Re: The cost of peer review and electronic distribution of scholarly journals
His concluding paragraph says, 'A publish for free, read for free' model may one day prove to be viable. Meanwhile, if I have to choose between the two evils, I prefer the 'publish for free and pay to read' model over the 'pay to publish and read for free' one. Because if I must choose between publishing and reading, I would choose to publish. Who would not?' There is a significant fallacy in the assumptions here, though. In order to publish one must first have been able to read. All scholarly work, whether it is HE Physics or postmodern cultural theory, requires access to the existing body of work before sensible writing can be produced. The comment that we _have_ publish for free and read for free is so gross a simplification that it amounts to a lie. I don't care, as an individual, that my University subscribes to atmospheric physics and meteorology journals (and since my University has a highly rated Meteorology department they subscribe to many of these) because even in my highly interdisciplinary work I have never yet come across a need to consult one. However, I am regularly coming across journal from sociology, economics, computer science, history, and law that I need individual access to but for which my University has either never subscribed or does not have access to the particular issue (old or new) that I wish to read a paper in. I am then faced with fees of up to hundreds of dollars for access to one article. This is the reality of the monetary costs inhibiting research today. I do NOT have read for free. I am particularly disadvantaged by this because I work in a highly interdisciplinary field (social, legal and ethical impacts of computer and communication technology) and because I am building a new (to my university) research group. The blessed who work in large long-lived groups dedicated to a narrow field of research and who therefore never have an access problem themselves should recognise that they are losing impact because their deep research is an input to broad research such as mine, and that I'm losing out because the nature of my field militates against the few economies of scale that current publishing models generate. In the world before the internet I would have had no option but to spend my time travelling to other institutions to use their libraries or paying for some form of inter-library loan. But the internet is here and SHOULD provide me with the access I need but it is prevented by academic inertia and publishing vested interests, the former often generated by a combination of lack of understanding of scholarly communication in the broader community and a lack of courage in dealing with change all of which is exacerbated by publisher FUD. -- Dr Andrew A Adams, School of Systems Engineering The University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AY, UK Tel:44-118-378-6997 E-mail:a.a.ad...@rdg.ac.uk http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~sis00aaa/
Re: The cost of peer review and electronic distribution of scholarly journals
Let's be honest, though, Dr Gadagkar can only *sometimes* have his cake and eat it right now. Could be relatively good if he is a physicist but a complete wash-out if he is researching in arts or many social science subjects. Let's not kid ourselves, only a small proportion of very new research in certain limited disciplines is available OA right now. And his core point about Gold OA excluding the developing world is valid (and indeed retired, unemployed academics or those qualified but in other professions for whom central Gold OA fees may not be paid, even in the rare instances that a fund exists). Green OA does not need Gold OA and should never suggest it as a good idea. Whatever the other debates, though, we must be honest about how far OA has advanced. (I do find it annoying that I can't get to read the entire letter: rather ironic, given the subject!) Talat Chaudhri Repository Manager Aberystwyth University -Original Message- From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] On Behalf Of Ept Sent: 22 May 2008 15:04 To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: The cost of peer review and electronic distribution of scholarly journals Dr Gadagkar can have his cake and eat it right now. Barbara - Original Message - From: Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 1:38 PM Subject: Re: The cost of peer review and electronic distribution of scholarly journals ** Apologies for Cross-Posting ** On Thu, 22 May 2008, N. Miradon wrote: The current issue of Nature has correspondence from Dr Raghavendra Gadagkar. The abstract of his letter (available at [1]) compares and contrasts 'publish for free and pay to read' with 'pay to publish and read for free'. To read the letter in full will cost you USD 18. N Miradon [1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7194/full/453450c.html Nature 453, 450 (22 May 2008) | doi:10.1038/453450c; Published online 21 May 2008 Here is the part you can read for free: Open-access more harm than good in developing world Raghavendra Gadagkar Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India The traditional 'publish for free and pay to read' business model adopted by publishers of academic journals can lead to disparity in access to scholarly literature, exacerbated by rising journal costs and shrinking library budgets. However, although the 'pay to publish and read for free' business model of open-access publishing has helped to create a level playing field for readers, it does more harm than good in the developing world... It is easy to guess what else the letter says: That at the prices currently charged by those Gold OA publishers that charge for Gold OA publishing today, it is unaffordable to most researchers as well as to their institutions and funders in India and elsewhere in the Developing World. This is a valid concern, even in view of the usual reply (which is that many Gold OA journals do not charge a fee, and exceptions are made by those that do charge a fee, for those who cannot afford to pay it). The concern is that current Gold OA fees would not scale equitably if they became universal. However, the overall concern is misplaced. The implication is that whereas the user-access-denial arising from the the unaffordability of subscription fees (user-institution pays) is bad, the author-publication-denial arising from the unaffordability of Gold OA publishing fees (author-institution pays) would be worse. But this leaves out Green OA self-archiving, and the Green OA self-archiving mandates that are now growing worldwide. Not only does Green OA cost next to nothing to provide, but once it becomes universal, if it ever does go on to generate universal subscription cancellations too -- making the subscription model of publishing cost recovery unsustainable -- universal Green OA will also by the very same token generate the release of the annual user-institution cancellation fees to pay the costs of publishing on the Gold OA (author-institution pays) cost-recovery model. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/ 399w e152.htm The natural question to ask next is whether user-institution costs and author-institution costs will balance out, or will those institutions that used more research than they provided benefit and those institutions that provided more research than they used lose out? This would be a reasonable question to ask (and has been asked before) http://www.google.com/search?num=100hl=enq=+site%3Alistserver.sigmaxi. org+ amsci+%22net+provider%22btnG=Search -- except that it is a fundamental mistake to assume that the *costs* of publishing would
Re: some thoughts on a brave new world
Stevan, Gold OA isn't popular and, I suspect, never will be. Correct. But I think you are making a logical error on causality: It is Green OA that will eventually cause the downsizing and conversion to Gold OA and peer review alone, not vice versa. Hence you are mistaken both about practicality, probability and priority: Green OA must come first, and the only way to get universal Green OA before the heat death of the universe is for universities and funders to mandate it. On downsizing to Gold OA, I'm afraid that I agree with the original point in the article to which N. Miradon posted a link recently. The developing world doesn't want it. Neither, I submit, does anybody in the developed world want to pay for it. In terms of diverting currently subscription funds progressively to OA, any librarian such as myself will tell you that getting management agreement for what looks *to them* like a hypothetical new publishing model is going to be complex and very possibly unworkable, leaving only the few universities that have created funds for the purpose. None to my knowledge has agreed to allocate money on a yearly basis, as the costs are currently unknown. Why will Gold OA not catch on? Because it is unjust! Only those academics whose institutions can afford to pay will be able to publish, unlike the present situation where anybody can. As I am presently a librarian, not an academic, I would be very likely unable to publish in my field of research on the basis of these centrally allocated funds, like retired academics and those in the developing world. Nobody will want this model, quite simply. They don't want it now! You, instead, Talat, are imagining a direct conversion to peer-review only, administered by inter-university consortia; there is no plausible direct path from here to there. But there *is* a plausible direct path from here to universal Green OA. As I also said, there was no plausible path for print to electronic publishing, yet it happened. If people as well placed as yourself were advocating it, I am sure it might have a strong chance of catching on. But none of that is the slightest bit relevant to what we are discussing here, which is what the true costs of peer review are *to journals* today. The cost of a few emails, letters and phone calls, self-evidently. Good copy editing and page setting costs much more, and shouldn't be as underestimated as it is. If you mean disseminating the submissions to the referees, that is part of peer review costs; so is the (little) copy editing that is done and needed. I don't mean that, obviously. If you mean disseminating the published article to users, then that most definitely is *not* part of the cost of peer review. (It is one of the main costs of publishing of which IRs will *relieve* journals in the OA era.) Of course it isn't a cost of peer review! I repeat, relieving journals of costs also relieves them of profits, which they won't want. It's myopic, to use your word, to suggest that this won't cause problems fairly soon. I think you are referring to the fact that 62% of journals (including Springer and Elsevier) have given their Green light to author self-archiving of the refereed postprint immediately upon acceptance for publication, 29% only after an embargo delay period, or only for the preprint, and 9% don't endorse self-archiving at all? As I believe I said to you once before, a comment you brushed aside, this is currently the case *under licence* which they remain free to withdraw, if that should be in their interests. Don't fool yourself that they couldn't if need be. At present it doesn't serve publishers to do so, so they don't. This is no basis on which to plan. I happen to personally think it is probable that universal mandated OA will eventually generate cancellations, cost-cutting, downsizing to peer review only, and a conversion to Gold OA. I happen to believe that nobody wants Gold OA in the future, as they don't appear to want it now. accessible online for all potential users. That is what is optimal for science and scholarship. The Green OA mandates will assure that that happens. And publishers will adapt. Herein lies a point always ignored. Arts departments have not co-operated with the Green OA revolution, as has recently been brought home to me here by our English Department. This is because we haven't understood their needs and continue to talk only about the most recent cutting edge science departments. Arts subjects are much more concerned with what you dismiss as legacy literature, preservation, book publishing, without which OA means little to them. We have sought no answers for any of these areas and so have no solutions for these academics. We would be over a barrel because we currently hold so much OA material on licence from these very same publishers. Perhaps that is indeed their tactic, to develop a lever that they can use against us
