[GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals
If it is such a minor annoyance, why would Elsevier find it necessary to issue a Warning regarding fraudulent call for papers ... See: http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/authors-update/authors-update/warning-re.-fraudulent-call-for-papers or the necessity of Jeffrey Beall's extensive listing of predatory publishers at: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ I suspect that David Prosser grossly underestimates the problems these publishers cause for researchers in less developed countries. Dana L. Roth Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.org] on behalf of David Prosser [david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:30 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals Quote: Predatory publishing has damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing, No it hasn’t. It’s a minor annoyance, at most. David On 23 Sep 2014, at 07:47, anup kumar das anupdas2...@gmail.commailto:anupdas2...@gmail.com wrote: Predatory Journals and Indian Ichthyology by R. Raghavan, N. Dahanukar, J.D.M. Knight, A. Bijukumar, U. Katwate, K. Krishnakumar, A. Ali and S. Philip Current Science, 2014, 107(5), 740-742. Although the 21st century began with a hope that information and communication technology will act as a boon for reinventing taxonomy, the advent and rise of electronic publications, especially predatory open-access journals, has resulted in an additional challenge (the others being gap, impediment and urgency) for taxonomy in the century of extinctions. Predatory publishing has damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing, and has led to unethical behaviour from scientists and researchers. The ‘journal publishing industry’ in India is a classical example of ‘predatory publishing’, supported by researchers who are in a race to publish. The urge to publish ‘quick and easy’ can be attributed to two manifestations, i.e.‘impactitis’ and ‘mihi itch’. While impactitis can be associated with the urge for greater impact factor (IF) and scientific merit, mihi itch (loosely) explains the behaviour of researchers, especially biologists publishing in predatory journals yearning to see their name/s associated with a new ‘species name’. Most predatory journals do not have an IF, and authors publishing in such journals are only seeking an ‘impact’ (read without factor), and popularity by seeing their names appear in print media. This practice has most often led to the publication of substandard papers in many fields, including ichthyology. Download Full-text Article: http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/107/05/0740.pdf ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.orgmailto: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 mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: The Open Access Interviews: Dagmara Weckowska, lecturer in Business and Innovation at the University of Sussex
Heather It is not as easy as that, unfortunately. The university is a party to what happens in the case of copying/deposit/publication by virtue of creating an institutional repository, not to mention a mandate policy. (Different for deposit in Arxiv.) The situation is made more complex when the person committing the alleged misdemeanor is an employee, thereby invoking the rights of other employees to a safe and secure workplace. Students have different rights. While many academics think they own copyright as of right, if they check they often find this is a convention by the employer (and in these days of long author lists, all of the employers jointly), not a legal right. Unfortunately, universities have become more managerial in the last decades, and with this comes bureaucracy, caution, conservatism and unwillingness to risk any form of litigation. Sad, but true. If you want researchers to be personally responsible for copying and/or deposit (in a legal sense), this opens up a huge can of worms much larger than open access! Of course, I know that copyright laws are not the same worldwide, but I think I am on safe ground asserting that most researchers are happy to maintain the accuracy of their publications, but they would not wish to support this with cash for legal fees. Arthur Sale From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison Sent: Wednesday, 24 September, 2014 6:39 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: The Open Access Interviews: Dagmara Weckowska, lecturer in Business and Innovation at the University of Sussex Universities do not, and should not, assume liability for what others may do on their premises, whether physical or virtual. If someone commits a crime on campus such as stealing personal property, it is the fault of the thief, not the university. Responsibility for copyright should rest with the person copying. One reason I think this is especially important with scholarly communication is because if publishers wish to pursue their copyright it will be more effective to achieve change if the push is direct from publisher to author, not with library or university as intermediary. Publishers may be more reluctant to threaten authors than universities. However if they choose vigorous pursuit of their copyright directly with authors I expect that this will help authors to understand the system and channel their frustration where it belongs, to transform the system instead of shooting the messenger (library / university). best, Heather Morrison On Sep 23, 2014, at 3:43 PM, Stacy Konkiel st...@impactstory.org wrote: +100 to what Richard said. they should not interfere with the process of self archiving on the basis of such considerations as scientific quality or any kind of personal judgement. Ah, but what about when the review step is put into place to ensure that copyright is not violated? IR Librarians have, unfortunately, become the enforcers of copyright restrictions at many universities. Somehow, we ended up with the responsibility of ensuring that we're not opening our uni's up to liabilities when paywall publishers come a-threatening with their pack of lawyers because a researcher has made the publisher's version of a paper available on the IR. Contrast that with the Terms of Service of websites like ResearchGate and Academia.edu, who put the onus on the researcher to understand and comply with copyrights for the papers they upload--and *trust* the researchers to do so. No wonder we're getting beat at our own game! But I digress. I agree that library-based IR workflows need a lot of improvement. Librarians need to start pushing back against legal counsels and administrators who make us into the gatekeepers/copyright enforcers. But I take exception to the assertion that we librarians need to step back and let the grownups figure out OA workflows. We often know just as much as researchers at our institutions about copyright, OA, IP, etc. What we need is a partnership to eradicate the barriers to OA that exist at the institutional/library policy and workflow levels. Oftentimes, library administrators take what groups of informed researchers have to say much more seriously than what their rank and file librarians say about things like OA. We could use your support in tearing down these barriers and getting rid of awful legacy workflows that restrict access, rather than this sort of divisive language that suggests we're just dopes who don't get OA and are making things harder for researchers. Respectfully, Stacy Konkiel Stacy Konkiel Director of Marketing Research at http://impactstory.org/ Impactstory: share the full story of your research impact. working from beautiful Albuquerque, NM, USA http://www.twitter.com/skonkiel @skonkiel and https://twitter.com/ImpactStory @Impactstory On Tue, Sep 23,
[GOAL] Re: Library Vetting of Repository Deposits
Dana Roth wrote: Thanks to Stevan for reminding the list that working with librarians will, in the long run, be much more productive than denigrating their efforts. I am all in favour or working with librarians when those librarians are working to promote Open Access. When librarians work in ways which inhibit my view of the best route to Open Access, I reserve the right to criticise those actions. There are many librarians who do get it and with who I'm happy to share common cause, and to praise their efforts. I have in the past said that the ideal situation for promoting open access at an institution is for a coalition of reseaerchers, manager and librarians to work at explaining the benefits to the institution (in achieving its mission and in gaining early adopter relative benefits) to the rest of the researchers, managers and librarians. Unfortunately, in too many cases, librarians (often those who were not the original OA evangelist librarians) apply a wrong-headed set of roadblocks to institutional repository deposit processes which delays OA, makes deposit more frustrating and more difficult for researchers, and weakens the deposit process. It is these librarians that I wish to get out of the way, not librarians in general. -- Professor Andrew A Adams a...@meiji.ac.jp Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Reed Elsevier: Goodbye to Berlin - The Fading Threat of Open Access (Upgrade to Market-Perform)
A new investment report on Elsevier has been published by BernsteinResearch analyst Claudio Aspesi. Extract: When we downgraded Reed Elsevier to Underperform in 2011, we thought that budget constraints would slow the growth of Elsevier's journal business below consensus. At the time, the outlook for the years to come was for continued cuts in academic library budgets, and we thought unavoidable that libraries would respond by progressively abandoning Big Deal contracts in order to achieve substantial savings, facilitated by the limited number of journals which really matter to readers. In addition, in 2012 we also thought that political intervention both in Europe and in the UK would force a shift to full Open Access (OA) journals, with negative consequences on the economics of Elsevier. Years of lobbying by various constituencies brought the UK first, then the European Union, and finally the Obama administration to adopt policies and, in the case of the UK and the EU, funding to support a transition to OA. By our estimates at the time, a full transition to Gold OA could lower Reed Elsevier's overall operating profit by an estimated 6 to 22%. 11 years after the Berlin Declaration on Open Access, however, the rise of Open Access appears to inflict little or no damage on the leading subscription publishers. The report is available here: http://goo.gl/WbSfF4 goo.gl/WbSfF4 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals
It's also part of the reason for the development of new third-party journal selection services (primarily aimed at researchers in emerging economies), such as from Edanz, Research Square and elsewhere -Mark = Mark Ware m...@markwareconsulting.com +44 117 959 3726 On 23 Sep 2014, at 23:51, Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edu wrote: If it is such a minor annoyance, why would Elsevier find it necessary to issue a Warning regarding fraudulent call for papers ... See: http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/authors-update/authors-update/warning-re.-fraudulent-call-for-papers or the necessity of Jeffrey Beall's extensive listing of predatory publishers at: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ I suspect that David Prosser grossly underestimates the problems these publishers cause for researchers in less developed countries. Dana L. Roth Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.org] on behalf of David Prosser [david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:30 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals Quote: Predatory publishing has damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing, No it hasn’t. It’s a minor annoyance, at most. David On 23 Sep 2014, at 07:47, anup kumar das anupdas2...@gmail.commailto:anupdas2...@gmail.com wrote: Predatory Journals and Indian Ichthyology by R. Raghavan, N. Dahanukar, J.D.M. Knight, A. Bijukumar, U. Katwate, K. Krishnakumar, A. Ali and S. Philip Current Science, 2014, 107(5), 740-742. Although the 21st century began with a hope that information and communication technology will act as a boon for reinventing taxonomy, the advent and rise of electronic publications, especially predatory open-access journals, has resulted in an additional challenge (the others being gap, impediment and urgency) for taxonomy in the century of extinctions. Predatory publishing has damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing, and has led to unethical behaviour from scientists and researchers. The ‘journal publishing industry’ in India is a classical example of ‘predatory publishing’, supported by researchers who are in a race to publish. The urge to publish ‘quick and easy’ can be attributed to two manifestations, i.e.‘impactitis’ and ‘mihi itch’. While impactitis can be associated with the urge for greater impact factor (IF) and scientific merit, mihi itch (loosely) explains the behaviour of researchers, especially biologists publishing in predatory journals yearning to see their name/s associated with a new ‘species name’. Most predatory journals do not have an IF, and authors publishing in such journals are only seeking an ‘impact’ (read without factor), and popularity by seeing their names appear in print media. This practice has most often led to the publication of substandard papers in many fields, including ichthyology. Download Full-text Article: http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/107/05/0740.pdf ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.orgmailto: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 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] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals
Of course, sharp practices such as passing yourself off for another company, including the names of Nobel Price winners in your editorial board, repackaging papers into fictitious journals at the behest of pharma companies, etc., etc. are all to be be deplored. They are immoral at best and illegal at worst. But they form a tiny part of the overall scholarly communications landscape. They have no more 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ than ‘Nigerian' scams have damaged the banking industry or paypal scams have damaged the very foundations of e-commerce. Why does Jeffery Beall find it necessary to compile his list of predatory publisher? Well, I’m not privy to Mr Beall’s motivations, but his writing on OA certain makes one pause for thought and perhaps provide some clues: http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514 But maybe I am underestimating the effect these journals have. Does anybody know either: a) What percentage of the world’s scholarly literature is published in journals listed by Mr Beall b) What percentage of papers from authors in less developed countries goes to journals listed by Mr Beall c) What percentage of the total revenue to publishers (estimated at about $10billion annually) goes to publishers listed by Mr Beall If these journals are really 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ then I would expect the percentages to be higher than tiny. The interesting point that Raghavan et al make is that these journals are publishing bad papers and that this is bad for research in the long run. They make the suggestion that papers published in such journals should not be counted in research assessment. Here’s a radical idea - rather than judge the quality of a paper based on Mr Beall’s rather arbitrary criteria, why not judge it on the quality of the research in the paper itself? David On 23 Sep 2014, at 23:51, Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu wrote: If it is such a minor annoyance, why would Elsevier find it necessary to issue a Warning regarding fraudulent call for papers ... See: http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/authors-update/authors-update/warning-re.-fraudulent-call-for-papers or the necessity of Jeffrey Beall's extensive listing of predatory publishers at: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ I suspect that David Prosser grossly underestimates the problems these publishers cause for researchers in less developed countries. Dana L. Roth Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] on behalf of David Prosser [david.pros...@rluk.ac.ukmailto:david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:30 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals Quote: Predatory publishing has damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing, No it hasn’t. It’s a minor annoyance, at most. David On 23 Sep 2014, at 07:47, anup kumar das anupdas2...@gmail.commailto:anupdas2...@gmail.commailto:anupdas2...@gmail.com wrote: Predatory Journals and Indian Ichthyology by R. Raghavan, N. Dahanukar, J.D.M. Knight, A. Bijukumar, U. Katwate, K. Krishnakumar, A. Ali and S. Philip Current Science, 2014, 107(5), 740-742. Although the 21st century began with a hope that information and communication technology will act as a boon for reinventing taxonomy, the advent and rise of electronic publications, especially predatory open-access journals, has resulted in an additional challenge (the others being gap, impediment and urgency) for taxonomy in the century of extinctions. Predatory publishing has damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing, and has led to unethical behaviour from scientists and researchers. The ‘journal publishing industry’ in India is a classical example of ‘predatory publishing’, supported by researchers who are in a race to publish. The urge to publish ‘quick and easy’ can be attributed to two manifestations, i.e.‘impactitis’ and ‘mihi itch’. While impactitis can be associated with the urge for greater impact factor (IF) and scientific merit, mihi itch (loosely) explains the behaviour of researchers, especially biologists publishing in predatory journals yearning to see their name/s associated with a new ‘species name’. Most predatory journals do not have an IF, and authors publishing in such journals are only seeking an ‘impact’ (read without factor), and popularity by seeing their names appear in print media. This practice has most often led to the
[GOAL] Re: Reed Elsevier: Goodbye to Berlin - The Fading Threat of Open Access (Upgrade to Market-Perform)
Dear Rick, Thanks for this. I love the fact that this forecast is from an analyst that failed with his forecast three years ago, based on assumptions that turned out to be wrong. On this occasion we should remind ourselves that it is no so easy to predict the future, no matter how beautiful the tie and suit one wears. We should take the final statement lightly... Best wishes from sunny but fresh Basel, Dietrich On 24.09.2014 10:20, Richard Poynder wrote: A new investment report on Elsevier has been published by BernsteinResearch analyst Claudio Aspesi. Extract: When we downgraded Reed Elsevier to Underperform in 2011, we thought that budget constraints would slow the growth of Elsevier's journal business below consensus. At the time, the outlook for the years to come was for continued cuts in academic library budgets, and we thought unavoidable that libraries would respond by progressively abandoning Big Deal contracts in order to achieve substantial savings, facilitated by the limited number of journals which really matter to readers. In addition, in 2012 we also thought that political intervention both in Europe and in the UK would force a shift to full Open Access (OA) journals, with negative consequences on the economics of Elsevier. Years of lobbying by various constituencies brought the UK first, then the European Union, and finally the Obama administration to adopt policies and, in the case of the UK and the EU, funding to support a transition to OA. By our estimates at the time, a full transition to Gold OA could lower Reed Elsevier's overall operating profit by an estimated 6 to 22%. 11 years after the Berlin Declaration on Open Access, however, the rise of Open Access appears to inflict little or no damage on the leading subscription publishers. The report is available here: goo.gl/WbSfF4 http://goo.gl/WbSfF4 ___ 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] Every article it's own boat?
The additional difficulty I have with this as a uniform approach is very major aggregators of literatures are including OA articles in their databases from many of these predatory publishers. This serves as a marker to faculty and students alike of legitimacy of the particular journals and websites the articles come from. It encourages further submissions and use of their systems. Should libraries provide an imprimatur for a journal that occasionally publishes something Worthwhile ? Should APC's be paid for such journals by funding agencies? Should funding agencies and libraries be validating individual articles absent evidence of rigorous peer review? A few questions from quotidian or perhaps pedestrian concerns. Chuck Hamaker Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone Original message From: David Prosser Date:09/24/2014 4:38 AM (GMT-05:00) To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals Of course, sharp practices such as passing yourself off for another company, including the names of Nobel Price winners in your editorial board, repackaging papers into fictitious journals at the behest of pharma companies, etc., etc. are all to be be deplored. They are immoral at best and illegal at worst. But they form a tiny part of the overall scholarly communications landscape. They have no more 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ than ‘Nigerian' scams have damaged the banking industry or paypal scams have damaged the very foundations of e-commerce. Why does Jeffery Beall find it necessary to compile his list of predatory publisher? Well, I’m not privy to Mr Beall’s motivations, but his writing on OA certain makes one pause for thought and perhaps provide some clues: http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514 But maybe I am underestimating the effect these journals have. Does anybody know either: a) What percentage of the world’s scholarly literature is published in journals listed by Mr Beall b) What percentage of papers from authors in less developed countries goes to journals listed by Mr Beall c) What percentage of the total revenue to publishers (estimated at about $10billion annually) goes to publishers listed by Mr Beall If these journals are really 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ then I would expect the percentages to be higher than tiny. The interesting point that Raghavan et al make is that these journals are publishing bad papers and that this is bad for research in the long run. They make the suggestion that papers published in such journals should not be counted in research assessment. Here’s a radical idea - rather than judge the quality of a paper based on Mr Beall’s rather arbitrary criteria, why not judge it on the quality of the research in the paper itself? David On 23 Sep 2014, at 23:51, Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu wrote: If it is such a minor annoyance, why would Elsevier find it necessary to issue a Warning regarding fraudulent call for papers ... See: http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/authors-update/authors-update/warning-re.-fraudulent-call-for-papers or the necessity of Jeffrey Beall's extensive listing of predatory publishers at: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ I suspect that David Prosser grossly underestimates the problems these publishers cause for researchers in less developed countries. Dana L. Roth Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] on behalf of David Prosser [david.pros...@rluk.ac.ukmailto:david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:30 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals Quote: Predatory publishing has damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing, No it hasn’t. It’s a minor annoyance, at most. David On 23 Sep 2014, at 07:47, anup kumar das anupdas2...@gmail.commailto:anupdas2...@gmail.commailto:anupdas2...@gmail.com wrote: Predatory Journals and Indian Ichthyology by R. Raghavan, N. Dahanukar, J.D.M. Knight, A. Bijukumar, U. Katwate, K. Krishnakumar, A. Ali and S. Philip Current Science, 2014, 107(5), 740-742. Although the 21st century began with a hope that information and communication technology will act as a boon for reinventing taxonomy, the advent and rise of electronic publications, especially predatory open-access journals, has resulted in an additional challenge (the others being gap,
[GOAL] Quis Custodiet?
On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Stacy Konkiel st...@impactstory.org wrote: +100 to what Richard said. they should not interfere with the process of self archiving on the basis of such considerations as scientific quality or any kind of personal judgement. Ah, but what about when the review step is put into place to ensure that copyright is not violated? Do the review *after* the paper has been deposited and made OA by the author, and switch it back from OA to RA when and if you have confirmed that it is embargoed, instead of not making it OA until it is checked. IR Librarians have, unfortunately, become the enforcers of copyright restrictions at many universities. Somehow, we ended up with the responsibility of ensuring that we're not opening our uni's up to liabilities when paywall publishers come a-threatening with their pack of lawyers because a researcher has made the publisher's version of a paper available on the IR. No publisher would or could prosecute if there had been good-faith research and immediate take-down of the document once the embargo was discovered. *start irrelevant personal speculation: can be ignored* (*But in **solemnly **saying this I have to pretend that a publisher could and would prosecute if the document were left up, even if it were the publisher that discovered the criminal document and sent the take-down notice and it was ignored. The best (worst) the publisher would or could do would be to intiate a FUD procedure designed to create blanket worry (and expense) for the institution on the possibility that it could have been found grounds for a financial penalty had it actually gone to court and reached a positive judgment — which it would of course not have been.)* *This is the same reasoning that allows ISPs to transfer liability to individual users, with the ISP’s responsibility being only to take down the document if and when they receive a (valid) take-down notice from the plainant. It is not the ISP that is liable until the moment they receive the valid take-down notice. The liable one is the pedophile who posted the document. * *But as an author posting his own article, embargoed by the publisher, is not even remotely like child-porn, the fact is that neither the institution (the ISP) nor the author is going to be liable for anything at all, until they receive the publisher’s take-down notice. * *In other words, leave the burden of detecting and notifying about embargo violations to the publisher, a posteriori, rather than burdening the institution and its librarians with policing it a priori.* *end **irrelevant personal speculation: can be ignored*** But note that the above is *not* the commonsense procedure I am actually recommending. I am only recommending that if an institution (foolishly) elects to take on the policing burden for the publisher, let that policing be done *after* an author makes the document OA, not *before*. Contrast that with the Terms of Service of websites like ResearchGate and Academia.edu, who put the onus on the researcher to understand and comply with copyrights for the papers they upload--and *trust* the researchers to do so. No wonder we're getting beat at our own game! But I digress. ResearchGate and Academia.edu are sensibly invoking the role of ISP rather than foolishly allowing themselves to be intimidated into becoming publishers’ detectives and police. If institutions were sensible, they would do so too. But with the publisher FUD and the craven counsel from their rear-guarding IP “professionals,” institutions are allowing themselves to be intimidated into doing the detective and police work for the publishers. Fine. So be it. But *not before the document is made OA by its author*: after. No rational person would argue that that interval was legally actionable! (Yet it makes all the difference in the world for a successful institutional OA policy, motivating and rewarding authors instantly for their efforts, rather than frustrating and discouraging them.) I agree that library-based IR workflows need a lot of improvement. Librarians need to start pushing back against legal counsels and administrators who make us into the gatekeepers/copyright enforcers Better still, sensible adinistrators need to push back against any bright light who recommends foolish and gratuitous procedures... But I take exception to the assertion that we librarians need to step back and let the grownups figure out OA workflows. We often know just as much as researchers at our institutions about copyright, OA, IP, etc. You are right: Inasmuch as librarians are forced by their institution's administrators to do their legal vetting before the deposit is made OA rather than after, they are beyond reproach. But that’s not true if librarians explicitly support and rationalize that forced a-priori vetting, legalistically. Nor if they justify it for reasons other than legal (e,g, scholarly or metadata-based). What
[GOAL] Re: Library Vetting of Repository Deposits
Beware of categories such as librarians or publishers or even researchers. Let us remember also that librarians were behind the creation of repositories back around 2003-4. Without them, their work and, often, their money and resources, we simply would not have these repositories. That some librarians should try to enforce very strict rules, etc. is not all that surprising: the profession is built on care, precision and rigorous management of an unwieldy set of objects. However, we should not paint the profession with too broad a brush. There is more to this: researchers often adopt a dismissive attitude with regard to librarians. They treat them as people delivering a service, i.e. as servants. Nothing could be more wrong. Librarians help us navigate the complex world of information. They are extremely important partners in the process of doing research. In some universities - and I believe this is the right attitude - some librarians acquire academic status and do research themselves. One thing that always surprises me is that, sometimes, it feels as if librarians were viewed as culprits and publishers as angels - the very term has been used. The use of global categories in either case is wrong, but the most exacting librarian that is vetting very precisely every item going into his/her repository will never skew and warp the fabric of scientific communication as some large publishers do. Let us keep things in perspective, please. This said, it is true that some librarians see their task as a procurement exercise, and they work with one strange guiding principle: keep good relationships with the vendors, to use the dominant vocabulary. The Charleston conference that takes place every year is a perfect example of this trend: publishers and librarians meet with almost no researchers present. This amounts to a situation that is symmetrical to that of arrogant researchers. Researchers become customers of libraries, etc. And, of course, big publishers are only too happy to support such events. Librarians and researchers are natural allies. Elitist attitudes among researchers are anything but pleasant. Procurement objectives among librarians are obviously of the essence, but they should not become the sole guiding principle of librarians, and, IMHO, a great many librarians know this perfectly well. As for me, I love librarians. (disclosure: I married one... :-) ). -- Jean-Claude Guédon Professeur titulaire Littérature comparée Université de Montréal Le mercredi 24 septembre 2014 à 09:35 +0900, Andrew A. Adams a écrit : Dana Roth wrote: Thanks to Stevan for reminding the list that working with librarians will, in the long run, be much more productive than denigrating their efforts. I am all in favour or working with librarians when those librarians are working to promote Open Access. When librarians work in ways which inhibit my view of the best route to Open Access, I reserve the right to criticise those actions. There are many librarians who do get it and with who I'm happy to share common cause, and to praise their efforts. I have in the past said that the ideal situation for promoting open access at an institution is for a coalition of reseaerchers, manager and librarians to work at explaining the benefits to the institution (in achieving its mission and in gaining early adopter relative benefits) to the rest of the researchers, managers and librarians. Unfortunately, in too many cases, librarians (often those who were not the original OA evangelist librarians) apply a wrong-headed set of roadblocks to institutional repository deposit processes which delays OA, makes deposit more frustrating and more difficult for researchers, and weakens the deposit process. It is these librarians that I wish to get out of the way, not librarians in general. ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Library Vetting of Repository Deposits
Thanks for defending the profession, Jean-Claude and I think you've made some important points. However, there is nothing with service. Providing good service does not make one a servant. 20% of the work of an academic is commonly formally described as service. One could also describe teaching and research as service activities. A good leader of the country serves the country. If librarians are and should not be servants (I agree with this), nevertheless the library itself is a service, and it will be easier for libraries to make the case to sustain and grow their support if the library is perceived as a useful and valued service, IMHO. Many libraries fully understand this, and I am familiar with examples of libraries that excel in both service to their universities or colleges and academic service to their profession. The obligation to consider service true of academic departments and universities, too - if we want to survive and thrive we need to recruit , retain and graduate students and demonstrate the value of their education. My perspective is that it would be helpful to the transition in scholarly communication for librarians and faculty to understand each other better. Following is an overgeneralization that I'd critique in one of my students papers :) Some researchers do not fully appreciate the value of the library profession. Some librarians do not fully appreciate the working conditions of scholars. There are some librarians who assume that the generous funding, tenure and secure salaries enjoyed by some faculty is the norm. The reality in many universities is that many faculty in arts, humanities and social sciences may have no research funding at all and no guarantees of funding for travel to conferences, and that in the US and Canada, the largest group of university professors are very part-time with no job security, benefits, or support for research activities whatsoever. Your point about the Charleston Conference (librarians and publishers together) is well taken. If librarians want to become more actively involved in scholarship (which I advocate), it might be best to spend less time talking with publishers (and even with other librarians) and more time talking with and understanding faculty members. One idea that I know some librarians are already doing is having librarians attend the conferences associated with the discipline(s) that they serve. Other ideas? best, Heather On 2014-09-24, at 9:10 AM, Jean-Claude Guédon jean.claude.gue...@umontreal.camailto:jean.claude.gue...@umontreal.ca wrote: Beware of categories such as librarians or publishers or even researchers. Let us remember also that librarians were behind the creation of repositories back around 2003-4. Without them, their work and, often, their money and resources, we simply would not have these repositories. That some librarians should try to enforce very strict rules, etc. is not all that surprising: the profession is built on care, precision and rigorous management of an unwieldy set of objects. However, we should not paint the profession with too broad a brush. There is more to this: researchers often adopt a dismissive attitude with regard to librarians. They treat them as people delivering a service, i.e. as servants. Nothing could be more wrong. Librarians help us navigate the complex world of information. They are extremely important partners in the process of doing research. In some universities - and I believe this is the right attitude - some librarians acquire academic status and do research themselves. One thing that always surprises me is that, sometimes, it feels as if librarians were viewed as culprits and publishers as angels - the very term has been used. The use of global categories in either case is wrong, but the most exacting librarian that is vetting very precisely every item going into his/her repository will never skew and warp the fabric of scientific communication as some large publishers do. Let us keep things in perspective, please. This said, it is true that some librarians see their task as a procurement exercise, and they work with one strange guiding principle: keep good relationships with the vendors, to use the dominant vocabulary. The Charleston conference that takes place every year is a perfect example of this trend: publishers and librarians meet with almost no researchers present. This amounts to a situation that is symmetrical to that of arrogant researchers. Researchers become customers of libraries, etc. And, of course, big publishers are only too happy to support such events. Librarians and researchers are natural allies. Elitist attitudes among researchers are anything but pleasant. Procurement objectives among librarians are obviously of the essence, but they should not become the sole guiding principle of librarians, and, IMHO, a great many librarians know this perfectly well. As for me, I love librarians.
[GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals
I think that every article should be read on it’s own merits and it should not have value assigned to it just because it has managed to get into a certain club (journal). It is saddening to me that this suggestion should be considered even vaguely radical. When Science carried out its ‘Sting’ on open access titles there were journals on Beall’s list that rejected the paper. Other not on his list (including one published under the auspices of Elsevier ) accepted it. I’m all for context, but if we are considering a researcher’s future and funding surely we owe it to them to judge them on their own merits and not on the arbitrary criteria of one chap in Colorado. David On 24 Sep 2014, at 10:40, Hamaker, Charles caham...@uncc.edumailto:caham...@uncc.edu wrote: So every article from every journal should be read under the assumption that peer review markers are a poor way to make a preliminary decision point as to whether the article merits attention? It's going to be difficult to assume every one is expert enough to judge every paper they read solely on the content absent context of labeling or assumption of basic peer review. Journal labels provide a context. Are we to ignore that? Doesn't that make introduction to a literature for novices or the task of anyone reading outside the narrow boundaries of their discipline almost impossible? Chuck Hamaker Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone Original message From: David Prosser Date:09/24/2014 4:38 AM (GMT-05:00) To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals Of course, sharp practices such as passing yourself off for another company, including the names of Nobel Price winners in your editorial board, repackaging papers into fictitious journals at the behest of pharma companies, etc., etc. are all to be be deplored. They are immoral at best and illegal at worst. But they form a tiny part of the overall scholarly communications landscape. They have no more 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ than ‘Nigerian' scams have damaged the banking industry or paypal scams have damaged the very foundations of e-commerce. Why does Jeffery Beall find it necessary to compile his list of predatory publisher? Well, I’m not privy to Mr Beall’s motivations, but his writing on OA certain makes one pause for thought and perhaps provide some clues: http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514 But maybe I am underestimating the effect these journals have. Does anybody know either: a) What percentage of the world’s scholarly literature is published in journals listed by Mr Beall b) What percentage of papers from authors in less developed countries goes to journals listed by Mr Beall c) What percentage of the total revenue to publishers (estimated at about $10billion annually) goes to publishers listed by Mr Beall If these journals are really 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ then I would expect the percentages to be higher than tiny. The interesting point that Raghavan et al make is that these journals are publishing bad papers and that this is bad for research in the long run. They make the suggestion that papers published in such journals should not be counted in research assessment. Here’s a radical idea - rather than judge the quality of a paper based on Mr Beall’s rather arbitrary criteria, why not judge it on the quality of the research in the paper itself? David On 23 Sep 2014, at 23:51, Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu wrote: If it is such a minor annoyance, why would Elsevier find it necessary to issue a Warning regarding fraudulent call for papers ... See: http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/authors-update/authors-update/warning-re.-fraudulent-call-for-papers or the necessity of Jeffrey Beall's extensive listing of predatory publishers at: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ I suspect that David Prosser grossly underestimates the problems these publishers cause for researchers in less developed countries. Dana L. Roth Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] on behalf of David Prosser [david.pros...@rluk.ac.ukmailto:david.pros...@rluk.ac.ukmailto:david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 1:30 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current
[GOAL] Re: Library Vetting of Repository Deposits
Here in France, librarians often are more or less unsatisfied with scientists because of lacking awareness, motivation and enthusiasm for open access. In the UK, some scientists seem unsatisfied with librarians because they do their job too carefully. Why not swap them? (I am joking, yet...why not?) :) Le Mercredi 24 Septembre 2014 16:29 CEST, Heather Morrison heather.morri...@uottawa.ca a écrit: Thanks for defending the profession, Jean-Claude and I think you've made some important points. However, there is nothing with service. Providing good service does not make one a servant. 20% of the work of an academic is commonly formally described as service. One could also describe teaching and research as service activities. A good leader of the country serves the country. If librarians are and should not be servants (I agree with this), nevertheless the library itself is a service, and it will be easier for libraries to make the case to sustain and grow their support if the library is perceived as a useful and valued service, IMHO. Many libraries fully understand this, and I am familiar with examples of libraries that excel in both service to their universities or colleges and academic service to their profession. The obligation to consider service true of academic departments and universities, too - if we want to survive and thrive we need to recruit , retain and graduate students and demonstrate the value of their education. My perspective is that it would be helpful to the transition in scholarly communication for librarians and faculty to understand each other better. Following is an overgeneralization that I'd critique in one of my students papers :) Some researchers do not fully appreciate the value of the library profession. Some librarians do not fully appreciate the working conditions of scholars. There are some librarians who assume that the generous funding, tenure and secure salaries enjoyed by some faculty is the norm. The reality in many universities is that many faculty in arts, humanities and social sciences may have no research funding at all and no guarantees of funding for travel to conferences, and that in the US and Canada, the largest group of university professors are very part-time with no job security, benefits, or support for research activities whatsoever. Your point about the Charleston Conference (librarians and publishers together) is well taken. If librarians want to become more actively involved in scholarship (which I advocate), it might be best to spend less time talking with publishers (and even with other librarians) and more time talking with and understanding faculty members. One idea that I know some librarians are already doing is having librarians attend the conferences associated with the discipline(s) that they serve. Other ideas? best, Heather On 2014-09-24, at 9:10 AM, Jean-Claude Guédon jean.claude.gue...@umontreal.camailto:jean.claude.gue...@umontreal.ca wrote: Beware of categories such as librarians or publishers or even researchers. Let us remember also that librarians were behind the creation of repositories back around 2003-4. Without them, their work and, often, their money and resources, we simply would not have these repositories. That some librarians should try to enforce very strict rules, etc. is not all that surprising: the profession is built on care, precision and rigorous management of an unwieldy set of objects. However, we should not paint the profession with too broad a brush. There is more to this: researchers often adopt a dismissive attitude with regard to librarians. They treat them as people delivering a service, i.e. as servants. Nothing could be more wrong. Librarians help us navigate the complex world of information. They are extremely important partners in the process of doing research. In some universities - and I believe this is the right attitude - some librarians acquire academic status and do research themselves. One thing that always surprises me is that, sometimes, it feels as if librarians were viewed as culprits and publishers as angels - the very term has been used. The use of global categories in either case is wrong, but the most exacting librarian that is vetting very precisely every item going into his/her repository will never skew and warp the fabric of scientific communication as some large publishers do. Let us keep things in perspective, please. This said, it is true that some librarians see their task as a procurement exercise, and they work with one strange guiding principle: keep good relationships with the vendors, to use the dominant vocabulary. The Charleston conference that takes place every year is a perfect example of this trend: publishers and librarians meet with almost no researchers present. This amounts to a situation that is symmetrical to that
[GOAL] Re: Quis Custodiet?
Le mercredi 24 septembre 2014 à 09:02 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit : No barriers to tear down other than those of incomprehension. Stevan, I wish it were that simple. You argue the way philosophers of language thought they could resolve the dilemmas of quantum physics through a simple clarification of language. See where we are forty years later. Lavoisier, Hassenfratz and a good many members of the Cameralist school in Austria also entertained such dreams. Alas, you do not resolve social and institutional processes that are fundamentally agonistic simply by using a cleaned-up language. Doing so helps, of course, but it is not a sufficient condition (I will leave the issue of whether it is even a necessary condition aside as it would draw us too far afield). The reality is that, around Open Access, there are various groups with differing perspectives. Each group expresses itself with its own set of discourse structures. When we are discussing various aspects of open access, we are part of a battle of words where logic necessarily has to accommodate rhetoric. Librarians represent the category of people that are most exposed to all the various forms of rhetoric floating around Open Access. A scientist, by contrast, sitting on top of his logic, finds it easier to assert the deductions stemming from his logic, but one's own sense of certainty is not always a good indicator of one's efficacy, particularly in mixed groups. Jean-Claude Guédon ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals
I agree with Chuck ... and feel it is totally unrealistic to assume serious researchers have the time to wade thru anything more than a fraction of what is being published. Is there really anything better than limiting current awareness to high quality peer reviewed journals, and SciFinder, etc. for retrospective searching for very specific information or review articles? Dana L. Roth Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 dzr...@library.caltech.edu http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.org] on behalf of David Prosser [david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk] Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 9:05 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: Siler, Elizabeth; Tokoro, Shoko; Hoon, Peggy Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals I think that every article should be read on it’s own merits and it should not have value assigned to it just because it has managed to get into a certain club (journal). It is saddening to me that this suggestion should be considered even vaguely radical. When Science carried out its ‘Sting’ on open access titles there were journals on Beall’s list that rejected the paper. Other not on his list (including one published under the auspices of Elsevier ) accepted it. I’m all for context, but if we are considering a researcher’s future and funding surely we owe it to them to judge them on their own merits and not on the arbitrary criteria of one chap in Colorado. David On 24 Sep 2014, at 10:40, Hamaker, Charles caham...@uncc.edumailto:caham...@uncc.edu wrote: So every article from every journal should be read under the assumption that peer review markers are a poor way to make a preliminary decision point as to whether the article merits attention? It's going to be difficult to assume every one is expert enough to judge every paper they read solely on the content absent context of labeling or assumption of basic peer review. Journal labels provide a context. Are we to ignore that? Doesn't that make introduction to a literature for novices or the task of anyone reading outside the narrow boundaries of their discipline almost impossible? Chuck Hamaker Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone Original message From: David Prosser Date:09/24/2014 4:38 AM (GMT-05:00) To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory Journals Of course, sharp practices such as passing yourself off for another company, including the names of Nobel Price winners in your editorial board, repackaging papers into fictitious journals at the behest of pharma companies, etc., etc. are all to be be deplored. They are immoral at best and illegal at worst. But they form a tiny part of the overall scholarly communications landscape. They have no more 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ than ‘Nigerian' scams have damaged the banking industry or paypal scams have damaged the very foundations of e-commerce. Why does Jeffery Beall find it necessary to compile his list of predatory publisher? Well, I’m not privy to Mr Beall’s motivations, but his writing on OA certain makes one pause for thought and perhaps provide some clues: http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514 But maybe I am underestimating the effect these journals have. Does anybody know either: a) What percentage of the world’s scholarly literature is published in journals listed by Mr Beall b) What percentage of papers from authors in less developed countries goes to journals listed by Mr Beall c) What percentage of the total revenue to publishers (estimated at about $10billion annually) goes to publishers listed by Mr Beall If these journals are really 'damaged the very foundations of scholarly and academic publishing’ then I would expect the percentages to be higher than tiny. The interesting point that Raghavan et al make is that these journals are publishing bad papers and that this is bad for research in the long run. They make the suggestion that papers published in such journals should not be counted in research assessment. Here’s a radical idea - rather than judge the quality of a paper based on Mr Beall’s rather arbitrary criteria, why not judge it on the quality of the research in the paper itself? David On 23 Sep 2014, at 23:51, Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu wrote: If it is such a minor annoyance, why would Elsevier find it necessary to issue a Warning regarding fraudulent call for papers ... See: http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/authors-update/authors-update/warning-re.-fraudulent-call-for-papers or the necessity of Jeffrey
