[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
Jean-Claude, It is easy to accept that scientific communication is not an activity that is easily reconciled with commerce, share holders, and profit. Even though it evidently has been reconciled for a very long time, in the print era, before the internet and the web became available. In this day and age publishing is not about scientific communication anymore (though some traditionalist publishers may disagree). It is a peer-review organisation service combined with a career-enhancing service. And that can be reconciled with commerce, as it is a service governed by the forces of competition. The communication itself can – and does – easily take place without the help of publishers nowadays. Although this is not yet universally the case, it easily can be. Posting one's research results on the web, ArXiv-like, is a possibility open to us all. At very little or no cost. The savings relative to the current system of involving journals would be phenomenal: http://theparachute.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/holy-cow-peer-review.html So what is happening? An analogy: Researchers can easily take the very short walk to their destination, but insist on taking a taxi, on the institution's account, and the institution then complains about the fact that the driver wants to be paid. But we need the taxi, the researchers maintain, because we have our finest clothes on and it might rain. So despite appearances, the service the taxi delivers is not one of transportation, but one of protecting researchers against the risk of spoiling their clothes. An umbrella might do the same. Back to scholarly reality. We use journals not for conveying the information, but for protecting scientific reputations and for fostering career prospects. That's fine, but doing that using a system of subscriptions provides perverse incentives. To keep subscriptions alive in order to sap them until they die and only then build up a 'pay for a service' system is one way to change the system, possibly, but what I like about the Finch report (and yes, it has its flaws; a lot is written about that elsewhere) is its radical choice for a complete change of the system, and tie payment to services requested. The report is grossly pessimistic about the cost implications, and even about the difficulties of a transition and there are other flaws. But its radicalism is to be welcomed, as it gives support to already existing initiatives like PLoS One and to new ones like PeerJ. Similar initiatives will spring up in increasing numbers, and the Finch report can only be seen as encouraging for those forces of real progress. The fact that traditionalist publishers have also welcomed the Finch report (though on the wrong grounds, I think, and they will come a cropper) is no reason to denounce it. Hanging on to the old (subscriptions) in order to achieve the new (open access) may have been considered a suitable strategy ten years ago, but what it delivers is at best a form of open access that's likely to be merely 'ocular access' and of limited use to modern science, in contrast to the benefits that come with a radical change to full open access (no rights limitations, commercial or technical), not just to the equivalent of text on paper, but to all the potential that can be released from text, tables, graphs and images in electronic format. Meanwhile, ArXiv-like self-publishing seems to me a good thing. Anything more that is needed or desired can be obtained from entities now commonly referred to as 'publishers' (even though in reality their role is a different one). Jan Velterop On 20 Jun 2012, at 17:05, Jean-Claude Guédon wrote: It is not a question of hating publishers; it is a question of placing them in their rightful place. David Prosser, very aptly, defined publishers as a service industry. This is excellent. Let publishers behave like a service industry, while recognizing that other kinds of actors and financial schemes may render the same services as well, or even better, than they do. Researchers value journals only because evaluation techniques in the universities narrowly rely on scientometric techniques that are themselves based on journals (and were designed to evaluate journals, not researchers). They have little choice in the matter. However, managers of research institutions, in particular universities, would do well to study how their evaluation procedures relate to the high prices libraries pay for subscriptions, and how poorly they relate to the quality of their researchers. As for what is added to research articles, it is done by peers or by editors (and both categories qualify as researchers). Style, clarity, layout are valuable additions, but this is secondary: researchers want access to content; they will gladly accept and even encourage good style, clarity, etc., but content is what they want. Finally, if publishers were really trying only to make scientific
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
Stevan Harnad writes Can you give us an example of an institution with a mandate that has managed, for a period of a year, for example, to collect its complete research output in its IR? U. Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science (the oldest Green OA mandate). (Not U. Southampton, which has a sub-optimal mandate.) And CERN. None of them are cross-discipline, therefore they don't count. I would not count any of the 1400 RePEc archives many of which And Liège (with its optimal ID/OA mandate) is now coming close; Can somebody from Liège confirm this? There is a time period for which they have stored in their IR all research papers produced? Maybe they can also let us know about the cost this effort entailed. and so soon will its emulators. Well, assuming IRs came along in 2002, and assuming that Liege would indeed be full, then teh expected value of all others coming to this stage would be how long? Many thousands of years. Good things come to those wait. But even the 60%-70% mandates are not to be sneezed at, I am sneezing. I applaud. This is the UK lead in OA that the Finch Report now proposes to squander, I agree. in favour of a very long and very expensive gold rush. The green rush appears to be a longer rush. In fact it's no rush at all. Unless it gets more resources, I think. The amount spent on IRs appears insignificant to the amount spent a subscriptions. It just is not fair to compare both approaches. But that's precise what the Finch report is doing. L'appétit vient en mangeant... On ne fait pas d'omelette sans casser des œufs. Cheers, Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
I agree with Jan's analysis. There is now mounting evidence that it costs about 100 USD to publish an adequate qualilty open peer-reviewed scientific paper. In total. My evidence: * IUCr publishes 3000 OA papers a year (Acta Cryst E), IN FULLY SEMANTIC FORM for 150USD which gives a useful profit. They do this because they have engaged the authors who willingly do much of the work for them. Authors do it because IUCr has built the authoring system and it's far better than anything the main publishers have come up with. * It costs 7 USD to put a paper in arXiv * PeerJ charges 99 USD for an open peer-reviewed paper. I believe this figure makes sense. Nature has to charge 1 USD for an open-access paper because it is selling glory. Glory commands whatever price people are willing to pay. Many publishers charge huge amounts for OA because they have an effective monopoly of the subdiscipline and because they are also selling glory. Anyone can author and publish a scientific paper without a publisher. Every student's thesis is a peer-reviewed piece of science. I know some universities opt out of the process by getting student to publish in closed access journals and then simply collecting the papers. These unievrsities are part of the problem. Many scientists (particularly in CompSci) run peer-reviewed workshops for dissemination and merit and do the whole lot without publishers. Traditionally they may get the proceedings published through a publisher but this is not necessary. So; * publishers are not necessary for top-quality peer review * publishers are not necessary for the technical creation of high-quality documents Traditional publishers now have exactly two unique selling points: * they sell perceived glory to universities * they persuade universities and authors to give them highly valuable material and then use the legal mechanisms of the last 200 years to control and resell content. Both are very fragile. If either crashes then the publisher has very little to sell. If both crash so will the publisher. If Green OA had been done properly - in 1995 - then I would be a supporter. Basically every university would have required its outputs to be fully posted on the web. Departments and individuals would be judged on that. Instead of building repositories they should have built publishing systems. By now we would have the whole of STM on the web. But in the 15 years of supine inaction by universities the publishers have now hired enough marketers, lawyers and created so much FUD that universities and especially their libraries run in fear of the publishers and their lawyers. On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 8:37 AM, Jan Velterop velte...@gmail.com wrote: -- 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: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
On 2012-06-20, at 5:45 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: Hi Laurent, Institutions already do have agreements with publishers via their libraries and/or library consortia. This is certainly the case for INRIA. Some humble advice for institutions and libraries: Negotiate with publishers about subscription price. Decline to negotiate with publishers about institutional OA policy. On no account allow anyone to lure you into discussing any contingency between institutional OA policy and subscription price. Stevan Harnad With kind wishes, Alicia From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Laurent Romary Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:11 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? This definitely makes no sense. Institutions are not going to start negotiating agreements with all publishers one by one. Does Elsevier have so much man power left to start negotiating with all institutions one by one as well. The corresponding budget could then probably used to reduce subscriptions prices ;-) Laurent Le 20 juin 2012 à 09:53, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit : Hi all, Just a quick point of clarification…. Elsevier doesn’t forbid posting if there is a mandate. We ask for an agreement with the institution that has the mandate, and there is no cost for these agreements. The purpose of these agreements is to work out a win-win solution to find a way for the underlying journals in which academics choose to publish to be sustainable even if there are high posting rates. With kind wishes, Alicia Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.w...@elsevier.com Twitter: @wisealic From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Peter Murray-Rust Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:23 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Why should publishers agree to Green OA? I have some simple questions about Green OA. I don't know the answers. * is there any *contractual* relationship between a Green-publisher and any legal body? Or is Green simply a permission granted unilaterally by publishers when they feel like it, and withdrawable when they don't. * if Green starts impacting on publishers' revenues (and I understand this is part of the Green strategy - when we have 100% Green then publishers will have to change) what stops them simply withdrawing the permission? Or rationing it? Or any other anti-Green measure * Do publishers receive any funding from anywhere for allowing Green? Green is extra work for them - why should they increase the amount they do? * Is there any body which regularly negotiates with publishers such as ACS, who categorically forbid Green for now and for ever. Various publishers seem to indicate that they will allow Green as long as it's a relatively small percentage. But, as Stevan has noted, if your institution mandates Green, then Elsevier forbids it. So I cannot see why, if Green were to reach - say - 50%, the publishers wouldn't simply ration it and prevent 100%. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084 (England and Wales). ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal Laurent Romary INRIA HUB-IDSL laurent.rom...@inria.fr Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084 (England and Wales). ___ 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: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.ukwrote: On 2012-06-20, at 5:45 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: Hi Laurent, ** ** Institutions already do have agreements with publishers via their libraries and/or library consortia. This is certainly the case for INRIA. Some humble advice for institutions and libraries: I absolutely agree with Stevan. ANY negotiation with a publisher is a business contract. It should never be left to individuals. Negotiate with publishers about subscription price. Only if you are an institutional officer. Ideally do it as a country such as Brazil rather than wasting your time and our money on secret one-on-one contracts. Decline to negotiate with publishers about institutional OA policy. Absolutely. On no account allow anyone to lure you into discussing any contingency between institutional OA policy and subscription price. Absolutely. Absolutely. The idea that Elsevier wishes to discuss a win-win strategy for their sustainability must be resisted at all costs. Never never never negotiate on content-mining. You will concede fundamental rights. I was intending to blog this anyway. Hi all, PMR: as a start remember that this greeting is a formal communication from a corporate. -- 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: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
On 2012-06-20, at 7:15 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: ...perhaps time to explore opportunities to work with publishers? No, precisely the opposite, I think: It's time for institutions to realize that institutional Green OA self-archiving policy is (and always has been) exclusively their own business, and not publishers' (who have a rather different business...) Negotiate subscription prices with publishers. But do not even discuss institutional OA policy with publishers. (And advise institutional researchers to ignore incoherent clauses in their copyright agreements: Anything of the form P but not-P -- e.g. you retain the right to self-archive, but not if you are required to exercise the right to self-archive -- implies anything at all, as well as the opposite of anything at all. Don't give it another thought: just self-archive. And institutions should set policy -- mandate immediate deposit, specify maximum allowable OA-embargo-length, the shorter the better, and keep publisher mumbo-jumbo out of the loop altogether. Ditto for funders, but, to avoid gratuitous extra problems as a 3rd-party site, stipulate institutional rather than institution-external deposit.) Stevan Harnad Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.w...@elsevier.com Twitter: @wisealic From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:31 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? Laurent makes an important point. OA policies are between the funders or institutions and the researchers. These agreements come before any agreement regarding copyright assignment between authors and publishers. So, it is the job of publishers to decide if they are willing to live with the deposit agreement between the funder/institution and researchers, not the job of funders and institutions to limit their policies to match the needs of publishers. David On 20 Jun 2012, at 11:04, Laurent Romary wrote: Not that I know. I think the French Research Performing Organizations are not planning to put negotiation with editors as a premise to defining their own OA policy. Laurent Le 20 juin 2012 à 11:45, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit : Hi Laurent, Institutions already do have agreements with publishers via their libraries and/or library consortia.. This is certainly the case for INRIA. With kind wishes, Alicia From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Laurent Romary Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:11 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? This definitely makes no sense. Institutions are not going to start negotiating agreements with all publishers one by one. Does Elsevier have so much man power left to start negotiating with all institutions one by one as well. The corresponding budget could then probably used to reduce subscriptions prices ;-) Laurent Le 20 juin 2012 à 09:53, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit : Hi all, Just a quick point of clarification…. Elsevier doesn’t forbid posting if there is a mandate. We ask for an agreement with the institution that has the mandate, and there is no cost for these agreements. The purpose of these agreements is to work out a win-win solution to find a way for the underlying journals in which academics choose to publish to be sustainable even if there are high posting rates. With kind wishes, Alicia Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.w...@elsevier.com Twitter: @wisealic From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Peter Murray-Rust Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:23 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Why should publishers agree to Green OA? I have some simple questions about Green OA. I don't know the answers. * is there any *contractual* relationship between a Green-publisher and any legal body? Or is Green simply a permission granted unilaterally by publishers when they feel like it, and withdrawable when they don't. * if Green starts impacting on publishers' revenues (and I understand this is part of the Green strategy - when we have 100% Green then publishers will have to change) what stops them simply withdrawing the permission? Or rationing it? Or any other anti-Green measure * Do publishers receive any funding from anywhere for allowing Green? Green is extra work for them - why should they increase the amount they do? * Is there any body which regularly negotiates with publishers such as
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
Hi Stevan, Elsevier has an agreement with one funding body that results in the posting of 100% of the articles flowing from its grant funding. There's no merit to working with publishers on sustainable approaches to green open access? Really?? And with that, I'm going to duck back down behind my parapet. However, I remain happy to talk to anyone about how to expand access including through the full colour spectrum of open access options. With kind wishes, Alicia Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.w...@elsevier.commailto:a.w...@elsevier.com Twitter: @wisealic From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 12:42 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders On 2012-06-20, at 7:15 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: ...perhaps time to explore opportunities to work with publishers? No, precisely the opposite, I think: It's time for institutions to realize that institutional Green OA self-archiving policy is (and always has been) exclusively their own business, and not publishers' (who have a rather different business...) Negotiate subscription prices with publishers. But do not even discuss institutional OA policy with publishers. (And advise institutional researchers to ignore incoherent clauses in their copyright agreements: Anything of the form P but not-P -- e.g. you retain the right to self-archive, but not if you are required to exercise the right to self-archive -- implies anything at all, as well as the opposite of anything at all. Don't give it another thought: just self-archive. And institutions should set policy -- mandate immediate deposit, specify maximum allowable OA-embargo-length, the shorter the better, and keep publisher mumbo-jumbo out of the loop altogether. Ditto for funders, but, to avoid gratuitous extra problems as a 3rd-party site, stipulate institutional rather than institution-external deposit.) Stevan Harnad Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.w...@elsevier.commailto:a.w...@elsevier.com Twitter: @wisealic From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org]mailto:[mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:31 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? Laurent makes an important point. OA policies are between the funders or institutions and the researchers. These agreements come before any agreement regarding copyright assignment between authors and publishers. So, it is the job of publishers to decide if they are willing to live with the deposit agreement between the funder/institution and researchers, not the job of funders and institutions to limit their policies to match the needs of publishers. David On 20 Jun 2012, at 11:04, Laurent Romary wrote: Not that I know. I think the French Research Performing Organizations are not planning to put negotiation with editors as a premise to defining their own OA policy. Laurent Le 20 juin 2012 à 11:45, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit : Hi Laurent, Institutions already do have agreements with publishers via their libraries and/or library consortia.. This is certainly the case for INRIA. With kind wishes, Alicia From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org]mailto:[mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Laurent Romary Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:11 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? This definitely makes no sense. Institutions are not going to start negotiating agreements with all publishers one by one. Does Elsevier have so much man power left to start negotiating with all institutions one by one as well. The corresponding budget could then probably used to reduce subscriptions prices ;-) Laurent Le 20 juin 2012 à 09:53, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit : Hi all, Just a quick point of clarification Elsevier doesn't forbid posting if there is a mandate. We ask for an agreement with the institution that has the mandate, and there is no cost for these agreements. The purpose of these agreements is to work out a win-win solution to find a way for the underlying journals in which academics choose to publish to be sustainable even if there are high posting rates. With kind wishes, Alicia Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E:
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
What I really, and I mean *really* like about this exchange is that priorities are finally being set up right. The business of research is between researchers and the institutions supporting research. Researchers ought to communicate among themselves as they choose, and not as external players (such as publishers) might desire. I really like what all my colleagues have been saying below, and they are all researchers. As for Dr. Wise, her statements amount to reasserting or seeking a role for publishers, but she should understand that the point of research is not publishers, and what researchers need is some form of publication, not publishers. The problem publishers have in this new digital world is that they have trouble justifying their role. To wit: 1. Peer review is performed by researchers, not publishers. Peer reviewers are selected by journal editors that are researchers, not publishers. Managing the flow of manuscripts in peer review often requires tools that publishers may or may not provide; however, free tools are available (e.g. OJS) and are evolving nicely all the time; 2. Linguistic and stylistic editing could provide a small role for publishers, except that they do it less and less for cost-cutting reasons (i.e. profit-seeking reasons). 3. Marketing of ideas is done wrong: it is done through journals and it is handled largely through the flawed notion of impact factors. More and more studies demonstrate a growing disconnect between impact factors and individual article impacts. Researchers do not need a marketing of journals; they need a marketing of their articles through some device that clearly and unambiguously reflects the quality of their visible (published) work. 4. To market their own articles, researchers should have recourse to OA repositories. Once better filled up through mandates, repositories can become platforms for the efficient promotion of articles. Such platforms are entirely independent of publishers. And Stevan is absolutely right: OA policy is not the publishers' business, but the business of institutions carrying on research. Fundamentally, the publishers' problem is that they claim to know the publication needs of researchers better than researchers themselves; they also claim a degree of control over the grand conversation of science. Obviously, both propositions are unacceptable. Jean-Claude Guédon Le mercredi 20 juin 2012 à 07:41 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit : On 2012-06-20, at 7:15 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: ...perhaps time to explore opportunities to work with publishers? No, precisely the opposite, I think: It's time for institutions to realize that institutional Green OA self-archiving policy is (and always has been) exclusively their own business, and not publishers' (who have a rather different business...) Negotiate subscription prices with publishers. But do not even discuss institutional OA policy with publishers. (And advise institutional researchers to ignore incoherent clauses in their copyright agreements: Anything of the form P but not-P -- e.g. you retain the right to self-archive, but not if you are required to exercise the right to self-archive -- implies anything at all, as well as the opposite of anything at all. Don't give it another thought: just self-archive. And institutions should set policy -- mandate immediate deposit, specify maximum allowable OA-embargo-length, the shorter the better, and keep publisher mumbo-jumbo out of the loop altogether. Ditto for funders, but, to avoid gratuitous extra problems as a 3rd-party site, stipulate institutional rather than institution-external deposit.) Stevan Harnad Dr Alicia Wise Director of Universal Access ElsevierI The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.w...@elsevier.com Twitter: @wisealic From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:31 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA? Laurent makes an important point. OA policies are between the funders or institutions and the researchers. These agreements come before any agreement regarding copyright assignment between authors and publishers. So, it is the job of publishers to decide if they are willing to live with the deposit agreement between the funder/institution and researchers, not the job of funders and institutions to limit their policies to match the needs of publishers. David On 20 Jun 2012, at 11:04, Laurent Romary wrote: Not that I know.
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.ukwrote: On (And advise institutional researchers to ignore incoherent clauses in their copyright agreements: Anything of the form P but not-P -- e.g. you retain the right to self-archive, but not if you are required to exercise the right to self-archive -- implies anything at all, as well as the opposite of anything at all. Again complete agreement with Stevan. I was talking yesterday to someone who'd set up businesses and now was dealing (I won't say who/why) with some library / publisher contracts. S/he told me that they were the worst written most amateur contradictory incoherent contracts they have ever seen. There are only two hypotheses: * publishers are incompetent. That is true in many areas * publishers are deliberately trying to obfuscate. That is also true. Neither suggests we should be paying publisher billions for their service It is confounded by the fact that although libraries sign 10,000 (universities) * 100 (publisher) = 1 million contracts a year I have never heard of a single case of the contract being challenged. And in most cases the contracts are secret. After all librarians respect the role of publishers and if presented with a contract not only sign it but also police it for the publishers. So without effective challenge the contracts become fuzzy to the benefit of the publishers. -- 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: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
I find it very sad that the response on this list has been to denigrate both the Finch report's authors and publishers in general. It would seem that the (relatively small number of) primary contributors to this list take it as an article of faith that publishers are to be hated and destroyed; they do not want a balanced approach or a 'mixed economy' (e.g. of green, gold etc). However, if researchers themselves, both as authors and as readers, didn't value what journals, and their publishers, add to research articles, they would long ago have ceased publishing in, or reading, journals, and contented themselves with placing their articles directly in, and reading from, repositories. If that were to change, those that benefit from the proceeds of the current range of publishing models (not just shareholders, but also learned society members etc...) would indeed face a major challenge. But until it does, the challenge with which publishers are currently engaging is how to enable their authors' work to be as accessible as possible, without making it impossible to continue to do those things that authors and readers value in journals. I don't see how that makes publishers bad? Can't we grow up and have a rather more reasoned discussion? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Jean-Claude Guédon Sent: 20 June 2012 14:05 To: goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders What I really, and I mean *really* like about this exchange is that priorities are finally being set up right. The business of research is between researchers and the institutions supporting research. Researchers ought to communicate among themselves as they choose, and not as external players (such as publishers) might desire. I really like what all my colleagues have been saying below, and they are all researchers. As for Dr. Wise, her statements amount to reasserting or seeking a role for publishers, but she should understand that the point of research is not publishers, and what researchers need is some form of publication, not publishers. The problem publishers have in this new digital world is that they have trouble justifying their role. To wit: 1. Peer review is performed by researchers, not publishers. Peer reviewers are selected by journal editors that are researchers, not publishers. Managing the flow of manuscripts in peer review often requires tools that publishers may or may not provide; however, free tools are available (e.g. OJS) and are evolving nicely all the time; 2. Linguistic and stylistic editing could provide a small role for publishers, except that they do it less and less for cost-cutting reasons (i.e. profit-seeking reasons). 3. Marketing of ideas is done wrong: it is done through journals and it is handled largely through the flawed notion of impact factors. More and more studies demonstrate a growing disconnect between impact factors and individual article impacts. Researchers do not need a marketing of journals; they need a marketing of their articles through some device that clearly and unambiguously reflects the quality of their visible (published) work. 4. To market their own articles, researchers should have recourse to OA repositories. Once better filled up through mandates, repositories can become platforms for the efficient promotion of articles. Such platforms are entirely independent of publishers. And Stevan is absolutely right: OA policy is not the publishers' business, but the business of institutions carrying on research. Fundamentally, the publishers' problem is that they claim to know the publication needs of researchers better than researchers themselves; they also claim a degree of control over the grand conversation of science. Obviously, both propositions are unacceptable. Jean-Claude Guédon Le mercredi 20 juin 2012 à 07:41 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit : On 2012-06-20, at 7:15 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: ...perhaps time to explore opportunities to work with publishers? No, precisely the opposite, I think: It's time for institutions to realize that institutional Green OA self-archiving policy is (and always has been) exclusively their own business, and not publishers' (who have a rather different business...) Negotiate subscription prices with publishers. But do not even discuss institutional OA policy with publishers. (And advise institutional researchers to ignore incoherent clauses in their copyright agreements: Anything of the form P but not-P -- e.g. you retain the right to self-archive, but not if you are required to exercise the right to self-archive -- implies anything at all, as well as the opposite of anything at
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
Stevan: Thomas's humbug advice is not incompatible with green open access or with mandates. In fact, it would accelerate the evolution of open access. You equate access to the pay-walled literature with institutional site licenses. There are other ways to gain access: 1. Obtain a personal subscription. 2. Pay per view. 3. Send a nice e-mail to the authors requesting an author-formatted copy. 4. Do a web search with a choice key words, and invariably one version or another pops up. In fact, if institutions were to gradually cut subscriptions, they would give the two unequivocal signals (money talks): 1. To publishers: We mean it when we say scholarly publishing is too expensive. The superinflationary price increases are stopping now. 2. To faculty: We mean it when we say we will not pay any price for scholarly literature. You may have to start paying for access yourself OR you can change where you submit your papers. It would be nice if, in addition, university administrations would also make clear that, in this age of change, they will instruct PT committees to be open to publications in alternate forms and in non-establishment journals. This does not require loosening standards. It just acknowledges that traditional metrics are increasingly weak. Making sure such alternate publications are of high quality may mean substantially more work for the PT committee. --Eric. http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com Google Voice: (626) 898-5415 Telephone: (626) 376-5415 Skype: efvandevelde -- Twitter: @evdvelde E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 7:10 AM, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.ukwrote: On 2012-06-20, at 9:19 AM, Thomas Krichel wrote: Stevan Harnad writes Some humble advice for institutions and libraries: Negotiate with publishers about subscription price. Some not so humble advice: cut subscriptions. Spen[d] a part of the savings building the institutional repository. And if the institution's users need access to a journal article from another institution, today, they should eat cake? Or look for it, today, in their own institutional repository? And maybe instead of spending money building the institutional repository, institutions should mandate filling it? The only cost of that is a few extra author keystrokes. Perhaps the subscription cancelling can be saved for when 100% of all institutions' articles have been deposited and are accessible to all users as Green OA? Maybe humble advice is more helpful than humbug advice? ;) Stevan ___ 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: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
On 2012-06-20, at 10:22 AM, Sally Morris wrote: I find it very sad that the response on this list has been to denigrate both the Finch report's authors and publishers in general. It would seem that the (relatively small number of) primary contributors to this list take it as an article of faith that publishers are to be hated and destroyed; they do not want a balanced approach or a 'mixed economy' (e.g. of green, gold etc). However, if researchers themselves, both as authors and as readers, didn't value what journals, and their publishers, add to research articles, they would long ago have ceased publishing in, or reading, journals, and contented themselves with placing their articles directly in, and reading from, repositories. If that were to change, those that benefit from the proceeds of the current range of publishing models (not just shareholders, but also learned society members etc...) would indeed face a major challenge. But until it does, the challenge with which publishers are currently engaging is how to enable their authors' work to be as accessible as possible, without making it impossible to continue to do those things that authors and readers value in journals. I don't see how that makes publishers bad? Can't we grow up and have a rather more reasoned discussion? There are indeed some unthinking hotheads, on both sides of the OA issue. But this particular thread is not about the Finch Report; it's about whether institutions and funders should seek agreement from publishers on institutional or funder policy mandating Green OA self-archiving. Many objective (and cool-headed) reasons have been provided to the effect that the answer is No. Perhaps we could discuss those, rather than the subjective tone of some hot-heads (which I agree should be temperate)?. As to the Finch Report's recommendations -- well, it's not surprising that some publishers are pleased with them, since they managed to get the Finch Report to reflect publisher interests rather than research and researcher interests (Green is ineffectual and inadequate and would destroy publication and peer review: If you insist on OA, pay us for Gold OA instead, at our prices and on our timetable.) That is why I say, cool-headedly: ignore the Finch Report and ignore publishers' requests to discuss agreement: Institutions and funders should go ahead and mandate Green OA (and make sure their mandates are upgraded to effective ones, if need be). After that's done, globally, we can all sit down and have a reasoned discussion about the future. But not before. Or instead (as we've already been doing for at least a decade). Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
On 2012-06-20, at 10:30 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: The mistake authors make is to 'pay' publishers for their services by transferring copyright. Publishers are paid, in full, by institutional subscriptions. They should pay with money and get open access. Publication is being paid for already. All that's needed for OA (Green) is mandates (and keystrokes). Full open access, CC-BY. Green, Gratis OA (free online access) is full OA. Insisting on CC-BY today is premature, and a red herring now, when we are still so far from just plain vanilla free online access. The reason why they pay is that they want services. Let's call those services 'formal publishing'. They don't need those services for the sake of distributing their papers. They can do that for free, in a repository, say, and with open access without any cost or hindrance. It's the way ArXiv works. It's the way Green OA works. And the only service authors need is peer review, which peers provide for free, and publishers manage for a fee. And that fee is being paid in full by subscriptions today. But authors want/need more. They want formal publications, in a journal. So they 'buy' the services of a publisher to formalise their papers, with peer review and a journal 'badge'. The value of the 'badge' is often expressed as impact factor. See above. The rest is just formal verbiage. Authors want peer review, and that's being fully paid for today by subscriptions. So what is missing today is Green OA. And that's what mandates are for. Once the copyright has been transferred to the publisher, that publisher *is* a legitimate party in the discussion. Along with premature insistence on CC-BY, redirecting the agenda from Green OA to copyright reform is again a red herring -- one that has been a very successful distractor and retardant for years now. But that's behind us. We are discussing immediate deposit mandates here, not the length of embargo periods. No publisher agreement is needed by an institution or a funder either for adopting an immediate-deposit (ID/OA) mandate or for adopting a maximum allowable OA embargo-length. So the solution is: don't ask a publisher (or anyone) for a service if you don't want to pay. To repeat, the service of managing peer review is paid for, many times over, by subscriptions today. If and when Green OA makes subscriptions unsustainable, we can discuss paying for peer review as a Gold OA fee, out of the subscription cancelation savings -- but not before, or instead. And if you want a service and are prepared to pay, don't pay by transferring copyright, but just with plain old money. Subscriptions are money, and copyright is a red herring. Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
It is not a question of hating publishers; it is a question of placing them in their rightful place. David Prosser, very aptly, defined publishers as a service industry. This is excellent. Let publishers behave like a service industry, while recognizing that other kinds of actors and financial schemes may render the same services as well, or even better, than they do. Researchers value journals only because evaluation techniques in the universities narrowly rely on scientometric techniques that are themselves based on journals (and were designed to evaluate journals, not researchers). They have little choice in the matter. However, managers of research institutions, in particular universities, would do well to study how their evaluation procedures relate to the high prices libraries pay for subscriptions, and how poorly they relate to the quality of their researchers. As for what is added to research articles, it is done by peers or by editors (and both categories qualify as researchers). Style, clarity, layout are valuable additions, but this is secondary: researchers want access to content; they will gladly accept and even encourage good style, clarity, etc., but content is what they want. Finally, if publishers were really trying only to make scientific work accessible, there would be no quarrel. The real issue is that commercial publishers (and even some society publishers) are unable to imagine a financial scheme that could provide OA and also provide a satisfactory margin of profit. However, as OA is optimal for the communication of validated scientific research, it is the solution of choice for science (and scholarship more generally). If commercial publishers find it impossible to continue, so be it! Science will go on, and commercial publishers will join manuscript copyists on the junk pile of history. Researchers want access, communication, evaluation; publishers want profits. The two, however much one may believe in the miracles of the invisible hand, are not equivalent, and do not even converge, as the last forty years of price increases amply demonstrate. So, yes, let us have a more reasoned discussion. Let us do it, for example, by accepting that scientific communication is not an activity that is easily reconciled with commerce, share holders, and profit. Let us think a little bit out of the box of liberal economics. Perhaps a reading of Michael Sandel's book, What Money can't buy is in order here. Jean-Claude Guédon Le mercredi 20 juin 2012 à 15:22 +0100, Sally Morris a écrit : I find it very sad that the response on this list has been to denigrate both the Finch report's authors and publishers in general. It would seem that the (relatively small number of) primary contributors to this list take it as an article of faith that publishers are to be hated and destroyed; they do not want a balanced approach or a 'mixed economy' (e.g. of green, gold etc). However, if researchers themselves, both as authors and as readers, didn't value what journals, and their publishers, add to research articles, they would long ago have ceased publishing in, or reading, journals, and contented themselves with placing their articles directly in, and reading from, repositories. If that were to change, those that benefit from the proceeds of the current range of publishing models (not just shareholders, but also learned society members etc...) would indeed face a major challenge. But until it does, the challenge with which publishers are currently engaging is how to enable their authors' work to be as accessible as possible, without making it impossible to continue to do those things that authors and readers value in journals. I don't see how that makes publishers bad? Can't we grow up and have a rather more reasoned discussion? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk __ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Jean-Claude Guédon Sent: 20 June 2012 14:05 To: goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders What I really, and I mean *really* like about this exchange is that priorities are finally being set up right. The business of research is between researchers and the institutions supporting research. Researchers ought to communicate among themselves as they choose, and not as external players (such as publishers) might desire. I really like what all my colleagues have been saying below, and they are all researchers. As for Dr. Wise, her statements amount to reasserting or seeking a role for publishers, but she should understand that the point of research is not publishers, and what researchers need is some form of publication, not
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
On 20 Jun 2012, at 16:21, Stevan Harnad wrote: On 2012-06-20, at 10:30 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: The mistake authors make is to 'pay' publishers for their services by transferring copyright. Publishers are paid, in full, by institutional subscriptions. What does 'in full' mean here? They should pay with money and get open access. Publication is being paid for already. What is being paid is enough to pay for publication, I agree. But it's not paid for publication, it's paid for access. That's precisely the problem. All that's needed for OA (Green) is mandates (and keystrokes). Full open access, CC-BY. Green, Gratis OA (free online access) is full OA. Insisting on CC-BY today is premature, and a red herring now, when we are still so far from just plain vanilla free online access. Well, the BOAI in 2000 described OA in such a way that CC-BY is the licence that best covers the intention then expressed. Plain vanilla access is solving yesterday's problem. Sometimes one has to leapfrog and anticipate the future. CC-BY allows that. OA as simply 'ocular access' doesn't. I'm referring to text mining and re-use rights, or rather the lack of it in plain vanilla, before you ask. The reason why they pay is that they want services. Let's call those services 'formal publishing'. They don't need those services for the sake of distributing their papers. They can do that for free, in a repository, say, and with open access without any cost or hindrance. It's the way ArXiv works. It's the way Green OA works. As long as 'green' means manuscripts, yes. If 'green' means the published paper for which the copyright has been transferred, no. A mandate should make abundantly clear that under no circumstances copyright should be transferred to a publisher. Copyright transfer is a contract. 'Green' mandates rule out copyright transfer. Legally and practically. Researchers shouldn't be enticed into legal conflict zones with false assertions that they can transfer legal rights and then ignore the fact that they have transferred them. They should not transfer them and be advised accordingly. Admitting the problem is the first step to a solution. And the only service authors need is peer review, which peers provide for free, and publishers manage for a fee. And that fee is being paid in full by subscriptions today. No. Subscriptions pay for access. The fee should be paid for the service rendered, which is the organisation of peer review and formal publication. Conflating the two is the main cause of misunderstanding and conflict. Mandates would be an awful lot clearer if the argument that the publication fee is paid in full by subscriptions were to be dropped from the equation. 'Green' mandates are about making research results open, and costs nothing; publishing, including OA publishing, is about giving those research results 'value' and 'context' in the scholarly ego-system, and carries a cost, because it involves asking people (publishers) to arrange something, professionally, and those people need to be paid. But authors want/need more. They want formal publications, in a journal. So they 'buy' the services of a publisher to formalise their papers, with peer review and a journal 'badge'. The value of the 'badge' is often expressed as impact factor. See above. The rest is just formal verbiage. Authors want peer review, and that's being fully paid for today by subscriptions. See above. So what is missing today is Green OA. And that's what mandates are for. Once the copyright has been transferred to the publisher, that publisher *is* a legitimate party in the discussion. Along with premature insistence on CC-BY, redirecting the agenda from Green OA to copyright reform is again a red herring -- one that has been a very successful distractor and retardant for years now. CC-BY is not copyright reform. It's using existing copyright effectively, and not as a proxy for payment to publishers, that subsequently makes it possible - and necessary - to sell subscriptions. But that's behind us. We are discussing immediate deposit mandates here, not the length of embargo periods. I'm not discussing the length of embargo periods, either. In fact, I don't like them at all. 'Gold' OA doesn't need them. No publisher agreement is needed by an institution or a funder either for adopting an immediate-deposit (ID/OA) mandate or for adopting a maximum allowable OA embargo-length. So the solution is: don't ask a publisher (or anyone) for a service if you don't want to pay. To repeat, the service of managing peer review is paid for, many times over, by subscriptions today. See above. If and when Green OA makes subscriptions unsustainable, we can discuss paying for peer review as a Gold OA fee, out of the subscription cancelation savings -- but not before, or instead. Indeed, nobody should even have been thinking
[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders
Gentle reader, please skip this if you have heard the same things said by me and Jan over and over. If Jan posts again, I won't reply. Please do not construe my silence as assent! On 2012-06-20, at 2:54 PM, Jan Velterop wrote: On 20 Jun 2012, at 16:21, Stevan Harnad wrote: On 2012-06-20, at 10:30 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: The mistake authors make is to 'pay' publishers for their services by transferring copyright. Publishers are paid, in full, by institutional subscriptions. What does [Publishers are paid, in full, by institutional subscriptions] mean here? It means the full costs of publication are being paid. No one is doing anything without getting paid for it. What is being paid is enough to pay for publication, I agree. But it's not paid for publication, it's paid for access. That's precisely the problem. What is the problem? If the costs are covered (and covered handsomely) the costs are covered. What is your point? Plain vanilla [free online] access is solving yesterday's problem. Yesterday's problem is still today's problem, and it is still unsolved -- until institutions and funders mandate Green OA. Sometimes one has to leapfrog and anticipate the future. CC-BY allows that. OA as simply 'ocular access' doesn't. We have even less free OA + CC-BY than plain vanilla free online OA today. How does CC-BY allow its solution whereas free online access doesn't? This all sounds very theoretical. But what we need is real OA, in the world, and there is not only less free OA + CC-BY than free OA today, but free OA + CC-BY is harder to get then free OA alone (apart from including free OA). So, practically speaking, what is your point? And in what sense is CC-BY the solution for anything other than a self-imposed theoretical puzzle? I'm referring to text mining and re-use rights, or rather the lack of it in plain vanilla, before you ask. Yes, besides lacking free OA today, we also lack free OA + CC-BY And your point is...? [Green OA works] As long as 'green' means manuscripts, yes. If 'green' means the published paper for which the copyright has been transferred, no. It means the refereed final draft. That's what access-denied users are denied today. That's what plain vanilla free online OA gives them -- and it would mean the difference between night and day for those access-denied users. So much for practical reality: Now back to abstract theory: A mandate should make abundantly clear that under no circumstances copyright should be transferred to a publisher. A mandate should make abundantly clear that the refereed final draft must be deposited immediately (and made OA no later than the allowable embargo period). If in addition the mandate can be strengthened beyond vanilla to include copyright retention, that's even better (no embargo!). But you forgot to mention how, when we have not yet got the vanilla mandates, we're going to get the butterscotch-strawberry ones? Should the even-better wait for or hold up the better? Especially when the better is already within reach and the even-better is not? Copyright transfer is a contract. 'Green' mandates rule out copyright transfer. Legally and practically. All I recall was that they required authors to deposit their refereed drafts within an embargo period... Researchers shouldn't be enticed into legal conflict zones with false assertions that they can transfer legal rights and then ignore the fact that they have transferred them. They should not transfer them and be advised accordingly. Admitting the problem is the first step to a solution. I suggest you talk to physicists, who have been doing this for over 20 years now. You would have had a splendid reason for them not have done it at all, since 1991. And I repeat, everything you are saying applies to the length of the allowable OA embargo. I have far, far less interest in that than in mandating the immediate deposit, the keystrokes. I haven't the slightest doubt that once ID/OA is universally mandated, the struggle's over, and the research community will turn the lights on for the dark deposits forthwith. All this abstract talk about what the publishers are being paid for and what rights are transferred is just conceptual shadow-boxing. Subscriptions pay for access. The fee should be paid for the service rendered, which is the organisation of peer review and formal publication. Conflating the two is the main cause of misunderstanding and conflict. The subscription fees are paying for the costs of publication even if they are designated as contributions to Santa Claus. And peer review won't get unbundled from the rest of the products and services it's wrapped in with until demand for the rest of the products and services vanishes, because users are satisfied with just the vanilla final draft (Green OA). Then institutions can cancel subscriptions and part of their windfall savings can be used to pay for the peer review, as Gold OA. But
