[GOAL] Re: [SCHOLCOMM] Big Deals, Big Macs and Consortial Licensing
Stevan's analysis of the way in which open access was developing alongside licensing is very important. We need to understand the way in which OA developed in order to avoid the kind of distortion of OA that emerges from time to time. I was also going through a time of fluid thinking at the same time as Ann and Stevan. For me a combination of pragmatism and vision led me away from licensing to embrace OA. The pragmatism came as I realised that licensing was simply not working. The theory was that the big library consortia could produce more access at less cost, but gradually it became clear that the increase in access was only in the number of journals online - not in the number of people having access - and that the cost was still increasing well above inflation. So in my mind the question was if licensing is not working, what is the alternative? That is where the vision element entered my thinking, because the open access people definitely had a vision - read the text of the BOAI if you do not believe me. Vision is different from ideology, and also different from the religious fervour we were accused of. Vision in the BOAI is essentially earthed in the reality that had to be changed. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL From: Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com Sent: 19 November 2013 17:44 To: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [SCHOLCOMM] Big Deals, Big Macs and Consortial Licensing Ann Okerson (as interviewedhttp://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/ann-okerson-on-state-of-open-access.html by Richard Poynder) is committed to licensing. I am not sure whether the commitment is ideological or pragmatic, but it's clearly a lifelong (asymptotic) commitment by now. I was surprised to see the direction Ann ultimately took because -- as I have admitted many times -- it was Ann who first opened my eyes to (what eventually came to be called) Open Access. In the mid and late 80's I was still just in the thrall of the scholarly and scientific potential of the revolutionarily new online medium itself (Scholarly Skywritinghttp://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/sky-writing-or-when-man-first-met-troll/239420/), eager to get everything to be put online. It was Ann's work on the serials crisis that made me realize that it was not enough just to get it all online: it also had to be made accessible (online) to all of its potential users, toll-free -- not just to those whose institutions could afford the access-tolls (licenses). And even that much I came to understand, sluggishly, only after I had first realized that what set apart the writings in question was not that they were (as I had first naively dubbed them) esoterichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversive_Proposal (i.e., they had few users) but that they were peer-reviewed research journal articles, written by researchers solely for impact, not for incomehttp://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#1.1. But I don't think the differences between Ann and me can be set down to ideology vs. pragmatics. I too am far too often busy trying to free the growth of open access from the ideologues (publishing reformers, rights reformers (Ann's open use zealots), peer review reformers, freedom of information reformers) who are slowing the progress of access to peer-reviewed journal articles (from now to better) by insisting only and immediately on what they believe is the best. Like Ann, I, too, am all pragmatics (repository software, analyses of the OA impact advantage, mandates, analyses of mandate effeciveness). So Ann just seems to have a different sense of what can (hence should) be done, now, to maximize access, and how (as well as how fast). And after her initial, infectious inclination toward toll-free access (which I and others caught from her) she has apparently concluded that what is needed is to modify the terms of the tolls (i.e., licensing). This is well-illustrated by Ann's view on SCOAP3: All it takes is for libraries to agree that what they’ve now paid as subscription fees for those journals will be paid instead to CERN, who will in turn pay to the publishers as subsidy for APCs. I must alas disagree with this view, on entirely pragmatic -- indeed logical -- groundshttps://www.google.ca/search?hl=enlr=q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/ie=UTF-8tbm=blgtbs=qdr:mnum=100c2coff=1safe=active#c2coff=1hl=enlr=q=scoap+OR+scoap3+blogurl%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2Fsafe=activetbas=0tbm=blg: the transition from annual institutional subscription fees to annual consortial OA publication fees is an incoherent, unscalable, unsustainable Escherian scheme that contains the seeds of its own dissolution, rather than a pragmatic means of reaching a stable asymptote: Worldwide, across all disciplines, there are P institutions, Q
[GOAL] Finch Report Review
As a taxpayer I read the 74-page Review of progress in implementing the recommendations of the Finch Report with interest, looking for evidence that those who recommend policy to HM Government are making their recommendations in a logical fashion and on the basis of available evidence. What I found in the Review were unsupported statements, made despite - as the authors of the Review admit - the fact that a key theme of this review has been the lack of solid evidence on key issues (para 10.59). Assumptions are made about stakeholders' behaviour - for example that the main reason universities are supporting green open access is because they cannot afford paid gold - without allowing for the complex factors which determine stakeholders' behaviour. An example of the illogical nature of the recommendations in the Review lies in the off-repeated need for a mixed economy of open access growth through both repositories and journals. Excellent, I thought, the error of a one-sided approach in the original report has been recognised - until I read on and discovered that the value of repositories is only acknowledged as a transition to a future in which publishers are paid to make all publicly-funded research available to the public. No evidence is provided for the assumption that this future will provide a better solution for researchers or for taxpayers than the current mixed economy. Lacking evidence, it appears that the push for a paid gold future (ignoring any long-term value in unpaid gold or repository green) is derived from a partial view of research communication. Reading the Review you would not think that there is value in any form of research communication except for articles published in journals. If that is the Finch Group's view of research communication, then it makes perfect sense to see the future as fully paid gold, but as a taxpayer I ask whether that future meets my need for cost-effective access to publicly-funded research. The Review also reveals a dogmatic approach in continuing to chase the mirage of national licences to large blocks of journals. Has not that alternative to open access been explored to exhaustion over many years? The Review ends by proposing a coordinating structure representing all stakeholders, with a brief to gather evidence and look for solutions. This proposal has to be welcomed, and in view of earlier work it is good to see JISC mentioned as a contributor to such a structure. It will be important that any new structure established has a free hand to explore any promising avenues without being restricted by pre-set conditions. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL The Review is available through http://www.researchinfonet.org/finch/ ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
It is good that Stevan keeps an eye on publisher policies for us, and it is also good that Peter reminds us that universities do have the power to say no to publishers. Stevan is correct that the distinction Elsevier and other publishers attempt to draw between mandated and non-mandated self-archiving is nonsense, and their policy should be resisted. Peter's complaint that libraries do not challenge use or re-use clauses in contracts is not absolutely true, but libraries certainly do not push such issues as strongly as they could or should. When I was involved in big deal negotiations I regularly said that we should say no to an unsatisfactory deal but nobody else was willing to go that far. And yet a very senior publisher once told me that librarians have much more power than they realise. However, librarians cannot bear all of the blame for giving in too easily. My hard stance received no backing from senior academics, and no librarian can refuse to sign an unsatisfactory contract unless they know that they have solid support from within their university. Of course Elsevier and other publishers know this and that is why they want to conclude deals with senior university management, who will probably agree to unsatisfactory clauses even more readily than the librarians. I am sorry to be cynical, but the academic community gets the contracts it deserves. We have to learn to say no and really mean it. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL From: goal-boun...@eprints.org goal-boun...@eprints.org on behalf of Peter Murray-Rust pm...@cam.ac.uk Sent: 25 September 2013 09:15 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum; jisc-repositories Subject: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green) On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Laurent Romary laurent.rom...@inria.frmailto:laurent.rom...@inria.fr wrote: With all respect, Stevan, I am not sure it is worth answering publishers' policy tricks with deposit hacks. The core question is: does Elsevier fulfills, by making such statements, its duties as service provider in the domain of scholarly communication. If not, we, as institutions, have to be clear as to what we want, enforce the corresponding policy (i.e. we determine what and in which way we want our publications to be disseminated) and inform the communities accordingly. I agree with Laurent. We should assert our rights and - if we could act coherently - we would be able to get them implemented. There is no legal reason why we cannot assert a zero-month embargo - we are just afraid of the publishers rather than believers in our own power. (It wouldn't hurt the publishers as repositories are not yet a credible resource for bulk readership). Libraries (including Cambridge) seem to sign any contract the publisher puts in front of them - they only challenge price, not use and re-use. In a recent mail on OA the process on Green (paraphrased) was we'll see what embargo periods the publishers mandate [and then enforce them]. whereas it should have been we - the world - demand access to knowledge and will not accept embargos. That's a clear starting point. I could believe in Green OA if it were boldly carried out and repositories actually worked for readers (including machines). As it is we have nearly OA - i.e. not visible. And OA/ID - visible at some unspecified time in the future. If the OA community could get a single clear goal then it might start to be effective for the #scholarlypoor, such as Jack Andraka whose parents buy him pay per view for medical papers. -- 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: Disruption vs. Protection
This is an excellent contribution from Danny Kingsley, and it would be interesting to have some real information about subscription loss from publishers, and not only from the two publishers she mentions. Very occasionally we do hear stories about a few journals ceasing publication, but the number appears very low by comparison with the total number of research journals published, and the causal link with repository deposit is obscure. A reduction in the quality of a journal (and I do not mean impact factor) or a reduction in library funding could be more influential factors than green open access. Presumably for commercial reasons publishers have not been willing to release information about subscription levels, but if they are to continue to use green open access as a threat they have to provide more evidence. Likewise if they expect to be believed, publishers have to provide more information about sustainability. They speak about repositories not being a sustainable model for research dissemination, by which they appear to mean that their journals will not be sustainable in a large-scale repository environment. Most institutional repositories are fully-sustainable, their sustainability derived from the sustainability of the university in which they are based. If any research journals are not sustainable, the reasons may have nothing to do with repositories. Those reasons are currently hidden within the big deal model, the weak journals surviving through the strength of other journals. Rather than blame any lack of sustainability upon green open access, perhaps publishers should take a harder look at the sustainability of some of their weaker journals. Repositories are sustainable; some journals may not be. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL From: goal-boun...@eprints.org goal-boun...@eprints.org on behalf of Danny Kingsley danny.kings...@anu.edu.au Sent: 14 September 2013 08:39 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Disruption vs. Protection It is not that there is not sufficient data, it is that the 'threat' does not exist. The only 'evidence' to support the claim that immediate green open access threatens the 'sustainability' (read: profit) of commercial publishers comes in the form of the exceptionally questionable ALPSP survey sent out early last year to librarians http://www.publishingresearch.net/documents/ALPSPPApotentialresultsofsixmonthembargofv.pdf . Heather Morrison wrote a piece on the methodological flaws with that survey http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/publishers-association-survey-on.html And yet, when questioned earlier this year by Richard Poynder, this is what Springer referred to as their 'evidence' http://poynder.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/open-access-springer-tightens-rules-on.html . There are, however currently two clear opportunities for the industry to collect some actual evidence either way (as opposed to opinions on a badly expressed hypothetical): 1. Taylor Francis have decided to indefinitely expand their trial of immediate green permissions to articles in their Library Information Science journals. If they were to run a comparison of those titles against the titles in, say , three other disciplinary areas over two to three years they would be able to ascertain if this decision has made any difference to their subscription patterns. 2. Earlier this year (21 March) SAGE changed their policy to immediate green open access – again this offers a clean comparison between their subscription levels prior to and after the implementation of this policy. If it is the case that immediate green open access disrupts subscriptions (and I strongly suspect that it does not) then we can have that conversation when the evidence presents itself. Until then we are boxing at shadows. Danny Dr Danny Kingsley Executive Officer Australian Open Access Support Group e: e...@aoasg.org.aumailto:e...@aoasg.org.au p: +612 6125 6839 w: .aoasg.org.au t: @openaccess_oz From: Dana Roth dzr...@library.caltech.edumailto:dzr...@library.caltech.edu Reply-To: goal@eprints.orgmailto:goal@eprints.org goal@eprints.orgmailto:goal@eprints.org Date: Saturday, 14 September 2013 6:53 AM To: goal@eprints.orgmailto:goal@eprints.org goal@eprints.orgmailto:goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: Disruption vs. Protection Isn’t the fact that “The BIS report finds no evidence to support this distinction,” due to the fact that there isn’t sufficient data? I sense that we are going to have to live with (Green) OA and subscription journals for some time … and that it is the subscription model for commercially published journals will be increasingly unsustainable in the short term. An example of what could soon be unsustainable, is the commercially published ‘Journal of Comparative Neurology’ … that for 2012 cost its subscribers $30,860 and published only 234
[GOAL] Re: [sparc-oaforum] Some Reflection from Wellcome Would Be Welcome
Dear Peter, When I give a donation to a medical charity I am very happy for the charity to spend my money as it best thinks fit, even including payments to publishers. What I do not expect is that the charity would influence Government policy on what happens to the taxes I pay in an area of public policy that is broader than medical research. Also many donations to medical charities come through bequests or from people who are not UK taxpayers, and the taxpayer base is very different in composition to the charitable donors base. In my view the Wellcome went a step too far in encouraging the application to public policy of its own policy of making additional payments to publishers for open access. It is not surprising that the publishing interests dominating the Finch Group seized upon this support from the Wellcome. With best wishes, Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL From: Peter Morgan p...@cam.ac.uk Sent: 11 September 2013 09:54 To: Friend, Fred; Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: RE: [GOAL] Re: [sparc-oaforum] Some Reflection from Wellcome Would Be Welcome Fred, the mistake came when they supported the application of their own policies to taxpayer-funded research. To the extent that Wellcome and other charities enjoy tax-breaks, it can be argued that theirs is also taxpayer-funded research. See, for example… Lisbet Rausing (Toward a New Alexandria: Imagining the Future of Libraries, The New Republic, 2010) http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/toward-new-alexandria Few academic databases and research tools are in the public domain, even though the public has paid for them—through research grants, tax breaks, and donations. and Peter Suber (Open Access, MIT Press, 2012, ch.1) http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262517638_Open_Access_PDF_Version.pdf Public and private funding agencies are essentially public and private charities, funding research they regard as useful or beneficial. Universities have a public purpose as well, even when they are private institutions. We sup- port the public institutions with public funds, and we support the private ones with tax exemptions for their property and tax deductions for their donors. Regards, Peter -- Peter Morgan Head of Medical and Science Libraries Medical Library Cambridge University Library Addenbrooke's Hospital Hills Road Cambridge CB2 0SP UK email: p...@cam.ac.ukmailto:p...@cam.ac.uk tel: +44 (0)1223 336757 fax: +44 (0)1223 331918 From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Friend, Fred Sent: 10 September 2013 17:16 To: Stevan Harnad; Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: [sparc-oaforum] Some Reflection from Wellcome Would Be Welcome Stevan explains the influence of the Wellcome upon OA policy very well. The Wellcome did an excellent job in making publications from its own researchers OA, but the mistake came when they supported the application of their own policies to taxpayer-funded research. They were over-influenced by publishers, who of course stood to benefit considerably from the extension of Wellcome's largesse by the taxpayer. Fred Friend From: Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.commailto:amscifo...@gmail.com Sent: 10 September 2013 16:29:35 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [sparc-oaforum] Some Reflection from Wellcome Would Be Welcome It's time for the Wellcome Trust to think more deeply about its endlessly repeated mantra that the cost of publication is part of the cost of funding research. The statement is true enough, but profoundly incomplete: As a private foundation, Wellcome only funds researchers' research. It does not have to fund their institutional journal subscriptions, which are currently paying the costs of publication for all non-OA research. And without access to those subscription journals, researchers would lose access to everything that is not yet Open Access (OA) -- which means access to most of currently published research. Moreover, if those subscriptions stopped being paid, no one would be paying the costs of publication. In the UK, it is the tax-payer who pays the costs of publication (which is part of the cost of funding research), by paying the cost of journal access via institutional subscriptions. It is fine to wish that to be otherwise, but it cannot just be wished away, and Wellcome has never had to worry about paying for it. The Wellcome slogan and solution -- the cost of publication is part of the cost of funding research, so pay pre-emptively for Gold OA -- works for Wellcome, and as a wish list. But it is not a formula for getting us all from here (c. 30% OA, mostly Green) to there (100% OA). It does not scale up from Wellcome to the UK, let alone to the rest of the world. What scales up is mandating Green OA. Once
[GOAL] Re: Gold OA infrastructure
The wide range of activities reported on the gold oa blog illustrate the priority now given to APC-funded gold OA by Government and other Establishment agencies in the UK, and the second-class status being given to repositories and other green OA developments by those same agencies. After many protests following the Finch Report, the role of repositories has been given greater recognition in the policies of RCUK and HEFCE, but this welcome recognition cannot disguise the fact that within the UK Establishment repositories are now not to be encouraged. Both gold and green OA are the twin sisters born of the Budapest Open Access Initiative, and across the globe they have been allowed to grow unhindered, indeed actively supported by many governments and official bodies. And so it was it in the UK until the summer of 2012, when powerful lobbying by vested interests achieved their aim of banishing the green sister to the back of the political house. One result of the second-class status now granted to green OA is that there are now few UK projects to support the development of repositories. So much could be done to illustrate the sustainability of the repository route to OA, or to develop new services based upon repository content, but such developments no longer find favour with agencies committed to gold OA. Fortunately, while the UK Government and Government-funded agencies are content to leave repositories in their partially-developed state and pour taxpayer funds into APC-funded gold OA, many UK universities remain as committed to their institutional repositories as they were before the Finch Report. The problem they face is that while they are expected to prioritise funding for APCs, few universities can afford to fund the developments which would show the true value of repositories as the most cost-effective route to OA for publicly-funded research outputs. Fortunately the UK Government's misguided policy in prioritising APC-funded gold OA at the cost of supporting green OA is unlikely to be followed by other governments wishing to maintain balanced policies. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk From: Neil Jacobs [n.jac...@jisc.ac.uk] Sent: 03 June 2013 15:49 To: sparc-oafo...@arl.org Subject: [sparc-oaforum] Gold OA infrastructure Colleagues There is a series of insightful blog posts on Gold OA infrastructure here: www.goldoa.org.ukhttp://www.goldoa.org.uk There will be a meeting of international experts on this topic tomorrow. We’d welcome any comments on these ideas via the blog, which will inform the direction taken by people like CrossRef, COUNTER, international publishers, NISO, etc. Many thanks Neil -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups SPARC OA Forum group. To post to this group, send email to sparc-oafo...@arl.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sparc-oaforum+unsubscr...@arl.org For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/group/sparc-oaforum ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] The direction of travel for open access in the UK
Open access in the UK is coming to a crossroads. Pointing in one direction are members of the political and scientific Establishment, working hard to convince the UK research community that a preference for APC-paid open access is the way to go, while wishing to travel down another road to open access are many senior people in universities and also many of the younger researchers, understanding the value in institutional repositories which the political and scientific Establishment refuse to support. Standing in the middle of the crossroads are many of the society publishers the Government wishes to protect, liking the Government’s policy in principle but not liking the uncertainties surrounding the implementation of that policy. A discussion and dinner held at the Royal Society one evening this week illustrated the determination of the political and scientific Establishment in the UK to force through an APC-preferred open access policy: · No supporter of the repository route to open access was invited onto the panel at the meeting and the few dissenters from the Government/RCUK policy invited to the meeting found it very difficult to catch the Chairman’s eye. · The repository route to open access was only mentioned as a threat to the publishing industry and not as opportunity to introduce an academic-friendly and cost-effective business model for scholarly communication. · Opposition to the Government/RCUK policy came from a society publisher, on the grounds that the UK Government has not fully-funded a policy that will enable the publishing industry to survive in an open access world. · The unwillingness of the UK Government to consult with supporters of open access repositories is also illustrated by a response received this week to an FOI Request asking for details of a meeting held by Minister David Willetts on 12 February 2013. This meeting was attended by 12 representatives from publishers and learned societies with publishing interests and only 4 representatives from Higher Education. · The UK Government bias towards consultation with publishers was first illustrated by the response to an FOI Request in 2005, which revealed that the then Minister Lord Sainsbury had more meetings on open access with publisher representatives than with research representatives. Most UK universities are continuing to support their institutional repositories and adding versions of research papers to those repositories. Universities unable to afford the cost of the Government/RCUK preferred policy may decide to use the RCUK’s promise that institutions will have discretion to choose for themselves between the various open access models and opt for more green than gold. The only beneficiaries from the Government’s preferred policy appear to be the high-profit STM publishers - who will continue to dominate both subscription and open access markets - and a small number of open access publishers with strong academic support. Amongst the losers may be the smaller society publishers without the breadth of support to secure a significant share of the open access publishing market. It is to be hoped that the promised monitoring of both the Finch Report Recommendations and the RCUK policy will take a broader view of open access and of the effect of policies than has been evident to date. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] An open access allegory
A small bird sat on a fence looking out over a landscape with which she was not familiar, looking for the rich pickings she had been told were to be found there. Around her on the fence were a number of other small birds who knew the landscape well and who knew where to find the rich pickings with which they were familiar. Unfortunately the small bird who did not know the landscape well was led in a direction which only met the needs of some of the birds, and she missed the richest source for meeting the needs of all the different species of birds across the entire landscape. As a result the natural eco-system suffered in that place, and even the birds who thought they would survive on the sources of food with which they were familiar suffered as a result of too narrow a view of the landscape. Fortunately some birds acted more wisely and followed their own instincts in maintaining the food sources of great value ignored by the others. Good choices were also made by the birds living in other landscapes and all bird species flourished. Let the reader understand. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
