their payments may even be double-dipped. The only evidence I've seen - e.g. Wellcome Trust's presentation - indicates the contrary. Say what...? http://de.slideshare.net/Wellcome/mandating-open-access-wellcome-trust-presentation Slide 11. That's the closest I've seen to evidence regarding subscription prices in hybrid journals - collected by a funder (and so for whom monitoring such things is quite important). As I've said before - if you have *any* substantive evidence of even one publisher double-dipping, then go ahead and post / link to it. *GT:* And besides - if you are paying an APC for an article to be made open access, then you have entered into a contract with the publisher whereby they have to make it available openly, in accordance with the terms in that contract. They are only double-dipping if they are making it closed access and charging for it - in which case they are in breach of contract. No, that's not what double-dipping means. Subscription revenue + Gold OA revenue = double-dipping: Charging twice for the publication of the same article. No. It's *exactly* what it means. The subscription revenue would
[GOAL] Re: Checking for Green access / no embargo
On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 Rick Anderson rick.ander...@utah.edu wrote: *RA: *With all the subscriptions cancelled, how will publishers continue to provide the services on which the Green OA model depends for its viability? *SH: *By downsizing to just the provision of peer review, paid for per round of refereeing. If not, their titles, ed-boards, authorships and readerships will simply migrate to other, Fair-Gold publishers, who will. *RA:* *[1] *I'm not sure there's any reason to believe that a critical mass of authors wants things to go in this direction, and I'm quite certain that publishers don't want it to happen. *[2]* Do you anticipate that funder mandates will grow in pervasiveness and coerciveness to such a point that they force it? *[3]* Do you expect institutional OA policies eventually to morph from the non-mandatory mandates that are prevalent today into effectively mandatory ones? And if so, on what basis do you expect those things to happen? 1. Yes, I believe that effectively mandated Green OA, once it becomes universal, will eventually make subscriptions unsustainable, and that publishing will adapt to that new reality. (What authors and users and institutions and funders and tax-payers want is OA. Mandating Green OA will provide it. The premise that all subscriptions will be cancelled was yours, in your query above: You asked what would happen next.) 2. Yes, I anticipate that funder mandates will grow in pervasiveness and effectiveness to such a point that they make Green OA universal, and that that in turn will make subscriptions unsustainable, forcing publishers to downsize and convert to Fair Gold. 3. Yes, I expect institutional (and funder) OA policies to morph into effectively mandatory ones -- in particular, the Liège/HEFCE model immediate-deposit mandate, in which repository deposit immediately upon acceptance for publication is mandatory, whether or not access to the immediate-deposit is made immediately OA. This renders publisher OA embargoes moot. Repository deposit is designated as the sole mechanism for submitting publications for research performance assessment. Deposit and timing can be effectively monitored by institutions. And the repository's facilitated email-eprint-request Button allows individual users to request and authors to provide a copy of embargoed deposits for research purposes with one click each. *Stevan Harnad* ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: HEFCE Consultation on limiting submission to future REF to Open Access papers
On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 5:12 PM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.comwrote: *GT: *You may have a point that the publication date - and more importantly, author awareness of it - could be too unpredictable for authors to depend on it for making a submission to the repository. Yes. *GT:* [But] publication date is not too unpredictable for compliance verification, because otherwise it would be impossible to verify compliance with embargo restrictions. No. Publication date is indeed too unpredictable for compliance verification. Hence allowable embargo limits will be harder to date and time and verify than immediate-deposit. But your point is...? *GT:* Furthermore, take the following quote from a Springer CTA: *Furthermore, the author may only post his/her version provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer’s website*. So, an author could not post the article to the repository before it appears on Springer's website. So if Hefce did demand that deposit is made at the date of acceptance, then it would be impossible to comply with both Hefce and Springer CTA requirements. Are you kidding, Graham? (These arguments sound as strained and far-fetched as the OJ Simpson defence-team's arguments!) *GT:* No publisher [in that 60%] has ever introduced an embargo where there wasn't one before. Circular: The publishers that have introduced Finch-inspired embargoes (Alma Swan has been keeping a running list) are -- by definition -- no longer in that 60%! *GT:* No publisher would ever introduce or lengthen an embargo. No publisher has ever negotiated agreements with institutions that specify the conditions under which deposits are allowed. And so it is also impossible that a publisher could demand one of those conditions is that the Button is removed, or that they can audit all fulfillments of eprint requests via a repository. Interesting (and very reassuring) assertions. But what on earth makes you believe them? *GT:* Less than one-in-three authors updated the metadata of their arXiv record with a full citation when the article was published. And your point is...? (Mine was about Arxiv authors updating to incorporate changes in the refereed version, not trivia about whether, when and where publication volume, date and pagination details are available or provided.) If the publisher's CTA conflicts with Hefce requirements, then you can either comply with one or the other, but not both. The HEFCE requirement is immediate-deposit. If the Copyright Transfer Agreement is that OA may be embargoed, then OA is embargoed. HEFCE does not set an allowable embargo-length limit; it merely supports compliance with whatever embargo-length RCUK allows (with an expressed preference for its being as short as possible). *GT:* Finch/RCUK policy has fewer restrictions on journal choice than the proposed HEFCE/REF requirements [for immediate deposit upon acceptance]. [1] Finch/RCUK permits Green OA at no cost [2] Finch/RCUK permits the same embargo limits as HEFCE/REF [3] Finch/RCUK does not arbitrarily limit the window in which a Green deposit can be made [4] Finch/RCUK provides additional funding to generate more immediate OA, without taking it from the institution or author's pocket. 1. Same as HEFCE/REF (but Finch/RCUK prefers and focuses on Gold) 2. Same as HEFCE/REF (neither has a mechanism for verifying OA-setting after elapse of allowable embargo) 3. Finch/RCUK has no Green compliance verification mechanism at all 4. Finch/RCUK's providing additional funding of Gold is not a restriction one way or the other (except on the tax-payer's pocket) -- but (4a) Finch/RCUK's preference to choose Gold over Green is a restriction on authors' choice of journal; (4b) disallowing publishing in journals whose OA embargoes exceed Finch/RCUK's allowable (but not compliance-verified) limits further tightens the restriction on author choice; and (4c) when required to choose Gold after the Finch/RCUK subsidy has been exhausted is indeed a restriction a restriction on institution or author's pocket. HEFCE/REF has not yet decided whether to require deposit upon acceptance or upon publication. But it is obvious (to all but the OJ Simpson Defence Team!) that the restrictions of Finch/RCUK not only *vastly* outweigh those of HEFCE/REF, but that some of them have perverse, negative effects. More important, HEFCE/REF is the tried and tested mandate that will most effectively, equitably and economically generate OA, by providing a clear, simple mechanism for verifying timely compliance: deposit on the date of acceptance: the only natural and determinate landmark in the author's workflow -- and the earliest point at which providing access to refereed research becomes possible, and necessary, for research progress. *Stevan Harnad* ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org
[GOAL] Re: Fool's Gold vs. Fair Gold
On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 8:05 PM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.comwrote: *GT:* [Major] Publishers are not in the habit of incurring costs unnecessarily. If there was no desire for type-setting, print edition, online edition, PDFs - then they would cut the costs of providing them, and make even larger profits. On what? *GT: *And so if (and it would be a very big if) publishers were not providing the full range of services, then the global network of repositories would *have* to do a lot more than they currently do. That's going to work out a lot more expensive than you are bargaining for - especially when you fail to cost or even acknowledge it at all. (1) Institutional Repository (IR) costs are small and already invested, worldwide, and for a variety of IR uses (besides OA). (2) There's plenty of empty, unused space in those IR's for their institution's refereed research output (once institutions and funders get round to implementing effective Green OA mandates instead of worrying about publisher Green OA embargoes). (3) Instead of conjecturing about how it would all be a lot more expensive, why don't you ask the managers of the (few) institutions with effective Green OA mandates about how much it really costs, per paper deposited. (Start with Paul Thirion at Liège, which is already capturing over 80% of its annual refereed research output.) (4) Ask the IR manager's especially about their costs for type-setting, print edition, online edition, PDFs... And -- before you reply that publishers are providing all of those essential extras today, please re-read from the top of this message and remember that the challenge is this: *Let publishers stop trying to embargo Green, and once Green OA reaches 100% globally, let the market decide whether subscribing institutions want to keep paying subscriptions for type-setting, print edition, online edition, PDFs -- or their users turn out to be happy with just the Green OA IR edition...* *GT:* The subscription revenue would only be a second charge for the publication of the OA article, if the article was not actually made available OA. If the article is OA, then you still have access to it, regardless of whether you subscribe or not. You seem to be very confused about the meaning of Hybrid Gold OA and double-dipping. I won't try to explain again. *GT:* [Springer, Elsevier and] incoherent double-talk in what you call your repository [and] your own volition... Well, we agree there's incoherent double-talk [j.mp/DublTalk] -- but not on who's doing it... *Stevan Harnad* ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] “Truthiness” isn’t quite truth, and “sciencey” isn’t quite science, even if published in Science: Mike Taylor’s “Anti-tutorial: how to design and execute a really bad study”
Truthiness isn't quite truth, and sciencey isn’t quite science, even if published in Science: Mike Taylor's Anti-tutorial: how to design and execute a really bad study http://wp.me/p20y83-Qb I’m a sucker for good satire. In a recent post I referenced Dorothea Salo's delightfully satirical article, How to Scuttle a Scholarly Communication Initiative where she lays out a detailed agenda for dissuading academic libraries from effective participation in scholarly communication activities on their campuses. This week, while trying to find the best hook for posting about the 'sting operation' conducted on a selection of open access journals recently reported in the journal Science, I landed on Mike Taylor's October 7, 2013 blog post, Anti-tutorial: how to design and execute a really bad study. The blog-o and Twitter-spheres have over the last four days offered extensive reporting and analysis of the article that appeared in the October 4, 2013 issue of Science. If you are one of a handful of persons who by now has not heard about this story the gist is this: … Gary F. Daught Omega Alpha | Open Access Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com oa.openaccess at gmail dot com | @OAopenaccess ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: HEFCE post REF 2014 Consultation
On 2013-10-09, at 1:33 PM, Morris Sloman m.slo...@imperial.ac.uk wrote: People should actually read the text of the HEFCE consultation carefully 25. The funding bodies therefore propose to treat as ‘open access’ outputs which fulfil all of the following criteria: * accessible through a UK HEI repository, immediately upon either acceptance or publication (to be decided, as outlined in paragraph 29), although the repository may provide access in a way that respects agreed embargo periods. What's the problem? It has to be deposited immediately and made OA when the agreed embargo period elapses. * made available as the final peer-reviewed text, though not necessarily identical to the publisher’s edited and formatted version Again, what's the problem? The author's final peer-reviewed draft has far fewer publisher copyright restrictions and embargo constraints than the publisher's version-of-record. And it makes a world of a difference to would-be users who otherwise have no access at all. (You think they'd rather have nothing if they can't have the version of record?) *presented in a form allowing the reader to search for and re-use content (including by download and for text-mining), both manually and using automated tools, provided such re-use is subject to proper attribution under appropriate licensing. Again, what's the problem? The mandate is suitably hedged as not forcing authors to violate licensing agreements. (Hence it only pays lip-service to re-use, but that's ok: Once there is universal immediate-deposit, that will provide 60% immediate-OA and 40% Almost-OA (Button-mediate), which, in turn, will lead to the natural death of all embargoes and 100% Green Gratis OA, which in turn will lead to publishers downsizing and converting to Fair-Gold, paid for peer review alone, along with all re-use rights users need and authors wish to provide.) 26. It remains our intention that work which has been originally published in an ineligible form then retrospectively made available in time for the post-2014 REF submission date, should not be eligible, as the primary objective of this proposal is to stimulate immediate open-access publication. What that boils down to is nothing more nor less than that it is not enough to publish it: it also has to be deposited immediately (whether or not it is made OA immediately). The implications of this are: The paper has to be ACCESSIBLE to the public via the HEI repository at a time still to be defined by HEFCE The allowable OA embargo length is to be decided by RCUK, not HEFCE. And with immediate-deposit, the articles in the 60% or journals that don't embargo Green OA will be immediately accessible to the public as immediate-OA, and the 40% that are embargoed will be immediately accessible to the public as Button-mediated Almost OA (and OA after the allowable embargo elapses). What are you arguing for? Requiring authors to ignore the embargo? Or for forbidding authors to publish in a journal with an embargo that exceed's RCUK's (eventual) embargo limits? If an academic is very busy and forgets to upload a copy of (accepted/published) paper at the correct time (to be defined by HEFCE), the paper cannot be made open access at a later time. Academics can forget to do all kinds of important things. They learn. Don't worry, the several-decade obsessive compliance with every nuance of RAE requirements will continue, but it will be simpler, cheaper and less time-consuming than in the past -- and it will help accelerate and generate OA. This means an outstanding paper in the very top journal which perhaps has 10,000 citations and has led to a £100M spin-out, cannot be submitted to post 2014 REF because the author was busy with a research proposal and forgot to upload the paper at the right time. This is sensationalist spin. You could have said the very same if the author had forgotten to submit this brilliant paper to RAE at all. Please let's stay realistic instead of lapsing into far-fetched hype. This REF policy is introducing new paper selection criteria into REF and is why it is important to try to get your institution to say the whole policy should be stopped as it is not the right way to promote open access. No new paper selection criteria whatsoever. The criteria remain 100% quality based, as before. What is new is the procedure for submission, and its timing. (Think about it.) Rather as if instead of submitting papers as hard copy we now had to submit them electronically. (No change in selection criteria.) And as if instead of submitting them just the last year before REF, we had to update a running list of candidates throughout the REF cycle (which is what many people are already doing anyway.) (Again: No change in selection criteria.) The current tone of the consultation is Most institutions agree
