tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79618822024-03-18T03:03:50.087+00:00Open and Shut?Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.comBlogger319125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-84117235045850265172024-01-07T16:16:00.001+00:002024-01-07T16:19:51.465+00:00Signing off<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvANUMg_GK9fPz0AjQjp0_TjYvngkiX7QNcNAmxlQtwKAt9jxsJjxqqGnWQI_TZSDWCRo72b4gOhLj-PXN0znKUuXQLlRZcg1lsllBhqXS745lexlc8IVfaM7wDJG7ExATI26QP5m9dbRNvT0oQ8F0XJYD-32P49IqMWkbtacaT2P86GUXd3m3zg/s307/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="256" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvANUMg_GK9fPz0AjQjp0_TjYvngkiX7QNcNAmxlQtwKAt9jxsJjxqqGnWQI_TZSDWCRo72b4gOhLj-PXN0znKUuXQLlRZcg1lsllBhqXS745lexlc8IVfaM7wDJG7ExATI26QP5m9dbRNvT0oQ8F0XJYD-32P49IqMWkbtacaT2P86GUXd3m3zg/s1600/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><p>After reporting on the open access movement for 20+ years I have reached the conclusion that the movement has failed. </p><p>As a result, I shall no longer be writing about open access or updating this blog.</p><p>I explain my reasons for reaching the conclusion I have in <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/12/07/where-did-the-open-access-movement-go-wrong-an-interview-with-richard-poynder/" target="_blank">this Q&A</a> on <i>The Scholarly Kitchen</i> website. </p><p>I would like to thank those who wished me well when I <a href="https://x.com/RickyPo/status/1728308480321229067?s=20" target="_blank">announced my decision</a> and I wish all those who continue to advocate for open access the very best. </p><p>My challenge to the latter is: please prove me wrong!</p><p><br /></p><p></p><p><br /></p>Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-2816985450163905432022-05-10T08:01:00.002+00:002022-05-10T09:23:21.599+00:00The OA interviews: Richard Gallagher, President & Editor-in-Chief, Annual Reviews<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Annual Reviews (</span></i><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/?msclkid=d250b06acedd11ec960ebed1c02ea877"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">AR</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">) recently </span></i><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/pb-assets/assets/documents/press-release/S2O_Press_Center.pdf?msclkid=0eef4909cc5111ecadd811a52936638c"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">announced</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that over the
next 18 months it aims to make its entire portfolio of 51 academic journals
freely available under a new journal publication model known as Subscribe to
Open (</span></i><a href="https://subscribetoopencommunity.org/?msclkid=3b838f6ccc5111ec93afa92dc4dceb0e"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">S2O</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">).</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Annual Reviews is
a pioneer of S2O, having first trialled it in 2017 with its journal </span></i><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/journal/publhealth"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Annual
Review of Public Health</span></a>. <i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A number of AR’s other journals have
subsequently been converted to S2O and the publisher is now hoping to migrate its
entire journal portfolio to the new model.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is S2O? The S2O
Community of Practice web site </span></i><a href="https://subscribetoopencommunity.org/?msclkid=3b838f6ccc5111ec93afa92dc4dceb0e"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">describes it</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in this way:</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">S2O allows
publishers to convert journals from subscriptions to OA, one year at a time.
Using S2O, a publisher offers a journal’s current subscribers continued access.
If all current subscribers participate in the S2O offer (simply by not opting
out) the publisher opens the content covered by that year’s subscription. If
participation is not sufficient – for example, if some subscribers delay
renewing in the expectation that they can gain access without participating –
then that year’s content remains gated.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The web site adds,
“</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
offer is repeated every year, with the opening of each year’s content
contingent on sufficient participation. In some cases, access to backfile
content may be used to enhance the offer.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In light of AR’s
announcement, I emailed a number of questions to the President &
Editor-in-Chief of AR, Richard Gallagher. Those questions, and Gallagher’s
replies, are published below.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5l1Y_PCpbRl6i8LfvRbfNAmZVp7UXtSzXluQ1NNzo2zK2ESqG_0Krt935ENMzhbA_Ja1RBXh0oNDca2spNZuyE-3fQ-As9fFfNnEbdW6xJFaSU8k9M0KDQqFn66Q-vNmsFGFI2Yd_N-hEaPHNxiDKne2tZG3oFm9SzeOZ39U8DyRNfmouVc/s3139/Photo%20Richard%20Galagher.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3139" data-original-width="2585" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY5l1Y_PCpbRl6i8LfvRbfNAmZVp7UXtSzXluQ1NNzo2zK2ESqG_0Krt935ENMzhbA_Ja1RBXh0oNDca2spNZuyE-3fQ-As9fFfNnEbdW6xJFaSU8k9M0KDQqFn66Q-vNmsFGFI2Yd_N-hEaPHNxiDKne2tZG3oFm9SzeOZ39U8DyRNfmouVc/s320/Photo%20Richard%20Galagher.jpeg" width="264" /></a></i></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Q&A begins</span></h2><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">RP: Annual Reviews (</i></span><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">AR</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">) is the pioneer of Subscribe to Open (</span></i></b><a href="https://subscribetoopencommunity.org/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">S2O</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">). It began, in 2017, with </span></i></b><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/pb-assets/assets/documents/press-release/ARPU_RWJF_PR.pdf"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">a pilot</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
funded by the </span></i></b><a href="http://www.rwjf.org/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Robert Wood Johnson Foundation</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> in which the </span></i></b><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/journal/publhealth"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Annual Review of Public Health</span></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> journal was made open access, including all the backfiles
from 1980-2016. Further AR journals were later released under the S2O model and
Annual Reviews has </span></i></b><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/pb-assets/assets/documents/press-release/S2O_Press_Center.pdf"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">announced</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
that over the next 18 months it hopes to migrate all 51 of its journals to S2O.</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can you talk me through the journey AR has undergone, what
has been learned, and why it now wants to convert all its journals to S2O?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> When I
joined Annual Reviews in 2015, review articles didn’t figure on the to-do list
of the OA movement. A senior figure at one OA-pioneering research funding
agency told me that he regarded writing review articles to be an out-of-hours
activity that did not qualify for APC support.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The lack of recognition of reviews was understandable given
the relatively small numbers published each year, but it was also frustrating
because I felt that, from a practical point of view, reviews should be among
the top priorities for open access.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><p></p><p></p><blockquote><i><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">“</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Usage increased in that one year by a factor of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">4, and these were readers, not bots</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">”</span></span></b></i></blockquote><p> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our big break came with the 2017 Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation grant that you mentioned. It had two components: to cover the cost
of the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Annual Review of Public Health</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> for one year, allowing us to
assess the impact of removing the paywall; and to fund the development of a
viable OA model for reviews, since APCs and Read and Publish couldn’t be adapted
to our needs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Usage increased in that one year by a factor of </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">4, and these were readers, not bots.
We assessed how far through articles users were scrolling and there was no
difference between the open journal and our most similar paywalled journals; if
bots had had an impact, the scroll patterns would have been different.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To help develop a business
model we hired </span><a href="https://sparcopen.org/people/raym-crow/?msclkid=3f0c968bcc5211ec82e6c15867ab1b92"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Raym Crow</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> as a consultant at the suggestion of </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamran-naim-phd-20605012/?msclkid=568583e3cc5211ec953df16aea075b41&originalSubdomain=ch"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kamran Naim</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, my co-grantee and then Annual Reviews’
Director of Partnerships and Initiatives. Raym had a track record in collective
funding logic, and in the very first meeting with him I realized that he was
laying out a practical approach that we could try. That was in June 2017.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It took time to generate a
proposal that seemed robust enough to take to our Board, Editorial Committees,
select customers (and our staff!) but for the 2020 sales cycle (i.e., by
mid-2019), we were ready for an S2O pilot project.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In addition to the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Annual
Review of Public Health</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (which had remained freely accessible in the
meantime), a mix of established and newer titles in the physical, biomedical,
biological and social sciences were selected.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We discussed the project
openly, outlined our thinking in </span><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/leap.1262"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Learned Publishing</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and opted not to copyright the Subscribe to
Open name in the hope that others pursuing similar programs would also use it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Subscription
levels were maintained for the five S2O journals in 2020 and this, combined
with usage that ranged between double and quadruple that seen when the journals
were paywalled, encouraged us to expand the pilot program to eight journals for
2021 and 2022.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To date, we have
results from offering 15 volumes of Annual Reviews journals under S2O, and all
have been successful (five in 2020, eight in 2021, and both of the 2023 volumes
published so far; the remaining six are on track).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s promising but
it isn’t a full proof-of-concept because most of our customers take
multi-journal packages, and it would not have been in their financial interests
to exclude the S2O titles.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nonetheless, I
believe that now is the right time to offer the entire Annual Reviews portfolio
under S2O. This is partly because of an action taken in the early stages of the
Covid-19 pandemic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In March 2020, we
temporarily removed the paywall on all 51 journals to ensure that subscribers
would have seamless access, and usage increased by a minimum of three-fold and
a maximum (for the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Annual Review of Virology</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">) of more than 20-fold. That
experience generated urgency to move forward.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whether all 51
titles are published OA in 2023 is, of course, in the hands of the customers.
We are taking nothing for granted.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The model and its benefits</span></p><h2><o:p></o:p></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: A number of other </span></i></b><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Me7X0HtV4n4Q-KWIu7HxORMGg8aWfC6mSGo8hRvlF5k/edit"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">publishers</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
have started experimenting with S2O too, but I think the model used tends to
vary from publisher to publisher. Can you say how AR’s model works, how it
differs from some of the other models being tested, and what you see as the
benefits of S2O, to readers, to authors, and to publishers?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RG: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The S2O
Community of Practice includes all the publishers that currently offer S2O
journals. The community has agreed a set of criteria that defines S2O, which
walks the line between a tight, meaningful business model and giving space for
innovation to allow publishers to address issues particular to their portfolio.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Of course,
this agreement is completely voluntary, but it has worked well so far and the
differences between offerings are minor.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><b><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></span></b></i></p><blockquote><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><i><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">For authors, the appeal is simplicity and equity. Simplicity because there is no additional labor or payment from authors, and equity because under S2O the social sciences and humanities are on a par with biomedical research, and the work of researchers in low- and middle-income countries is treated equally to that of researchers in wealthy countries</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">”</span></b></i></span></blockquote><i><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"></span></span></b></i><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">From what I
gather, S2O is a much simpler and less variable proposition for librarians than
a Read and Publish deal. Having said that, I acknowledge that it does add
another item to the librarians’ workload.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Annual
Reviews S2O model is straight-forward, and the contracts will be very
recognizable to customers. There is no “OA premium” associated with S2O, and
the overall finances of our journal publishing program will continue to be made
publicly available.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are
making some tweaks for 2023 to incentivize/reward customers. In total, 10 years
of content will be openly accessible for journals that adopt S2O. For the five
initial pilot titles, that means three fully OA issues (with CC-BY licenses)
plus removal of the paywall on a further seven years of content.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the 43
titles that we hope to publish using S2O for the first time, 2023 will be fully
OA and the nine previous years’ content opened up.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Other
publishers may offer five years back content, more restrictive CC BY licenses,
and in one case a blended offering that combines Read and Publish and S2O components.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In some
fields, APC payments from research funders are a crucial component in journal
income. Currently, funders, librarians and publishers are exploring how best to
incorporate funder support into the S2O business model.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Regarding
the benefits of S2O, I’d like to quote a librarian, </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisbrundy/?msclkid=1b917ad7cc5311ec88c6ab0803ac954e"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Curtis
Brundy</span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, who is the
Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communication and Collections at
Iowa State University.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">He said, “</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A
model like S2O is something that librarians have been asking for, for many
years. We need to move our mindset from procurement – where we focus on
spending out our collection budgets – to really investing in the open future
that we envision. Libraries are already stepping forward to support S2O and
their institutional values. It is inspiring them</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For authors, the appeal is simplicity and equity.
Simplicity because there is no additional labor or payment from authors, and
equity because under S2O the social sciences and humanities are on a par with
biomedical research, and the work of researchers in low- and middle-income
countries is treated equally to that of researchers in wealthy countries. These
are issues that have been </span><a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/open-access-closed-middle-income-countries"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">problematic
for OA</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The appeal
for publishers is that, if it takes hold, S2O offers a rapid, predictable and
stable way to convert subscriber-supported journals to OA. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For readers,
opening up entire journals is an advantage over the institution-by-institution
process that characterizes Read and Publish deals. Again, this is an equity
issue.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">What is the final destination?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Once a backfile has been released will both it and that
year’s content remain OA forever? If so, presumably the longer the program
continues, the less incentive there will be for libraries to continue
subscribing? Can you say something about that and share your views on the </span></i></b><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/10/09/roadblocks-to-better-open-access-models/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">free rider</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
issue that S2O introduces? Could it prove a serious impediment in the future?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Once a volume is published
OA, it will always be OA. Back volumes published before S2O was introduced will
be behind the paywall with the exception of those volumes that make up the
previous 10 years of content, which will be free to access.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I agree that as the program
continues the accumulation of open content may be a disincentive, but a minor
one. We have a package of incentives for subscribers that we hope will keep
them engaged with S2O in the long term.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Also, as S2O becomes an
established model for other publishers, our subscribers gain access to titles
for which they are not part of the subscriber base. The motivation for
institutions to contribute to an open environment, which is what librarians,
authors, funders and publishers all want, by maintaining subscriptions will be
strong.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is no free-rider
option. If even a small proportion of our subscribers took a “calculated
gamble” to free ride, the S2O offering would fail, and access would require a
subscription to paywalled content. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is one of the
essential points to get across to the library decision-makers. It has not been
an issue in the pilot project.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: I have seen a lot of discussion about the threshold
required before AR decides that a sufficient number of libraries have
subscribed to justify freeing an S2O journal’s content for that year. Can you
clarify exactly how AR makes this decision and what percentage of previous
subscribers need to sign up to allow AR to make the year’s content free?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG: </span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The costs to publish
the journals under S2O are the same as under paywalled access. To meet these
costs, we need all existing customers to renew (setting aside the small amount
of churn in our subscriber base every year that is</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> due to occasional changes
in research and teaching focus at institutions</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">).
Every subscription is vital.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We will also be seeking to add new subscribers,
something that we will pursue more actively when we have usage information to
back up the proposal.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are also exploring multi-year contracts,
consortia-wide deals and countrywide licenses, all of which would provide
additional financial stability. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP:</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> You have I think </span></i></b><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/02/subscribe-to-open/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">indicated</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
that there may be need for additional revenue streams if AR subscriber numbers
start to wane. Can you say something about this? Also, do AR journals currently
have sources of revenue in addition to subscriptions.</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are looking at projects
that support our mission and that could provide additional revenue streams, but
it is too early to discuss them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: What has been AR’s experience in attracting new
subscribers to S2O journals to date? Have you seen an increase in subscriptions
since you started opening the content or have the numbers fallen off? Do you
expect this to change over time?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> We have limited experience so far. We have
added new subscribers, which is quite thrilling to me, but we haven’t yet
engaged in a serious campaign to identify major users who are not subscribers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We will make a strong case
for such institutions, academic and non-academic, to become subscribers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: As you make clear, S2O is only sustainable if existing
libraries continue to subscribe and/or new subscribers join each year. This
suggests it will always be vulnerable to discontinuance.</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even if it continues, presumably there may be gaps in the
historical record so far as OA is concerned (although I realise the complete
record will always be available behind a paywall). Presumably, this means that,
although more and more content will become OA over time, S2O journals will
always remain subscription journals. In a sense, perhaps, one could argue that
they are neither fish nor fowl.</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Given this, do you envisage AR at some point making a full
commitment to OA and changing the default status of its journals from
subscription to open access? If you did, how would they be funded if there was
no subscription revenue anymore, and no APCs? Could Diamond OA be an option?
What do you see as the final destination here?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, S2O journals are viable only if supported by
subscriptions. Likewise, the APC route to OA is viable only if the APC is paid,
Read and Publish deals are viable only if the fee is paid, and Diamond OA
projects will only exist so long as they are backed financially. Incidentally,
if diamond OA is simply “articles/journals that neither charge users to read
nor authors to publish”, per </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_open_access"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Wikipedia</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, then S2O is a diamond approach, but there do seem to be
other, to me enigmatic, criteria.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Getting S2O off the ground is challenging because we need
to maintain every subscription rather than doing a one-off deal. If all our
titles are published OA in the first couple of years, along with the </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Me7X0HtV4n4Q-KWIu7HxORMGg8aWfC6mSGo8hRvlF5k/edit"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">80-plus titles
from 11 other publishers</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, S2O will become
established.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In that event, I predict that the S2O program will
deliver highly stable OA publishing that is not vulnerable to discontinuance.
This stability can be supported by multi-year contracts with subscribers, by
countrywide deals with central agencies, or through contributions from funding
agencies that currently underwrite APCs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">With apologies for the corny allusion, (S2O) journal publishing is a journey,
not a destination. We must earn the right to publish S2O, by generating
subscription revenue from academic and research institutions. They are our
preferred fellow travellers, as we share their commitment to learning, research
and public service.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Brief<i> has </i></span></b><a href="https://www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/s2o/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">said</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">,
“S2O may prove to be the kind of model that works well as long as it is not
widely adopted”. Is there something to that?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the contrary, the more widely S2O is implemented, the
more likely it is to be successful.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: As I understand it, AR </span></i></b><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/04/20/feasibility-sustainability-and-the-subscribe-to-open-model/#comment-101333"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">commissions papers</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> rather than inviting researchers to submit them. I guess
that is why you say the APC approach could not be adopted by Annual Reviews and
why it therefore decided to go with S2O?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, all of our content is
commissioned (proposals from potential authors are welcome). And yes, this excluded APCs as an option. We
felt we could not invite researchers to spend many weeks writing a review, and
then present them with a bill to publish OA.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Licensing</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Can you explain how AR deals with the licensing of papers in
its S2O journals. I believe the standard licence used for new articles is CC BY,
but authors are still asked to assign copyright to AR. Why is that?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As of 2023, authors of new
articles will retain copyright, the license will remain CC BY. We retained
copyright during the pilot program just to allow us to get on with things – authors
had already signed forms and we didn’t have the bandwidth to revisit them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: What about backfiles: what licence is attached to them?
Is this likely to change in the future?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> We retain the copyright on
the backfiles, and they are not licensed CC BY. They are available through
purchase of our </span><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/page/subscriptions/2020ebvc?msclkid=91097c85cc5311ec8d38f694a48a45e2"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Electronic Back Volume Collection</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: I think you sell copies of papers via Copyright
Clearance Center (</span></i></b><a href="https://www.copyright.com/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">CCC</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">).
What level of revenue does that bring in? Is that revenue source likely to
become more important over time or is it incompatible with the concept of open
access, and so hard to justify?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> CCC revenue provides 3.5
percent of our income at present. The backfiles of our journals are not
switching to CC BY licences, so almost all of CCC revenues should be preserved
in the near- to mid-term. A gradual decline in this revenue stream is manageable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Unless I am
misunderstanding something, CCC is also selling rights to CC BY-licensed papers
published by Annual Reviews. Is this AR’s policy or a glitch in the AR/CCC
websites?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thanks for bringing this to
my attention. We had not been aware that the S2O journal content was being
charged for by CCC.<b> </b>This is a legacy issue – there has been a single
feed from AR to CCC that didn’t discriminate between the paywalled and open
titles.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We will get this fixed and
will invite CCC to attend an S2O Community of Practice meeting so that others
are aware of the issue.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Work to be done</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">AR has also launched a publication called </span></i></b><a href="https://knowablemagazine.org/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Knowable
Magazine</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> to provide
journalistic coverage of the real-world significance of science. You have </span></i></b><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/02/subscribe-to-open/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">described</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
this as “a complementary approach to opening up our content.” What would you
say to those who might argue this is really all that the public needs in terms
of free access to scientific knowledge?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG: </span></b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Knowable</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <i>Magazine</i> is great,
but it is no replacement for the open availability of expert-written summaries
of research progress.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We carried out a small IP
address analysis of users from Australia of the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Annual Review of Public
Health</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and identified downloads from government departments, health care
organizations, banks, rural hospitals, grammar schools, police departments,
pharmaceutical companies, fire and rescue services, family planning clinics,
local government family services, an HIV resource center, a prison and many
departments of public health.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Scientific reviews are not
a casual read. Having them available, however, means that we and others can
extract relevant information to present to different audiences to meet their
needs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are pursuing such a
project aimed at policy makers. Having the source review article available OA
guarantees the credibility of these adjunct products and provides further
information for those wishing to take a deep dive into a topic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">About one percent of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Knowable</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
readers take advantage of access to relevant reviews.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i><b><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></span></b></i></p><blockquote><i><b><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">cOAlition S is still reviewing how it will engage with S2O and is in discussions with S2O publishers. All of us in the S2O Community of Practice look forward to the results of their deliberation</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">”</span></span></b></i></blockquote><i><b><span style="color: #660000; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></span></b></i><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: <i>S2O has been </i></span></b><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/coalition-s-endorses-the-s2o-model-of-funding-oa/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">endorsed</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
by both OA2020 and cOAlition S. AR is understandably using this to </span></i></b><a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/page/subscriptions/subscribe-to-open"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">promote</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
its S2O activities. I note, however, that </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Brief<i> has </i></span></b><a href="https://www.ce-strategy.com/the-brief/s2o/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">suggested</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> that S2O does not provide a good way of achieving the goals
of Plan S.</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
Brief<i> puts it, “Let’s say an author submits a manuscript in July or August.
The paper may not be published until January of the subsequent year (or later).
At the time of submission, the journal may or may not have met its target
threshold for the next subscription year. This puts the author’s paper in a
kind of Schrödinger’s cat state of superposition where the paper may or may not
be in compliance with funder mandates. What if the journal never meets the
threshold and the paper is ultimately published on a subscription basis?” Do
you see this as an issue?</i></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Plan S does
not mandate review articles to be OA, so this is not an issue for Annual
Reviews. Of course, it would be disappointing for an author and for us as
publishers if we were forced to introduce the paywall, and we will do
everything we can to avoid that from happening. For</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> primary research, where there is a Plan S mandate for
OA, APCs could provide a backup in the event of an unsuccessful S2O offering,
albeit a less than perfect one.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">cOAlition S is still reviewing how it will engage with S2O
and is in discussions with S2O publishers. All of us in the S2O Community of
Practice look forward to the results of their deliberation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: I found it hard to locate OA content on the Annual
Reviews’ site. Individual papers seem to be signalled as being OA (with the OA
logo attached), but I do not think the OA logo is placed on the browse journal
page or on the paper titles in the volume list (although it is mentioned in the
“about journal” information). Could this be better signalled? Also, is it
possible to search only OA content on the site? How do users find Annual Reviews’
OA content?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> We are currently preparing
for an OA future, there is certainly work to be done to make it easier for
users to find OA content.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Measuring success</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The benefits of open access tend to be expressed in terms of
the number of times a paper is downloaded, and I note you said that AR has
experienced a significant increase in downloads for its S2O content. But do you
think this is an adequate measurement tool? Could it even be a deceptive one –
I have seen </span></i></b><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2021/04/20/feasibility-sustainability-and-the-subscribe-to-open-model/#comment-101551"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">suggestions</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
that much of the increased usage when content is made OA is a result of
activity by bots and crawlers rather than new human readers. While you say this
is not the case with AR (which publishes review articles rather than research
papers), I wonder if there are other, better ways in which OA’s
success/benefits can be measured, or tools that might be developed to do this?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Total downloads provide a
useful shorthand metric, but they are not sufficient. Ideally, and without
undermining the confidentiality of the user, we would like qualitative and
quantitative usage information.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This includes where is the
content being used – in what type of institution, in what country and by what
type of user – and how the user rated the content in terms of how understandable
and how helpful it was, and what impact it had on their task.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This would create a
feedback loop that could help us improve our products. Other useful criteria
are citations numbers and patterns, and alt metrics of all kinds.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Regarding the validity of
usage data, as you say, we have evidence (mentioned above) that the accesses
are by humans. Also, the patterns of usage of individual articles are more
consistent with selection by people than by bots. For example, articles on
topics of broad general interest get more non-subscriber usage than articles on
specialized topics.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><b></b></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><b><span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span></b></i></span></p><i><b><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">“</span></span></b></i><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><b><span style="color: #660000;">I see S2O playing an important role in achieving a fully open scholarly literature, alongside existing and emerging routes to OA</span></b></i><i><b><span style="color: #660000; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">”</span></span></b></i><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><b><span style="color: #660000;"> </span></b></i></blockquote><p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><i><b><span style="color: #660000;"></span></b></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: As you noted earlier, one of the problems APCs create is
that those without the money to pay to publish (notably researchers located in
the Global South) discover that a paywall has been replaced by a publish wall.
One of the attractions of S2O is that it avoids this but is there any evidence
that it leads to higher submissions from those in the Global South and other
unfunded researchers. Does S2O assist them share their own research in a more
equitable and inclusive way? If so, how?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As noted,
all Annual Reviews content is commissioned, so I can’t answer that question
from our experience. (As an aside, I will say that our editorial committees are
taking steps to increase authorship from the Global South and from other groups
that are underrepresented in our journals.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Informal feedback from other S2O publishers indicates that
they have seen an uptick in submissions from the Global South, but it’s early
days and I haven’t seen any data yet.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">S2O is an equitable and inclusive approach to OA funding,
since it doesn’t require a payment from the author or that the author’s
institution has a Read and Publish deal with the journal that the author wants
to publish in.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: In the early days, it was assumed that open access would
solve three long-standing problems with scholarly communication – i.e., </span></i></b><a href="https://richardpoynder.co.uk/Information_Wants_to_be_Free.pdf"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the problems of accessibility, affordability, and equity</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. Aside from the continuing problem of equity, I think the
biggest disappointment for OA advocates today is that open access has not (yet
at least) turned out to be any less expensive than subscription publishing. S2O
certainly seems unlikely to reduce costs. Can you share your thoughts on this?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RG: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">OA does not
lower Annual Reviews’ costs. Staff salaries account for a large fraction of our
budget, and we won’t reduce the staff by a single position by converting to
S2O.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The other side of the coin is that it won’t add any new
staff either. It’s cost neutral. I don’t see how this can be viewed as a
disappointment, given the impact of moving to open.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For reducing costs, price transparency may have some minor
impact but real savings will require fundamental changes to the nature of
publishing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: Do you think OA advocates have been somewhat naïve about
the potential for OA to lower costs, or increase inclusiveness?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> For a traditional
publisher like Annual Reviews to be fully embracing OA is a testament to the
vision and credibility of OA advocates.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the small corner of OA
that I’ve been active in, namely the S2O Community of Practice, the approach is
pragmatic rather than naïve. I see librarians, funders, and publishers working
together to achieve a shared ambition of equitable and transparent open
publishing. S2O does increase inclusiveness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Regarding lowering costs,
we should all maximize efficiency, but major savings will need a different
approach to publishing.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In that regard, it will be
interesting to see how preprints develop, and I think that </span><a href="https://elifesciences.org/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">eLife</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is doing very interesting
things (though not necessarily inexpensively, at the moment).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The future</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: How do you see the future for open access, and the part
that S2O will play in that future?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Open access is
tremendously important. The Covid-19 pandemic proved this and also demonstrated
the ability of all publishers to make information quickly and widely available.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We need to make that the
norm because climate change issues and many other societal challenges and
opportunities will be similarly impacted by an open science environment,
including open access.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I see S2O playing an
important role in achieving a fully open scholarly literature, alongside
existing and emerging routes to OA. As experience accumulates, some
consolidation of OA models would be welcome, otherwise it will get very
complicated.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">RP: With the current growth in populism, the prospect of a </span></i></b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/opinion/globalization-global-culture-war.html"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">collapse of globalisation</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, a new cold war (with perhaps both Russia and China), and
what seems to be a rush to achieve national resource security and increased
protection of national IP, is it possible that when the history books are
written open access will come to be seen as a good and high-minded, but
ultimately unachievable, objective?</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RG:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I sincerely hope not, as
open access is essential, not just good and high-minded, given the challenges
we face.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">At the global level, it’s
hard not to be appalled and discouraged by current events, but scientific and
technical exchanges persisted through the Cold War, and the research community
should insist on maintaining those now. Open access is something that could
assist in this. In addition (at least in democracies), action on climate change
or on public health emergencies requires broad-based support.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Open access to relevant
research can help counter misinformation and disinformation and help create
bridges between research and our social, financial, political and cultural
institutions. The content can be adapted for different audiences (as </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Knowable
Magazine</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> does), but the open availability of the research literature is
important for building trust.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Thank you very much for
taking the time to answer my questions, and good luck with your S2O plans.</span></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></p>Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-77667299069294571112022-01-26T16:17:00.020+00:002022-09-07T06:42:03.670+00:00OA and fiscal sponsorship: Interview with SPARC’s Heather Joseph<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Scroll down to go direct to the interview with Heather Joseph</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Scholarly
Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://sparcopen.org/"><span lang="EN-GB">SPARC</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">) was founded in 1998 as a program area within The Association of
Research Libraries</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (<a href="https://www.arl.org/"><span lang="EN-GB">ARL</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">). Since
then it has gone on to become the world’s most influential open access advocacy
group.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As SPARC’s
activities grew, however, there were concerns that its success could jeopardise
ARL’s tax-exempt status. In 2014, therefore, it </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.arl.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ARL-SPARC-member-message-17june2014.pdf"><span lang="EN-GB">signed an administrative agreement</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> with New Venture Fund (</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://newventurefund.org/"><span lang="EN-GB">NVF</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">), a non-profit </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship"><span lang="EN-GB">fiscal sponsorship organisation</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> located in Washington, DC.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although this change
took place eight years ago, I have seen little or no commentary about it until
recently (although I may simply have missed it).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">At the end of last
year, however, a disgruntled OA advocate pointed me to some tweets critical of SPARC
and its association with NVF; and earlier this month I was </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/kanderson/status/1478674880673550336?s=20"><span lang="EN-GB">alerted</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> to a </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://thegeyser.substack.com/p/a-closer-look-at-sparc"><span lang="EN-GB">post</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> published in 2018 that also seems to be critical of SPARC. (It is
paywalled).</span></p><h2><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Dark money</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Recent interest in
SPARC’s relationship with NVF appears in part to have been sparked by news
coverage of an unsuccessful bid for Tribune Newspapers by Swiss philanthropist and
billionaire businessman</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<span lang="EN"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansj%C3%B6rg_Wyss"><span lang="EN-GB">Hansjörg Wyss</span></a></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Last year, for instance,
the <i>New York Times</i> published two (paywalled) articles (</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/hansjorg-wyss-money-democrats.html"><span lang="EN-GB">here</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/media/wyss-tribune-company-buyer.html"><span lang="EN-GB">here</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">) about Wyss and his funding activities. Wyss donates to politically
liberal and environmental causes in the United States through the </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyss_Foundation"><span lang="EN-GB">Wyss Foundation</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, a charitable organisation he founded in 1998 and which has more than $2
billion in assets.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In its coverage the
<i>NYT</i> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/media/wyss-tribune-company-buyer.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist"><span lang="EN-GB">noted</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://thehubproject.org/"><span lang="EN-GB">The Hub Project</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> – an organisation
started by the Wyss Foundation in 2015 – “is part of an opaque network managed
by a Washington consulting firm, Arabella Advisors, that has funnelled hundreds
of millions of dollars through a daisy chain of groups supporting Democrats and
progressive causes.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NVF would appear
to be part of that network. As the <i>NYT</i>, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/media/wyss-tribune-company-buyer.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist"><span lang="EN-GB">put it</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, “The Hub Project it is not a stand-alone organisation for tax
purposes, but is housed within two Arabella-managed non-profits, New Venture
Fund and the </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/sixteen-thirty-fund/"><span lang="EN-GB">Sixteen Thirty Fund</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, which pay Hub Project employees.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In a second
article, <i>NYT</i> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/hansjorg-wyss-money-democrats.html?"><span lang="EN-GB">noted</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that Arabella Advisors and the organisations it manages operate a funding
model that uses so-called </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_money"><span lang="EN-GB">dark money</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. This sees donor money channelled through non-profit organisations like
NVF, which in the US are not required to disclose their donors. Arabella’s
network, said the <i>NYT</i>, is a leading vehicle for doing this on the left.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As I understand
it, this allows funders to donate to a non-profit that then distributes the
money to different groups without it being publicly known who the donor was. As
part of this process Arabella Advisors provides administrative services to
organisations like NVF, much in the way that NVF provides such services to
SPARC. Unlike NVF, however, Arabella is a for-profit organisation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The money
channelled through NVF is not insubstantial. “Between 2007 and last year,” the <i>NYT
</i></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/media/wyss-tribune-company-buyer.html?utm_source=pocket_mylist"><span lang="EN-GB">reported</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, “the Wyss Foundation donated roughly $56.5 million to New Venture
Fund.” (This figure is based on tax returns and </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.wyssfoundation.org/grants"><span lang="EN-GB">voluntary disclosures</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Neither </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NYT</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
article mentions SPARC, but it is one of around 150 “projects” that have
administrative agreements with NVF. In doing so they become part of a
non-profit mother ship that confers non-profit status on them too.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Referred to as fiscal
sponsorship this practice has been increasing in popularity in recent years. And
it is a model that a number of open access organisations have begun to use.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is not clear
to me is how many OA advocates are aware that OA organisations have started to
use fiscal sponsorship and, if they are, whether they fully understand how it
works and are comfortable with it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I confess I had myself
barely registered the fact that SPARC had decoupled from ARL. And as I think
will be apparent, I do not fully understand how fiscal sponsorship works, or the
implications it might have for the OA movement if widely adopted by OA organisations
and initiatives. I do, however, have some thoughts on it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Wikipedia </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship"><span lang="EN-GB">says</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> this of
the model: “Fiscal sponsorship refers to the practice of non-profit
organisations offering their legal and tax-exempt status to groups – typically
projects – engaged in activities related to the sponsoring organisation’s
mission. It typically involves a fee-based contractual arrangement between a
project and an established non-profit.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I think it is
worth repeating that while the groups it manages are non-profit, Arabella
Advisors is itself a for-profit organisation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Small
organisations can undoubtedly benefit from outsourcing their administration in
this way. However, Wikipedia </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship#Risks"><span lang="EN-GB">points out</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that there are risks too. For instance, it says, “the benefits of immediate
tax-exempt status and administrative support must be weighed against the lack
of autonomy and fees typically charged by the sponsor.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It seems to me
that any OA organisation signing a fiscal sponsorship agreement that wishes to remain
true to its principles ought really to make a special effort to be transparent
about its finances and activities. The risk is that it could end up embracing a
degree of darkness that belies its commitment to openness.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h2><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Two issues</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As one of 150
projects managed by NVF, for instance, SPARC’s financial statements appear to
be amalgamated into NFV’s public disclosure document – its </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://newventurefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NVF-2020-Public-Disclosure-Copy-1.pdf"><span lang="EN-GB">990 Form</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. In the process, SPARC’s financial figures are invisibilised, at least so far
as the public eye is concerned.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The only financial
information related to SPARC that I could find in NVF’s </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://newventurefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NVF-2020-Public-Disclosure-Copy-1.pdf"><span lang="EN-GB">900 Form</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is the salary of Heather Joseph ($313,068 in 2020). The
word “SPARC” itself does not seem to appear anywhere in the 990 Form.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We could also note
that SPARC does not publish a definitive list of the grants it co-sponsors. This
is not a consequence of SPARC’s agreement with NVF, says Joseph, but the insistence
of some funders that they remain anonymous.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A requirement of
the contract that SPARC has signed with NVF, however, is that it is not made publicly
available. While this might be for understandable reasons, it adds to a sense
of opaqueness around SPARC’s activities and might cause some to wonder to what
extent SPARC has retained self-determination.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Joseph insists
that SPARC is still entirely independent. She also points out that the details
of the arrangement SPARC had with ARL were not published either. However, SPARC is
not the organisation today that it was when it was under ARL’s wing – that,
after all, is why SPARC moved to NVF.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is also not
clear (to me at least) is why NVF needs to use for-profit Arabella Advisors to
provide it with services that it itself provides to others. Again, there may be
a good reason for this, but it surely further muddies the waters from a public perception
point of view.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In short, I am not
convinced that SPARC’s fiscal sponsorship arrangement with NVF (and, via NVF,
its relationship with Arabella Advisors) is a good fit for an organisation dedicated
to making the world a more open and transparent place, and which is now </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://investinopen.org/blog/invest-in-open-infrastructure-launches/"><span lang="EN-GB">supporting</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> those in the open access movement who want to take back scholarly
publishing from for-profit organisations. However, more transparency from SPARC would surely help.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Essentially, I see
two main issues. First, as noted, SPARC’s financial statements are not publicly
available. While Joseph agreed to share with me the headline income figures for
2020 (below), we might wonder why it was necessary to ask for them. And we
might wonder why SPARC does not publish its full financial figures on its
website every year.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Here too Joseph points
out that when SPARC was a program within ARL its financial statements were not
posted online either. As such, she says, it is just a continuation of a long-standing
practice and not contingent on its relationship with NVF. Personally, I am not
persuaded by the long-standing practice argument – particularly given the OA movement’s demands that
publishers provide ever greater transparency about their operations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Second, in not
publishing a comprehensive list of the grants it co-sponsors with NVF, SPARC might seem to
be acting against the principles of openness that it espouses. True, some grants
</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">are</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> disclosed, but what percentage of the total funds distributed this represents is
unclear. Joseph says that the “vast majority of philanthropies that SPARC has
received funding from” are happy to have SPARC publicly acknowledge them. What this means in practice would only be fully apparent if SPARC published a full, detailed
list.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Joseph explains
that SPARC has to be pragmatic about this because donors sometimes insist on anonymity.
I take this to mean that if SPARC wants to receive money from such a donor it
has to choose either to compromise on its commitment to openness, or forego the
proffered grant. Some might feel that SPARC should not be compromising in this
way. And while it may not be a consequence of SPARC’s agreement with NVF, it does
raise questions about openness.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We might also
wonder why any funder who wants to support an organisation whose </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">raison d’être</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
is to increase openness and transparency would insist on darkness. Call me
naïve if you will.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It could be argued
that, as a membership organisation, SPARC has no obligation to share information
about its finances with the world. However, leaving aside SPARC’s professed
support for openness, 50% of its income comes from grants rather than
membership dues. It also enjoys the tax benefits of being part of a </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/501(c)(3)_organization"><span lang="EN-GB">501c3 non-profit</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. That suggests to me that there <i>is</i> an obligation on SPARC to publish its financial statements.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">More importantly,
perhaps, as an influential advocacy group, SPARC has had – and continues to
have – a significant impact on the global research community. More
specifically, it has played an important role in changing the way that scholarly publishing operates. Potentially, therefore, its lobbying activities are going to have an impact on every researcher in the world.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Moreover, these
changes seem set to embed and, arguably, worsen the existing inequalities in the system – which I must assume is not an outcome a social justice group like
SPARC would have predicted or wanted.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><h2 style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Complicated</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It does not help
that the fiscal sponsorship model is complicated and (for me at least)
difficult to understand. Even some of the nomenclature used appears not to be
universally agreed upon, or clear.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Joseph (rightly as
it happens) challenged my use of the term “subsidiary” when describing the
relationship between Arabella and NVF, but she also rejected </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NYT’s</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> description
of NVF as an “Arabella-managed non-profit” – presumably to make the point
that, even if it has outsourced all its administrative tasks and some/most (?)
of its legal responsibilities, SPARC is still in control of its own fate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I certainly don’t question what
Joseph says but as the agreement with NVF is not publicly available we are not
able to judge for ourselves how independent SPARC is today. We might also wonder
whether, in its relationship with NVF (and thus Arabella), SPARC has positioned
itself in a larger political landscape that some OA advocates may find unpalatable
or alienating.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A key question I think
is whether the scholarly community is aware of how fiscal sponsorship works, and, more specifically, of how the relationship between SPARC
and NVF operates. If it is, is it comfortable with the arrangement?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When I put this to
Joseph she replied, “Yes, I do believe our member community is aware of the
arrangements.” However, this was surely an answer to a different question to
the one I posed. I asked whether the larger </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">scholarly </i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">community understands
and is comfortable with the arrangement.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I contacted seven
prominent OA advocates to put this question to them. Two did not reply, three
said they were either unaware that SPARC had a fiscal sponsorship agreement or
did not feel sufficiently competent or knowledgeable about the model to comment.
The last said that he had received funding from NVF co-sponsored by SPARC and
that since there is a clear governance process at SPARC, he presumes there is
adequate oversight over SPARC’s spendings and donations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/author/planxty/"><span lang="EN-GB">Rick Anderson</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, University Librarian at </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.byu.edu/"><span lang="EN-GB">Brigham Young University</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and a “chef” at the </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/"><span lang="EN-GB">Scholarly Kitchen</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, takes a less
sanguine view. “It seems to me that someone ought to ask SPARC, publicly, to
explain why important elements of its financing are hidden from public view,”
he said. “It may be legal, but that doesn’t make it okay.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As noted, fiscal
sponsorship seems to be growing in the OA movement. Amongst </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://codeforscience.org/sponsored-projects/"><span lang="EN-GB">those who have opted for this model</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, says Joseph, are </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.prereview.org/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">PREreview</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://investinopen.org/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Invest in Open Infrastructure</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I don’t know if
the fiscal sponsorship arrangements these other projects have entered into are similar
to the one SPARC has with NVF, but I do wonder whether the open
access movement will end up being less open than OA advocates might have anticipated
– unless those signing fiscal sponsorship agreements make a special effort to
be transparent.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Curious about these
matters, I </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/hjoseph/status/1479223891264430083?s=20"><span lang="EN-GB">took to</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Twitter earlier this month to ask whether the agreement with NVF was
publicly available. Heather Joseph responded and agreed to speak to me. The
Q&A below is the outcome of our subsequent email interchange. </span></p><h2 style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The interview
begins …</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></i></b></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEglNvzDHDX4cLYkVK3kevip5t7g5Ofp7CZ-4JR37cCSJ4SH7xcSWCXdSEv-GRnAEqSQ4e5qyaOIXSuVaMnrtJ7OIwFYVe7Ad4Ui6eVqe5QwYdIAp289M0hhZUkDuBUCvASxMwYR86ghU-5fnQpuigJ-d-FT8dR5NoQNhcg3GpfbSi8kVd3Butk=s480" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEglNvzDHDX4cLYkVK3kevip5t7g5Ofp7CZ-4JR37cCSJ4SH7xcSWCXdSEv-GRnAEqSQ4e5qyaOIXSuVaMnrtJ7OIwFYVe7Ad4Ui6eVqe5QwYdIAp289M0hhZUkDuBUCvASxMwYR86ghU-5fnQpuigJ-d-FT8dR5NoQNhcg3GpfbSi8kVd3Butk=s320" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heather Joseph</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: In 2014 SPARC
ceased being a program area within ARL in order not to jeopardise ARL’s
tax-exempt status and </span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.arl.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ARL-SPARC-member-message-17june2014.pdf"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">signed an
administrative agreement</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> with New Venture
Fund (</span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://newventurefund.org/"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">NVF</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">), a fiscal
sponsorship organisation located in Washington, DC. I don’t think the details
of that agreement have ever been made public. Why not? How would you describe
the arrangement SPARC has with NVF, and what are its benefits to SPARC?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> When we were
making the decision for SPARC to move from ARL, we looked at a range of
different options (creating a stand-alone organisation, merging with another
group, etc.) and decided that going with a fiscal sponsor was the best route.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As you know,
fiscal sponsors are non-profit organisations that provide fiscal, legal, and
administrative services (for a fee) to organisations that engage in charitable
activities. NVF was the best fit for a variety of reasons including cost,
services, and mission alignment.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">There are quite a
few advantages of having a fiscal sponsor, particularly if you are a small
organisation (SPARC had only 4 FTE when we made the move). Because they provide
services across a large number of projects (NVF currently provides services to
over 150 projects), it lets us take advantage of economies of scale on
everything from health insurance to retirement benefits to legal services we
simply couldn’t do on our own.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It also allows
SPARC staff to focus on mission-critical activities and leave the bulk of
legal, human resources, accounting, and administrative tasks, etc. to NVF.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">An added draw for
us was that NVF also provides SPARC with a large community of other social
justice organisations and initiatives, and we’ve benefited greatly from being a
part of it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">And – you are
correct, the agreement was not posted publicly; given the wide range of
sensitive issue areas their projects cover, it’s NVF’s policy not to do so.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For what it’s
worth, we didn’t post our annual operating contracts with ARL either.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">BTW: the use of
fiscal sponsor organisations is on the increase in the open movement; in
particular </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://codeforscience.org/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Code for Science & Society</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is emerging as a popular choice – their projects include </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.prereview.org/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">PREreview</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://investinopen.org/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Invest in Open Infrastructure</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.researchsoft.org/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Research Software Alliance</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, among others.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: On Twitter
recently you </span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/hjoseph/status/1479223891264430083?s=20"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">said</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">, “New Venture Fund is our fiscal sponsor (help us w/ HR, compliance,
and other back-office support).” Can you say more about this and how much SPARC
pays to NVF annually?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Sure thing. NVF
handles the bulk of SPARC’s administrative / legal / financial / compliance
tasks. Specific examples include:</span><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Human resources management – manage employee payroll,
benefits, legal compliance and obligations</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Compliance/system management – comply with all
required state and federal reporting for vendors/consultants earnings, employee
timekeeping/earnings, lobbying efforts, tax reporting, etc.</span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Draft and review contracts with vendors and
consultants</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Process vendor payments and expense reimbursements</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Provide all financial reports</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Provide support for grant proposal/review/reporting</span></li></ul><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Basically, they do
all of the “back-office” things that ARL used to do for SPARC. If you have any
additional questions about what services NVF provides to SPARC, just let me
know. Also – you might find their </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://newventurefund.org/who-we-are/faq/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">FAQ </span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">about the services they provide a useful reference.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The fee that we
pay NVF varies from year to year depending on a whole host of factors including
grant funding, number of employees and contractors, etc. Our fees have ranged
from 8% to 9% of our total expenses and are negotiated annually.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our annual contracts
with NVF are subject to approval by the SPARC Steering Committee, which is
elected by our members.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><h2 style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">A project of the
New Venture Fund</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: So SPARC is
not an independent organisation but a project within NVF. However, I would
think that people are likely to assume that it is part of NVF and ask why it
therefore needs to pay for NVF’s services.</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> That’s right.
SPARC operates as a project of the New Venture Fund. That is the standard
nomenclature for most fiscal sponsorship arrangements.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SPARC pays NVF a
fee for their services – like any other fiscal sponsor relationship. NVF
provides expertise and efficiencies so the SPARC staff can focus on
mission-critical activities and leave the bulk of legal, human resources,
accounting, and administrative tasks, etc. to NVF.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s important to
note that while SPARC is not a separate legal or fiscal entity, our mission,
strategy, operating priorities and decisions are all made by SPARC leadership,
which includes the Executive Director (me), our senior management, and our </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://sparcopen.org/people/"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Steering Committee</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">. NVF has no input into our elections or strategy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP:</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> <b>Why is SPARC not an independent non-profit itself?</b></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> When we first
made the move to NVF, we honestly weren’t sure how long the arrangement would
benefit SPARC, so we have also taken all of the preliminary steps needed to
register to become a discrete 501c3 if and when it is to our financial and
operating advantage.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">But for now, the
arrangement is working really well. Having access to the deep bench of
expertise at NVF has helped us as we’ve grown; particularly in the areas of
grants management and HR.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Every year, when
we review our expected operations for the upcoming year with NVF, we consider
whether to stay with NVF, look for a different fiscal sponsor, or become a
standalone 501c3.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NVF is fully aware
of this – they regularly incubate and spin-off projects – so there’s no
pressure or sense of obligation to stay. If it stops working for us, SPARC will
make a change.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Where are the
financials for SPARC kept? Are they audited? Does SPARC pay taxes?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> NVF maintains the
financial records for SPARC and all of SPARC’s funds are held by NVF in a restricted
fund designated only for SPARC’s use. NVF financials (which includes SPARC) are
audited annually.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As a 501c3
non-profit NVF (and by extension, SPARC) is exempt from paying state and
federal taxes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: What happens
to any surpluses that SPARC generates?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> In general, SPARC
does not have material operating surpluses/deficits. Any annual surpluses,
typically from carried-over grant funds, are held by NVF in restricted funds
designated only for SPARC’s use.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The use of all
SPARC funds is at the sole discretion of SPARC’s leadership, the SPARC Steering
Committee (i.e. group of elected SPARC members), and the Executive Director,
and are subject to SPARC’s Use of Funds Policy, which is posted </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JuQ5HmG12OLmwNX0Y8xKuEsK5xtQkGjE/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">here</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><h2><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">SPARC’s Income</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Does what you
say mean that the individual accounts of SPARC are not published anywhere and
so the details cannot be known or viewed by the public? And because of the
agreement with NVF you are not free to publish them on, say, SPARC’s website?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> We routinely
update our Steering Committee (again, as elected representatives of our
membership) on our financials, but don’t post our financial statements online. This
long-standing practice is a continuation of how we operated under ARL; NVF
doesn’t prohibit us from doing so.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Are you able
to give me the total figures for SPARC’s income and the grants it has awarded
for, say, the last tax year?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Yes. SPARC’s
final 2021 financials are not yet available, but here are our 2020 numbers:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Contributed (Grant) Funds: $1,631,549<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Member Dues: $1,433,797<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Events/Conferences: $ 166,940<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Other Income $ 19,476<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> —----------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> Total Revenue: $3,251,762<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Are there
details of any of the grant awards and grant-making that involves SPARC that
you can point me to?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> As you likely are
aware, funders allow for varying levels of disclosure in their grant
agreements. Here are some current SPARC grants that are public:</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><a href="https://hewlett.org/grants/new-venture-fund-for-the-open-education-program-at-the-scholarly-publishing-and-academic-resources-coalition/"><span lang="EN-GB">https://hewlett.org/grants/new-venture-fund-for-the-open-education-program-at-the-scholarly-publishing-and-academic-resources-coalition/</span></a></span></li><li><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><a href="https://20mm.org/2021/08/05/michelson-20mm-foundation-announces-grants-to-address-the-college-textbook-affordability-crisis/"><span lang="EN-GB">https://20mm.org/2021/08/05/michelson-20mm-foundation-announces-grants-to-address-the-college-textbook-affordability-crisis/</span></a></span></li><li><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><a href="https://sparcopen.org/news/2019/sparc-receives-grant-from-arcadia-trust/"><span lang="EN-GB">https://sparcopen.org/news/2019/sparc-receives-grant-from-arcadia-trust/</span></a></span></li><li><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><a href="https://sparcopen.org/news/2021/funders-group-hires-new-fellow-to-craft-best-practices-for-equity-in-grantmaking-process"><span lang="EN-GB">https://sparcopen.org/news/2021/funders-group-hires-new-fellow-to-craft-best-practices-for-equity-in-grantmaking-process</span></a></span></li></ul><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: For the sake
of clarity, can you confirm that no complete list of all the grants that SPARC
has received or the grants that it has awarded is made publicly available
anywhere (although, as you say, the details of some are made public)? Roughly
what percentage of a) SPARC’s grant income and b) its grant making activity is
not made public?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> We do inform our
Steering Committee of all grants as they are awarded; and we also give our full
membership a heads-up (usually through a direct email or the monthly Member
Communication) as appropriate. We have not posted a public listing of grants.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The percentage of
SPARC’s income that grants comprise varies slightly from year to year; in 2020
grants made up right around 50% of our total revenue; we’ll be right around
that mark again for 2021.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: As I
understand it, you earned $354,304 in total compensation from NVF in 2016
($334K from salary alone, the rest in bonus), more than the President of NVF.
Since then, your salary </span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://newventurefund.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NVF-2020-Public-Disclosure-Copy-1.pdf"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">seems to have decreased</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">. Have you taken a reduction in pay? If so, why?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> My salary has
deliberately been kept at the same level for the bulk of the duration of our
relationship with NVF ($313k). I do not receive bonuses. The “Other
Compensation” line reflects NVF’s reporting of other benefits (like FSA
accounts), changes in withholding taxes, etc.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The change in what
looks like my base compensation after 2016 is due to changes NVF made to the
way it reports and provides retirement benefits.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Who exactly is
your employer? What does your pay stub say?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> New Venture Fund
is my employer and that is reflected on my pay stub.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Does SPARC
have any relationship with ARL anymore? Does it receive any funding from ARL?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> SPARC has
maintained a good, collaborative relationship with ARL. We’ve got many
overlapping interests and missions, and the vast majority of ARL members are
also SPARC members.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Executive
Director of ARL is a standing, non-voting member of the SPARC Steering
Committee, and ARL regularly invites SPARC to update their Board of Directors
to ensure programmatic alignment.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">ARL is also an
affiliate member of SPARC, and pays SPARC the standard $6,750 annual membership
fee for that membership. That’s the only funding we receive from ARL.</span></p><h2><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Arabella Advisors</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: As I
understand it, NVF is a non-profit subsidiary of </span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.arabellaadvisors.com/"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">Arabella Advisors LLC</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">, which is a large
for-profit enterprise.</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I don’t think this is an accurate characterisation. My understanding is
that NVF contracts with Arabella for a variety of services (much like SPARC
contracts with NVF).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s pretty common
for fiscal sponsor organisations to have contracts with for-profit service
providers. If you have more specific questions about their arrangement, I’d
encourage you to contact NVF directly.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Yes, thanks
for clarifying that. NVF is better described as an “Arabella-managed
non-profit” I guess. So Arabella is a for-profit that provides services for the
non-profit NVF. I note the funding system used by both Arabella and NVF has
been characterised as one utilising what is referred to as “dark money”.
Certainly, I have seen reports in the </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">New York Times<i>
saying as much, e.g., </i></span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/media/wyss-tribune-company-buyer.html"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">here</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> and </span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/hansjorg-wyss-money-democrats.html"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #1155cc; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">here</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">. What do you think of the practices outlined in the two NYT articles
and what are your views on the implications for SPARC?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I don’t think it is accurate to say that NVF is an Arabella-managed
non-profit. Arabella provides a variety of services to NVF (and to other
non-profit fiscal sponsor organisations) on a fee-for-service basis – which the
NVF 990 reflects.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">And I’ve seen both
of the articles you reference. The “dark money” issue is about transparency
preferences of donors. As we know first-hand at SPARC, many grant-making
organisations and donors prefer not to be named. That definitely presents
challenges for SPARC; as you rightly point out below, as an organisation
advocating for open access to knowledge, we work hard to be as open and
transparent as we can be.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">But we also have
to balance the pragmatic realities of the grant-making world with that desire.
Fortunately, the vast majority of philanthropies that SPARC has received
funding from are more than happy to have us publicly acknowledge (and thank!)
them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Both NVF and
Arabella work with groups that have very different political considerations and
different levels of sensitivity on this point – which I think is appropriate. But
again, if you have any questions, I’d encourage you to reach out to them
directly.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Do you think
the scholarly community understands how the relationships between Arabella, NVF
and SPARC works and, if it does, do you think that it is comfortable with
SPARC’s relationship with NVF?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Yes, I do believe our member community is aware of the arrangements.
The relationship with NVF was fully vetted by our Steering Committee back in
2014 before we signed the agreement.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The agreement,
which is renewed annually, is reviewed and signed off on by all Steering
Committee members each year.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: I thank you
for providing me with SPARC’s headline financial figures for 2020. But I feel
bound to say that while SPARC argues for “openness” and “transparency” its
finances appear to be predominantly opaque, not least over where its money
comes from and where it goes. Do you think there is a contradiction here?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">HJ: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SPARC’s operations
are not opaque. Our reporting practices are fairly standard across North
American non-profit organisations – including those of most colleges and
universities.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In all of SPARC’s
work we aim to be as transparent as possible with our members and the broader
scholarly community. However, there are areas where the decision on public
posting is not solely up to SPARC.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">RP: Thank
you very much for answering my questions.</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">--</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-family: courier; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">UPDATE: three months or so after this interview was conducted SPARC made information about its governance publicly available, including its <a href="https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Grants-and-Donations_04_2022.pdf">Grants and Donations</a>, its <a href="https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/SPARC-NVF-Project-Charter_2021-_FINAL.pdf">Project Charter with New Venture Fund</a>, and its <a href="https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2021-SPARC-Financial-Summary.pdf">Financial Summary</a>. Other issues have however arisen -- e.g. <a href="https://www.the-geyser.com/nlm-denial-sparc-ties/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.the-geyser.com/sparc-continues-its-charade/">here</a>.</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br /></p>Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-36297194665041536252020-12-02T10:50:00.014+00:002021-11-01T21:07:46.320+00:00Open Access: “Information wants to be free”?<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>(A print version of this eBook is available <a href="https://glasstree.com/shop/catalog/open-access-information-wants-to-be-free_1368/">here</a>)</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Earlier this year I
was invited to <a href="https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/62408">discuss</a> with Georgia Institute of Technology librarian </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://library.gatech.edu/fred-rascoe">Fred Rascoe</a> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">my </span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2019/11/open-access-could-defeat-be-snatched.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">eBook</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “Open access: Could defeat be snatched from the jaws of victory?” for </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Lost in the Stacks, </i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">the </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">research library rock and roll show </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">he hosts. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7wexhMC4-nU/X8dxg0otuEI/AAAAAAAAsiY/sKL2kpdHbGIs-agT1ga3yFnsukqf5i4XgCNcBGAsYHQ/s683/Information%2Bwants%2Bto%2Bbe%2Bfree.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="683" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7wexhMC4-nU/X8dxg0otuEI/AAAAAAAAsiY/sKL2kpdHbGIs-agT1ga3yFnsukqf5i4XgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/Information%2Bwants%2Bto%2Bbe%2Bfree.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Prior to the interview, Rascoe sent me a list of
questions. As we did not have time to discuss them all during the interview, I
decided to publish my answers on my blog. With the greater space available I also
took the opportunity to expatiate at considerable length in doing so. This turned into another eBook!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Please note that what I say in the attached document is built on an
interview. It is not intended to be any kind of prediction of the future; it is
more an extended reflection after 20 years reporting on the OA movement, coupled
with a heavy dose of speculation. Who knows, perhaps this will be the last
thing I ever write on open access. Maybe this will prove my swan song.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I would also like to stress upfront that in the
critique of the OA movement I make I don’t claim that my knowledge, or
predictions, are superior to anyone else’s. This is just what I have concluded after
many years observing the movement and reflects my current view on where I think
we are today. It does also include a lot of factual data, as well as links and
footnotes for those who like them. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Importantly, while I do not consider myself
to be an OA advocate, I admit that I was as naïve as anyone else about what the
movement might be able to achieve.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, while what I say might be slightly overweight
in European developments, it may not matter if (as I believe is possible)
events in Europe end up determining how open access develops globally. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I say
this because it seems possible that European OA initiatives will reconfigure
the international scholarly communication system, and in ways that OA advocates
will not be comfortable with. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I would add that the main focus is on science
publishing rather than HSS. </span></p><p><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The eBook can be downloaded <a href="https://richardpoynder.co.uk/Information_Wants_to_be_Free.pdf"><b>here</b></a>. (Health warning: it is 163 pages long). </i></p><p><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A short review of the eBook has been posted on R</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">eddit </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Open_Science/comments/kmh09a/open_access_information_wants_to_be_free_richard/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>here</b></a></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;"><br />
</div>
</div>Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-67012872995637347852020-11-04T06:26:00.026+00:002020-11-06T16:14:18.704+00:00Community Action Publishing: Broadening the Pool<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We are today seeing growing
dissatisfaction with the pay-to-publish model for open access. As this requires
authors (or their funders or institutions) to pay an article-processing charge
every time they publish a paper it is felt to be discriminatory, especially for
non-funded researchers and those based in the Global South (see, for instance, </span><a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/03/06/plan-s-and-the-global-south-what-do-countries-in-the-global-south-stand-to-gain-from-signing-up-to-europes-open-access-strategy/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><a href="https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-africa-pan-african-2020-10-is-africa-prepared-for-the-business-of-open-access/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><a href="https://osf.io/preprints/metaarxiv/s7cx4"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">).</span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g_Ry8G6q1gk/X6JBOVYhjuI/AAAAAAAAsAQ/Ht88mBjFrk0AEzqs99imhboqUk5mGr3NQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/Sarah%2B32.JPEG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g_Ry8G6q1gk/X6JBOVYhjuI/AAAAAAAAsAQ/Ht88mBjFrk0AEzqs99imhboqUk5mGr3NQCNcBGAsYHQ/w150-h200/Sarah%2B32.JPEG" width="150" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">PLOS' Sara Rouhi</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As a result, various
alternative approaches are emerging intended to move away from APCs, including
crowdfunding and membership schemes. Here institutions are asked to commit to
paying an annual fee to a publisher, with the aim of pooling sufficient funds
to cover the costs of making all the papers in a journal open access.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">One of the more
successful implementations of this model is the Open Library of Humanities (</span><a href="https://www.openlibhums.org/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">OLH</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">), which has operated what it calls its </span><a href="https://www.openlibhums.org/site/about/the-olh-model/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Library Partnership Subsidies</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> scheme since 2015.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Clearly, if the costs
of the annual fee are to be viewed as reasonable by those asked to take part a
sufficient number of institutions need to sign up.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The inherent weakness
of the model is that a small group of community-minded institutions could end
up paying all a publisher’s costs and everyone else would be able to “free
ride”. In effect, those who join a membership scheme could end up shouldering
the costs for everyone to have free access.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A key question is how
many universities are willing to join an OA membership scheme. OLH co-founder
Martin Eve has </span><a href="https://eve.gd/2020/10/22/backlist-to-the-future-a-new-business-model-for-university-presses-and-open-access-books/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">estimated</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that there are only
around 300 libraries who will do so.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nevertheless, we
should not doubt that there is a real wish to move beyond APCs and many have
come to believe that membership schemes are the best way of doing this. To be successful,
however, they will need to broaden the pool of those willing to take part.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Annual Flat Fee</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">With this aim in
mind, in October the Public Library of Science (PLOS) launched what it calls its
Community Action Publishing (</span><a href="https://plos.org/resources/community-action-publishing/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">CAP</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">) initiative for its
two selective journals <i>PLOS Biology</i> and <i>PLOS Medicine</i>. The hope
is that the journals can be gradually moved away from having to charge APCs and
that the publishing costs can be shared as widely as possible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Specifically, PLOS is
inviting universities to pay an annual flat fee that will give their faculty
unlimited publishing opportunities in the journals (there are separate
“communities” for each journal) without the need to pay an APC each time. However,
authors of institutions who do not join the scheme will be charged a non-member fee (NMF) that will increase in price over time, as below.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jBuQYsYdVI8/X6JCQEJvisI/AAAAAAAAsAk/HphLhyB7rQ06TMomwtKPnAa1ry6qNLxNACNcBGAsYHQ/s437/NMF.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="437" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jBuQYsYdVI8/X6JCQEJvisI/AAAAAAAAsAk/HphLhyB7rQ06TMomwtKPnAa1ry6qNLxNACNcBGAsYHQ/s16000/NMF.png" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The rising cost of
the NMF is intended to encourage universities who have not joined to do so in order to avoid
their faculty having to pay to publish.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">PLOS hopes that the annual
fees will be low enough to attract a sufficient number of institutions but that
the pooled funds will eventually be adequate to meet all the costs of publishing the
journals. In the interim, the NMF means that there will be two separate revenue streams coming in and
the free riding issue will be avoided.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The hope is that the NMF can be discontinued when the pilot period ends (it lasts from 2021 until 2023). However,
says PLOS Director of Strategic Partnerships Sara Rouhi, that will be dependent
on all the large institutions that PLOS is targeting joining the scheme. “If we
don’t have a stable membership by then, we might have to offset lack of participation
with more NMFs”, she told me. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tiers</b></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The annual fee institutions
will be asked to pay will be calculated by looking at their faculty’s publishing
activity between 2014 and Q3 2019. Based on that they will then be assigned to
a fee tier, as below.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CJXHcnHxe8o/X6JDAxwqvKI/AAAAAAAAsAw/-oOizaA3C1grfshy9z2Ga3xFzScF2up3QCNcBGAsYHQ/s412/Tiers.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="289" data-original-width="412" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CJXHcnHxe8o/X6JDAxwqvKI/AAAAAAAAsAw/-oOizaA3C1grfshy9z2Ga3xFzScF2up3QCNcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Tiers.png" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To help broaden the
pool, the annual fee will be calculated on the publishing activity not just of the
institution’s corresponding authors, but of their contributing authors too. The
aim is to ensure that “the cost of publishing is distributed more equitably
among representative institutions.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In other words, PLOS will
calculate how often during the historical publishing activity period an
institution was associated with both corresponding and contributing authors and then assign a weighting to each type of author. Specifically, contributing-author
articles will be weighted at half that of corresponding authors.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As the PLOS FAQ </span><a href="https://plos.org/resources/for-institutions/faqs/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">explains</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">: “Publishing
activity is counted by determining the number of times an institution was
associated with a corresponding author <i>and</i> the number of times an
institution was associated with contributing authors. Papers where the
institution is affiliated with the corresponding authors are weighted as 1
article and papers where the institution is affiliated with the contributing
author are weighted as ½ article. (Multiple contributing authors from the same
institutions are counted only once).”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Universities whose
faculty have never published in the journals can also opt to pay the tier’s lowest
fee in order to “insure” themselves against the possibility that one or more of
their faculty might publish in the journal within the time period of the scheme
(Jan 1</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> 2021 –</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dec 31</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">st</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
2023).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In addition, says
PLOS, Research4Life countries are automatically members of each community so
researchers in those countries will never be subject to fees. And authors unable to
pay non-member fees can apply for waivers as per the standard fee-waiver
mechanisms offered by PLOS.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">To signal its own
commitment to the community PLOS has set targets for each journal and will cap
its margin at 10%. Revenue exceeding the community targets will go back to
members at renewal.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Time will tell how successful
the scheme will be in broadening the pool beyond the 300 libraries who normally
join OA membership schemes. Certainly, the challenge will be that much greater
given that it is being launched at a time when many libraries are signing
expensive <a href="https://esac-initiative.org/about/transformative-agreements/#:~:text=Transformative%20agreements%20are%20those%20contracts%20negotiated%20between%20institutions,fair%20price%20for%20their%20open%20access%20publishing%20services.">transformative agreements</a> with legacy publishers and universities are facing the financial impact of the pandemic. Some have also <a href="https://mailchi.mp/ce-strategy/the-brief-issue-28">suggested</a> that, as
selective journals, </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">PLOS Biology</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">PLOS Medicine</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> do not publish
a sufficient number of papers to make it worthwhile for many institutions to
participate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">My initial thought
was that PLOS will be targeting three separate types of institution (corresponding-author
institutions, contributing-author institutions, and “insurance” institutions).
Sara Rouhi suggests that this is not the way to view it. Below is an exchange I
had with her.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Levers</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: I understand the
PLOS Community Action initiative will target 3 types of institution:</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 42pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.5pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></i></b><!--[endif]--><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Corresponding-author institutions.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 22.5pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span></i></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 42pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.5pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></i></b><!--[endif]--><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Contributing-author institutions.</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 42pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.5pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></i></b><!--[endif]--><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Insurance
institutions (those institutions whose researchers don’t currently publish with
the PLOS journals but who might want to insure against the possibility that one
of their researchers will do in the future).<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I guess there will be
some overlap between 1 and 2 but I assume you will have done some calculations
on the numbers of potential institutions for each category. If so, can you
share them with me?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SR: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">While we initially
grouped institutions this way, libraries and consortia consistently fed back to
us that this was more complicated/confusing than it needed to be. So rather
than think of different types of “institutions,” it’s easier to think of
different publishing activity “types” – publishing as a lead author, publishing
as a contributing author, or publishing with affiliations in both designations.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Given the selectivity
and niche of these journals, some research-intensive universities publish
little to not-at-all, and smaller institutions publish more frequently as lead
authors. Simplifying the participation criterion to </span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>just</i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
publishing activity elides the traditional distinction of “research intensive”
vs. “teaching” institutions etc.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I don’t want to add
further confusion by grouping institutions as you’ve indicated. We purposely
eliminated this distinction for clarity.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Ok. I ask this
question in the context of Martin Eve’s <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7961882/6701287299563734785#">estimate</a></span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that there are only
300 libraries that will support OA membership schemes. (I should add that
he said this in the context of a new initiative from </span></i></b><a href="https://www.copim.ac.uk/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">COPIM</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that aims [like PLOS] to “broaden the pool” of
universities willing to join a membership scheme).</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SR: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As you say, Martin
Eve identified about 300 libraries that will support OA membership schemes.
There’s some nuance worth flagging, however. </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The TL;DR is that
Martin’s statement is true if you assume institutions that are participating
for largely altruistic reasons – because it’s the “right thing to do.” The
PLOS CAP model couldn’t be predicated on that as a buying motivation. So it
helps to go back to “collective action” basics. Credit to Dr. Kamran Naim for
elucidating this at the Basel Sustainable Publishing Forum last week.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For collective action
schemes to work there are generally two levers you can pull: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 37.5pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 37.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.5pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Encourage “pro-collective” behaviour by leveraging group affinity and
social incentives<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 37.5pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 37.5pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 37.5pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 37.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -19.5pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Appeal to economic self-interest (aka “private benefit”)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">From my perspective, </span><a href="https://scoap3.org/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">SCOAP 3</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and OLH lean heavily
on the first lever. Participating in them is the “right” thing to do so
libraries support them.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The challenge with
only pulling on this lever is sustainability over time. SCOAP3 relies heavily
on CERN’s ongoing support and has the challenge of large beneficiaries like
Russia, Brazil and India not participating while benefitting from the open content.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">OLH memberships are very
small financial commitments that maintain OLH but make growth of the program difficult.
Martin talked about this on a webinar we did for UKSG earlier in the year.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A collective model
that focuses primarily on the second lever is <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7961882/6701287299563734785#">Subscribe2Open</a>.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The primary benefit
is getting the community to agree to make content open in exchange for a
discount. If all members do not opt-in, the content stays behind a paywall. The
combination of a private benefit (the discount) with the public good (making
the content open) is a strong motivator for participation and a big part of why
the model is so successful.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">PLOS Community Action
Publishing attempts to pull both levers. The pro-collective/group
affinity/social incentives relates to the moral imperative – especially in a
time of pandemic – to make biomedical research open to read and open to
publish. </span><a href="https://library.duke.edu/about/directory/staff/jeff.kosokoff"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Jeff Kosokoff’s</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> comment that “Open
Access <i>is</i> social justice,” speaks to this. Indeed, we have many
commitments based on this mission-aligned priority for libraries. However
what has interested partners from mere interest to actual commitment is the
equitable fee structure (and relative affordability given the current budget
crisis).</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">That said, without
including appeals to economic self-interest, the PLOS CAP model would suffer
from the same sustainability issues as other collectives. Hence our
implementation of a secondary, “back up” revenue stream – non-member fees (NMFs)
for authors from non-CAP members.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">These NFMs are not
meant to penalize authors but rather to encourage libraries to join rather than
expose their authors to fees. For many institutions, the NMFs per article will
be higher than the annual fee the library would pay to join one or both
collectives.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;">Benefits</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The NMFs help offset
slow uptake of institutions who are not able to find the funds to support a
model like this immediately. Thanks to those fees coming in, libraries can take
more time to join and we can offer flexibility for institutions that need to
leave the collective.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">There are several
benefits to this:</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Enlarging the pool of
institutions that would participate in this collective gives us the flexibility
to create a much finer tuned fee structure with a long tail of low dollar fee
tiers to accommodate institutions that do not publish frequently in either
journal.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Those low fee tiers
allow institutions strapped for funds and/or infrequent publishing institutions
to participate because they support the moral imperative of equity and
inclusivity that the model promotes. It simply doesn’t cost them that much to
“do the right thing.”</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Research intensive
institutions then derive benefit from the “research light” institutions
participating since they offset some of the cost burden. More institutions of
varying publishing intensity means lower fees for everyone.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">So, Martin is right
if you’re counting only relatively wealthy institutions that want to do the
“right thing.” If you start adding other considerations, especially private
benefits (aka, we don’t want our authors to see non-member fees) and
recognition of contributing author affiliations, you get a much larger pool and
set of incentives to motivate ongoing participation.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Targets</b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>As for our target
institutions:</b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">PLOS Medicine</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
there are<b> 909 total institutions</b> with some publishing history (some combination
of lead and co-author affiliations) in the time period we evaluated.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>44 of those are in
Tiers 1-4</b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>80 are in Tiers 5-7</b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>The remainder are in
Tiers 8-12</b></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">PLOS Biology</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">
there are <b>1,557 total institutions</b> with some publishing history (some combination
of lead and co-author affiliations) in the time period we evaluated.</span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>45 are in Tiers 1-5</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>152 are in Tiers 6-8</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>The remainder are in
Tiers 9-12 </b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As I say, I wouldn’t
necessarily correlate rough groupings of similar institutions as “corresponding
author institutions, contributing author institutions, and insurance
institutions” especially since it does not include the thousands of
organisations with no publishing history who might want to participate. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, it’s
probably fair to say that the highest tiers have institutions that published a
lot in both designations. The middle tiers were a combination but at lower
volume, and the lowest tiers were low volume and mostly in the contributing
author designation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Threat</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: In a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/7961882/6701287299563734785#">webinar</a></span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: #1155cc;"> </span></span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">you gave in
September you said that if transformative agreements flourish there probably
won’t be sufficient money left in library budgets to support schemes like PLOS
Community Action. How big a threat do you think there is here?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SR:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> This, of course, comes
down to how you define “transformative agreements.” If you mean the standard
RAP/PAR deals that integrate historic subscriptions with open access publishing
that stays revenue neutral, then yes. If these are negotiated with large
commercial publishers first, we’re looking at new kind of “big deal” that locks
in library monies with subscription publishers of hybrid open-access journals.
Non-profits, small societies, and native-OA publishers may very well not make
it out the other side of this transition (especially if “read” institutions’
subscription monies exit the system).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s hard to know how
big the threat is as it ultimately comes down to choices libraries make. Many
appear to be balancing both imperatives – looking at where they publish and
spend the most </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">and</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> evaluating how mission aligned those outlets are.
It’s not easy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: So, what are your
expectations about the choices that libraries will make with regard to the PLOS
Collective Action Publishing scheme?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SR: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">It’s totally
dependent on region, funding structures (block grants in UK versus how the US
does it) and how radical libraries want to be about cancelation and re-negotiations.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">I have personally
been overwhelmed by the number of cash strapped organisations that are pushing
to support this model and find the money.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The December
commitment update will tell the tale!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Thank you. And
good luck!</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-35385465615374762822020-07-30T10:02:00.028+00:002020-07-31T06:13:45.612+00:00Unbundling the Big Deal: An interview with SUNY’s Shannon Pritting<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></i></b></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serials_crisis#Big_deal"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Big Deal</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> has been a topic of heated discussion among librarians for some twenty
or more years now. When first introduced, the attraction of the Big Deal was immediately
obvious, since it allows a library to buy its faculty access to most, if not
all, of a publisher’s journals at a much lower “cost per article” (discounted) rate. From
the start, however, there were doubters.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i></i></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SQq3Yrs6Dvw/XyKcsrJBXfI/AAAAAAAAq6k/G4_Q9KLe-SwD1cURP6VLy-7am7li4aduQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1024/ShannonPritting.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="170" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SQq3Yrs6Dvw/XyKcsrJBXfI/AAAAAAAAq6k/G4_Q9KLe-SwD1cURP6VLy-7am7li4aduQCNcBGAsYHQ/w256-h170/ShannonPritting.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shannon Pritting<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In 2001, the Director of Libraries at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison, Kenneth Frazier, </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march01/frazier/03frazier.html"><i><span lang="EN-GB">warned</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> the library community of the dangers of signing big deals, or any
comprehensive licensing agreement, with commercial publishers.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“The current generation of library directors is engaged
in a dangerous ‘game’ in which short-term institutional benefits are achieved
at the long-term expense of the academic community,” he warned, adding that big
deals would weaken libraries’ ability to manage their journal collections, foist
on them journals they “neither need nor want” and increase their dependence on
publishers “who have already shown their determination to monopolize the
information marketplace.”</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nevertheless, many libraries did sign big deals. And
many later regretted it, not least because, having done so, they felt they had no
choice but to keep renewing the contract, even as the cost kept going up and devoured more and more of their budget. </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Libraries felt trapped, conscious that if they
did not renew they would have to go back to subscribing to individual journals
at list price, which would mean being able to afford access to fewer journals, and fearful
that when they discovered that journals they wanted were no longer available, faculty
would revolt.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Over time, however, a </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/05/01/wolf-finally-arrives-big-deal-cancelations-north-american-libraries/"><i><span lang="EN-GB">greater willingness</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> to think the unthinkable emerged, and some libraries began to cancel
their big deals. And when they did so the sky did not fall in – which allowed other
libraries to take heart.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The list maintained </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1brXHnANwLBCHYo5b79hF6vGF63fdOCSOSiPxCScf0hc/edit#gid=0"><i><span lang="EN-GB">here</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> suggests that libraries began cancelling their big deals as long ago as
2008, but the number doing so has been accelerating in the last few years. What
has really focussed minds are the recent decisions by both the </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00758-x"><i><span lang="EN-GB">University of California</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://news.mit.edu/2020/guided-by-open-access-principles-mit-ends-elsevier-negotiations-0611#.XuJLLWKW_k0.twitter"><i><span lang="EN-GB">MIT</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> to walk away from their negotiations with Elsevier rather than renew
their big deals.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">But it is not necessary to walk away completely in the
way UC and MIT have done. Instead, libraries can “unbundle” their Big Deal by replacing the large package of several thousand journals they are subscribed to with
a small à la carte bundle of a few hundred journals, and in the process save themselves a great deal of money.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">What is helping libraries to make the decision to
unbundle is the knowledge that more and more research is becoming available on
an open access basis. In addition, new tools like </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://unsub.org/"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Unsub</span></i></a></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> are available to advise them on which journals they can cancel without too
great an impact, and which journals are essential and so should be retained. </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Given the big savings that can be realised, and the pressure library budgets are under, unbundling is expected to grow,
particularly in light of the straitened circumstances that libraries will find
themselves in after </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">the pandemic.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">This
year a number of US universities have unbundled in favour of smaller packages
of journals, including </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><a href="https://library.unc.edu/2020/04/upcoming-elsevier-cancellations/">UNC
Chapel Hill</a>, <a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://www.lib.iastate.edu/elsevier"}" href="#">Iowa State University</a> and the State University of New York (<a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://slcny.libguides.com/slc/elsevier2020update"}" href="#">SUNY</a>) -- a system of 64 institutions. Coming in the wake of UC</i></span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">’s</span></i><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> decision to walk away from Elsevier these </i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“</span></i><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">little deals</i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">”</span></i><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> have attracted a lot of attention. </i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
Europe, by contrast, there is a </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><a href="https://esac-initiative.org/about/transformative-agreements/agreement-registry/">greater
focus</a> right no on signing <a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/23/transformative-agreements/"}" href="#">transformative agreements</a>. In addition to providing reading rights, these new-style big deals include prepaid publishing rights to allow faculty to publish their articles on an open access basis. Amongst other things, these deals help assuage concerns about <a data-original-attrs="{"data-original-href":"https://www.rluk.ac.uk/the-costs-of-double-dipping/"}" href="#">double dipping</a> (where a university may end up paying both article-processing charges and subscriptions for the same journals). </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">So
how is a decision to unbundle made, and what are the issues and implications of
making the decision? To get a clearer picture I spoke recently by email with Shannon
Pritting, Shared Library Services Platform Project Director at SUNY. In April, SUNY replaced
its Big Deal of 2,200 journals with Elsevier with a “little deal” of just 248 journals. By doing so, it says, it has saved about $7 million.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unbundling
raises a lot of questions, and I suspect we may not have answers to all of
the questions for some time.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">For
instance, as more and more universities unbundle, how accurate will the
calculations informing the decisions about which journals to give up and which to keep prove to be over time? This could have implications for, amongst other things, how much of the money that has been saved will need to be spent on obtaining paywalled articles through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and document delivery services.</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Moreover,
since unbundling </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1brXHnANwLBCHYo5b79hF6vGF63fdOCSOSiPxCScf0hc/edit#gid=0">appears</a> currently to be mainly a US thing (with Europe favouring transformative agreements) might we see a geographical divide emerge? If we do, what might the implications of this be, especially for the open access movement?</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In addition,
might unbundling encourage more researchers to use illegal services like
Sci-Hub, and might unbundling see university libraries marginalised
to some extent, especially if they do not play an active role in funding open
access?</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Please read on for the interview. </span></i></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><h3 style="margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The interview begins …</span></span></h3><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: SUNY consists of 64 campuses I believe. Do they all publish research
papers, or is it primarily the 4 main campuses?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> SUNY consists of 60 campuses. The
additional 4 are Cornell Statutory colleges, which don’t rely on SUNY for
services such as library access. The majority of publishing comes from the 4
University Centers, but there are many other faculty who publish research.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY has
doctoral granting colleges with scholars who produce research in specialized
areas, and it has 13 University Colleges with graduate programs and faculty who
have publishing and research expectations for promotion and tenure.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: How many papers a year in total does SUNY publish?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">According to data gathered through
Dimensions, over the past five years (2015-2019), SUNY faculty and staff have
published on average 9,960 papers.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Over this
term, publishing is split virtually evenly between Open Access and Subscription
Based publishing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: You referred to 4 University Centers. I am thinking that these are Albany,
Binghamton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook. You also referred to 4 Cornell Statutory
colleges and said they do not rely on SUNY for services like library access. So
the number of published papers you cite does not include all of the campuses?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The 4
University Centers (Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook) are included
in the numbers of papers affiliated with SUNY authors. These 4 university
centers participate fully with SUNY.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">But, there are 4 Cornell Statutory colleges that rely on Cornell for library
and other support. These are </span><a href="https://www.suny.edu/attend/visit-us/complete-campus-list/cornell-als/#:~:text=NYS%20College%20of%20Agriculture%20%26%20Life%20Sciences%20at%20Cornell%20University&text=It%20is%20the%20only%20college,the%20nation%2C%20and%20the%20world." style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NYS
College of Agriculture & Life Sciences at Cornell University</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><a href="https://www.human.cornell.edu/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NYS College of Human Ecology at Cornell
University</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, </span><a href="https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NYS School of Industrial
and Labor Relations at Cornell University</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, and </span><a href="https://www.vet.cornell.edu/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">NYS College of Veterinary Medicine at
Cornell University</a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">These statutory colleges are not included in the number of papers
published.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: How many of the open access papers you refer to are published as
gold OA and how many as hybrid OA?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And how do you expect these figures
to change in the next few years? Also, how much do SUNY libraries pay each year
in gold OA fees?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For 2019, there were 1,035 SUNY
papers published as gold OA, with 461 being published as hybrid. Over the five-year
period from 2015-2019, SUNY authors published on average 1,361 gold open access
articles and 565 hybrid open access articles per year.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">No SUNY
libraries currently pay for OA fees. These costs are paid directly by the
author or the department, and payment data is not centrally managed.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We expect
that OA fees paid by SUNY authors will remain relatively stable, as most
agencies who provide grant funding have already implemented OA requirements.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: SUNY does not therefore know how much is spent on APCs each year by
SUNY faculty?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">No, SUNY does not have a reliable
estimate of how much is spent on APCs by SUNY faculty.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Is there a SUNY-wide OA policy, or
does each campus have its own separate policy?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> There is a system wide </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://system.suny.edu/academic-affairs/open-access/"><span lang="EN-GB">open
access policy</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, approved
by the SUNY Board of Trustees in March 2018. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This policy
requires that the Universities (but not community colleges) should develop and
adopt open access policies for each institution.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The community colleges are encouraged, but not
required, to adopt open access policies. Of the 30 universities, 21 currently
have open access policies, with all 30 expected to have policies by December
2020.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Three community colleges have open access policies,
with the expectation that only a few more will develop open access policies. We
have collected institutional open access policies into a repository that you
can view </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/handle/1951/71081"><span lang="EN-GB">here</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For the most part, SUNY institutional OA policies
leave the decision of whether to publish open access or deposit works into
repositories with the faculty.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">A major focus of SUNY in open access has been through
Open Educational Resources (OER), which has led to major improvements in
college affordability, and improvements in teaching and learning.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The investment in OER came from NY State Government,
with $12 million invested in OER over three years, that has resulted in </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.suny.edu/suny-news/press-releases/02-20/2-4-20/2-4-20-oer-savings.html"><span lang="EN-GB">nearly $50 million in savings</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">, and improved teaching and learning outcomes.</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Unbundling</span></span></h3><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: SUNY recently unbundled its Big Deal with Elsevier, reducing the
number of journals it subscribes to from 2,200 to 248. As I understand it from
a recent </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Science</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/tool-saving-universities-millions-dollars-journal-subscriptions"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">article</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">, SUNY used Unsub to help it decide which journals to
give up, and this estimated that a modest number of subscriptions would be
enough to supplement the large numbers of Elsevier papers already available
outside of paywalls. Of the papers SUNY researchers can access under the new
arrangement, the calculation was that 30% of the papers that faculty are likely
to need access to are available open access and, thanks to a post-termination
agreement (PTA) with Elsevier, 25% will remain freely available to faculty from
Elsevier. This does not imply that 45% will need to be ordered via document
delivery services right?</span></i></b></h3><div><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></i></b></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">SUNY partnered with Unsub (at the
time Unpaywall Journals) to model costs and access options if we decided to
cancel or unbundle our Elsevier Big Deal. The percentage you mention of 45% of
content not being immediately accessible isn’t something that the Unsub data
generally provided as a data point. Although the Unsub data varied by journal,
the percentage that wouldn’t be immediately accessible was typically below 20%.</span></h3><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although
there was a lot of scepticism about the reliability of Unsub data and modelling
in predicting costs post-cancellation, the tool and services helped us to think
critically about all other data we were using to determine value. In the end,
most SUNYs found that Unsub data was useful, and as reliable as other sources
that we were using to determine the value of a big deal.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Certainly,
Post-Termination Access helps with providing immediate access. However, I don’t
think that any campus expects that either 45% or 20% of the usage would
translate into document delivery purchases. Everyone understands that journal
usage data is inflated, flawed, and doesn’t reflect true usage and value. Yet,
most forecasts of costs after cancellation or unbundling are based on vendor provided
usage data.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Once you
provide any barrier such as requesting a purchase, ILL, or anything but
directly downloading a PDF or HTML document, the percentage of users who will
actually try to request is very small.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">So we expect
minimal increase in document delivery costs as a result of changing the Big Deal
to a smaller, focused package. And, if libraries find that users are requesting
via ILL or document delivery a high amount of articles from any specific
journal, they can always subscribe to a single journal if it’s cost effective.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Overall, the
strategy was that the big deal provides access to a lot of content, but our big
deal wasn’t an effective use of our money; it was worth it to see what actually
happens after we changed our subscription.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">And, I
expect that we’ll see the same trends and results that other consortia and
libraries have seen: a cancellation of a big deal doesn’t lead to resulting increased
costs for article purchasing or ILL that is anywhere near what a subscription
to that large set of journals costs. Most users will find alternative sources
as the user usually doesn’t need a specific article, but just needs an article
that is relevant to the topic.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the end, SUNY’s
decision was based on the simple equation of whether 2,200 journals was worth
the amount we were paying for the Big Deal, and not the fear of what the costs
would be for guaranteeing the same type of access to the 2,200 journals as we
had when we subscribed to the bundle. Just as important as determining whether we
could provide access to papers we would lose from the bundled titles was
determining how many of these 2,200 journals we needed.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This work
took just as much time or more than cost modelling. It involved outreach by
many librarians with faculty and administration across SUNY. SUNY also hosted
several coordinated open forums with faculty about the Elsevier deal, and
engaged with Faculty governance and administration at the system and campus
levels. Certainly usage data informed the journals we targeted for the 248, but
equally important was input from our user community that was led by librarians.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We certainly
had to walk through various data-driven scenarios of costs after cancellation,
value of the package based on usage (and what journals were most important) to
ensure we were gathering input and managing the change that comes from moving
away from a Big Deal. But, the decision for SUNY was based on whether we valued
the journals enough to pay the amount the vendor required us to pay to maintain
that access.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the end,
it wasn’t in the best interests of SUNY to continue with the Big Deal.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><h3 style="margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Individual
title subscriptions</span></span></h3><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: As you indicate, </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">the Elsevier unbundled deal assumes
that any campus or department that needs access to journals not in the smaller
bundle can subscribe separately. Do you have any sense of how many such
subscriptions might be taken out/have been taken out? Presumably, they would
need to be funded with money outside the library budget.</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The expectation is that campuses
who want to subscribe to journals outside of the 248 titles that most of SUNY
gets is that the library subscribes to the journal separately at list price.
This funding would be coming from the individual library budget, and would be
funded with savings from the difference between what the library would have
contributed to the previous big deal and the smaller 248 title deal.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">There have
been very few individual title subscriptions for Elsevier titles that were lost
in the change to the smaller unbundled deal. The global pandemic began to
impact the US just after the new unbundled deal was finalized, which resulted
in libraries immediately beginning to limit spending, and then begin to cut
budgets.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The savings
from the change from the Big Deal to an unbundled deal provided campuses with
the ability to weather drastic cuts, and many used the savings to help meet the
need to quickly cut spending and budgets.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Presumably the figure of 25% of articles that will be freely
available as a result of the PTA with Elsevier will grow over time, in line
with the number of new papers published in Elsevier journals that are not
covered by the PTA?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">There will be some growth in the
percentage of content that our users may want, but don’t have immediate access
to as our Post Termination access grows less current. However, the percent
increase and the costs of access will not be enough of a percentage to come
close to the difference in what our previous deal cost our institutions, and
what our current subscription will cost.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY would
prefer to look at the aggregate savings built by the years it will take for our
PTA to age as a major advantage to unbundling. In essence, as the industry
shifts and more consortia and large libraries break subscriptions, the market
for journal access will only be more advantageous to the subscriber in the
future.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thinking of
growth over time in the amount of content that our users can’t access via PTA,
or a subscription, assumes that the value of a subscription or journal package
will only grow. It’s clear that the value of big deals is declining, so future
deals should only be more advantageous.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">If SUNY does
find it more cost effective to enter into another big deal or “re-bundle” what
it recently unbundled, future deals should be better than the deal we had,
which was based on historical metrics.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Of those papers that will be available open access how many do you
estimate will be the Version of Record (VoR) and how many are likely to be
self-archived versions – e.g. preprint, Authors Accepted Manuscript (AAM), or </span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/research/open-access/open-access-and-the-ref/understanding-versions-of-your-paper/%5d"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">some other version</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that is not the VoR? Does the
version matter?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is a tough question to answer,
but based on experience searching for content and assisting users, I’d say that
about half of the access would be content that is other than the Version of Record.
In most cases, the Version of Record is not needed. But, when it is needed,
this is where document delivery purchasing would be used.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><h3 style="margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">ILL and
document delivery services</span></span></h3><p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: So, SUNY uses both ILL and document delivery services for obtaining
articles in journals it does not subscribe to. Can you say which services are
used and how many documents on average are ordered each year via a) ILL and b)
document delivery services? How do you expect those figures to change going
forward?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our primary vendor for document
delivery is Reprints Desk. A few institutions also use Copyright Clearance
Center’s “Get it Now” service, but this is only for a small percentage of the
document delivery volume. SUNY Libraries use the lowest cost vendor for
document delivery, and for all but a few percent of articles, Reprints Desk is
the lowest cost option.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Based on 5
years of ILL data (2015-19) SUNY has 300,000 total ILL requests per year (both
lending and borrowing) for books and articles. Considering that half of ILL
requests are for articles, and half of the requests are lending, about 100,000
requests are for ILL articles per year.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Over this
five-year span, total ILL volume has decreased a few percent per year. I expect
that the total volume of ILL will continue to decrease, especially for
articles. Every consortium that has cancelled big deals has found that there
has been little impact on overall ILL volume.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Of the
100,000 articles requested in SUNY each year, about 25% are for content
published within the last five years, which has the potential to incur costs
for access. ILL departments are already doing a fine job providing access to
current content as a supplement or alternative to subscriptions, and will be a
reliable source to provide access for any content that is needed but not
available via subscription.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY
libraries have regularly found that providing access to journals via ILL and
document delivery is more cost effective than subscribing to journals that have
high subscription costs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY doesn’t
currently have data on how many document delivery purchases are made per year,
but we are working with our primary document delivery provider to gather this
data to use as another point of consideration when we consider access options.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Do you have any sense of how much SUNY libraries generally pay for
document delivery and ILL services each year?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The amount that SUNY pays for document delivery and ILL services each
year varies between institutions. Typically, smaller institutions don’t pay for
document delivery, with our largest few institutions paying from $50,000 to
$100,000. But we don’t currently have reliable detailed data on this document
delivery spending in aggregate across our 60 institutions as each campus pays
separately.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Although our campuses will continue to decrease the
amount of content such as journals that they license, we expect to see only a
slight increase in document delivery costs. Users typically find alternative
paths to journal articles if libraries don’t subscribe, whether it’s open
access or alternative versions of a paper.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Document delivery is used only in limited circumstances,
and we expect the percentage of articles that are available without a
subscription to continue to increase. Most of the SUNYs also have enabled
Unpaywall integration in their link resolvers, so open access is provided as an
option whenever possible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I understand it costs between $35 and $40 per article to order via
Reprints Desk. In addition, there will be costs for ILL. An </span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=library_facpubs"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">article</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> from 2015 estimates the cost of ILL at between $8-$10 per item. Does
that sound about right?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We have reasonably
reliable data about the number of transactions where campuses have paid
copyright (which in this case includes purchasing the article from a document
delivery provider) and the number is 16,250 per year. Your estimate of $35-$40
per article is fair, so our document delivery and copyright spending would be
roughly $568,750 dollars per year. However, some of the heaviest requested
publications such as Nature, and even Elsevier publications, cost less than $25
per article.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We think that there is a fair amount of open access
that gets purchased or requested via ILL, especially in hybrid journals. This
is why we’re excited that Reprints Desk has an open access filter that some
libraries are using. As you’re likely aware, finding open access in hybrid
publications is often not easy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Using your estimate of $8-10 per article for ILL,
which I find reasonable, you’re correct that the spending on ILL for articles ordered
from other libraries via resource sharing would be around $670,000 per year. SUNY continues to try to minimize this cost
by assessing costs of resource sharing systems and networks to ensure that
we’re getting our best value for the resource sharing we need to serve our
users.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When we were using the Unsub post-cancellation cost
modelling tool, they defaulted to $17 per request based on older estimates from
ILL literature. Even with this higher ILL estimate, the model still indicated
that most of our campuses should subscribe to only a small group of journals.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Ok, so as a rough estimate we can say that SUNY Libraries
are receiving about 100,000 article requests a year from faculty. Of these about
16,250 will be supplied via document delivery services (at a cost of around $568,750)
and some 83,750 will be supplied via ILL (at a cost of about $670,000). So the total
cost of fulfilling individual article requests will be around $1.238 million a
year. </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Does SUNY
operate a mediated document delivery service, or can faculty go online and
order documents without the library needing to be involved?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Some SUNY institutions provide an unmediated
document delivery service, typically facilitated through an ILL workflow. However,
most document delivery purchasing comes as a supplement to Interlibrary Loan
requests, where libraries are purchasing articles rather than pay copyright
royalties, lending fees, or to prevent slow service. About half of the SUNY institutions are using
a locally developed software middleware system called </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1072303X.2017.1305034"><span lang="EN-GB">Article Gateway</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">to facilitate unmediated
document delivery through ILL.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Unmediated
document delivery is always provided for a limited number of titles that are
most cost effective to use via document delivery article access rather than
subscriptions for the entire campus.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Many of our
campuses are small, but offer advanced degrees in specialized areas. As many
STEM publishers use metrics that utilize types and level of programs for
subscription rates, document delivery is an attractive option to provide access
to resources as subscription costs are often beyond the ability of these small
campuses to afford.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><h3 style="margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Illegal
services and big deals</span></span></h3><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: You say you </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">expect minimal increase in document
delivery costs as a result of changing from a big deal to a smaller deal
because “Once you provide any barrier such as requesting a purchase, ILL, or
anything but directly downloading a PDF or HTML document, the percentage of
users who will actually try to request is very small.” Is there any concern
that by unbundling the library could encourage users to access illegal services
like Sci-Hub?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Certainly,
SUNY values the work that publishers do, including Elsevier. SUNY wishes to
continue its relationship with Elsevier moving forward, as we’ll continue for
multiple years to have at least a group of 248 titles.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, I think what unbundling does is focus the review not purely on
cost per use, which inflates the value of a subscription. This point has been </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">on </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Instead, the focus becomes more on the value of the
usage you’re getting for the amount you’re paying, not purely letting usage
drive the value discussion.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">By looking at link resolver data you can find that
users often land on records of articles to which they have access, load the pdf
into a browser, but never engage with the article. So, with content they do not
have access to they may come to a record but never take the next step of
ordering the article via ILL.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We realize that the best case scenario for everyone
would be that bundles of the highest quality content were available at prices
that were slowly decreasing to acknowledge that the cost of IT infrastructure
is going down, so journal hosting prices should go down. But, that’s not the
offers that are typically coming from publishers. Library budgets, at least in
SUNY, are declining, so increasing costs lead us to make tough decisions about
which of the subscriptions to cut.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The proposition that unbundling will lead to more use
of illegal access and that this is a problem that the library or libraries should
solve isn’t one that is fair to libraries. It’s not that libraries are seeking
to offer less content to their users; they just can’t afford increasing prices.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We hope that, instead of illegal services becoming
more common open access and open science becomes more prevalent and shifts the readership
models to open access rather than Sci-Hub or models that aren’t connected to
legitimate organizations.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: How many big deals does SUNY currently have and with whom?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> SUNY is not a consortium that has
historically collaborated on big deals for content. This is partially due to
the diversity of types of institutions, and partially due to capacity at the
central office. The Elsevier Big Deal was the only major full-text deal SUNY
had.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY has
historically had a large package of aggregator content labelled </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.sunyconnect.suny.edu/about.html"><span lang="EN-GB">SUNYConnect</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that all campuses subscribe to. However,
beyond the Elsevier deal and SUNYConnect, there is currently very little
content that the 60 institutions or large groups within the system coordinate
purchasing on.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY is
working to do more coordinated collection activity, and will consider big deals
if the offer is appropriate.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">However,
with most big deals, there is such a wide variety of content that we don’t anticipate
finding many deals that will benefit enough of SUNY to pursue. The overall
management overhead for big deals is also something we thought about in depth
as we moved from the Elsevier big deal to an unbundled group.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">With smaller
unbundled coordinated collecting, the opportunity to change strategies or to
cancel is less overwhelming, and outweighs the benefit of access to journals in
bulk.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><h3 style="margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Transformative
agreements</span></span></h3><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Has SUNY signed any transformative agreements? If so, with whom? If
not does it plan to?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> SUNY as a system, or as individual
institutions, has not signed any transformative agreements. At this point, it
seems unlikely that SUNY would enter into any large-scale transformative
agreements in the near future.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The culture
and organizational structure of SUNY is such that individual authors have been
paying open access fees. Although SUNY libraries are largely supportive of
movements towards open such as open access and open educational resources, the
financial implications of transformative agreements would be difficult for most
SUNY libraries to justify.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY library
budgets will continue to be negatively impacted, so the focus will likely be on
getting the most relevant access over the next 3-5 years. However, SUNY will
continue to ask for terms and discounts for publishing open access as much as
possible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When a
commitment to dedicate funds away from current access to supporting open access
comes into play with negotiations, SUNY will likely continue to prioritize
current access. An overlooked portion of the SUNY-Elsevier unbundled deal was a
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.buffalo.edu/ubnow/briefs/2020/04/suny-elsevier-deal.html"><span lang="EN-GB">10% discount</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> on Elsevier APCs for SUNY Authors, which is typical of the approach
we’ll likely be taking with other deals.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">If we can
include terms that are advantageous to authors moving towards open access,
we’ll do so, but won’t sacrifice access or incur more costs to move from a read
to read and publish strategy.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: You say that SUNY libraries are not responsible for paying any gold
OA fees and that payment data is not centrally managed. Do you think there is a
danger that by not being involved in the management of APCs, and by unbundling,
SUNY libraries might be risking marginalising themselves to some extent? I note
in </span></i></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://osf.io/ck8u3/"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">this paper</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> the authors say, “Studies have
shown that interlibrary loan often does not increase following journal
cancellations, but rather than being good news, this may represent a decrease
in perceived library value by researchers. Open Access will also play a
critical and increasing role in this environment, and understanding its
relation to the content at hand will be important in building a robust and
sustainable research support system.”</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The paper also suggests that unbundling could, over the longer term,
have a negative impact on smaller institutions that rely on their larger peers
to supply ILL requests. I wonder also if, as we see more institutions breaking
their Big Deals, the ILL system could start to come under pressure.</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Do you have any thoughts on these matters?</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">SP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As a
direct response to the quote about ILL volume not increasing after big deal
cancellations representing a decrease in “perceived library value,” this
statement indicates something that I’ve never fully understood.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Libraries see it as their responsibility to figure ways to keep providing
the same content, even if the deals get worse and cripple the organization
further. Why wouldn’t libraries see this not as a referendum on the value of
the library, but as an indicator of how much the exact content they were
subscribing to mattered. I realize things are always complex in these
situations, but libraries shouldn’t tie up their value with keeping specific
subscriptions. Libraries offer so much more than just access to articles.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Regarding risking being marginalized if SUNY doesn’t focus on
transformative agreements or continuing to find ways to subscribe to large
journal packages: I agree that unbundling should signal a shift in how
libraries focus on access. And, SUNY certainly isn’t against transformative
agreements or subscribing to bundles of journals that make sense financially.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, focusing on licensing agreements with publishers as the main
vehicle will likely lead to further issues in the future where libraries again
cannot sustain the costs of the endeavours they’re focusing on.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">SUNY will be focusing on ways we can help our system’s faculty and staff
participate more in open access publishing to make their intellectual property
and research more accessible to all. We
can be sure that publishers and vendors will be partners with us as we begin to
move more into open access strategies. But, APCs and transformative agreements
should be analysed in our overall context regarding increasing access for SUNY
faculty, staff, and students and making the output of SUNY faculty, staff, and
students more accessible to the larger community.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Certainly, ILL and availability of articles is something to be aware of,
especially if more large subscription reductions and unbundling continue. ILL
departments have seen staffing reductions, which has led to a focus on
streamlining workflows, and has brought about a decade’s worth of focus in ILL
(at least in the US) that has seen most of the innovation going towards
automation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">What ILL has lacked is a large-scale investment in focusing on the larger
ecosystem, which includes better terms in licensing and the ability to offer
new services rather than just offering the same services more efficiently. But,
I think there’s going to be a real shift in libraries moving more towards
collections services, which includes ILL.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">For example, Princeton has adopted this model, which focuses on both
access and collections. There needs to be better structural support for ILL, so
that consortial coordination of collection and access for things like journals
can happen. SUNY discussed all of this when we were considering unbundling, and
although we focused for the past six months on showing libraries how to arrange
and configure alternative access, we’re at a point now where we can focus on
more structural issues that use multiple data points when making collection
decisions or setting strategic directions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">This spirit has been strong in SUNY with coordinated collection
development via resource sharing and demand driven acquisitions for books for
some time, with many libraries seeking to diversify SUNY’s collection if a
title isn’t available in SUNY.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We’re hoping that we can coordinate journal access in a similar way,
where we have programs where SUNYs cooperate on what journals they subscribe to
in order to provide the best access to e-journals for all of SUNY.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Additionally, vendors will likely be offering more in the way of access
options that allows consortia to blend ILL-like access and subscriptions. The </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://coalliance.org/news/sillvr-pilot-streaming-video-resource-sharing"><span lang="EN-GB">SILLVR project</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> for
streaming video </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">at the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries is one
such pilot where the larger consortium is looking to secure both subscriptions
and access in a single license.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">With ILL and collections access departments blending,
libraries should be prepared to look at licensing and subscriptions
differently, and find the best blend of subscriptions and bundled access that
will get the best value for their institutions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Thank you very much for
taking the time to speak with me.</span></i></b></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></i></b>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
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Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
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<![endif]-->Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-76472740770790372552020-02-19T17:00:00.000+00:002020-02-19T17:00:27.154+00:00PLOS CEO Alison Mudditt discusses new OA agreement with the University of California<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The Public Library of Science (<a href="https://www.plos.org/">PLOS</a>)
and the University of California (</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/"><span lang="EN-GB">UC</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">) have today <a href="https://blogs.plos.org/plos/2020/02/plos-and-the-university-of-california-announce-open-access-publishing-agreement/">announced</a> a two-year agreement designed to make it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish in
the non-profit open-access publisher’s suite of seven journals.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><i>Under the agreement – which is planned to go into effect this Spring –
UC Libraries will automatically pay the first $1,000 of the article processing
charge (APC) incurred when UC authors choose to publish in a PLOS journal.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><i>Authors who do not have research funds available can request UC Libraries pay the full APC fee. The aim is to
ensure that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for UC authors
wishing to publish with PLOS.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><i>The pilot is intended to test whether an institutional participation model that
leverages multiple funding sources, rather than only grant funds, can provide a
sustainable and inclusive path to full open access.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Below PLOS CEO Alison Mudditt discusses the new
agreement and addresses some of the issues that the </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">current trend for universities and consortia to sign so-called </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/23/transformative-agreements/">transformative agreements</a> with legacy publishers raises for native</span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> open-access publishers like PLOS</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span lang="EN-GB">.</span></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The interview begins …</span></span></b></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DwhTNCKNm2Y/Xk1FfxUoIdI/AAAAAAAAo5A/6URIhKM7ous6raPUdHOEQ6REWeJ0c5lLACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Alison-Mudditt_headshot-214x300%2B%2528002%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="214" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DwhTNCKNm2Y/Xk1FfxUoIdI/AAAAAAAAo5A/6URIhKM7ous6raPUdHOEQ6REWeJ0c5lLACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Alison-Mudditt_headshot-214x300%2B%2528002%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alison Mudditt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: The PLOS/UC agreement is essentially the same <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2020/01/jmir-uc/">deal</a> as UC
signed with </span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://www.jmirpublications.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA1rPyBRAREiwA1UIy8LY0-KsGHl48dvREg428_AGgTvt8lY8M8eEq4YE37hmeR3LZobgzrhoCv5cQAvD_BwE"><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">JMIR Publications</span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> in January. Is
that correct?</span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Essentially yes. UC has made their priorities for these agreements
clear, </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/uc-publisher-relationships/negotiating-with-scholarly-journal-publishers-a-toolkit/an-introductory-guide-to-the-uc-model-transformative-agreement/"><span lang="EN-GB">so most UC deals will be very
similar</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In addition, we are generating custom reporting for the UC to help them
evaluate the efficacy of the pilot in bringing new authors to open access
publishing while maintaining existing funding streams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Would I be right in thinking that these deals are native open-access
publishers’ response to the transformative agreements that legacy publishers
have been signing with universities and consortia like Project DEAL?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> While we can only speak on behalf of PLOS, this is certainly one
of the drivers for us. We think that there is a significant opportunity for
institutions and funders to prioritize partnerships with native OA publishers
who stand fully aligned with their OA objectives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">We have been reassured by the commitment from institutions and consortia
not to sideline negotiations with (and thereby disadvantage) native OA
publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: How many articles do you envisage UC faculty publishing with PLOS
during the two-year period of the agreement?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">If we base it on previous years, then around 600-800 articles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: How many articles a year do UC faculty currently publish with PLOS?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:<i> </i></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Around 300 per year, across the seven journals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: As I understand it, the agreement means that UC faculty will be able
to publish in any PLOS journal and the first $1,000 will be paid by UC
libraries. If the researcher has access to no research funds s/he can request
full funding from the libraries. Is there any maximum sum agreed with UC
libraries such that the funds could run out before the pilot ends?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Yes, we have agreed to a capped total spend of $1.5M USD over the
two-year period. This cap reflects library spend <i>plus</i> grant
funding declared by authors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Once that spending cap is reached, PLOS has committed to cover the cost
of additional UC publications (assuming UC authors continue to faithfully
declare their existing grant funding, a two year spend is most likely to fall
between $1.2M and $1.25M).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">$1.5M would demonstrate an unprecedented increase in publications from
the UC – but of course, a key unknown is the level of demand once the barrier
of APCs is removed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">If for some reason, we reach this cap earlier in the agreement period
than expected (if at all), we have agreed to good faith renegotiations to
ensure that both PLOS and the UC are protected from unanticipated surges in
cost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Will the details of the agreement be published?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Yes – as are all of the UC agreements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: PLOS has an <a href="https://www.plos.org/institutional-account-participants">Institutional
Account Program</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">,</span><b><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">of which I do not
think UC is currently a participant. What is the difference between the
agreement announced today and UC simply signing up to become a participant of
the IAP?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> The Institutional Account Program is a simple direct billing
program meant to minimize administrative overhead of APCs either through
pay-as-you-go monthly invoices or debiting from a standalone account. While
useful for mitigating administrative costs, it is not an OA <i>deal</i>,
or transformative, in and of itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">This new deal enables the UC to allow grants to cover APCs when they
exist, so they can focus their support on where it is needed most (i.e. where
authors do not have the grant funds). It introduces an organized,
multiple-payer model of OA, which we think is important to test out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">And it meets our primary goals with new business models of ensuring that
any author who wants to can publish with PLOS, regardless of ability to pay an
APC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Number of questions</span></span></b></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Is PLOS talking to other universities/consortia with a view to
signing similar arrangements with them?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:<i> </i></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Yes, absolutely. We’ve asked ourselves a number of
questions in approaching these arrangements:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 13.5pt;">·</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">How do we make the
next phase of “open” in scholarly publishing as equitable and inclusive as
possible? To us, APCs cannot be the be-all and end-all of this “transition to
open”. This shift should be characterized by multiple business models that meet
authors and institutions where they are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 13.5pt;">·</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">What do institutions
and consortia need from us as a publisher? Depending on region, research focus,
institution-type etc., our partners have different needs and pain points. It
might be alleviating the high cost of APC administration. It might be a fee
structure that requires no APCs for authors. It might be a combination of
services and fees to meet compliance mandates. We are eager to develop a range
of solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 13.5pt;">·</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Ultimately, we are
striving to remove as many barriers as possible for authors to make their full
research outputs open and transparent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: PLOS has, <a href="https://blogs.plos.org/plos/2017/12/ceo-letter-to-the-community-mudditt/#comment-55305">at
least since 2017</a>, said that there is a need to move beyond APCs and that
it, therefore, needs to develop other business models. Will not agreements like
this serve to perpetuate the APC model rather than move beyond it.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:<i> </i></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The reality is that many of our consortial partners
– especially in Europe – are deeply committed to the APC workflow and want our
help to make it more efficient, transparent, and compliant with funder
mandates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In other regions – like the US – many libraries have not managed APC
budgets and wish to move to alternative models that don’t restrict their
authors and don’t involve micropayments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">At this stage in the OA transition, our goal is to bring flexibility to
process and avoid prescriptions where possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><i>RP: What alternatives to APCs is PLOS currently looking at?</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> We are currently working through a new “collective action model”,
initially for our highly selective journals <i>PLOS Medicin</i>e and <i>PLOS
Biology</i>. So far we have not made APCs pay for the cost of selectivity and
have elected to use cross-journal subsidies rather than charging higher APCs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">As PLOS grows, we are excited to debut a new model that integrates both
read and publish institutions to ensure collective action success. This will be
a pilot and we’ll be announcing more details at the UKSG meeting in April.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In addition to collective action models, we are exploring “flat fee”
models for institutions that want to move away from resource-intensive
administration of APCs. We have seen quite a bit of interest in these models
and hope to announce new agreements in the coming months.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> RP: OA advocates used to argue that one of the benefits of
pay-to-publish is that authors are made aware of publishing costs in a way they
never were with the subscription model (since they could publish for free and,
thanks to Big Deals paid for by the library, they had free-at-the-point-of use
access to journals).</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">As such, it was said, pay-to-publish would force researchers to start
making price sensitive decisions and this would exert downward pressure on the
costs of scholarly communication.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I note your press release makes the point of saying that the agreement
with UC will ensure “that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for
UC authors who wish to publish in PLOS journals.” Agreements like the one PLOS
has signed with UC – and certainly the transformative agreements that
universities and consortia are signing with legacy publishers – surely protect
authors from the financial consequences of their publishing decisions in a not
dissimilar way to the subscription model, and so presumably will have no
effective price control mechanisms built-in.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> The reality is that this hasn’t played out. We’ve seen that APC
price increases have shown little relation to the costs they’re meant to <a href="https://www.liberquarterly.eu/articles/10.18352/lq.10280/">represent</a> (hence
the value of the Plan S transparency <a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/coalition-s-welcomes-transparency-framework-and-report-launches-pilot/">pilot</a> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/coalition-s-welcomes-transparency-framework-and-report-launches-pilot/"></a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">PLOS is participating
in with other publishers). We’ve also seen that authors are still choosing to
publish with “prestige” journals regardless of the <a href="https://www.liberquarterly.eu/articles/10.18352/lq.10280/">cost of APCs</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">This suggests that focusing on authors to play the cost management role
is unrealistic – it makes far more sense for this to sit with libraries, who
have the relevant skills and experience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In this particular case, the key
component is the $1.5M USD price cap over the two years (which caps spend from
both the library and authors’ own funding sources). This represents risk for
both PLOS and the UC but both sides are committed to learning and adapting as
we go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: How would you respond to someone who suggested that these deals are
therefore a step backwards?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> With polite disagreement! As noted above, we need a range of
models for different needs and while we absolutely want to find strong
alternative business models, it’s clear that APCs still have some role to play.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I have been clear about <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/06/03/plan-s-and-the-transformation-of-scholarly-communication-are-we-missing-the-woods/">concerns
with transformative agreements</a>, especially from the large commercial
publishers, but as with so many things, there’s important nuance. Deals such as
this still meet important goals for PLOS, including making it possible for more
researchers to publish with us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">It goes a long way towards ensuring equity <i>and</i> author
price awareness by asking authors to honestly represent their funding situation
while simultaneously making native OA publishing an option for those with no
funding. Our success metrics for this pilot include:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 13.5pt;">·</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Impact on submissions
from across the UC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 13.5pt;">·</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Impact on <i>new</i> authors
coming to PLOS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 13.5pt;">·</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Increases in
publications in subject areas that typically have little or no funding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Any of these outcomes
would be evidence that the UC’s pilot program is effectively accelerating an OA
transition within the UC (at least in PLOS’ case).</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Another issue that has arisen with pay-to-publish is that
research-intensive universities like UC (which says it publishes 10% of all US
papers) will have to pay more rather than less in a pay-to-publish world.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Do you think they are going to have to swallow the pain on this, or
might we see less research-intensive universities agree to share publishing
costs in the way they did with the subscription system? Do you have views on
whether such a cost-sharing arrangement is desirable/necessary? Is PLOS looking
at ways in which such cost-sharing could be organised?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">A shift to a truly “open-to-read-open-to-publish” paradigm will require
all existing stakeholders to contribute. How much and through what mechanisms may
change, but money exiting the system is not going to accelerate this change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In our conversations, we’ve been heartened by the serious commitment
“read” institutions are making to participate in this new ecosystem and avoid
the label of “free riders.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">We’re using our understanding of their needs to
inform the new collective model in development (see above).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: As you indicate, transformative agreements have been criticised for the way they are
enabling legacy publishers to lock themselves into the new OA environment, to
the disadvantage of native OA publishers. In fact, some believe this poses an
existential threat to small native open-access publishers and learned
societies. Would you agree? If so, what can be done about it?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/06/03/plan-s-and-the-transformation-of-scholarly-communication-are-we-missing-the-woods/">We’re
on the record</a> with our concerns about so-called “transformative” agreements
precisely because of the risk that they further entrench the dominant market
position of the large commercial publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">We certainly don’t see the current market shifts as an existential
threat to PLOS although they certainly require us to refocus on our library
partners (something PLOS had moved away from). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">We’ve been excited by the
response we’ve had from libraries and consortia across the world: so many are
aligned with our vision of a world where the open sharing of research is
easier, more efficient and fair for all authors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<h3 style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Prioritising native open-access
publishers</span></span></b></h3>
<div>
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
<div>
</div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: The founder of JMIR (Gunther Eysenbach) has gone so far as to <a href="http://gunther-eysenbach.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-insanity-and-probably-illegality-of.html">suggest</a>
that transformative agreements are possibly illegal “under the anti-trust,
competition and procurement laws.” Does he have a point? Do you envisage a
legal challenge to the raft of transformative agreements we are seeing being
signed – either in North America or Europe?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> We do not think they are illegal but we do support the notion that
native OA publishers should get some priority in institutional and funder
arrangements for having paved the way for this transition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Eysenbach has also argued that funders and consortia like Project
DEAL ought, by rights, to use a tendering process when awarding large OA
publishing contracts. Subsequently, </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The Scholarly Kitchen<i> <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/01/28/transformative-agreements-violate-procurement-requirements/">suggested</a></i></span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2020/01/28/transformative-agreements-violate-procurement-requirements/"><b><i><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration-line: none;"> </span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> that tying
open-access publishing services to reading access might at some point, in some
contexts, fall foul of procurement offices.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">With this issue (amongst others) in mind, in Europe we have seen a <a href="https://oa2020-de.org/en/blog/2020/02/05/establishing_tenderprocedures_national_oaconsortia/">proposal</a>
for a pilot project aimed at developing pure open access contracts via a
tendering process. What are your views on this issue and the implications for
PLOS?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> I think our answer above makes our position clear. We support any
and all positive ways native OA publishers could be appropriately recognized
and, in light of our full alignment with the OA mission of such
organizations, given priority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">But we think there are better ways than legal recourse to demonstrate
our value.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Meanwhile, in the US there is talk of Trump signing an Executive
Order that would (it is rumoured) remove the current embargo on the green OA
policy introduced by Obama. I note PLOS has <a href="https://blogs.plos.org/plos/2020/01/plos-joins-other-publishers-and-societies-in-support-of-the-proposed-white-house-policy-regarding-federally-funded-research/">signed</a>
a letter supporting the idea, so it presumably believes it would be good for PLOS
if such an EO were signed.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">But if it were – and the EO insisted on immediate open access – is it
not likely that, like Plan S, it would trigger a raft of new transformative
agreements being signed with legacy publishers – as <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2019/04/cambridge-uc/">UC</a>, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/announcements_from_oup/oup_iowa_state">Iowa
State</a>, <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/09/24/guest-post-why-a-society-publisher-is-moving-toward-read-and-publish-models/">MIT</a>, </span></i></b><b><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2020/new-agreement-to-provide-open-access-publishing-for-msu-authors/">Michigan
State</a></span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> and <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/november/cmu-elsevier-reach-deal.html">Carnegie
Mellon</a> have already done in the US? That would not be a good
development from PLOS’ perspective presumably?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> We support the driver behind the rumoured EO since it is a
statement of priority and emphasis for OA which is somewhat lacking in the US. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">We are in discussions with many US institutions, in addition to the UC, and
would have no concerns about such an EO because we know our partners in the US
are eager to ensure PLOS and native OA publishers are at the table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Excited and confident</span></span></b></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: We have over time seen some of the darlings of open access fall into
the hands of legacy publishers, a development that has disappointed OA
advocates. BMC, for instance, was <a href="https://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/pressreleases?SGWID=0-11002-6-805003-0">acquired</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/pressreleases?SGWID=0-11002-6-805003-0"><b><i><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration-line: none;"> </span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">by Springer in 2008;
SSRN and bepress were acquired by Elsevier in <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/05/17/elsevier-acquires-ssrn/">2016</a>
and <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/08/02/elsevier-acquires-bepress/">2017</a>;</span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/05/17/elsevier-acquires-ssrn/"><b><i><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration-line: none;"> </span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">and in January
F1000Research was <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/taylor-francis-buys-f1000-research-ltd-1150791">acquired</a></span></i></b><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/taylor-francis-buys-f1000-research-ltd-1150791"><b><i><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration-line: none;"> </span></i></b></a></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">by Taylor and
Francis.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">These, of course, were all for-profits whereas PLOS is a non-profit.
However, we could note that – to the <a href="https://blogs.openbookpublishers.com/open-book-publishers-statement-on-knowledge-unlatched-and-the-open-research-library">consternation</a> of
many in the open access movement – in 2016 the non-profit Knowledge Unlatched
was <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/10/03/knowledge-unlatched-failed-transparency-and-the-commercialisation-of-open-access-book-publishing/">transformed</a> from
a UK non-profit CIC to a for-profit GmbH and relocated to Berlin. Explaining
why it was necessary KU founder Frances Pinter <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-oa-interviews-frances-pinter.html">said</a>,
“As a not-for-profit CIC with few assets, we were not able to take on
commercial loans. Grant-giving bodies and philanthropic funders regarded the
proof of concept as a success – and therefore not requiring further funding
from them.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Last November, </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">The Scholarly Kitchen<i> <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/11/22/is-plos-running-out-of-time/">reported</a>
that in 2018 PLOS ran a $5.5 million deficit on $32M dollars of revenue, and so
it is presumably in a vulnerable situation. Is it technically/legally possible
that PLOS could undergo a similar transformation from non-profit to for-profit
status and then be acquired by, say, Elsevier or Springer? What is to stop that
happening?</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> PLOS has been pretty open about the fact that 2018 was a year of
major transformation. Having made the decision to <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/12/20/end-aperta-journal-submission-systems-remain-challenging/">discontinue development of Aperta</a> at the end of 2017, our results in 2018 reflect both the write-off of
that investment and significant organizational restructuring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">We’ve gone through a careful, and sometimes painful, process of
deconstructing what wasn’t sustainable and reconstructing in ways that position
us for long-term impact and sustainability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">These decisions led to a significant turnaround in 2019 and a surplus of
well over $1m (our first meaningful surplus since 2014) – and we still have a
substantial cash reserve to fund future investment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">So we are entering 2020 both excited and confident of our future.
Equally importantly, we’ve become much clearer about redefining how we innovate
and lead – this is the work that PLOS was born to do. Leading the way in
development of equitable and sustainable business models for OA is one
important aspect of our work in continuing to push the boundaries of “open”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Finally, can you say what PLOS’ priorities are for 2020?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">AM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> We’d prefer to focus on the UC announcement, and we hope that the
responses above showcase enough of our 2020 priorities for now! Ask us again
sometime...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">RP: Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. Good luck with
your plans for the future.</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-5493173605990426952019-11-18T12:04:00.001+00:002021-02-03T10:53:10.671+00:00Open access: Could defeat be snatched from the jaws of victory?<p class="MsoNormal"><i>(A print version of this eBook is available <a href="https://glasstree.com/shop/catalog/open-access-could-defeat-be-snatched-from-the-jaws-of-victory_1370/">here</a>) <o:p></o:p></i></p>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">When news broke early in 2019 that the University of
California had walked away from licensing negotiations with the world’s largest
scholarly publisher (Elsevier), a wave of <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/university-california-break-elsevier-tipped-boost-global-revolt">triumphalism</a> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">spread
through the OA Twittersphere. </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pz_keNQT-1w/XdI8MAxOylI/AAAAAAAAoDE/U1HU9CbsopwPid9jMK6z80mKM7SrItjBgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Curtain.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="133" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pz_keNQT-1w/XdI8MAxOylI/AAAAAAAAoDE/U1HU9CbsopwPid9jMK6z80mKM7SrItjBgCNcBGAsYHQ/s200/Curtain.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
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<a href="https://unsplash.com/@philbotha?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8pt;">Phil Botha</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8pt;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/search/photos/border?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8pt;">Unsplash</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The talks had <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/02/28/why-uc-split-with-publishing-giant-elsevier/">collapsed</a> because </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">of Elsevier</span><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">’</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">s failure to offer UC what it demanded: a </span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-open-access-big-deal-back-to-future.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">new-style
Big Deal</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in which the university got access to all of Elsevier’s
paywalled content <b>plus</b> OA publishing
rights for all UC authors – what UC refers to as a “</span><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Read and Publish</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">” agreement.
In addition, UC wanted Elsevier to provide this at </span><a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-03-university-california-terminates-subscriptions-elsevier.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">a reduced
cost</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Given its size and influence, UC’s decision was <a href="https://psmag.com/education/why-should-taxpayer-funded-research-be-put-behind-a-paywall">hailed as</a> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“a shot heard around the academic world”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The news had added piquancy coming as
it did in the wake of a radical new European OA initiative called </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/">Plan S</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Proposed in
2018 by a group of European funders calling themselves </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/funders/">cOAlition S</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, the aim of Plan S is to make all publicly
funded research open access by 2021. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Buoyed up by these two developments open
access advocates concluded that – 17 years after the Budapest Open Access
Initiative (<a href="https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/">BOAI</a>)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> – the goal
of universal (or near-universal) open access is finally within reach. Or as the
Berkeley librarian who led the UC negotiations put it, “</span><a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/push-open-access-finally-reaching-tipping-point"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">a tipping
point</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">” has been reached. But could defeat be snatched from the
jaws of success?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">For my take on this topic please download the <a href="https://richardpoynder.co.uk/Jaws.pdf">attached pdf</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Please note that this document is more eBook than essay. It is <i>very</i> long. I know, I know, people will complain, but that is what I do. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Any brave soul willing to give it a go but who (like me) does not like to read long documents on the screen may like to print it out
as a folded book. I have long used the Blue Squirrel software <a href="https://www.bluesquirrel.com/products/clickbook/">ClickBook</a> to do
this. Alternatively, you can print booklets directly from word processing
software like Word, and I am happy to send over a Word file to
anyone who would like to do that</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile, the eBook is available as a pdf file <a href="https://richardpoynder.co.uk/Jaws.pdf">here</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<b>Rick Anderson has published a summary of and commentary on this eBook on <i>The Scholarly Kitchen</i> <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/11/25/the-tyranny-of-unintended-consequences-richard-poynder-on-open-access-and-the-open-access-movement/">here</a>. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A second post on <i>The Scholarly Kitchen</i> referencing this eBook was posted 10 days later <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/12/05/tldr-that-is-too-long-didnt-read/">here</a>. </b></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-15992632672471630352019-10-31T15:59:00.001+00:002019-11-02T07:40:17.156+00:00The OA Interviews: K. VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>India has announced that it will
not, after all, be joining cOAlition S. Instead it will focus on developing an
open-access solution better suited to its needs. What has changed?</b></span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u59jZctaKXY/XbsOETmAnYI/AAAAAAAAn5o/xy48ytfUcb0Js5vVKD4LsOn16gsAVtdHQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Vijay%2BPix%2BYim%2BGulmarg_edited1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="937" data-original-width="1366" height="219" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u59jZctaKXY/XbsOETmAnYI/AAAAAAAAn5o/xy48ytfUcb0Js5vVKD4LsOn16gsAVtdHQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/Vijay%2BPix%2BYim%2BGulmarg_edited1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last year a group of European research
funders calling themselves cOAlition S launched a radical new open-access
initiative dubbed </span><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. The aim: to
ensure that all research papers resulting from work they fund are made immediately
freely available on the internet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S has been controversial, not least
because its </span><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/principles-and-implementation/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">principles</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> outlaw** the use of
</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_open-access_journal"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">hybrid OA</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> (although a
transition period is permitted if time-limited “transformative arrangements”
are put in place). By banning** hybrid OA, some researchers have complained, cOAlition
S is effectively telling them where they can and cannot publish. This they
believe to be an </span><a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20181107234431569"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">infringement of
their academic freedom</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For their part, publishers worry that the
plan is being introduced too quickly and has not been thought through properly.
As a result, some say, it could have “</span><a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1900864"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">serious unintended
consequences for the integrity of the scientific literature</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">”. And while the
initial start date for Plan S has been extended from 2020 to 2021, there
continue to be concerns that the timescale is too aggressive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">More importantly, while the Plan S </span><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/principles-and-implementation/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">implementation
guidelines</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
permit open access to be provided by publishing in open access journals, on open
access platforms, or by depositing papers in a repository without embargo, most
believe that the practical outcome of the initiative will be a near-universal
pay-to-publish environment in which the main beneficiaries will be the </span><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">publishing
oligopoly</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
not the research community. Essentially, say critics, courtesy of new-style Big Deals (aka
“transformative agreements”) commercial publishers will be able to continue
profiting excessively by migrating their current exorbitant profits to the new
OA environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">How successful has Plan S been? On launch
cOAlition S consisted of 11 funders. Today that number is still just </span><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/funders/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">23</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. Significantly, the coalition has failed
to persuade public funders in the US or China to join (these two countries are the </span><a href="https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">largest</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> publishers of
research papers in the world). At the same time, it has lost members: the
Swedish funder </span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2019/06/why-did-riksbankens-jubileumsfond.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Riksbankens
Jubileumsfond</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
pulled out in June, and the Italian funder </span><a href="https://twitter.com/apacx/status/1167461519124246531?s=20"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Compagnia di San
Paolo</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
left cOAlition S in August. On the other hand, some believe that Plan S has so
alarmed publishers that the coalition has already achieved its objective (depending
on what one believes the objective to be). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is, however, clearly problematic that cOAlition
S has remained an essentially European initiative. For this reason when, in
February, the Indian Government’s Principal Scientific Adviser, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk23342073"></a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._VijayRaghavan"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk23342073;">Professor VijayRaghavan</span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk23342073;"></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk23342073;">
</span>posted a series of </span><a href="https://twitter.com/PrinSciAdvGoI/status/1095266653930024960"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">tweets</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> saying that India
was joining cOAlition S the news was greeted with great excitement by cOAlition
S </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/robertkiley/status/1095301069675085824?s=20">members</a>, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">as well as by Plan S supporters
like </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Moedas/status/1095701070624550912?s=20"></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">the European
Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Moedas/status/1095701070624550912?s=20"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Carlos Moedas</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The news was greeted with less enthusiasm back home in India, with concerns raised about the
cost implications, the likely impact on small journals and publishers, and the way
in which it would allow commercial publishers to continue to profit excessively
from the research community – see</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
for instance, </span><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/should-india-adopt-plan-s-to-realise-open-access-to-public-funded-scientific-research"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span><a href="https://thewire.in/the-sciences/six-concerns-over-india-joining-the-plan-s-coalition-for-science-journals"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and </span><a href="http://confluence.ias.ac.in/plan-s-model-of-research-publication-a-serious-and-unwarranted-drain-on-money-meant-for-actual-research/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Following Prof. VijayRaghavan’s
tweets, however, radio silence set in, with no confirmation that India had
formally joined, or any updates on the status of its plans. For this reason many
ears pricked up last Friday when, during a </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjS7fgnNJtc&feature=youtu.be"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">lecture</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> he gave at </span><a href="https://www.iisc.ac.in/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">IISc
Bangalore</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
to mark Open Access Week, Prof. VijayRaghavan commented, “We are not committed
to whatever Plan S does or does not do.” This sufficiently piqued the interest
of <a href="https://thewire.in/author/mukunth">Vasudevan Mukunth</a> that he
sought out Prof. VijayRaghavan and asked for clarification, which led to an
interview in </span><a href="https://thewire.in/the-sciences/plan-s-open-access-scientific-publishing-article-processing-charge-insa-k-vijayraghavan"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Wire</span></i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> where it was
confirmed that India no longer plans to join cOAlition S. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I had been trying to interview Prof.
VijayRaghavan for some months, I too was piqued by his comments and so took to </span><a href="https://twitter.com/RickyPo/status/1187726568854052865?s=20"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Twitter</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to again invite him
to answer the questions I had sent him in June. He agreed and below are his answers
to an updated list of questions I emailed over to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /></div>
<h3 style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-list: l14 level2 lfo17; text-indent: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The
Indian context</span></h3>
<h2 style="margin-left: 0cm; mso-list: l14 level2 lfo17; text-indent: 0cm;">
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So why did India change its mind? It turns
out that while little was being said in public there has been a lot of internal
discussion taking place in India about open access and Plan S. This has led
to a consensus that India needs to find an OA solution more suited to its specific
needs. As Prof. VijayRaghavan commented to <i>The Wire</i>, Plan S “is by
definition a Eurocentric approach … We will work with them to learn about what
they’re doing ... [but] ... What we do will be what we think is best for our
context.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What this will mean in detail is not
entirely clear at the moment. However, current thinking is reflected in a
document published recently by </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">three Indian
national academies called </span><a href="http://insaindia.res.in/pdf/Publication_of_Literature.pdf"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Suggestions for a National Framework for Publication of and
Access to Literature in Science and Technology in India</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This document (as one might expect)
argues that all scientific literature arising from public-funded research
should be available in the public domain. It also recommends that there should
be an explicit provision in research grants to pay publication charges (APCs)
so that papers can be made open access. In addition, it says, preprints should
be encouraged, and India’s various national repositories should be “synergised,
strengthened, and harmonised into a single national institutional system.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Importantly, the document also says
that researchers should have “the choice of final destination for the
publication of their work”. This assertion alone would seem to put India’s thinking
at variance with Plan S, which by banning** hybrid OA is expected to significantly
reduce the number of journals that European researchers will be able to publish
in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, the framework document proposes
as an optimum choice what it calls a “One Nation-One Subscription” model. This
would seem to imply that the government will negotiate the licensing of
paywalled content directly with publishers – which would be a departure from
current practice where individual Indian research organisations negotiate their
own licensing contracts, the details of which are kept secret. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In short, it seems that India is still moving towards a national open access policy, but wants to develop its own
approach rather than join cOAlition S. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It has taken India a while to get to
this point. OA advocates have been calling for a national OA policy for some
years, and i</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">n
2017 they even drafted a </span><a href="https://zenodo.org/record/1002618#.XRDBuuhKhhE"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">proposed policy</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and invited
organisations like the University Grants Commission (</span><a href="https://www.ugc.ac.in/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">UGC</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">), the Department
of Biotechnology (</span><a href="http://www.dbtindia.nic.in/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DBT</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) and the Department
of Science and Technology (</span><a href="http://dst.gov.in/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DST</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) to sign up to it.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While
nothing came of this effort, a number of institutional policies have been in
place in India for some years, including the policy </span><a href="http://openaccessindia.org/indias-top-scientific-departments-announces-oa-policy/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">introduced</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in 2014 by the DBT
and the DST (</span><a href="http://www.dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/APPROVED%20OPEN%20ACCESS%20POLICY-DBT%26DST%2812.12.2014%29_1.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3BQKrwDGWb1X77c_TvbFMLdpQDgKtlpV8yVEi5GlzOrj7P1HrTTygAY4E"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">). These policies are
essentially </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Green_OA"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">green open access</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> policies in which
researchers are asked to post all their final accepted manuscripts
(post-prints) either in a relevant institutional repository or in one of the
Ministry’s central repositories (</span><a href="http://dst.sciencecentral.in/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and </span><a href="http://dbt.sciencecentral.in/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">). These policies, however, are recommendations
rather than requirements, and most researchers appear to have ignored them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Judging
by the framework document, it would seem that all the necessary elements for a national
open access policy are in place and have been considered. The secret will lie in putting these
elements together in a way that works, and which does not produce unintended consequences.
Creating a national open access policy is not unlike playing a difficult game of chess.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is worth noting here that the open access movement has always had two primary objectives.
First to solve the accessibility problem (i.e. provide open access). Second, to
solve the affordability problem (i.e. reduce the costs of scholarly
communication). It has been learned over the years, however, that getting
researchers to engage with open access is very difficult and OA policies often
have the effect of increasing rather than reducing costs – not least because
the research community needs to continue paying licensing fees to get access to paywalled
content <i>plus</i> pay publishing fees to enable researchers to make
their papers OA in the journals they want to be
seen in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is for this reason that Plan S has banned** hybrid open access (which leads to </span><a href="https://www.rluk.ac.uk/the-costs-of-double-dipping/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">double dipping</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) and it is why
transformative agreements are becoming so popular. The latter combine licensing
fees with publishing fees in a single agreement that is (theoretically) cost-neutral. It does not, however, solve the affordability problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">India
seems to be taking a different approach, insisting that publishers agree to “capped
subscriptions” and “capped APCs”, with the aim both of making its research open
access while also lowering costs. How this will work in practice, and whether
it is possible to persuade publishers to buy into the idea, has yet to be
established. Discussions are apparently only just beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What
does not help is that researchers are addicted to the Impact Factor and other proxy
measures of quality. It is this that has allowed commercial publishers to
acquire the power over the research community that they have, and which allows
them to effectively name their own price for the services they provide. As Prof.
VijayRaghavan puts it below, researchers have been chasing the “derivatives of
science” rather than science itself that. “</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
publishing industry feeds this monster of narcissism and the monster is
addicted to the food.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sridhar
Gutam, Founder & Convenor of </span><a href="http://openaccessindia.org/author/gutam2000/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Open Access India</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> agrees with Prof.
VijayRaghavan. “Authors in India are obsessed with commercial publishers and
impact factors, and they are willing to pool money in order to pay the APCs
needed to get published in OA journals like <i>Nature Reports</i>, <i>Frontiers</i>,
and PLOS,” he says. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And as
noted, simply exchanging
subscription fees for APCs is unlikely to reduce the costs of scholarly
communication (unless India can persuade publishers otherwise). “What India should do therefore is introduce a national mandatory green open
access policy requiring that when researchers publish in subscription journals
they self-archive copies in online repositories. This provides open access without
the need to pay an APC,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> says Gutam.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
addition, he adds, Indian scholarly societies should be publishing their own journals
using open source software like Open Journal Systems (</span><a href="https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">OJS</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">). “Peer reviewing
is voluntary, publication software like OJS is free of charge and open-source,
and </span><a href="http://portal.amelica.org/ameli/?fbclid=IwAR3f0BHeGJyqAw4tJ9r9d_ieLVFrsUGymnqYVNRJSSXGKp6dYqSv-VLPnEU"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AmeliCA XML</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – which allows
journals to convert Word documents to the various online formats – is now also free
and open source. Why should we be incurring huge costs in APCs?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of
course, India would still need to pay licensing fees if it wants continuing
access to the huge backlog of paywalled content publishers have.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Interestingly,
the approach being adopted by Plan S is theoretically compatible with what
Gutam calls for. The problem is that the aggressive timescale set by cOAlition
S does not allow sufficient time for the development of much in the way of alternative
platforms and open-source journals, and the guidelines it has set for
repository-based open access are too onerous and too costly. Meanwhile, the fad
for transformative deals is being driven by the narcissism that Prof. VijayRaghavan
complains of, plus the convenience they offer for librarians. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whether
India can find a better model than Plan S remains to be seen. The truth is that
there are no easy options here. That is why 18 years after the Budapest Open
Access Initiative people are still scrabbling around for solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The
interview begins …</span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In February you posted a series of </span></i></b><a href="https://twitter.com/PrinSciAdvGoI/status/1095266653930024960"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">tweets</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
saying that India was planning to join cOAlition S. I understand that India has
changed its mind? Can you say why? What about Plan S no longer seems appropriate for India?</span></i></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">
We have not had formal interactions with cOAlition S since February. Internally
(within India), we have better clarity on the ways we would like to proceed.
This is what we will focus on and should there be substantive overlap with what
cOAlition S finalises, that will be good, and also likely is my guess.
Fundamentally, the nature and complexities in India are substantially different
from Europe – our focus is on what will be meaningful here.</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: What is it about Plan S specifically
that no longer seems appropriate for India?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s perhaps is inappropriately posed. We are focusing on
what is appropriate for India, and I’ve outlined that. As you can see there
will be aspects that overlap with cOAlition S. As we have delved deeper,
we see complexities and requirements here that we need to address. We will hear
from Plan S and others on their progress and tell them about ours.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: Three Indian national academies
recently published a set of recommendations for a national policy on open
access. I assume this was at the request of the Indian government. I believe
the optimum choice that the academies have proposed is what it calls a <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk23324877">“One Nation-One Subscription” model.</a> That seems to imply
licensing content from publishers. An </span></i></b><a href="https://thewire.in/the-sciences/plan-s-open-access-scientific-publishing-article-processing-charge-insa-k-vijayraghavan"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">article</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
in </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Wire<i> indicated that India will
likely be introducing a green OA model. How do you envisage these two
approaches working together in practice?</i></span></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
We welcome the academies’ views. We will also continue to have wide engagements
with researchers and students. We then hope to have formal discussions with
major publishers. It’s too early to commit to a route. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: What is a “One Nation-One
Subscription” model?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
That’s the academies’ phrase, is it not? So, best to ask them. From the
government’s perspective, publishers now have portfolios that are akin to
making cable TV channel choices with different rates for each portfolio. Some
normalisation is needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: The academies’ recommendations
also say that government research grants in India should include an explicit
provision for paying APCs. Might this not mean that costs will go up for India
as a result?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
Not if there is an APC cap and that is paid independent of your grant. The aim
is to capture the current costs accurately. Separately calculate what we assess
as reasonable costs for services such as quality reviewing etc. And see how we
can go from the first, down to the second. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: In order to keep costs down Plan
S seems more focused on “transformative” deals in which agreements are signed
with publishers where the publisher provides both access to its paywalled
content <u>plus</u> publishing rights to allow researchers to publish their
papers open access. What are your views on this approach and why would it not
work for India?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
In our view, all content should be accessible and not behind a paywall,
including archival content. All publicly funded research should be freely
accessible. These are areas where there is much overlap with Plan S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">That value has a price</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: In the lecture you gave last week, you said India
plans to negotiate “capped subscriptions” and “capped APCs” with publishers for the country. How hopeful are you that you will achieve that? I do not believe
that India is eligible for initiatives like <a href="https://www.research4life.org/">Research4Life</a> or for reduced or
waived APCs. How likely is it that publishers will agree to these capped fees?
What leverage can India bring to bear on publishers here?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
‘Classical” publishers, learned societies, open-access journals all bring
value. That value has a price. On the other side, publicly supported knowledge
should not be behind a paywall, and the costs of publishing should not be
exorbitant, and should be calibrated for economies such as India, where the
rupee-dollar exchange rate means steep differentials in the ability to pay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There are sensible solutions
possible, and we will put these on the table. I am sure that the publishers
will participate to deliver a viable, correct and principled solution. The
present situation is none of the three. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: In your lecture, you also stressed the need for access to research to be provided not just
for the research community, but for every citizen. Uruguay’s </span></i></b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/PortalTimbo/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Portal
Timbo</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and Egypt’s </span></i></b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Knowledge_Bank"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Knowledge Bank</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> are national portals where content has been licensed from a
range of scholarly publishers and aggregated on one site, and anyone in the
country can access that content. Is that what you have in mind?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk23325027">The </a></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk23325027;"></span><a href="https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk23325027;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">National Digital Library of India</span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk23325027;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">is doing this. Not yet through licensing. But, yes, we will
explore other models here too and will discuss with their proponents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: Plan S is not the only open-access game in
town today. Under the aegis of </span></i></b><a href="http://www.amelica.org/en/index.php/2019/01/10/amelica-vs-plan-s-mismo-objetivo-dos-estrategias-distintas-para-lograr-el-acceso-abierto/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AmeliCA</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
for instance, Latin America is proposing a different approach based on national
journals and open access platforms. It has also co-founded (with UNESCO) the
Global Alliance of Open Access Scholarly Communication Platforms (</span></i></b><a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/launch-global-alliance-open-access-scholarly-communication-platforms-democratize-knowledge"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">GLOALL</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">)
in order to propagate this model. What do you think are the pros and cons of
this approach as compared with Plan S? Might it turn out to be closer to Indian
needs than Plan S? Do you see a possibility that the open access movement could
splinter, and the scholarly communication system splinter in the process, with
the South taking a different approach to the North?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
We have not yet explored these models in detail, though I am aware of them. We
will discuss with them and with cOAlition S too, of course. There are key
differences between North and South, there is a South in the North and a North
in the South. So, a binary is simplistic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We are discussing access for all of
India. I think this will actually integrate the scholarly communication system,
rather than splinter it. This is about scientists and citizens everywhere.
Publishers are the vehicles that carry the message, but the directions, the
speed, the access and the cost of travel should not be determined by the marketplace,
in the main. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">Nationally capped</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: There has been some concern about
Plan S’s decision to ban** </span></i></b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_open-access_journal"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">hybrid OA</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
and to insist that the liberal </span></i></b><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">CC BY</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
licence must be attached to all papers. People have complained that these
requirements will </span></i></b><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/plansopenletter/open-letter"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">infringe researchers’ academic freedom</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and allow Northern-based publishers to </span></i></b><a href="http://www.accesoabiertoalyc.org/declaracion-mexico-en/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">inappropriately monetise</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> research produced in the South. What are your views on
these particular issues?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
All research should be openly available upon publication. The use of </span><a href="https://arxiv.org/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">ArXiv</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">bioRxiv</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> etc. will
be encouraged. Subscription fees should allow access to all articles in the
journal, with the costs of subscription nationally capped – APCs should be
borne by funding agencies and there should be negotiated caps on all
these. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: Is open access in your view
solely about increasing access to research, or should it also be viewed as a
way of reducing the costs of scholarly publishing?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
Both. Access to quality publishing has costs, of course. But context-dependent
reasonable costs will be there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: In your lecture you said that
India currently pays 1,500 crores ($211 million) a year for subscriptions and
150 crores ($21 million) for APCs. In your interview with </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Wire<i> the journalist suggested that the APC figures
are likely much higher. (He thought the figure should properly be more in the
region of 985 crore). I get the feeling that no country in the world knows how
much its researchers are paying for open access and this might be a particular
issue in the Global South. For instance, a </i></span></b><a href="https://zenodo.org/record/3464868#.XbVNtej7RhG"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">recent study</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
indicated that 60% of researchers that had paid an APC in the developing world had
had to fund it themselves. How problematic is this when trying to develop a
national policy on open access?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
The publishers know. We can get better and better estimates, of course, but it
will be simplest for the publishers to put that on the table. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: In your lecture you seemed to
imply that there is really no need for intermediaries in scholarly
communication anymore. Do you think that publishers are no longer needed? If
they are still needed, how does their role need to change?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Publishers will not perish, nor should they. But their
current forms will change. The way research is assessed and used in academia
needs to change too. Publishers need to change. Quality need not be excessively
expensive and does not have to be the enemy of access. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: One of the benefits of a national
OA policy, perhaps, is that researchers can also be encouraged to post their
papers in preprint servers like arXiv prior to the peer review process taking
place. This allows research to be shared more quickly. What future role do you see for preprints in scholarly communication?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
Preprint servers such as arXiv are very important. They are the foundation for
scholarly communication and ‘journal publishing’ should be built on
this foundation and follow this and not be separate or
confrontational. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">The
monster of narcissism</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: In your lecture, you also said words to the effect that any achievement made by a researcher needs to be viewed as an achievement not for the individual but for the whole community. Can you expand on that and its implications for the
Indian research community?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
Globally, not just India. All, with very, very rare exceptions, scientific success is built principally by the efforts of many contemporaries and on the work of many more predecessors. Singling out individuals as icons through awards, fellowships and honours of certain kinds has resulted in many scientists chasing these derivatives of science rather than scientific questions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The publishing industry feeds this
monster of narcissism and the monster is addicted to the food. When confronted,
the successful (by these metrics) point to the many good features of this
egregious system, and there is a point here. There is indeed science of
different qualities and valuing those and recognising quality is very
important. Therefore, those individuals who are so recognised must see
themselves as one of the many of high-quality who will never have any
recognition. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">They must also strive to enhance the spread of quality-science.
Hiring, awards and promotion committees need to step back, think, and not conflate
precision (IF etc) with accuracy (the value of the work). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: You say, “All, with very, very
rare exceptions, scientific success is built principally by the efforts of many
contemporaries and on the work or many more predecessors. Singling out
individuals as icons through awards, fellowships and honours of certain kinds
has resulted in many scientists chasing these derivatives of science rather than
scientific questions”. In your lecture, you also said this but then highlighted
a record in The National Digital Library by a famous Indian scientist. Do you
not think there is a kind of contradiction there? Is it not inevitable that
individuals considered particularly talented will always be singled out?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
Individuals will get singled out and individuals do matter. Just two points.
First, chase the science, not the derivative (journals, awards etc). Second,
when recognised, acknowledge the team and bat for the team. You are ‘special’
because of the team, in very large measure. And, there are many like you,
and better, who were not recognised as ‘special’. So, a wee bit
of humility may not be such a bad thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: In connection with this you said
that researchers need to get beyond the current obsession of where they
publish. One reason why open access has struggled to make headway is that
researchers are evaluated, rewarded and promoted based on the Impact Factor
and/or prestige of the journals they publish in, and these journals are usually
subscription journals. The 2012 San Francisco Declaration on Research
Assessment (</span></i></b><a href="https://sfdora.org/read/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DORA</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">)
was intended to address this problem, with signatories asked to commit to “not
use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate
measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual
scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions”. I
believe you have personally signed DORA, and one of the directors of the
National Center For Biological Sciences is on the DORA board, as previously was
the Wellcome Trust DBT project head. But I am not aware that many Indian
research institution have signed up to DORA. Do you envisage the Indian
government directing them to commit to the principles of DORA?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
As I said in my interview. There is nothing to stop institutions from changing
from within. Else, change may well come from outside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Q: As you will know, the global research
community has been struggling to cope with the rise of predatory publishing, a
phenomenon some claim is a direct consequence of pay-to-publish gold open
access. India has been a particular victim of this. It is also the location of
a number of predatory publishers, and last year the US Federal Trade Commission
obtained a </span></i></b><a href="https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/152-3113/federal-trade-commission-v-omics-group-inc"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">summary judgement</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> against one Indian predatory publisher, which has been told
to pay a $50 million fine. What are your views on predatory publishing and its
impact on the research community in India? How much of a problem is it and what
is the Indian Government doing to address the problem?</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
A menace here and everywhere. The Government is addressing this and is
constantly alert to addressing the extraordinarily innovative predatory
publisher community as each instance emerges. Such hydras will keep coming.
Strong internal standards, messaging and strong action when such publishers are
detected is needed. Yes, pay-to-publish gold open access has a (negative) role
here, perhaps. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b><i>** Update 1<sup>st</sup> November 2019:<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It has been suggested to me that my use of the words “ban” and “outlaw”
in connection with hybrid OA in the above text is not strictly accurate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I also cited a </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nature</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">article</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> from September 2018 which states “As written, Plan S would bar researchers from publishing in 85% of journals, including influential titles such as </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nature</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Science</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">Let me try to clarify.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/principles-and-implementation/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Principle
8</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> of Plan S reads, “The Funders do not support the ‘hybrid’ model of
publishing. However, as a transitional pathway towards full Open Access within
a clearly defined timeframe, and only as part of transformative arrangements,
Funders may contribute to financially supporting such arrangements”.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Subsequent to the publication of the </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nature</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> article, cOAlition S
published its “</span><a href="https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coalition-s.org%2Fprinciples-and-implementation%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7Ceaf32c4b4e404aa27cb708d75ecc2f2e%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637082103375774307&sdata=Y2DWdcf2oPLOTeTs3zshKuOCOFZOnz0SO0TN0v0TTJE%3D&reserved=0" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Guidance
on the Implementation of Plan S</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">”. Under the funding section of Route Two to
compliance in that guidance, it states, “cOAlition S funders will not
financially support ‘hybrid’ Open Access publication fees in subscription
venues.” Note the addition of the word </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">financially</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">That section also says, “Authors [can] publish in a subscription journal and make either the final published version (Version of Record (VoR)) or the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) openly available in a repository.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It might, therefore, be more accurate to say that cOAlition S moved from a position in which was outlawing hybrid OA to one in which it does not support it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Technically, therefore, Plan S does not now ban authors from publishing in a
hybrid journal, so long as they pay the APCs themselves and immediately post the
AAM or VoR online with a CC BY licence attached. </span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, I accept that my use of the words “ban” and “outlaw” might be a
little strong, and that the figure of 85% is now out of date (I have removed
that from the text). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">However, I do believe that, in practice, Plan S will
prevent researchers from publishing in hybrid journals. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Here is why I say that:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since Plan S funders won’t cover fees for hybrid journals researchers will
be strongly discouraged from publishing in a hybrid journal. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It is worth noting that the guidance document also says, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“cOAlition S urges individual researchers, research institutions, other funders, and governments not to financially support ‘hybrid’ Open Access publishing when such fees are not part of transformative arrangements.”</span></span><br />
<div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Moreover, I really doubt that most researchers will read
beyond Principle 8 (which is ambiguous) or, if they do, understand (or want to
spend time understanding) the nuances of the guidance document.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Since it seems authors will also need to post copies of hybrid OA articles in a repository in tandem with publication, and with a CC BY licence attached, this will (in my view) be a further strong disincentive to publishing
in a hybrid journal.</span></div>
</div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-46458804810518349702019-08-05T12:17:00.000+00:002019-08-11T07:23:16.037+00:00The Open Access Interviews: Edith Hall<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Open
access to research papers in STM journals has always been a controversial topic. When the
focus shifts to humanities research, and to monographs, the temperature rises still further
– as evidenced by this </span><a href="https://eve.gd/2019/07/24/the-british-academy-response-misrepresents-plan-s-and-oa/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">emotionally
charged</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">
post by OA advocate </span><a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/our-staff/full-time-academic-staff/martin-eve"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Martin Eve</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in response to a
British Academy </span><a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/A_commentary_by_the_British_Academy_on_final_Plan_S-July_2019.pdf"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">document on the
European OA initiative Plan S</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qQU_R1yib4k/XUgRylYYo6I/AAAAAAAAmqQ/eBq17GoQFD8t0iplP7phq1Vj-k1DqyF6QCLcBGAs/s1600/C%2526C%2BLanchester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1554" data-original-width="1214" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qQU_R1yib4k/XUgRylYYo6I/AAAAAAAAmqQ/eBq17GoQFD8t0iplP7phq1Vj-k1DqyF6QCLcBGAs/s200/C%2526C%2BLanchester.jpg" width="155" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image from Edith Hall's new book *</span></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why
is open access so contentious? In large part, I think, because although OA
began as a bottom-up revolution it was never widely embraced by researchers.
However, OA advocates managed to persuade governments, funders and institutions that
their colleagues should be compelled to embrace open access. This has seen a
series of ever more stringent OA mandates being imposed on researchers,
increasing the bureaucratic burden on them (amongst other things). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Monographs
are a particularly contested area because of their length, their narrative form, and the licensing issues that this raises. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
has not helped that OA advocates promised open access would reduce the costs of
scholarly communication. In reality, costs have risen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
last point is particularly troublesome in the UK context as OA policies have
been introduced without providing the necessary funding to support them. As a
result, researchers can discover that they have been mandated to make their
work open access but cannot afford to pay the article-processing charge (</span><a href="https://libraryguides.helsinki.fi/apc"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">APC</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) needed if they want to satisfy the
government’s </span><a href="http://blogs.rcuk.ac.uk/2012/10/24/rcuk-open-access-policy-our-preference-for-gold/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">preference for
gold OA</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
has been a challenge even for researchers at wealthy and prestigious
institutions. Last year, for instance, Oxford University library had to </span><a href="http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk/2018/01/10/oxfords-rcuk-open-access-block-grant-update-no-funds-remaining/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">inform faculty</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> that its OA fund
had been exhausted and so they should delay submitting to journals until it had
been replenished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At
the same time, the bureaucracy surrounding OA compliance has become so complex
that universities have had to recruit legions of support staff to interpret and
manage the escalating number of policies (some of which have proved
contradictory). Indeed, such is the complexity now that even specialist support
staff can struggle to decode the rules.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
short, the UK OA policy environment is far too complex, and it is seriously underfunded.
For researchers, this is frustrating and depressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">No
one knows this better than </span><a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/edith-hall"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Edith Hall</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, a professor of
Classics at King’s College London. (Full disclosure: Edith and I are
co-parents). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Free for all</span></h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Given
the topic of her new book – co-authored with colleague </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-stead-75059045/?originalSubdomain=uk"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Henry Stead</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – Hall felt it
really important that it be freely available for anyone to read. The book’s
theme is the historic exclusion of the poor from education in the Greek and
Roman Classics. To not make her work open access, Hall felt, would be an act of
hypocrisy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Moreover,
since the organisation that funded the research in the book – The Arts &
Humanities Research Council (</span><a href="https://ahrc.ukri.org/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AHRC</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) – has had an </span><a href="https://ahrc.ukri.org/about/policies/openaccess/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">open access policy in place since
2005</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
it seemed the correct thing to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AHRC
was until recently one of the funding bodies of the umbrella organisation Research
Councils UK (</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Councils_UK"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RCUK</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">), which itself
has had an open access policy in place </span><a href="http://blogs.rcuk.ac.uk/2012/10/24/rcuk-open-access-policy-our-preference-for-gold/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">since 2012</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. RCUK’s role has
now moved to UK Research and Innovation (</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Research_and_Innovation"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">UKRI</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">), which has inherited
both the RCUK policy and the </span><a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/01/hefce-open-access-ref-gamechanger/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">2014 OA policy</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> of the Higher
Education Council for England (</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_Funding_Council_for_England"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HEFCE</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">). HEFCE manages
the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Excellence_Framework"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Research
Excellence Framework</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
and the future funding of Hall’s department depends on her and her colleagues
submitting their work for REF assessment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
other words, Hall’s work is subject to several different OA policies, all of
which were introduced with the aim of making publicly funded research open
access. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">True,
only research papers have to be made open access on a mandatory basis today,
but all the UK policies recommend and actively encourage researchers to make
their monographs open access as well. As the Guidance on Submissions for REF
2021 </span><a href="https://www.ref.ac.uk/media/1092/ref-2019_01-guidance-on-submissions.pdf"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">puts it</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, “The funding
bodies [also] encourage institutions to take a proportionate view of the costs
and benefits of making other types of outputs (including monographs) available
as open access.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Complexity
aside, the problem these policies face is that they were introduced on the
assumption that open access would be less costly than traditional methods, or
at least cost neutral. As noted, this has not proved the case. In fact, it was only
after it had introduced its OA policy that RCUK realised it had imposed a significant new cost burden on UK universities. In 2013, therefore, it had to provide </span><a href="https://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2012/11/01/uk-government-stands-up-for-open-access-with-a-10-million-funding-boost/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">additional funding</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to research-intensive universities like King’s in order for them to comply, in the form of </span><a href="https://www.ukri.org/funding/information-for-award-holders/open-access/open-access-policy/open-access-block-grants/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">annual block grants</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to pay for APCs. At
the time, it was assumed that this would only need to be a temporary measure, but the money has had to be paid ever since. (King’s 2019/2020
block grant is </span><a href="https://www.ukri.org/files/research/2019-2020-block-grant-awards-pdf/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">£686,560</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Keen
to make her work open access, conscious that OA is now a UK priority, and aware
that funding is available to help pay for open access, Hall contacted </span><a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/index"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Research Support</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> at King’s (which
manages the RCUK block grant) to ask if they could contribute to the Book Processing
Charge (</span><a href="https://libraryguides.helsinki.fi/apc"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">BPC</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) she would need
to pay to make her book OA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To
her joy, Research Support replied that they would be happy to fund the full
cost of making the book OA (£10,000). Explaining why they were providing the
money, Research Support cited the </span><a href="https://www.ukri.org/files/legacy/documents/rcukopenaccesspolicy-pdf/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RCUK Policy on
Open Access</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">.
Although RCUK’s open access policy does not require mandatory OA for monographs
or books, they said, it does encourage “authors of such material to consider
making them Open Access where possible.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
addition, they said, the RCUK policy states that research organisations “may use
the block grant in the manner they consider will best deliver the RCUK Policy
on Open Access, as long as the primary purpose to support the payment of APCs
is fulfilled.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Confident
that the funding was now in place to make their book OA, Hall and Stead signed
an open access agreement with Routledge/Taylor & Francis (RTF) and began
writing up their research. When the book</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">s text was finally accepted by RFT Hall
emailed Research Support to ask where the publisher should send its invoice.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Research
Support replied, however, that as too many calls are now being made on the
block grant, they could no longer honour their commitment to pay. When Hall questioned
this change of heart, she was informed that – contrary to what Research Support
had told her at the time she applied for the subvention – it was not actually permitted
to use money from RCUK block grants to pay BPCs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Alarmed
that if it did not go into production immediately their book would not be
published in time to be eligible for the all-important 2021 REF, Hall and Stead
concluded they had no choice but to ask RTF to rewrite the contract along
traditional lines and accept that their book would not be open access after all.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Wider significance?</span></h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hall’s
experience has been demoralising and frustrating. But does it have any wider
significance? I think so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let’s
recall that when the open access movement was founded – at the meeting of the 2002 Budapest
Open Access Initiative (</span><a href="https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">BOAI</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) – the resulting declaration
stated (inter alia) that:</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Removing access barriers to [the scholarly]
literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of
the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as
useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common
intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.”</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This democratic, upbeat vision is a far cry from the expensive, oppressive and bureaucratic environment that surrounds open access in the UK today. And
one can reasonably assume that many other UK researchers have been experiencing
similar frustrations to Hall. This can only alienate them from the practice and
principles of open access, and so delay the transformation to OA the UK government
wants to see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There
is, however, a larger and more pressing question we have to ask: Is the open
access strategy currently being pursued in the UK affordable, particularly as the government focuses its attention on monographs?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Clearly
driven by settled policy rather than financial considerations the UK is now determined
to press ahead and mandate OA for monographs. Last year </span><a href="https://re.ukri.org/about-us/our-people/steven-hill/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Steven Hill</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, Director of
Research at UKRI </span><a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/insight/oa-requirement-monographs-will-benefit-society-says-hill-747196"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">told</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <i>The Bookseller</i>
that for REF2027 the current policies on open access as applied to journal
articles would be extended to encompass monographs and other “long form
outputs”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
how much will this cost? How will it be funded? This question has led to some anguished
deliberation, by both publishers and researchers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
2017, for instance, the Pro-Vice Dean Research (Impact and Innovation) at
King’s College, Simon Tanner, published a </span><a href="http://simon-tanner.blogspot.com/2017/06/gold-is-dead-model-for-open-access-books.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">blog post</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> entitled <i>Gold
is a dead model for Open Access Books. </i>In the post, he said that Book Processing
Charges in a Gold OA environment, “would be utterly unsustainable in a future
OA mandated REF environment.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
reaching this conclusion Tanner calculated that there were 11,861 named
submitters to Panel D (Arts and Humanities) for REF2014, with 8,513 books. He
explained: “So we have 8,513 books submitted to the REF2014 and probably a
similar number to the next one as well. The top 3 most book submitting
universities were University of Oxford (511), University of Cambridge (344) and
King’s College London (245).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tanner
added that BPCs range from between £3,500 to £11,000 per book. As a result, he
said, “The maths don’t look good if these figures continued into a new OA
mandated REF environment. At the lower end (say £3,000 per book) the figures
are scary, at the upper end (say £10,000 per book) the figures are impossible
to sustain or contemplate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
would mean, he said, that Oxford’s 511 books would cost between £1.5 million
and £5.1 million to submit to the REF, Cambridge’s 344 books would cost between
£1 million and £3.4 million to submit, and King’s 245 books would cost between
£0.7 million and £2.5 million to submit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">If
Tanner’s estimates are right, and UKRI does introduce an OA monograph mandate, the
UK could face a bill of between £25 and £85 million (using the REF2014 figures).
Others might question these figures, but even OA advocate Martin Eve
acknowledges that there are </span><a href="https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.392/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">significant
funding challenges</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">.
And this would be on top of the </span><a href="https://www.ukri.org/files/funding/oa/rcuk-apc-returns-analysis-2016-and-2017-pdf/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">millions of pounds</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> it is already
paying to fund journal APCs, a figure that has increased by over 50% since the
payments began in 2013. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Currently,
the hope is that universities will be able to turn their journal
licensing contracts with publishers into “</span><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/23/transformative-agreements/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">transformative
agreements</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">”.
This would see the costs of reading subscription journal content and OA publication
charges combined and (UKRI must hope) obviate the need to continue paying block
grants. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However,
this requires the co-operation of publishers and has the potential for being
highly disruptive – as researchers at the University of California have discovered
following their library’s decision to </span><a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-uc-elsevier-20190711-story.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">walk away</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> from negotiations
over such an agreement with the world’s largest scholarly publisher Elsevier.
In response, Elsevier has pulled the plug, leaving faculty without access to newly
published papers in thousands of Elsevier journals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Even
if this strategy eventually proves successful for journals, it is unclear how a
similar transition process would work for monographs. For this reason,
doubtless, UKRI recently </span><a href="https://re.ukri.org/news-events-publications/news/re-awards-2-2m-to-project-to-improve-open-access-publishing/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">awarded £2.2m</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to a project
intended “to make more, and better, use of open access book publishing”. But is there really time to reinvent the
monograph publishing landscape before REF2027? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One
model that has gained traction is the so-called crowdfunding solution in which
libraries combine funds to “unlock” books and make them open access. But there
are problems with this model and – as is evident from recent criticism of </span><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Knowledge Unlatched</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> (e.g. </span><a href="http://blogs.openbookpublishers.com/open-book-publishers-statement-on-knowledge-unlatched-and-the-open-research-library/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span><a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/10/03/knowledge-unlatched-failed-transparency-and-the-commercialisation-of-open-access-book-publishing/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and </span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-oa-interviews-frances-pinter.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) – there are also
unintended consequences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/7/3/55"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This article</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> draws attention
to some of the problems of the crowdfunding model. It also points out that the
ongoing efforts to agree transformative agreements with journal publishers, the
current focus of UKRI on Plan S, and the large amounts of money already being
sucked from the system by journals, pose a big threat to implementing such a
model. As the authors put it, “Currently, the focus of libraries and research
funders is on journals rather than books. Therefore, Plan S could be a threat
as well as other changes in science policy orientation.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
seems to me that there are two underlying and connected problems here. There is
an abiding assumption that open access can reduce the costs of scholarly
publishing and a continuing desire to press ahead with policy changes without
thinking through the cost implications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s
as if OA advocates and funders believed that costs can be magically wished away.
The truth is that costs do not disappear with open access. Moreover, publishers
are not going to willingly lower their prices, and market forces are not
sufficient to force them to do so, if only because STM researchers are always
going to want to publish in prestigious journals and humanities researchers are
always going to want to publish with prestigious imprints. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">True,
high-minded statements like The Declaration on Research Assessment (</span><a href="https://sfdora.org/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DORA</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) effectively seek
to force researchers to abandon this practice (as does Plan S) but this </span><a href="https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20181107234431569"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">raises issues of
academic freedom</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
and leaves researchers more vulnerable to </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">predatory publishing</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
short, while King’s College clearly failed Hall in her attempts to publish her
new book open access, the larger failing here is a failure of the UK government
and UK funders. They have yet to develop a coherent or sustainable
strategy for moving to an open-access environment, even as they insist on pressing
ahead with new OA policies. This suggests that individuals like Hall can expect
the situation to get worse before it gets better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
there is a little good news to end with: RTF agreed to insert a clause in
the new contract with Hall and Stead to allow their book to made open access
after a three-year embargo, for a reduced BPC (£3,000). And King’s has agreed
to pay the fee. The book will, therefore, become freely available to the public
in 2023.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Below
is a Q&A with Hall. I also sent a list of questions to Research
Support at King’s College </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">on 30<sup>th</sup> July and,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> and will publish their answers when I receive them. [These are now below the Q&A with Hall].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">The interview begins …</span></h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KLUSKzj0WjY/XUgPQ1iT37I/AAAAAAAAmqE/Eto7VbHppBcrlneWOHh32bRkhxOc37jzQCLcBGAs/s1600/ACE_Face%2Blow%2Bres%2B50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="203" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KLUSKzj0WjY/XUgPQ1iT37I/AAAAAAAAmqE/Eto7VbHppBcrlneWOHh32bRkhxOc37jzQCLcBGAs/s200/ACE_Face%2Blow%2Bres%2B50.jpg" width="156" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edith Hall **</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Can you say what your position is at King’s and your research interests?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I’m a Professor
of Classics at King’s College London. My specialisms are the political and
sociological dimensions of ancient Greek and Roman culture and the continuing
presence and instrumentality of ancient ideas since the Renaissance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
How would you describe your views on open access?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I have always been in principle
committed to the universal availability, in an ideal world, of all scholarly
work, free of charge, to the general public. I was educated entirely at the
British taxpayers’ expense and don’t think they should have to pay commercial
publishers for the results of that education, especially when my research has
been funded by public money. I am unhappy, however, with attempts to impose
mandatory OA on HEIs without proper preparation; the result has been chaos. Moreover, the expenses of publishing simply transferred from reader to author.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
You and your colleague Henry Stead have a book in print with Routledge called A
People’s History of Classics. This is the product of an </span></i></b><a href="http://www.classicsandclass.info/about-us/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AHRC-funded research project</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> that finished in
2016. Due to the topic of the book, you were very keen to publish it open
access. Can you say why you feel it is important that this book should be
freely available to everyone?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> This particular
book is about the historic exclusion of the poor from education in the Greek
and Roman Classics and their struggle to get access to libraries, affordable reading materials, and secondary (let alone tertiary) education. It seems inappropriate that a book about educational
exclusion resulting from poverty should be unavailable to some people who would
be excluded from reading it because of the price-tag attached. It is called <i>A
People’s History of Classics: Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain
1689-1939</i>. You can read more about the project on this (free-of-charge) </span><a href="https://www.classicsandclass.info/about-us/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">website</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Can you say how important the book is to your department for the purposes of REF
2021? Is it double-weighted for instance (that is, it should count as two
outputs rather than one?) <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> It is not certain
that it will be double-weighted. Double weighting occurs where a publication is
of such clear high quality that it is worth assuming it will get top marks. But
this has yet to be decided by my department. The book is however expected to score very highly in REF 2021. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
When does it need to be available in order to be eligible for the REF? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> It absolutely
must be published by November 2020 and it would be vastly preferable if it were
to be published in time to receive some reviews and make an impact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Currently, the REF does not require monographs to be made open access, but (as
the REF Guidance on submissions document </span></i></b><a href="https://www.ref.ac.uk/media/1092/ref-2019_01-guidance-on-submissions.pdf"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">puts it</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">) “The funding
bodies encourage institutions to take a proportionate view of the costs and
benefits of making other types of outputs (including monographs) available as
open access.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Yes. There is
flexibility I believe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
As I understand it, you asked Research Support at King’s College (part of
King’s Library) if they could help you make the book OA. After checking the
various policies, they said they could fund the whole cost of publication from
the RCUK block grant because your research had been funded by AHRC. They even cited
from the RCUK OA Policy to support that decision. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Yes. I was
thrilled. I did not expect them to offer to pay the full costs of publishing
OA, but they did, and asked that I go back to them as soon as the book</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">s text was finally and fully accepted for publication. I told my HoD, my colleagues and the public who
follow me on social media and was very impressed by the attitude of King’s
Research Support towards my request and the project.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
When the book was ready you went back to them to ask where the publisher should
send the invoice. At that point, you were told that the commitment to pay had
been withdrawn (although no one had contacted you to tell you as much when the decision was made). Can you explain what happened, your understanding of why
the commitment to pay was withdrawn, why you think you were not told that it
had been withdrawn, and what the implications of this subsequent decision were
for you?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The offer seems
to have slipped off their radar altogether. The administrator from whom I had
received the emailed commitment had left KCL.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was shocked to be let down like this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
You have a large number of Twitter and Facebook followers, and you regularly
publish a blog. I believe you have made great play of your book being open
access. Is that a problem for you and your co-author?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I have indeed
publicly promised that this will be an OA book to the 190,000+ people who have
read my blogs, the similar number who have accessed the project’s website, the
7,000+ people who follow me on Twitter, and the audiences of radio programmes and at conferences all
over the world, in four continents, to whom I have delivered some of the
results of the research. I am embarrassed that I now must renege
on <i><u>my</u></i> public promise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Evidence suggests that even where open access is mandatory (as it is with
journal articles) it may not always be possible to obtain funding for
publishing charges. In January last year, for instance, Oxford University
researchers </span></i></b><a href="http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk/2018/01/10/oxfords-rcuk-open-access-block-grant-update-no-funds-remaining/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">were told</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> that the
university’s block grant had run out and that researchers “are therefore asked
to delay submission of new articles to journals”. How practical do you think
open access is if it requires paying to publish in a sector that frequently
faces funding problems?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> In the current
chaos, where even specialists in these issues at prestigious universities seem
not to grasp all the issues, OA seems not to be practicable at all unless
individual researchers can afford personally to make four-figure payment to
publishers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
As noted, it is not currently mandatory to make monographs OA, but UK funders
strongly encourage it and UKRI is reviewing its policy. Indeed, in February
last year Steven Hill, Director of Research at Research England </span></i></b><a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/insight/oa-requirement-monographs-will-benefit-society-says-hill-747196"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">told</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Bookseller<i>
that for REF2027 the current policies on open access as applied to journal
articles would be extended to encompass monographs and other “long form
outputs”. Do you think your experience is relevant to this review? If so, what
advice would you give to Research England on this?<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">EH:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> My experience is
clearly relevant. Other academics need to be aware that promises of funding of
OA for their books and articles may be withdrawn at any time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
think it is perfectly reasonable for OA to be mandatory (and of course adequate funds to be given to HEIs to cover this) in the case of academic
publications where the research was directly funded by public money, as this
book’s research was funded by the AHRC. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
AHRC bought out some of my time from KCL to conduct this research and so it was not
done, for example, as overtime at weekends. Some of my other books are written
in the evenings and at weekends, especially the more ‘popular’, accessible
trade books. So, I do not think that it would be remotely possible for
compulsory OA to apply to every book authored by an academic employed at an
HEI.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">* </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>The image (which will be reproduced on the book’s cover) is the banner of the Fenhall
Drift Lodge, Lanchester, now in custodianship of Lanchester Parish Church and
reproduced courtesy of the Lanchester Parish Council and Durham Miners’
Association. It was made by Tutill of Chesham to designs by Ernie Reay and
George Thomas. See further in the blog post </i><a href="http://lanchesterreview.blogspot.com/2019/05/putting-social-class-into-history-of.html">Putting Social Class into the History of Classics</a><i>,
by Edith Hall</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i> </i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">** Image courtesy of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Titina Chalmatzi, originally published in <a href="https://www.kathimerini.gr/880489/article/proswpa/geyma-me-thn-k/inti8-xol-aisiodo3ia-gia-epistrofh-twn-glyptwn-toy-par8enwna">a</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.kathimerini.gr/880489/article/proswpa/geyma-me-thn-k/inti8-xol-aisiodo3ia-gia-epistrofh-twn-glyptwn-toy-par8enwna">n interview</a> with Edith Hall by </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Tasoula Eptakili for the Greek newspaper </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Kathimerini</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></i>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0VKLMuWoIBk/XU-uehCgoxI/AAAAAAAAmrs/6w6ZU5K0yEQK2JZAzEMgmfL9jxguj_5PACEwYBhgL/s1600/alejandroescamilla-book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="1600" height="147" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0VKLMuWoIBk/XU-uehCgoxI/AAAAAAAAmrs/6w6ZU5K0yEQK2JZAzEMgmfL9jxguj_5PACEwYBhgL/s400/alejandroescamilla-book.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8.0pt;">Photo
by </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/@alejandroescamilla?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8.0pt;">Alejandro Escamilla</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8.0pt;"> on </span><a href="https://unsplash.com/search/photos/open-the-book?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8.0pt;">Unsplash</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Q&A Response from Helen Cargill, Head of Open Research, Libraries &
Collections, King’s College London</span></h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Can you tell me how much money King’s has received in block grant funding since
RCUK began to provide it in 2013?</span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> In the 7 years
since RCUK/UKRI first introduced an OA block grant, King’s has received an
average of c£515,000 RCUK/UKRI open access block grant funding pa, currently
totalling c£3.6M. To put this in context, this equates to c285 article
processing charges pa (averaging £1800 each) for the whole cohort of King’s
authors in receipt of RCUK/UKRI funding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
On July 15th I asked King’s Libraries </span></i></b><a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FRickyPo%2Fstatus%2F1150721990589685761&data=01%7C01%7Chelen.cargill%40kcl.ac.uk%7Cb755d0cdc70842655b2a08d715c7b1e3%7C8370cf1416f34c16b83c724071654356%7C0&sdata=1GUQfuU4Cf7N8S9%2BVymN7FdL%2Bc63BfpXn4fYbpOJDIQ%3D&reserved=0"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">a question</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> on Twitter about
its block grant spending and whether it had made the data freely available on
the web (as most other universities in receipt of block funding appear to have done).
If it has done so, I asked, could I be given a link to that data? I was
promised an answer in the next day or so. It is now several weeks since then
and I have not had my questions answered. I assume King’s is sending annual
reports on how it is spending the block grant to UKRI. Can you let me have
copies of those reports please?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> King’s provides
annual reports to UKRI on how we spend the OA block grant. We will not be
sharing this data more broadly at this time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
When you were head of Research Support at King’s you agreed to a subvention to
allow Edith Hall to make her book </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A People’s History of Classics <i>open
access. When the money was awarded Hall was cited two paragraphs from the </i></span></b><a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukri.org%2Ffunding%2Finformation-for-award-holders%2Fopen-access%2Fopen-access-policy%2Fopen-access-block-grants%2F&data=01%7C01%7Chelen.cargill%40kcl.ac.uk%7Cb755d0cdc70842655b2a08d715c7b1e3%7C8370cf1416f34c16b83c724071654356%7C0&sdata=ZN6Czd%2BHU7evu0K6bowv%2FnQU1vU0r35Dc6%2BCMbvzfUI%3D&reserved=0"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RCUK Policy on
Open Access</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to justify the decision. When she completed the book
and asked for the publisher to be paid, however, she was told that RCUK does
not allow block grant funds to be used for BPCs. I must assume that both these
interpretations of the RCUK policy cannot be correct, or might it be that it is
possible to pick and choose different parts of the RCUK policy to suit one’s
purpose? If not the latter, is it you that misunderstood the RCUK policy when
you agreed to the subvention or was the subsequent decision not to honour the
commitment a misunderstanding of the policy?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> In December 2015
the Research Support team responded to Professor Hall’s request for support in
making her forthcoming monograph OA, advising that we could cover the costs of
the publisher’s OA book processing charge (BPC) from our RCUK OA funds. We
thereby made a soft commitment in the expectation that an invoice would be
shortly forthcoming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
were aware that RCUK’s OA policy did and does not apply to monographs or books,
however their guidance notes say that they encourage such outputs to be made OA
and permit research organisations to use the block grant in the manner they
consider will best deliver the RCUK Policy on open access, as long as the
primary purpose to support the payment of publisher open access fees [is fulfilled].
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
original enquiry was almost 4 years ago. Areas that we would have considered
before replying include: whether this was a reasonable thing for the block
grant to be spent on, what funds were then uncommitted, what our peers in other
UK HEIs were doing. That would have informed our response to Professor Hall. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On
review, this may not have been the answer that should have been given, it was a
judgement. Having recently spoken with UKRI they clarified they will not allow
their block grant to be used to pay for a book to be made open access. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It
is because of this and no other reason that when Professor Hall contacted the
team in June 2019 to say that payment would now be required we responded to
advise that unfortunately we would not be able to cover the cost of the BPC
from our RCUK/UKRI funds, but would explore all options to try and assist her
which we did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">King’s
did not change its mind about this. Research Support reviewed what was possible
when re-contacted 3 years after being last contacted by Professor Hall, and
advised that unfortunately we were not in a position to use RCUK/UKRI funds as
we’d originally hoped. We have since been able to secure alternative funds to
cover the cost of Professor Hall’s BPC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Why did Research Support not get back to Edith Hall at the time the initial
decision was overturned to explain that it had been overturned and that King’s
was no longer willing to honour its commitment, rather than wait until the
money was requested, when timing (re the REF) was of the essence, and when it
was too late to request AHRC to fund the BPC, leaving Hall and her co-author no
option but to revert to a traditional all rights reserved contract – despite
Hall having repeatedly promised her thousands of Twitter and blog followers
that the book would be OA, confident in the knowledge that King’s had agreed to
pay the BPC?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> There was no decision
taken in the intervening years to overturn our previous soft commitment made to
Professor Hall in December 2015. The number of requests we have and continue to
receive for support with OA funding is in the thousands. We ask researchers to
please keep in touch with us during the publication process so as to ensure
that finances are available. Since Professor Hall’s previous last contact with
us in 2016 we have updated our communications to spell out more clearly that
block grant funds are provided on a first come first served basis and only to
fund journal articles, they are offered as a soft commitment not reserved
indefinitely, with budgets spent annually.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
You were at that time the manager of Research Support. I note today that your
title is different to when the commitment to Hall was made. Can you say who
replaced you as manager of Research Support at King’s and when?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> No-one has
replaced me as Head of Research Support. My job title recently changed to
become Head of Open Research to reflect a greater commitment to supporting the
open research agenda.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Subsequent to the initial decision to grant the subvention to Edith Hall, Simon
Tanner published a blog post in which he concluded that Book Processing Charges
in a Gold OA environment “would be utterly unsustainable in a future OA
mandated REF environment.” Would I be right to conclude that there has been a
change of policy at King’s over OA monographs and that it is this that led
Research Support to overturn its decision to pay the BPC for Edith Hall’s book?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> There is no
King’s policy on OA Monographs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Or does the withdrawal of Research Support’s commitment rather signal a
difference of opinion or a policy mismatch between King’s Libraries and senior
management over the issue of OA monographs?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> This is a
continued misunderstanding. Please see my answers above. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Either way, do you not feel that having agreed to the subvention King’s should
have honoured its commitment? If not, why not?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Wherever possible
we strongly endeavour to meet such commitments. Unfortunately, there are not
currently alternative funds to those provided by UKRI and the Wellcome Trust to
support open access publishing. We were contacted by Professor Hall at the end
of June 2019. By the end of July, we had managed to secure a sum from within
the Library budgets to cover the cost of making her monograph OA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
As you will know, last year the Director of Research at Research England </span></i></b><a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fre.ukri.org%2Fabout-us%2Four-people%2Fsteven-hill%2F&data=01%7C01%7Chelen.cargill%40kcl.ac.uk%7Cb755d0cdc70842655b2a08d715c7b1e3%7C8370cf1416f34c16b83c724071654356%7C0&sdata=NadaT%2FvngbuNK0jjQOPjCelX8i6UfaZi4Re4LjTZ%2Bd4%3D&reserved=0"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Steven Hill</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></i></b><a href="https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebookseller.com%2Finsight%2Foa-requirement-monographs-will-benefit-society-says-hill-747196&data=01%7C01%7Chelen.cargill%40kcl.ac.uk%7Cb755d0cdc70842655b2a08d715c7b1e3%7C8370cf1416f34c16b83c724071654356%7C0&sdata=cTAadKxX%2B3OklOBFl5jfzpGIuP4fWAPIvkesli7nMkA%3D&reserved=0"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">told</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The Bookseller
that for REF2027 the current policies on open access as applied to journal
articles will be extended to encompass monographs and other “long form
outputs”. And right now, UKRI is conducting a review in order to establish how
this policy decision will be implemented. In light of this it seems inevitable
to me that we are about to move to a world in which monographs are published OA
and I can see no reasonable alternative to their being funded by means of BPCs.
Would you agree? If not, why not?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The question ‘How
should monographs be published Open Access?’ is one that many contributors to
the scholarly publishing world have a view on. There is no short or agreed
answer. Steven Hill makes interesting points. King’s own Professor Simon Tanner
has written widely on the topic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
Would I be right to conclude that senior management at King’s are opposed to
the direction of travel being taken by UKRI over OA monographs? Is it maybe
even resistant to the very notion of OA monographs?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> King’s does not
have a position on OA monographs and the direction of travel taken by UKRI in
regard to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP:
In his blog post Simon Tanner says that King’s was the third-most prolific
producer of books in terms of submissions to REF2014. How many books is King’s
currently producing each year and how many of these (if any) are being made
available on an OA basis?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">HC:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Information on
how many monographs are being published annually by King’s authors is
challenging to determine exactly. Approximate numbers in recent years suggest a
figure of c.150 to 200 monographs being published pa. Very few of these are
being published open access.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">__<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">[RP: </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It might be useful to provide a little more background and context to this
discussion. Where a scientist will write a paper and then send it to a journal
publisher for consideration, with humanities monographs the author generally
does things the other way round: s/he will propose an idea to a publisher
before writing the book. The publisher will likely then send that proposal (the
book’s topic and how the topic will be dealt with) out for review. Only once
the reviews have been provided, and any recommended changes made to the book
proposal (assuming the publisher is still willing to proceed), will the
author(s) sit down and write the text (of, say, 200,000 words). Sometimes the
completed text will also be sent out for further review before the book is finally cleared for publication.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
process takes a lot longer than sending a, say, 5,000-word scientific paper to
a journal and waiting for it to be reviewed and published (which can sometimes happen
within 3 months), especially when the book author(s) is/ are highly research
active and working on several other books and projects simultaneously. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the case of the book we are discussing the text was not finally and fully
accepted for publication until June this year, which is when Hall contacted
Research Support to ask for the promised BPC to be released (on 22nd June). In
its initial response, which was not sent until 12th July, Research Support
replied that three years is a long time in open access and that the demand on RCUK
funds was now significantly higher. (It later
added that it was not in any case permitted to use RCUK funds to pay BPCs). Consequently,
it suggested that the Faculty of Arts and Humanities be asked for money to pay
the BPC. More than a month after Hall made contact (26th July), the Vice Dean
Research said that he could not provide the funds either.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At
this point, Hall had no option but to go back to the publisher and ask to
revert to a traditional contract. She then negotiated with the publisher an
option that would allow the book to be made OA after three years for a greatly
reduced BPC. When she asked Research Support if they would pay this reduced fee
they agreed. As such, it is not so much that Research Support eventually secured
funds to cover the cost of the BPC, but that it secured a considerably lower
sum in order for the book to be released after a three-year embargo. The book will
not be freely available until 2023.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">With
regard to Research Support having offered a “soft” commitment: when Hall was
informed that the money would be made available to her she was told, “As you
are funded by AHRC we are prepared to fund the whole cost of publication for
your monograph from the RCUK block grant.” There was no indication here that
the commitment would expire at some point in the future, or that it was “soft”
(whatever that might mean). It would have been reasonable for Hall to assume
that at that point the commitment was recorded in some file or document
somewhere indicating that the BPC had been promised to her. It would now seem,
however, that this is not the case and that King’s operates a first come first
served system. More precisely, it sounds like a “first to send an invoice”
system rather than a “first to be granted a subvention” system.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Other
universities have been making data about how they are spending their block
grants freely available on the web (open access) at the same time as they file
the reports to RCUK. Sometimes this is as a spreadsheet, sometimes as a
complete report – e.g. see the information published by </span></i><a href="https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/17808"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">St Andrews</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span></i><a href="https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/queens-university-belfast-rcukukri-open-access-compliance-report-20182019(a41874dc-e4a7-4350-b8e6-8c4ce982276a).html"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Queen’s, Belfast</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span></i><a href="https://datacompass.lshtm.ac.uk/1115/"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">LSHTM</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span></i><a href="https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/9386/University%20of%20Edinburgh%20RCUK%20Open%20Access%20Report%202013-14.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Edinburgh</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span></i><a href="https://core.ac.uk/display/80688421?source=2&algorithmId=14&similarToDoc=200198624&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=fcbf1cf9-01a3-45d6-b60b-70dc9d7f0bec&position=2&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=30729967,80688421,46520707,76992408,35433165"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Strathclyde</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span></i><a href="https://core.ac.uk/display/76992408?source=2&algorithmId=14&similarToDoc=200198624&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=fcbf1cf9-01a3-45d6-b60b-70dc9d7f0bec&position=4&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=30729967,80688421,46520707,76992408,35433165"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Imperial College</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, </span></i><a href="https://core.ac.uk/display/35433165?source=2&algorithmId=14&similarToDoc=200198624&similarToDocKey=CORE&recSetID=fcbf1cf9-01a3-45d6-b60b-70dc9d7f0bec&position=5&recommendation_type=same_repo&otherRecs=30729967,80688421,46520707,76992408,35433165"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">LSE</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, and </span></i><a href="https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/264341"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Cambridge</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. This information
could in any case be obtained by means of a Freedom of Information request – so
it seems strange that King’s is withholding it.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">King’s open access policy is available
online </span></i><a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/governancezone/Assets/Research/Research-Publications-Policy.pdf"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></i></a><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, and includes the
statement: “This policy’s requirements apply to research outputs that
constitute journal articles and conference contributions. Its adoption is
encouraged for other types of outputs, including books and book chapters,
digital artefacts, and other types of publications”].</span></i></div>
</div>
<br />Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-86430791420441423602019-06-06T07:04:00.001+00:002019-06-06T07:09:24.078+00:00Why did Riksbankens Jubileumsfond decide to leave cOAlition S?<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Last September a group of (mainly) European funders
(cOAlition S) launched a new open access initiative called </span><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/funders-and-supporters/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. The goal was to make all publicly funded research
open access by 2020. And to that end, a month later (November) a set of draft implementation
guidelines for the plan were published.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QgNKZLszjgw/XPine4l_b0I/AAAAAAAAlR0/FIHIIWhUxE8bzhfMbweAkimImTzH17LZwCLcBGAs/s1600/800px-Back_of_Las_Vegas_Sign_at_Night.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QgNKZLszjgw/XPine4l_b0I/AAAAAAAAlR0/FIHIIWhUxE8bzhfMbweAkimImTzH17LZwCLcBGAs/s200/800px-Back_of_Las_Vegas_Sign_at_Night.jpeg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image Simeon87 <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Farewell_signs#/media/File:Back_of_Las_Vegas_Sign_at_Night.JPG">CC BY-SA</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Plan S proved controversial and, amongst other things, led to <a href="https://sites.google.com/view/plansopenletter/home">a petition</a> of protest being launched. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To help ease the way and encourage buy-in, therefore,
cOAlition S opened the guidelines up for public consultation. This attracted more than 600 responses and saw the publication of <a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/revised-implementation-guidance/">revised guidelines</a> last week (31st May). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The updated guidelines have been better received,
even by publishers. Elsevier, for instance, has “</span><a href="https://www.elsevier.com/connect/elsevier-welcomes-new-open-access-guidance-from-coalition-s"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">welcomed</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">” them, as </span><a href="http://yacadeuro.org/2019/06/05/press-release-researchers-respond-to-revised-guidance-for-plan-s/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">have</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> open access advocates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Nevertheless, Plan S appears to still be struggling
to sign up new funders. When it launched, there were </span><a href="https://sparcopen.org/news/2018/coalition-european-funders-announces-plan-s/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">10 funders</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">; today there are still only </span><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/funders-and-supporters/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">19</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. Many believe this is too few to trigger the
change to scholarly communication that cOAlition S members want. Importantly, the
</span><a href="https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">two largest producers of research papers in the world</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – China and the US – are notable by their absence from the coalition.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps unsurprisingly, while cOAlition S is quick
to tell the world when it signs up a new funder, it is silent when a funder leaves
the coalition. It has not, for instance, publicly commented on the decision by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and
Social Sciences (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, or </span><a href="https://www.rj.se/en"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RJ</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">) to leave the
coalition. RJ</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">s name just disappeared from the Plan S web page sometime during the week beginning 20th May.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">How, when and why did RJ leave?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On 6<sup>th</sup> March RJ published </span><a href="https://rj.se/globalassets/forskningsnyheter/2019/coalition-s_rj_190306.pdf"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">an open letter</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> addressed to cOAlition S in which it expressed some concerns about the initiative and said, “RJ remains in the Coalition S, but cannot support Plan S in its
current form.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It added that it believed Plan S needed to be “more
flexible and discussed more openly with the research community.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-size: large;">Leave or remain?</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The next day (7<sup>th</sup> March) RJ posted a </span><a href="https://twitter.com/Jubileumsfonden/status/1103607518209732610?s=20"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">tweet</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> saying that it could no longer support the
timetable for Plan S and linked to </span><a href="https://www.rj.se/Forskningsnyheter/2019/rj-avvisar-tidsplanen-for-plan-s/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">a note</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> on its web site. This note stressed RJ’s support for
open science but repeated that it could not support the Plan S schedule. It added,
however, that it had emphasised to cOAlition S that it wanted to remain in the group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet three days before cOAlition S published its revised
guidance (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">May 28</span><sup style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">) RJ </span><a href="https://www.rj.se/en/Researcher-news/general-news/riksbankens-jubileumsfond-steps-away-from-plan-s/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">announced</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that it had left the coalition.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The announcement added: “After consultation with
researchers and discussions within the Board, Jubileumsfond decided on March 6,
2019 to step away from Plan S. Our assessment is that the process is too fast
to suit humanities and social sciences. This also means that we have left
cOAlition S, but we continue to support their ambitions.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Confusingly, although the May 28<sup>th</sup>
announcement says that the decision to leave the coalition had been taken on
March 6<sup>th</sup>, RJ’s letter of that date emphasised that RJ was remaining in the
Coalition S. Its continuing commitment to the coalition was repeated in the note
of 7<sup>th</sup> March.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the hope of better understanding what had
happened and why RJ appeared to be making contradictory statements I emailed the
CEO of RJ, <a href="https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marika_Hedin">Marika Hedin</a>.
(Hedin took over as CEO on 1<sup>st</sup> February. The decision to sign up to Plan S had
therefore been taken by the former CEO.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I asked Hedin if perhaps the problem was that the former CEO had signed up to Plan S before RJ’s Board had had an opportunity to discuss and
approve the decision. She replied, “</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">No, I think that you have misunderstood
the situation. Our CEO is authorised to make decisions like this, and in the
early talks of Plan S, the aims seemed completely aligned with the already
far-reaching Open Access policies that Riksbankens Jubileumsfond has had since
2010.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Evolved</span></h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hedin
added, “However, when Plan S was published in November it had evolved. There
were thorough discussions and consultations about this in our Board during our
former CEO, and during his last and my first board meeting in late February, it
was jointly decided to step away from Plan S. We were all in complete agreement
on this, he, I and our Board of Directors. He and I then wrote a letter jointly
to the COAlition declaring this, which was published on our website March 6.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Again,
this does not seem entirely consonant with what was said in the March 6<sup>th</sup>
letter. It is also</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;"> not clear in what way Plan S had evolved such that it had now become unacceptable to RJ. The </span><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/principles-and-implementation/" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">10 Plan S Principles</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">
– which surely make clear to signatories what they are being asked to sign up to –
had been published in September and presumably funders would
have been asked to agree to the 10 principles before signing up. Either way, we might
wonder why it took six months for RJ to become concerned over what it had signed up to, and eight months
before it eventually left cOAlition S.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">More puzzling perhaps, the May 28<sup>th</sup>
announcement came just three days before cOAlition S published its updated
guidelines. These might seem to have addressed RJ’s concerns. That is, the start
date has been delayed, and greater flexibility has been provided for implementation.
In other words, cOAlition S might seem to have heard and addressed the concerns
of RJ. But RJ left anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When I </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">asked the interim coordinator of cOAlition
S (and </span><a href="https://blog.wellcomeopenresearch.org/author/robert-kiley/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Head of Open
Research</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
at the Wellcome Trust) Robert Kiley whether Plan S had evolved over time he said
“no changes were made to Plan S other than the changes we announced on Friday.”
(I.e. in the updated guidelines published on 31<sup>st</sup> May).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So what went wrong? Was cOAlition S so keen to sign
up funders that it failed to outline exactly what they were being asked to
commit to? </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I
wasn’t involved in Plan S until <i>after</i> the Principles had been published
(September 2018)”, Kiley told me, “so have no knowledge of what might have been
discussed prior to their publication (or whether RJ were part of these
discussions or not).”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Or was it rather that when Plan S came up for
discussion at the RJ Board, members rejected the CEO’s decision to sign up?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Still confused, I invited Hedin to do a full Q&A.
She replied, “</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thank you, but I have no
further comments.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">
After making that decision our Board of Directors have also decided to not
participate in the current debate but rather continue discussing this issue
within our own organisation.”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">She added, “Our
relationship with cOAlition S is good and we support their efforts even though
we have stepped out of the process of Plan S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“At this point we do not plan to make a statement
about RJ leaving the cOAlition,” Kiley told me. “I hope in time that RJ may
reconsider their position and once again align themselves with Plan S.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Openness and transparency</span></h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But does any of this matter? Is it important to
anyone but RJ (and cOAlition S) that it decided to sign up to Plan S and then later changed its
mind? Does it matter if the reason for leaving is not clear? Perhaps it
doesn’t. The incident reminds us, however, that the Plan S project underlines the
way in which the open access movement has morphed from a bottom-up to a
top-down movement, and transparency has increasingly been sacrificed in the process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Above all, open access was meant to be about
openness, clarity and transparency. This is not what we see today. Rather opaqueness and opacity have
become the norm. And this change appears to date from<a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2015/12/open-access-slips-into-closed-mode.html"> the point at which funders began to take up the cause</a> and started introducing ever more oppressive OA mandates. Increasingly, decisions are taken behind closed doors and new rules are imposed on unwilling and hapless researchers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And is there not a hint of hypocrisy here? Principle
5 of Plan S insists that publishers must be transparent about their pricing and
processes, including their </span><a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/journal-transparency-rules-help-scholars-pick-where-publish"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">editorial policies,
their decision-making, their acceptance rates and their review times</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. Researchers, meanwhile, face ever more bureaucratic scrutiny in order to ensure compliance and are threatened with sanctions if they fail to comply.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Should we not
expect cOAlition S members to live by the same rules of responsibility and transparency that they seek
to force on publishers and researchers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Is it not therefore incumbent on RJ to explain in
more detail what it thought it was signing up to, why it signed up if it did not
understand the implications of doing so, and why it subsequently chose to leave,
despite apparently having had its demands met – that is, both the timetable and
the implementation of Plan S were adjusted to become more flexible? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Should
we not also expect decisions about open access to be decided in a democratic and open manner? How, for instance, did signatory funders make their decisions about joining Plan S and how open to scrutiny is that decision-making process?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On
27<sup>th</sup> February I </span><a href="https://twitter.com/RickyPo/status/1100679321868554240"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">invited</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> all members of
cOAlition S to send me a link to, or copy of, the minutes of the meetings of
the board (or similar) where it was agreed to join the coalition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Only
three funders responded and not one pointed me to any minutes. Of those who
responed, two were private funders – the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation
– and one a public funder, Formas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
responding for Wellcome, Kiley <a href="https://twitter.com/robertkiley/status/1100168492848951296">said</a> that
the decision to sign up to Plan S had been taken by the </span><a href="https://wellcome.ac.uk/about-us/executive-leadership-team"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Executive
Leadership Team</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">.
This might seem to suggest that the </span><a href="https://wellcome.ac.uk/about-us/governance/board-governors"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wellcome Board</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> (which has ultimate
responsibility for Wellcome’s activities) had not been consulted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Formas
</span><a href="https://twitter.com/pressformas/status/1111600447628955648"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">replied</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> that the decision
to sign up to Plan S had been made by the Director General, with no mention of the
Formas </span><a href="https://formas.se/om-formas/sa-styrs-formas/forskarradet.html#Innehall"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Scientific Council</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> having been asked
to give approval.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
the minutes of the Board meetings of the Research Council of Norway posted on
the Web suggested that the funder did not discuss Plan S until three months
after it had signed up. (The minutes of the meeting appear now to have been </span><a href="https://www.forskningsradet.no/no/Saklister_og_referater/1195592857784"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">taken down</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Apart from the embarrassment of signing up to an initiative like Plan S only to
have the decision later overturned by the Board, this kind of executive power grab
is out of tune with the open, transparent and democratic principles that the OA
movement was built on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
its letter of March 6<sup>th</sup> RJ makes </span><a href="https://rj.se/globalassets/forskningsnyheter/2019/coalition-s_rj_190306.pdf"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">an important point</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: it says that by seeking to force Plan S on researchers without adequate consultation the
<i>modus operandi</i> of Plan S, “has succeeded to turn researchers who have
been in favour of Open Science and Robert Merton’s </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mertonian_norms"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">CUDOS principles</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> against these
positions. This is an unfortunate development.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That
perhaps is the key issue: forcing oppressive OA mandates on researchers may turn out to be counterproductive. Perhaps that is the real reason why RJ left cOAlition
S: the failure to get researcher buy-in <i>before </i>announcing the initiative. But then why did RJ’s CEO sign up in the first place? Why did RJ not express
concern until six months later? And why is it not willing to talk openly and publicly about what happened? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">After
all, if RJ’s concerns about the dangers of seeking to force open access on researchers are valid
then the issue is of wider significance than Plan S alone. It is of relevance
to the very future of open access and how it is (or is not) achieved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-86589966288386689432019-05-21T10:42:00.000+00:002019-06-10T15:33:06.066+00:00The OA interviews: Arianna Becerril-García, Chair of AmeliCA<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A professor in the School of
Political and Social Sciences at the Autonomous University of the State of
Mexico (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.uaemex.mx/">UAEM</a><span style="color: black;">), </span><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0278-8295">Arianna Becerril-García</a><span style="color: black;"> is also the Executive Director of </span><a href="https://www.redalyc.org/home.oa">Redalyc</a><span style="color: black;">,
the Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain
and Portugal. Redalyc is a regional open access portal for the social sciences
and humanities that indexes 1,305 local journals and hosts the full texts of
more than 650,000 articles.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F-jRI72Qsss/XOPBUbxZzlI/AAAAAAAAlJ4/K9dkPUD5q14_1gZ5RIbDCDbovmsevN8SACEwYBhgL/s1600/Photo_edited.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="679" height="192" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F-jRI72Qsss/XOPBUbxZzlI/AAAAAAAAlJ4/K9dkPUD5q14_1gZ5RIbDCDbovmsevN8SACEwYBhgL/s200/Photo_edited.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In addition, Becerril-García
is the Chair of a new project called </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.amelica.org/en/index.php/que-es-ameli/">AmeliCA</a><span style="color: black;"> (Open Knowledge for Latin America and the Global
South). AmeliCA’s goal is to propagate the Redalyc model to the more than
15,000 journals in the region and elsewhere in the Global South.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As Chair of AmeliCA,
Becerril-García has become a vocal critic of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/">Plan S</a><span style="color: black;"> –
the European OA initiative announced last year by a group of funders that call
themselves cOAlition S. While AmeliCA shares cOAlition S’s goal of achieving
universal open access, says Becerril-García, it fears that, as currently
conceived, Plan S would disadvantage researchers in the Global South and
exclude them further from the international scholarly publishing system.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Historically, research
institutions in the South have struggled to afford the fees necessary to buy
access to international subscription journals. But a move to an OA system almost exclusively
based on pay-to-publish (which Plan S seems likely to lead to), says
Becerril-García, would see researchers in the South struggling to find the
money to pay the article-processing charges (APCs) needed to publish their work in international journals. One
problem would be replaced by another. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S would also further increase the
control that for-profit publishers have over the scholarly communication
system, which </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">Becerril-García believes </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">is undesirable.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is needed, she says, is to build a “collaborative, non-commercial, sustainable and
non-subordinated” system in which control is removed from commercial publishers
and handed back to the academy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The role that AmeliCA and
Becerril-García have played in the discussion over Plan S has been important
and influential. Interestingly, as the debate has played out, it is not only OA
advocates in the South that have been reaching the conclusion that AmeliCA has.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Heeded and acted upon?</span></span></h3>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We will have to wait and see
exactly how influential AmeliCA has been. Following a consultation process,
cOAlition S is due shortly to publish an updated set of implementation
guidelines for Plan S. For her part, Becerril-García hopes that the feedback that she and
others have provided has been heeded and will be acted upon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Amongst other things,
Becerril-García believes that cOAlition S should commit some of its funding to help
build the infrastructure and technology needed to allow the academy to regain control of science communication. So, for instance, she would like to see the funders provide money for “non-APC journals, academic open access
platforms, technologies to support scholarly publishing, repositories and other
scholarly communication tools.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To support her argument,
Becerril-García points out that Latin America currently publishes between 13%
and 20% of the articles produced by European researchers. “If Plan S intends to
pay APCs to for-profit journals then why are the costs of publishing European papers in Latin America not worthy of being funded by Plan S too?”, she asks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/researcheurope/status/1128937565095190530?s=11">rumour
on Twitter</a><span style="color: black;"> is that the new Plan S guidelines
will be “less controversial” than initially proposed. Whether there will be
sufficient changes to satisfy Becerril-García’s aspirations, or the needs of
the Global South, remains to be seen. While cOAlition S has made sympathetic
noises about helping the Global South, we must wonder if European funders will
really prove willing to subsidise open platforms and OA journals in the Global
South, or to create much in the way of a new scholarly infrastructure – not
least because they have set themselves an extremely tight timetable to achieve
100% open access (2020).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And are they really committed
to wresting back control from for-profit publishers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is surely also important,
however, is that AmeliCA has independently set itself the goal of propagating
the APC-free OA model that Redalyc has been developing since 2003. Amongst other things,
this saw it partner recently with UNESCO and a group of other national and
regional open access platforms to launch the Global Alliance of Open Access
Scholarly Communication Platforms (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/launch-global-alliance-open-access-scholarly-communication-platforms-democratize-knowledge">GLOALL</a><span style="color: black;">). The aim is to “democratise scientific knowledge
following a multicultural, multi-thematic and multi-lingual approach”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Interestingly, just weeks
after the launch of GLOALL, AmeliCA joined with the Plan S funders to sign the </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/sao-paulo-statement-on-open-access/">São
Paulo Statement on open access</a><span style="color: black;">. Becerril-García
stresses, however, that “our signature on the São Paulo Statement must be
understood as a commitment to an agreement between diverse platforms that all
have open access as a common goal”. She adds, “It would be wrong, or mere
innocence, to believe that we have changed our mind about our goals and
objectives.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whatever one’s views on Plan
S, it has surely played a valuable role in focusing minds on the likely
implications of moving to a pay-to-play publishing regime and the invidious
position that researchers in the Global South find themselves in <i>vis-à-vis</i> the
international scholarly publishing system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">All of which leaves us with
what Becerril-García calls the “million-dollar question”: is it possible to
build a global system of scholarly communication able to meet the needs of
everyone, and on a fair and equitable basis? My suspicion is that this is unlikely to prove possible for so long
as the Global North remains so deeply wedded to the principles of neoliberalism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To get a fuller view of
AmeliCA’s hopes and ambitions please read the answers Becerril-García gives
below to a number of questions I emailed her.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The interview begins …</span></span></h3>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Can you say something
about yourself, your institution and your research interests/specialism?</span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I
am a professor-researcher and computer engineer in the Science Communication
and Dissemination Research Group of the School of Political and Social Sciences
at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.uaemex.mx/">UAEM</a><span style="color: black;">).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I hold a master’s degree and a
PhD in computer sciences and my research interests are semantic technologies,
information retrieval, artificial intelligence, technologies for science
communication and open access, and data visualisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">UAEM is a Mexican public
university and a leading and pioneering institution with regard to open access.
It is the primary funder of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.redalyc.org/home.oa">Redalyc</a><span style="color: black;"> and I am part of Redalyc’s founding team and
currently its Executive Director.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: You are also Chair
of </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.amelica.org/en/index.php/que-es-ameli/"><b><i>AmeliCA</i></b></a><b><i><span style="color: black;">. Can you say something about both Redalyc and AmeliCA?</span></i></b><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Redalyc
is an open-access scholarly project, founded and ran by </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Aguado_L%C3%B3pez">Eduardo Aguado</a><span style="color: black;"> (General Director) and me. Redalyc has developed
technology to strengthen and provide visibility to journals in the region.
Currently, there are 1,305 journals and upwards of 650,000 full-text articles
available on the platform from which more than 100 million texts are downloaded
per year.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Redalyc provides an indexing
system. To be accepted for inclusion in the index, journals first have to go
through a rigorous quality evaluation process. We also offer services to
complement what journals provide on their own websites – e.g. tools to enable
journals to generate XML that is compliant with ANSI/NISO JATS standards and to
provide PDF, HTML and ePUB reading formats, as well as an article interactive
reader for reading articles on desktop computers as well as on mobile devices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We also provide
interoperability and search engine optimisation services to enable the journals
to be transparently integrated with the Directory of Open Access Journals (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://doaj.org/">DOAJ</a><span style="color: black;">), </span><a href="https://scholar.google.co.uk/">Google Scholar</a><span style="color: black;"> and
hundreds of content aggregators and libraries all around the world. The
metadata are exported automatically to help maximize the visibility and impact
of the content.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In addition, Redalyc has
developed a set of metrics for regional scholarly publications, institutions
and countries to indicate levels of collaboration, internationalisation and
usage of scholarly content.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AmeliCA is a project launched
by Redalyc with the support of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.clacso.org/">CLACSO</a><span style="color: black;"> and UNESCO that aims to create a communication system
– not an indexing system like Redalyc – for the more than 15,000 current
journals from the region.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So, we offer the technology
developed by Redalyc as part of a cooperative strategy in which dozens of
institutions with various decentralised and coordinated projects at different
universities and research groups from the region are able to participate. We
all share the same goal: a collaborative, non-commercial, sustainable and
non-subordinated open access system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">In control of the academy</span></span></h3>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Should I conclude from
what you say that AmeliCA does not believe commercial publishers ought to play
a role in scholarly communication? If it does see a role for them, what role
should that be?</span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> It
seems to me that the way in which the question is posed suggests that the only
alternative model to the one AmeliCA proposes is one that involves commercial
publishers. From where I stand the situation is more complex, and even more
complex when we observe the different regional contexts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We know that before the Second
World War the participation of commercial publishers was limited, and journals
depended mostly on professional associations. In the late decades of the last
century, however, and even in this one, we have seen an excessive concentration
of scholarly publishing in a few publishing houses – </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">the
oligopoly</a><span style="color: black;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Beyond the damage these
publishers cause to the system of scholarly communication by their monopolistic
activities (which is no small thing) we now face a situation where we are
having to rely on a legitimation system based on metrics provided by two
databases (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://login.webofknowledge.com/error/Error?Error=IPError&PathInfo=%2F&RouterURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.webofknowledge.com%2F&Domain=.webofknowledge.com&Src=IP&Alias=WOK5">Web
of Science</a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">and <a href="https://www.scopus.com/">Scopus</a></span><span style="color: black;">) that belong to
private enterprises and whose entire focus is on making a commercial return.
These companies’ interests lie in making governments and institutions believe
(through their various “advisory groups”) that only research that is indexed by
them is of sufficient quality to be worthy of being supported with resources.
This is the system of evaluation used today for researchers, for projects and
for journals.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And this is a system from
which Latin American scientific publications are largely excluded, especially
those from the Social Sciences and Humanities. Consequently, researchers are
forced to publish in journals owned by commercial publishers who are mainly
based outside the region, and in order to make their work open access they now
have to pay an APC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The goal of AmeliCA is to
support and consolidate a native model that has operated in Latin America for
more than 30 years, a model in which the publishing process is financed in a
structured and rooted manner with public resources provided via local
universities. This is the starting point and our aim is to demonstrate that
different models of scholarly publishing have developed than one controlled by
commercial publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What has also been happening
in our region recently is that journals that have been locally founded and
developed – with public resources – and then internationalised, are being
acquired by commercial publishers; there are several examples where the
publisher is not an academic publisher anymore. These are journals that were
created and consolidated with public resources, and then supported by Redalyc
for years in order to attain international visibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our view is that this kind of
appropriation, and the considerable restrictions researchers now face in order
to share, process and publish their work open access, among many other
characteristics of the models used by big commercial publishers, are
unacceptable for the development of science.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The commercial strategies that
for-profit publishers have adopted for open access are ravenous, exclusionary
and unsustainable. This is entirely contrary to the vision of open access that
AmeliCA supports.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I believe that developing a
scholarly communication system that is in control of the academy is a much
healthier strategy for science and society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why is it that commercial
publishers are a pivotal actor in science communication – in many parts of the
world – if most of the activities needed to generate knowledge are undertaken
by the academy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why did commercial publishers
shift from being the providers of publishing services to the owners of content,
and now owners of the tools needed in all stages of the scientific
communication process?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Which of these various roles
is truly beneficial to science?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h3 style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Free from paywalls</span></span></h3>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: In January, AmeliCA
published a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kXe1UO4beE">video</a> </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b><i><span style="color: black;">directly
contrasting the approach being taken by the new European OA initiative <a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/oa2020-and-coalition-s/">Plan S</a></span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: black;"> with
what AmeliCA aims to achieve. The video argues that some of Plan S’s goals are
“counterposed” with those of AmeliCA. For instance, it says, where Plan S
simply aims to regulate commercial agreements, AmeliCA is focused on “building
an infrastructure from and for the academy.” Can you say something more about
how AmeliCA aims to achieve this and why it is concerned about Plan S?</span></i></b><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> AmeliCA’s
goal is that all knowledge should be free from paywalls and in that respect,
its view coincides with Plan S, and with the</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/09-02-04.htm">BBB definition</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">” of open
access. It also agrees with Plan S that authors should retain the copyright in
their works.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Where we would diverge is if
Plan S seeks to replace the pay-for-reading model of subscription publishing
with a pay-for-publishing one, and to do so in a way that leaves publishing in
the control of commercial publishers (as discussed in the previous question).
Currently, it seems likely that Plan S will lead to the near-universal use of
APCs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Latin American model
demonstrates that this need not be the outcome. For this reason, we are
convinced that the strategies of Plan S, and of those countries with the
economic power to change the current situation, should be focused on supporting
a system in which open access journals are controlled by the academy – and
without the payment of APCs. They should also be investing in the infrastructure
and technology needed for science communication to be in the hands of
academic institutions. This investment should aim to return resources to the
institutions that generate knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So, AmeliCA seeks the same
goal as Plan S but wants to achieve it by means of cooperation between multiple
academic institutions. In other words, a strategy that emerges from the academy
itself, not one devised by financiers or governments. And it should be one in
which there are tangible developments in favour of open access – e.g.
platforms, scholarly journals, repositories, technical infrastructure, books,
groups of people such as editorial teams, policies, mandates, and so on, all
working together, joining forces and sharing in order to build a sustainable
model.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A clear example of this can be
seen at the <a href="https://unlp.edu.ar/">National University of La Plata</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> in Argentina. There you can see
a very strong, determined, and prepared group already using AmeliCA’s
technology to sustain its journals and prevent the implementation of APCs, or
the intervention of commercial publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This group is composed of
researchers and students and they are being trained in publishing matters in
order to sustain the work in the future. Everything is financed with resources
from the university and supported by the infrastructure and technology that
AmeliCA offers and that Redalyc developed over many years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: AmeliCA is focused
primarily on Latin America. More recently, UNESCO announced the launch of the
Global Alliance of Open Access Scholarly Communication Platforms (<a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/launch-global-alliance-open-access-scholarly-communication-platforms-democratize-knowledge">GLOALL</a>)</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">.
This brings together the coordinators of six platforms: AmeliCA, </i><a href="https://www.ajol.info/" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">AJOL</a><i style="font-weight: bold;">, </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><b><a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/">É</a></b></i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><i><a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/">rudit</a>, <a href="https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/">J-STAGE</a></i></b></span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>, <a href="https://www.openedition.org/?lang=en">OpenEdition</a>, and <a href="https://www.scielo.org/">SciELO</a></i></b><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>,
with the aim “to democratize scientific knowledge following a multicultural,
multi-thematic and multi-lingual approach”. Aside from the geographical spread
of the participants, and the emphasis on language diversity of GLOALL, what
distinguishes its aims from those of AmeliCA and Plan S? Is GLOALL more
about </i>articulating<i> an
alternative vision to Plan S or are there real-life </i>practical initiatives<i> planned?
If so, what kind of initiatives?</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> GLOALL,
in my view, offers the potential for great platforms to work together to create
a non-commercial open access future. This need not explicitly oppose commercial
publishers but could work from another point of view, one that conceives
knowledge as a public common good.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But I should stress that this
is my personal view. GLOALL is a new initiative and the scope has yet to be
defined. We know that we share common goals and that these need to be realised
in the form of policies, projects and strategies, and to be focused on
achieving open access aligned with the <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300">Sustainable Development Goals</a> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">established
in the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/environment/sustainable-development/SDGs/index_en.htm">United Nations 2030 Agenda</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AmeliCA will willingly share
its technology and experience with GLOALL members, and with any region that
wishes to strengthen the model we believe in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">São Paulo Statement</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Three weeks after the
launch of GLOALL, AmeliCA and the <a href="http://africanopenscience.org.za/">African Open Science Platform</a> </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b><i><span style="color: black;">joined
with cOAlition S (the group of funders behind Plan S) and <a href="https://oa2020.org/">OA2020</a> (a European
initiative with the <a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/oa2020-and-coalition-s/">same goals as Plan S</a>) </span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: black;">to sign the </span></i></b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i><b><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/sao-paulo-statement-on-open-access/">São Paulo Statement on Open Access</a>.</b></i></span><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i> This was done at
the <a href="https://www.globalresearchcouncil.org/news/2019-annual-meeting-sao-paulo/">annual meetin</a>g </i></b><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>of the Global Research Council (<a href="https://www.globalresearchcouncil.org/">GRC</a>)</i></b><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>. Can you say how this statement came about (i.e. who
approached whom?) and how the statement fits with the goals of AmeliCA and
GLOALL? How difficult was it to arrive at wording that all sides could agree
on? What are the next steps if any?</i></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The
question is wrongly posed: AmeliCA didn’t join with either cOAlition S or with
OA2020. AmeliCA was invited by <a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/">Science Europe</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> to
participate in an event. Several other platforms were invited and together we
signed a statement reaffirming the common goal we all share of freeing
knowledge from paywalls. This is the goal of dozens and hundreds of platforms.
The São Paulo Statement does no more than state that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our concern is not over the
goals of Plan S but how they are implemented. The purpose of the meeting we had
with the Plan S architects was to discuss that. And at that meeting, I
explained our stance (as discussed in the previous questions). I also presented
our stance publicly in a panel held at the GRC event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aside from stating that we reject
the APC model, I mentioned in that meeting the risk of disrupting the Latin
American system by implementing a Eurocentric model, and I resolutely asked why
institutions and governments in Latin America would be motivated to continue
subsidising scholarly publishing if strategies are put in place that will end
up driving more public money to commercial enterprises.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I pointed out that Latin
America currently publishes between 13% and 20% of the articles produced by
European researchers. And I asked: <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">“If Plan S intends to pay APCs to for-profit journals then why are the costs of publishing European papers in Latin America not worthy of being funded by Plan S too?”</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We have repeatedly expressed
our concerns about Plan S. Now we are waiting for cOAlition S to announce its
final implementation plans. We hope that the feedback phase has been useful,
and that cOAlition S will adjust their strategy to enable an inclusive,
participative open access model to be developed, one in which non-profit
scholarly communication is taken into account when financial resources are
distributed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">If they don’t, Plan S will
only further weaken those publishing activities that are still in the control
of the academy, and strengthen commercial publishers – to the point perhaps
where the former will disappear altogether. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AmeliCA’s goals are crystal
clear: we want scholarly publishing to be in the hands of the academy –
universities and professional associations. In other words, to continue working
in the way that Redalyc has been working for decades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: The wording of the São
Paulo Statement is very general and does not specify much in the way of
practical action. As you will know, cOAlition S has been struggling to get
global buy-in for Plan S, and has attracted criticism in the Global South for
attempting to foist a one-size-fits-all Eurocentric model (as you call it) of
scholarly publishing on the world. I assume therefore that cOAlition S would
see real PR benefit in getting the São Paulo Statement agreed, if only as a way
of suggesting that there is no fundamental conflict of interest between Plan S
and research communities in the Global South. From what you say, I assume you
do still see conflicts of interest. Either way, from the perspective of AmeliCA
what was the logic of signing the statement? What benefits do you think signing
it might bring to the Global South?</span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Scholarly
publishing is a global ecosystem that already exists. Consequently, for a
proposal to be established as global, and for everyone’s benefit, all countries
and institutions need to participate in the discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I would highlight several
points about which I believe there is agreement in the South, although with
some nuances: the present model is unsustainable, and knowledge must be freed
from paywalls. Every stakeholder agrees with this other than those who benefit
from the way things currently are. The only point of disagreement, as I said,
is over how open access is achieved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the South, Redalyc,
AmeliCA, CLACSO, <a href="https://www.latindex.org/latindex/inicio">Latindex</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;">, and <a href="http://www.lareferencia.info/en/">LaReferencia</a></span><span style="color: black;"> (amongst
others) have <a href="http://reuniondeconsorcios.conricyt.mx/index.php/primera-reunion/declaraciones/?lang=en">expressed their strong objection</a></span><span style="color: black;"> to the APC model. And I expressed this clearly and
vehemently at São Paolo, so I hope that the final implementation guidelines
will demonstrate that cOAlition S has listened to the feedback it has received
and is prepared to provide resources for non-profit players. Here I am thinking
of non-APC journals, academic open access platforms, technologies to support
scholarly publishing, repositories and other scholarly communication tools. If
this happens then our engaging with cOAlition S will have led to something
positive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And if Plan S ends up
dismantling the current harmful system for evaluating research and researchers
based on the false prestige bestowed on publications by the Impact Factor – as
called for by the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (<a href="https://sfdora.org/">DORA</a>)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> – there is no doubt that the South would benefit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As to any PR benefits the São
Paulo Statement may have: I wouldn’t like to think the meeting was only
undertaken for media purposes. In signing the statement, we wanted to give a
vote of confidence to the notion that communication and feedback between the
North and South is a good thing. Plan S and the general public know AmeliCA’s
principles and values. We unwaveringly affirm them and will keep working
towards them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I believe AmeliCA plans to
publish a public response to the São Paulo Statement. What will be the aim and
purpose of that public response and when do you expect to publish it?</span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> We
signed the declaration and we shared it. However, I would stress that several
platforms signed it, some of which AmeliCA and Redalyc distance themselves from
completely. It would be wrong, or mere innocence, to believe that we have
changed our mind about our goals and objectives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Together with other
institutions AmeliCA and Redalyc are working towards, and hope to further,
non-commercial open access (as I have explained) and we resolutely support
DORA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So, our signature on the São
Paulo Statement must be understood as a commitment to an agreement between
diverse platforms that all have open access as a common goal. I would, however,
note that <a href="http://www.scielo.br/">SciELO</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black;"> – another regional initiative in Latin America – has
signed an agreement with <a href="https://clarivate.com/">Clarivate Analytics</a></span><span style="color: black;">. In
doing so they have chosen a different route, one that legitimises the Impact
Factor as a way of ranking the importance of journals. They have also
chosen <a href="https://clarivate.com/products/scholarone/">ScholarOne</a></span><span style="color: black;"> (which
is a proprietary Clarivate Analytics product) as their publishing platform in
Brazil, rather than the open source software Open Journal Systems (<a href="https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/">OJS</a>)</span><span style="color: black;"> developed by Public Knowledge Project (<a href="https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/">PKP</a>)</span><span style="color: black;">. And they are encouraging the publishing of journals in
English over local languages.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This interview allows us to
take a deeper look at the complexities of these issues, which we’ll also share
in a publication on the AmeliCA web site and via other means and forums in the
coming days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S may sign general
declarations with dozens or hundreds of actors, but it is clear that the real
detail and discussion must be found in the “small print” – that is, in the
implementation guidelines. We are all waiting for news from Plan S about that.
Let’s see how they’ve enriched their understanding and stance after the
multiple conversations they have had.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3 style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Terribly alarming</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I sometimes think that OA
advocates in the global North have spent 17-odd years working towards a
solution that (as AmeliCA puts it) “simply aims to regulate commercial agreements”
and are now realising that this approach is creating a system <a href="https://www.liberquarterly.eu/article/10.18352/lq.10280/">no more financially sustainable</a></span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><b><i><span style="color: black;"> than the subscription system. Would you agree? If so,
how can this be resolved at this point in time? Might it be too late?</span></i></b><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> If
the focus of any new initiative is on replacing the model of paying-to-read
with one based on paying-to-publish, it will inevitably create an
unsustainable and non-inclusive system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is clear is that at this
point in time the control of scholarly publishing is in the hands of commercial
publishers, and so any planned change must necessarily include them. However,
in the process of change control needs to be transferred to academia – to academic
institutions, to universities, to academic associations, and to other
stakeholders whose focus is on the development of science rather than promoting
private commercial interests. And if this is done in a collective manner and in
a distributed and fair way the value and power of scholarly communication can
be maintained and enhanced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This means building
infrastructure, taking advantage of the great benefits that communication and
information technologies now offer, professionalising institutions so that they
can create a publishing tradition, and anything else that can further the task
of taking back control of scholarly communication which is currently dominated
by private interests.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As things stand, the South
cannot escape the perversion of the system. It saddens us to see how more and
more national systems of journal assessment disqualify local journals if they
don’t rank in the first quartiles of Scopus or Web of Science, no matter how
much they have contributed to the history and problem solving of the discipline
or region concerned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As a consequence, local
journals are now receiving fewer direct resources. And they are receiving fewer
contributions because researchers are discouraged from publishing in them.
Researchers are discouraged because local journals do not fulfil the
requirements needed to be considered “mainstream”, and researchers’ salaries
and incentives depend on being published in mainstream journals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This has happened in Colombia,
in Mexico and in many other countries. The agreements between SciELO and
Clarivate Analytics, the appropriation of journals by commercial publishers,
the hiring of SpringerOpen by public universities to dictate how and where to
publish, the list of such examples is vast. Right now, we are looking at an ecosystem
at risk of total collapse. And that is terribly alarming. </span></div>
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<h3 style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Million-dollar question</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Is it in your view
possible to build a global system of scholarly communication (and an open-access infrastructure) able to meet the needs of all countries in a fair and equitable way, both countries </span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">in the Global South and those in the Global North? If so, what might it look like?</span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AB-G:</span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> That is the million-dollar question. Thank you for asking, and for thinking that I could provide even the draft of an answer. Undoubtedly,
that is what we all want, and because of that we gather together and debate the
issue. But let me share my viewpoint on that with you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We need to start by asking: what science communication model or
paradigm can be considered a suitable one for humanity?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is not necessarily a matter of South or North. We must go
back to basics and recover the essence of what science communication is and
should be. Is it to communicate research, and to do so to the limit of what is
possible in order to attain the greatest efficacy and efficiency in putting
scientific and technological advances at society’s disposal?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We must remind ourselves that the goal of publishing is to make
our research available for the public, to submit findings to public scrutiny,
and to do so in a way that allows everyone to access knowledge without
restriction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We need to facilitate a global conversation that focuses on both
the large and small problems humanity faces and to ensure that all researchers
are able to participate in that conversation, not only those who can pay to
take part in it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Current information technologies enable us to rethink what is now
taken for granted. We can deconstruct what we know does not work and we can
decide what engine is needed to further the agendas and work of researchers.
And we can be more creative in planning how to distribute resources.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While many efforts have been made to do this around the world,
there hasn’t yet been enough determination and resources put into uniting these
isolated and disparate efforts. Open access and scholarly communication find
themselves at a key historical moment and we are now in a position, and have a
great opportunity, to redraw the system of scholarly communication.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I imagine a web of data for science, a knowledge cloud – sustainable
and open – that promotes a participatory and inclusive science communication
system, one in which every institution that is generating knowledge is able to
connect it into a giant graph of knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In order to do that I strongly believe that academic institutions
must not only be the generators – as it were – of this asset, but also the
owners and transmitters of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Thank you very much for answering my questions. I look forward
to seeing how the various initiatives you are involved in develop going
forward.</span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-27560376490126489402019-04-02T14:30:00.003+00:002019-04-03T10:46:36.819+00:00eLife and my unanswered questions<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Reporting on the scholarly publishing world can be a frustrating business these days, not just because the business model for journalism has all but collapsed but because scholarly publishers seem to be becoming increasingly reluctant to engage with reporters in a meaningful way, especially where the topic is open access. Their clear preference is to communicate by press release or managed events like webinars.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In fact, this has been the favoured model of commercial legacy publishers for quite some time now. The pity is that it appears to be becoming the <i>modus operandi</i> for non-profit OA publishers and OA initiatives too. Since the <i>raison d’être</i> of OA is openness and transparency this is unfortunate. If nothing else, it smacks of hypocrisy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PLOS has been guilty of this in the past – see for instance </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/05/13/plos-stakeholders-and-shareholders/">this</a> from 2013. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On another occasion in 2011, when PLOS ONE published a controversial paper, I emailed a list of questions to the editorial director (after being invited to do so) only to later receive a message from the publisher saying that it had been decided not to respond to those questions. (As outlined in </span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2011/03/plos-one-open-access-and-future-of.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">this article</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Until recently, I had assumed that <i>eLife </i>at least was fully committed to openness. In 2016, for instance, it </span><a href="https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/b6365b76/setting-a-fee-for-publication"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">posted details</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> of its publishing costs. But now I am not so sure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I will preface my further remarks by saying that <i>eLife</i> is a frequent publisher of </span><a href="https://elifesciences.org/for-the-press"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">press releases</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, and routinely emails me copies of them. In response, I am assiduous in posting details of these releases on social media. As I see it, the relationship between <i>eLife</i> and reporters like me is a two-way thing: I publicise their press releases; they answer my questions. Simples!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, it would seem <i>eLife</i> may not see it in the same way. Let me explain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Signalling something important?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Last month, I was invited to take part in a press briefing webinar with the new <i>eLife</i> Editor-in-Chief </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Eisen"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mike Eisen</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">, who has replaced the founding EiC </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Schekman"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Randy Schekman</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">During the briefing, practically all the questions posed by journalists were about business models and APCs. These did not seem to me to be questions best directed at an EiC, and in fact, Eisen had little to say in response other than that he believes APCs to be problematic and in any case the focus should be on achieving open access, not worrying about the details of business models. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In subsequently reflecting on the event it occurred to me that the appointment of Eisen is not simply the replacement of one EiC with another Rather, <i>eLife</i> is surely signalling something important about its future. So far as I am aware this point has not been made by <i>eLife</i> however, and it was not something explored in the press briefing, or indeed in subsequent reporting of the appointment (so far as I am aware). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maybe I am wrong, but that seems to me to be a reasonable conclusion to reach if one considers that Eisen’s OA advocacy in recent years has been almost exclusively focused on the need to move beyond the journal in favour of preprint archives and post-publication peer review, which is not what <i>eLife</i> is about. As Eisen </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/b5cwm2/i_am_michael_eisen_scientist_advocate_for/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">put it</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> in a recent Reddit Q&A, “I would advocate doing away with ALL journals – not just for profit journals. The issue is that the idea of a journal as an entity that accepts or rejects papers and ‘publishes’ them is antiquated.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Eisen outlined his ideas on this in a post last year where he </span><a href="https://asapbio.org/eisen-appraise"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">described</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> what he calls an APPRAISE system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">By contrast, <i>eLife</i> has (so far as I am aware) always positioned itself as a high-quality OA competitor to <i>Nature</i> and <i>Science</i>. (I.e. a kind of OA mirror image of those journals). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Moreover, when pressed by its funders to become sustainable, <i>eLife </i>chose not to try something new and different, but simply emulated other publishers by introducing APCs (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">$2,500 per article). It has yet to achieve sustainability, but in February the outgoing EiC <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00595-y">appeared to indicate</a> that the objective and approach remained the same, with sustainability expected to be achieved (in the next two or three years) by a doubling of the number of submissions to <i>eLife</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I say, this seems very different to Eisen’s view of the world. And that is why I am inclined to conclude that his appointment suggests that <i>eLife</i> is planning to reinvent itself. Either that or there is some kind of misalignment between <i>eLife’s</i> world view and that of its new EiC. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is just speculation because, as far I am aware, <i>eLife</i> has not stated that it is planning to reinvent itself. Anyway, I was by now sufficiently intrigued that </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">when <i>eLife’s</i> press officer contacted me after the briefing, I responded with some questions. And when it seemed that I was not making much progress that way, I suggested doing a formal Q&A with <i>eLife’s</i> Executive Director Mark Patterson. I was told that he was happy to do this and so emailed over the list of questions below. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unfortunately, in a strange echo of my experience with PLOS, a week later I received an email saying, “We’ve reviewed the questions that you sent over, and there’s not much more that we’re able to add in response at this stage.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In a subsequent email I was told, “The answers to the questions we have not already addressed will become clear in time, and we’ll be happy to share more information as it’s available. Having seen all your questions, it’s simply that we’re not prepared to answer them all right now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Out of sync?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I get that if <i>eLife</i> is in the middle of a strategic review it might not want to provide detailed answers to one or two of my questions, but for Patterson not to answer any of the questions I sent below seems out of sync both with <i>eLife’s</i> claimed commitment to openness and transparency, and with the unspoken contract I believe should exist between organisations and those like me who report on them: I publicise their news and developments; they answer my questions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Either way, I have to wonder why <i>eLife</i> was not willing to answer some of the questions. Why, for instance, was it not prepared to say whether Eisen has ever had an EiC position before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Likewise, why seven months after the initiative was announced was <i>eLife </i>not prepared to share with me its views on Plan S, why was it not prepared to say how many APC waivers it is granting, and why was it not prepared to rehearse for me the results of the peer review trial it held last year? Why also was it not prepared to say whether it believes Read-and-Publish agreements will prove cheaper than the traditional Big Deal, and what impact these agreements might have on small publishers?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">More puzzlingly, why if he was unwilling to answer any of the questions I sent him did Patterson agree to do an interview in the first place?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is all the more baffling to me given that the day before <i>eLife</i> emailed to say it was not prepared to answer my questions, Eisen was introducing himself on Reddit by </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/b5cwm2/i_am_michael_eisen_scientist_advocate_for/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">saying</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> that his objective is “to build a new ecosystem of scholarly publishing based not on journals, but on immediate, author-driven publication coupled with post-publication peer review and curation, and the role I envision <i>eLife</i> will play in this new ecosystem”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In that Q&A he also said, “F1000Research isn’t, at least not yet, interested in doing anything beyond technical peer review of papers. They do an excellent job of this, but it’s a different problem than what I was thinking with APPRAISE, and now what I want to do at <i>eLife</i>, which is to help organize the literature, to help people find what’s interesting and important to them, and to help contextualize works for readers, and to help authors and people potentially interested in hiring, promoting or funding them to know what the community thinks of the quality and impact of their work.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Could not <i>eLife</i> have responded to my questions about its future strategy by at least saying something similar to that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Financial models?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is worth noting that the very </span><a href="https://asapbio.org/eisen-appraise#comment-155"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">first question</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> posted in response to Eisen’s outline of his APPRAISE idea was, “Fascinating stuff, but what’s the financial model here?” – a question to which Eisen did not respond. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Certainly, if the new strategy of <i>eLife</i> involves making APPRAISE a reality some kind of a financial modelling will be necessary, not least because if the publisher is still not sustainable and its funders expect it to become so in the next few years, it will presumably need to find additional resources from somewhere. In other words, while business models may not be something Eisen is concerned about, someone at <i>eLife</i> needs to take an interest in them. It was partly in order to gain some understanding of this that I invited Patterson to do a formal Q&A. And I asked him specifically because as <i>eLife’s</i> Executive Director I assume that is his bag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Doubtless the open source </span><a href="https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/33e4127f/elife-introduces-libero-a-new-open-source-tool-for-publishing"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Libero</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> products that <i>eLife</i> is co-developing are relevant here too. And I was again puzzled that <i>eLife</i> was not prepared to answer my question about its open source activities even though it has been giving webinars on the topic (e.g. </span><a href="https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/f8226477/in-publishing-the-latest-on-the-open-source-publishing-platform-libero"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">). I can only conclude that while <i>eLife</i> is happy to broadcast press releases and organise managed events, it is reluctant to answer specific questions from reporters outside of these managed events. A cynic might think that this is because reporters tend to ask probing questions – questions like, “Was that a wise decision you made?” and “Where is the business model here?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is also worth pointing out that in the webinar linked above <i>eLife</i> <u>was</u> asked about business models. The reply was that business models are not relevant to non-profits, which have only to achieve sustainability. This seems to me to miss the point that in order to achieve sustainability some kind of financial model is necessary – as Knowledge Unlatched </span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-oa-interviews-frances-pinter.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">discovered</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The fact is that regardless of any new development work Eisen might be hoping to see at <i>eLife</i>, 30% of its expenditures are already going towards “technology and innovation”. Moreover, <i>eLife</i> has made it clear that Libero Publisher is being developed as a post-peer-review publishing platform, not some kind of preprint APPRAISE solution. If those authors (and/or their institutions) who are now having to pay <i>eLife</i> APCs find themselves having to subsidise a growing number of technology projects, they might start to feel a little aggrieved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Presumably, <i>eLife</i> hopes that at some point it will be able to earn revenue from providing software-as-a-service solutions around Libero – much as </span><a href="https://pkp.sfu.ca/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Public Knowledge Project</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> does with its </span><a href="https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Open Journal Systems</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> platform. The challenge, of course, is that developing new publishing workflow systems is neither easy nor cheap, as PLOS <a href="https://blogs.plos.org/plos/2017/12/ceo-letter-to-the-community-mudditt/">discovered</a>. True <i>eLife</i> is sharing the load with third parties – but even so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This post is about my personal disappointment with <i>eLife</i>, but I believe there is a wider issue here: what I perceive to be a decreasing level of openness in the OA movement – an issue I have previously raised </span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2015/12/open-access-slips-into-closed-mode.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. I think we can see the same trend evident in the way in which Plan S was developed and proposed. But do not those who advocate for open access and greater transparency (which, we could note, they consistently demand of legacy publishers) have a responsibility to walk the talk themselves, not least by answering reporters’ questions? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Be that as it may, I await with interest to learn more about the future <i>eLife</i> sees for itself in the developing new world of scholarly communication, the role that its new EiC will play in this, and whether the task it set itself in 2012 is about to be recalibrated in a significant way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is just a shame that after appointing a new EiC <i>eLife</i> seems unwilling to answer questions about the significance of its choice, or even answer questions about current OA developments like Plan S and Read-and-Publish agreements. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyway, for the record, I am posting below the questions I sent to Patterson.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Questions for Mark Patterson </span></h3>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; font-size: 12pt;">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mike Eisen’s appointment as <i>eLife</i>’s new Editor-in-Chief is an interesting development. As I understand it, <i>eLife</i> was founded in 2012 by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Max Planck Society, and Wellcome Trust as a high-quality open-access journal intended to <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/infographic-how-is-elife-measuring-up">compete with</a> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">prestigious subscription journals like <i>Nature</i>, <i>Science</i> and <i>Cell</i>. Its first Editor-in-Chief was the besuited, suave Nobel prize winner Randy Schekman. Eisen is the rumbustious T-short wearing co-founder of PLOS. It was PLOS that in 2003 pioneered use of the article-processing charge (APC) and it was PLOS that in 2006 launched PLOS ONE, which is committed to publishing any paper deemed to be <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/reviewer-guidelines">technically rigorous and worthy of inclusion in the published scientific record</a>. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The PLOS ONE </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">model has been characterised by some as <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/2008/080702/full/454011a.html">bulk-publishing</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">. Eisen is also a firm <a href="https://asapbio.org/eisen-appraise">advocate for preprints</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and in 2017 <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2017/10/q-with-plos-co-founder-michael-eisen.html">said to me</a>,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “We should all publish in bioRxiv and review papers outside of journals. It’s the only way forward.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> This would seem to be a very different view of scholarly publishing to the one that has been espoused by <i>eLife</i> to date, and so must signal a change of direction for <i>eLife</i>. How would you characterise that new direction?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; font-size: 12pt;">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Has Mike Eisen ever worked as an Editor-in-Chief before?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols";">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">eLife</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> was wholly subsidised by funders for the first five years, but in 2017 it introduced an APC of $2,500. It has, however, yet to become sustainable. Doubtless, that is why during the press call that Eisen gave on March 5<sup>th</sup> all bar one of the questions asked by journalists were about business models and APCs. Responsibility for business models and financial matters at <i>eLife</i> is not in fact part of Eisen’s job description. Who is responsible to the <i>eLife</i> Board for business models, financial sustainability and strategy? You as Executive Director perhaps?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols";">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">When pushed on APCs during the press call Eisen said that he views them as problematic. He did not, however, propose </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">any alternative way of funding <i>eLife</i>. Instead, he said that since there is enough money in the current subscription system the research community should simply focus on achieving OA rather than worrying over the details of business models. All that is needed, he said, is to reallocate subscription money to pay for OA. Leaving aside the problem of how one does that, I am wondering if the claim holds up. One of the primary reasons why librarians have been calling for open access over the past 20-odd years is that they say they cannot afford the subscription model, which they believe to be unsustainable. Their assumption has always been that open access will be cheaper and so can solve their affordability problem. It has, however, yet to be demonstrated that OA is cheaper. Nevertheless, librarians continue to insist that they should pay publishers less money. One of the reasons UC gave for walking away from its negotiations with Elsevier recently, for instance, was that the publisher was not prepared to reduce what it charges the university. As Jeff MacKie-Mason <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/02/28/why-uc-split-with-publishing-giant-elsevier/">has explained</a>,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> UC set two goals when it began the negotiation: “a reduction in costs and default open access publication for UC authors”. At the same time, we could note that the <a href="https://newsroom.wiley.com/press-release/all-corporate-news/wiley-and-projekt-deal-partner-enhance-future-scholarly-research-an">Wiley/Project DEAL Read-and-Publish agreement</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> is not expected to be any cheaper than a traditional Big Deal. Do <i>you</i> think open access will reduce the costs of scholarly publishing? If not, will there not continue to be an unresolved problem in an OA world?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols";">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">As noted, despite introducing an APC, <i>eLife</i> is still not sustainable. The funders supporting the publisher say they want it to do so in the near future. In an <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00595-y">interview</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> he gave to <i>Nature</i> in February, Randy Schekman said, “The journal still receives income from charitable funders, as well as from article-processing charges. But we hope for <i>eLife</i> to be self-sustaining within two or three years. The financial models we have drawn show that it can be done.” He added, “We believe that <i>eLife</i> has the bandwidth to grow maybe two-fold in submissions — and if we do this, we can sustain ourselves without charitable funding.” Eisen seemed unaware of this financial modelling at the time of the press call. Can you say more about it? Is it </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">enough (and even possible) to double submissions in the next two or three years? <i>eLife’s </i><a href="https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/50d52087/annual-report-looking-back-on-2017">2017 annual report</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> indicated that submissions fell after the introduction of an APC. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols";">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">In that same report, <i>eLife</i> said that around half of its submissions did not attract a fee. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I think this was partly because APCs were <a href="https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/b6365b76/setting-a-fee-for-publication">introduced during the reporting period</a>. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">However, <i>eLife</i> does also offer <a href="https://submit.elifesciences.org/html/elife_author_instructions.html#waiver">waivers</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> for “labs under financial pressure – whether because of local economy, career stage, or a lack of funding.” What percentage of the papers <i>eLife </i>is currently publishing are attracting a waiver, and how do you see this changing over time?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; font-size: 12.0pt;">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">eLife</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> operates a novel open and consultative peer review system. Last year it </span><a href="https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/2905802e/peer-review-elife-trials-a-new-approach"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">announced a trial</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to test the feasibility of what it called “a radical form of peer review” in which “once an editor has invited a manuscript for full peer review, the journal is committed to publishing the work along with the reviewer reports, the decision letter, and the author response.” Some initial results of that trial have been published </span><a href="https://elifesciences.org/inside-elife/262c4c71/peer-review-first-results-from-a-trial-at-elife"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. But how would you summarise these results and how do you envisage peer review developing in future, both at <i>eLife</i> and generally in scholarly publishing, particularly in light of the growing preprint movement and Eisen’s view that peer review ought to take place “outside of journals”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols";">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I may have missed it, but I do not believe <i>eLife</i> has published a response to Plan S. I do know that when Schekman was </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">asked about Plan S in February, he <a class="" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00595-y">commented</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, “I’m very supportive of this. Open access is the future. Commercial journals have been fighting against this very hard because it poses a clear danger to their profit margin … There will be a shakedown in the business. Some journals will lose out.” Is that <i>eLife’s </i>official position? If not, what is its position?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols";">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">In light of the Project DEAL/ Wiley agreement, I am thinking that this model (and/or the Read-and-Publish </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">one) is likely to become the norm going forward, and I assume such deals will eventually be done with Elsevier. The problem for <i>eLife</i> I would think is that these are essentially new-style Big Deals, a model that inevitably favours large commercial legacy publishers and by its very nature tends to elbow aside small publishers like <i>eLife</i>. Unable to cut such deals with libraries, funders and/or consortia might it be that <i>eLife </i>will be one of the journals to lose out (as Schekman puts it)? How can it best adapt to the kind of changes that initiatives like Plan S are likely to introduce?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "noto sans symbols"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Noto Sans Symbols";">●<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">There has been a lot of interest in the past couple of years in developing funder publishing platforms – </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">primarily by using F1000 Research technology. More recently, we have seen Elsevier moving into this space too. For instance, it just announced that it has </span><a href="https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/journals-published-by-arab-research-community-set-to-benefit-from-greater-global-visibility-809890046.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">reached agreement</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> with the Association of Arab Universities to use its proprietary platform Digital Commons (bepress) to eventually publish 1,000 Arab journals. What does this tell us about the future of scholarly communication, and where does <i>eLife</i> fit into this development? Does it?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-27896259043232107692019-02-15T15:48:00.000+00:002019-03-06T16:53:08.664+00:00Plan S: What strategy now for the Global South?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Since the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative (<a href="https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/">BOAI</a>) the OA movement has had many successes, many surprises, and many disappointments. OA initiatives have also often had unintended consequences and the movement has been beset with disagreement, divisiveness, and confusion.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 8pt;">Image Courtesy of </span></b><span class="MsoHyperlink"><b><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><a href="https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/ojs-usage/ojs-map/">PKP</a></span></b></span><b><span style="font-size: 8pt;"> CC BY-SA</span></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In that sense, the noise and rancour surrounding <a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/">Plan S</a> is nothing new, although the discord is perceptibly greater. What seems clear is that Plan S raises challenging questions for those in the Global South. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And even if Plan S fails to win sufficient support to achieve its objectives, ongoing efforts in Europe to trigger a “global flip” to open access, and the way in which open content is likely to be monetised by commercial publishers, both suggest that the South needs to develop its own (alternative) strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have explored what I see as the issues and discuss a possible strategy in the attached essay <a href="https://richardpoynder.co.uk/Plan_S.pdf">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The essay ends with an interview with Omar Barreneche, Executive Secretary of Uruguay’s National Agency for Research and Innovation (</span><a href="http://www.anii.org.uy/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">ANII</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b><i><u>A 1,400-word edited extract from this essay can be read on the LSE Impact Blog <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/03/06/plan-s-and-the-global-south-what-do-countries-in-the-global-south-stand-to-gain-from-signing-up-to-europes-open-access-strategy/">here</a>.</u></i></b></span></div>
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Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-84853957767453850982018-12-11T08:28:00.000+00:002018-12-11T12:59:09.731+00:00The OA Interviews: Peter Mandler<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In September a new European open access initiative called <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/">Plan S</a></span> was announced. The stated goal is to ensure that from 2020, “scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant open access journals or platforms.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In other words, the aim is to make all publicly-funded European research papers freely available to the world immediately on publication. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Peter Mandler</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S signatories currently include <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/funders-and-supporters/">13 European funders and two charitable foundations</a>, </span>who have banded together as cOAlition S in order to oversee and promote the initiative. One of the first to sign up was UK Research England and Innovation (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://re.ukri.org/">UKRI</a></span>) – an organisation formed earlier this year to bring together in one unified body the seven UK research councils, as well as <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk">Innovate UK</a></span> and the research and knowledge exchange functions of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20180322112445/http:/www.hefce.ac.uk/">HEFCE</a></span>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S has sparked a heated debate within the research community, and it has faced considerable pushback, including the publication of an <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/plansopenletter/home">open letter</a></span> expressing concern about its likely impact. To date, the letter has attracted over 1,500 signatures.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is especially controversial about Plan S (aside from the short timeframe before implementation) is its decision to ban <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_open-access_journal">hybrid OA</a></span>. Also contentious is its demand that all research papers funded by cOAlition S members must be published under the most liberal Creative Commons licence (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC BY</a></span> or equivalent). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While cOAlition S <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/feedback/">subsequently announced</a></span> that hybrid OA will get a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/plan-s-three-year-transition-period-hybrid-journals">three-year stay of execution</a></span>, <i>Nature </i><span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7">calculates</a></span> that banning hybrid OA means that European researchers will be unable to publish in 85% of the journals they currently submit too. Rather they will need to publish in “pure” gold OA journals, which in most cases will require paying article-processing charges (APCs). In addition, the ban has raised concerns about academic freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And although cOAlition S insists that green OA (self-archiving) will remain an option for researchers, the strict compliance rules it has set (and the technical requirements demanded of repositories) would seem to mean that in most cases green OA will be <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/12/07/plan-s-a-mandate-for-gold-oa-with-lots-of-strings-attached/">practically impossible</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Plan S is the most ambitious OA initiative yet mooted by any public research funder and has caused hand-wringing even amongst OA advocates. While some have welcomed the initiative, others are critical. Yet others appear decidedly <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://bernardrentier.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/open-access-is-plan-s-heaven-or-hell-how-about-giving-it-a-dispassionate-look/">conflicted</a></span> about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To date, much of the public debate has focussed on the implications for scientists. Yet the impact on Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) scholars looks likely to be more profound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The implications for HSS journals and learned societies are of particular concern, and there are real fears that the rules that will be applied to journals (including compulsory CC BY) will be extended to books too – a move that is felt would be entirely inappropriate. cOAlition S has yet to issue guidance on this but has said that it plans to do so. To add to the concern, earlier this year it was <a href="https://www.alpsp.org/news/20180309booksellerinterviewhill/196071">announced</a> that to be eligible for the 2027 REF long-form scholarly works and monographs will have to be published OA. Monographs are key vehicles for HSS scholars to communicate their research.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is particularly frustrating for UK-based HSS scholars is that Plan S looks set to rip up the settlement that was reached in the wake of the 2012 <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.acu.ac.uk/research-information-network/finch-report-final">Finch Report</a></span>. Wounds that had begun to heal will be re-opened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/pm297@cam.ac.uk">Peter Mandler</a></span>, Professor of Modern Cultural History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, puts it in the interview below, “[I]t’s as if we haven’t had the five years of post-Finch arguments! We’re just going to have to have them all over again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For a sense of the challenge Plan S poses for HSS scholars please read on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">The interview begins …</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Can we start by establishing where you sit in the open access debate? In 2013 Cambridge Professor of Ancient History <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/directory/robin-osborne">Robin Osborne</a></span> <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2013/12/robin-osborne-on-state-of-open-access.html">said</a></span>: “There can be no such thing as free access to academic research. Academic research is not something to which free access is possible. Academic research is a process – a process which universities teach (at a fee) … For those who wish to have access, there is an admission cost: they must invest in the education prerequisite to enable them to understand the language used.” Did Osborne have a point in your view? Or do you believe that open access is both a good thing, and an achievable goal?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I have always believed that open access is a good thing, and achievable if properly planned and invested in, though probably never universally in the humanities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One of my first contributions to the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://royalhistsoc.org/">Royal Historical Society</a></span>, as its Honorary Secretary in the late 1990s, was to propose that we put our <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/projects/bbih">Bibliography of British and Irish History</a></span> – our biggest scholarly asset, compiled over 80 years by dedicated historians and bibliographers – free and online. It took a grant from the nascent <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://ahrc.ukri.org/">AHRC</a></span> but it was a major achievement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then the AHRC discovered that keeping it online and updated would require a recurrent grant – not a large one, but a long-term investment – and it backed away, in the end recommending that we sell to a commercial publisher. We did, because we had to, and it is now available at a reasonable subscription. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Shortly after this the AHRC became an enthusiast for open access publishing, though still without any ideas about how to pay for it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That early lesson taught me that the policymakers find it easier to make policy than to find the funds to back it up – and that open access policies weren’t being designed with the specific needs of the humanities in mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Osborne also said there is “no clear dividing line between projects funded by research councils and an academic’s daily activities of thinking and teach.” He added that to attribute any particular publication to a particular funding body “is simply impossible.” Would you agree with that point of view? If so, is the OA movement’s mantra that publicly funded research should be freely available to the public built on weak foundations?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The argument has since moved on. Government argues that it funds all academics through the REF. To an extent that’s true. The problem is again that it doesn’t fund everything we do (nor indeed all of us), so it can’t reasonably claim ownership of everything we do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That said, I do think academic research ought to be made as widely and freely available as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Can you say something about your publishing activity: what and how often you publish? What publishers you generally publish with etc.? And do you currently incur any publication charges when publishing? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Like most historians I write books and articles, and they are published mostly by university presses which don’t make massive profits off their humanities publishing operations, while providing a valuable service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have tried to steer clear of publication charges, as I don’t think they are fair to un- or under-funded academics. However, some of my current research is funded by the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://esrc.ukri.org/">ESRC</a></span> and they require me to publish only in journals which meet their embargo stipulations or to publish Gold OA with limited funds and to publish CC BY, all of which I object to on principle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Can you say something about your other activities around scholarly publishing (beyond publishing your own work)? I assume you are on the editorial board of one or more journals? You are a Fellow of the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/?gclid=CjwKCAiA0ajgBRA4EiwA9gFORz8I6UAlqnRNdo93NV4gfDbwrgcdrAKFfGBTf3ouh8WbAxmWOJG9IxoCJQIQAvD_BwE">British Academy</a></span> and the BA has a publishing programme – are you involved in the management of that programme in any way? You were also President of the Royal Historical Society between 2012-2016, and I believe it was during your tenure that the RHS launched a new OA monograph series called <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://royalhistsoc.org/publications/new-historical-perspectives/">New Historical Perspectives</a></span>, which levies no Book Publication Charges on authors. Were you involved in the development of that series? Also, are you associated with other publishers in ways other than as an author?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> As I mentioned above, I have been an advocate of open access since my early involvement in the Royal Historical Society in the 1990s, and I was proud that we moved our monograph operations to free OA during my presidency. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, again this experience has given me a lively awareness of the real costs of humanities publishing and how much we need to invest in order to maintain academic freedom and quality under OA conditions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The RHS has benefited from generous grants from other learned bodies and from its collaboration with the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.history.ac.uk/projects/bbih">Institute of Historical Research</a></span> which has enabled us to make this investment. Not many learned societies have the resources to follow suit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Otherwise like most academics I sit on editorial boards – again, mostly journals published by university presses which I think offer good value for money.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Finch</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I think it fair to say that mandatory open access became a significant thing in the UK with the publication of the 2012 Finch Report, which <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-open-up-publicly-funded-research">recommended</a></span> “moving to deliver open access through a ‘gold’ model, where article processing-charges are paid upfront to cover the cost of publication”. This led to a an often-heated discussion over the RCUK and HEFCE OA policies introduced in the wake of the Finch Report and, as a result, a greater emphasis was eventually placed on green OA. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As part of that discussion, UK politicians held several Select Committee inquiries (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/business-innovation-and-skills/news/on-publ-open-access/">here</a></span> and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/science-and-technology-committee/news/open-access-report-published/">here</a></span>), and you too took part in the debate: as President of the Royal Historical Society you <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130228141425/http:/www.royalhistoricalsociety.org/RHSPresidentE-letterJanuary2013.pdf">warned</a></span> of “looming dangers to peer review, academic freedom, the activities and charitable functions of learned societies, and the international standing (and in some cases the continued existence) of Britain’s scholarly journals”. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One thing you were particularly concerned about was the push to mandate researchers to attach the most liberal Creative Commons licence (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">CC BY</a></span>) to all their works. As I understand it, you felt this to be particularly inappropriate for historians and others HSS scholars. In response, you faced pushback from OA advocates, who argued that historians’ concerns were misplaced. For instance, they said, CC BY does not allow or encourage plagiarism in the way I think you feared. They also argued that including third party content in an OA publication (for example images or graphics) is not necessarily any more challenging than when using a traditional licence. All that the publisher needs to do, they said, is to attach a separate copyright notice to any third-party content included in a CC BY licensed work. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Would that be an accurate description of events? Did you accept any of the arguments made by OA advocates? Have your thoughts about the use of Creative Commons licences changed at all since then? If not, why? Are OA advocates wrong on these issues?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I do think this remains an important issue, as ‘reuse’ under CC BY authorises practices that we call plagiarism in academic life. I know advocates of CC BY dislike the use of this word, but it is a good word to describe the practice of copying and altering words without specifying how they are altered. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">CC BY requires only that if you reuse you must ‘attribute’ the work to the original author and say <u>that</u> you have altered it, but you don’t have to say <u>how</u> you have altered it, and this is often very difficult or impossible to determine (e.g. in translations, or in slight but significant unflagged alterations). Thus your reuse takes on the authority of my words but can bend them to your own very distinctive uses and the reader can’t easily tell which is which. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">CC BY was designed to enable artistic experiments and sophisticated data techniques, with the permission of the author. It was not designed to enable the copying and manipulation of persuasive or argumentative prose, without the permission of the authors, which is what funder mandates for CC BY in the humanities now require. (My only recourse if I think you are misusing my words is to force you to <u>remove</u> the attribution, so that now my words are being used without even being identified as mine!). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am very happy to sign ND licences which permit endless copying of my words without altering them, in order to permit open access, which is what the movement is supposed to be about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I should point out that I put these arguments after Finch to Creative Commons, which granted that it had not anticipated these kinds of applications of CC BY, but also said it was not willing to devise a different licence that would require (e.g.) mark-up to show what changes had been made. Fine. So let’s not use CC BY.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: In the event, in response to the concerns raised by the research community (and politicians) both UK funder policies were adapted, and I formed the impression that a kind of post-Finch settlement emerged that most people felt able to sign up to. Is that your view too?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Well, we reached a set of messy compromises that reflected the messiness of the process as well as (more justifiably) the messiness of real life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is still what I think to be an unreasonable mandate for Gold OA and CC BY for research-council funded research (like my ESRC grant). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The REF mandate for all other academic research came later and reflected a deeper engagement with humanities scholars. Thus it better reflects our different patterns of publication. It allows more liberal Green OA practices and exemptions where academics want or need to publish in journals that don’t have OA policies or can’t publish in OA forms (e.g. where our data is owned by third parties, as so often – unlike scientists – we don’t generate or even own our data). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is very complicated and has made many academics – not only in the humanities – throw up their hands in despair. I wouldn’t have started from here. I would have started by including, I don’t know, <u>one</u> humanities academic on the Finch Committee?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">Plan S</span></span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: The OA divide (if I may call it that) has opened up again in both the UK and Europe this year with the announcement of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/">Plan S</a></span>, which would require that, “from 2020, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms.” While it talks of “scientific publications”, it is clear that cOAlition S has HSS works in its sights too. If successfully introduced this would surely be the most bold (aggressive even) OA policy introduced by any public funder in the world. It certainly seems to be intent on ripping up any Finch settlement. What are your views on Plan S, what parts do you feel are acceptable, and what parts do you have concerns about?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Our funders have signed up to Plan S once again without consulting, so far as I can tell, anyone from the humanities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">They say it is compatible with the Finch settlement because it adopts three routes to OA – 1) Gold OA (not suitable for most humanities scholars who lack funding for this purpose), 2) Green OA, but also 3) no publication in ‘hybrid’ journals unless they move to Gold OA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This looks like it preserves the research council model (route 1) and the REF model (route 2), but since route 3 is designed to drive out of business the very journals that permit route 2 it turns out that there is really only 1 route intended in the long run, 100% Gold OA, and that’s the one which humanities scholars can’t afford. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It also categorically prescribes CC BY (while the REF model accommodates NC and ND) – it’s as if we haven’t had the five years of post-Finch arguments! We’re just going to have to have them all over again. Again, I wouldn’t have started from here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Unsurprisingly, perhaps, objections to Plan S emerged almost immediately, not least in the shape of an <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/plansopenletter/home">open letter</a></span> in which over 1,500 researchers have expressed concerns about the implications of the initiative. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In response, the Plan S architects appear to have rowed back a little (as Nature <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07557-w">puts it</a></span>). So, for instance, when the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/feedback/">guidance on implementation document</a></span> was published on 27<sup>th</sup> November a transition period had been introduced to allow hybrid OA to continue for three further years (so long as it is under a “transformative agreement”). The initial proposal had envisaged a blanket ban of hybrid from 2020, which had been a particular concern for HSS. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In its <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/British_Academy_paper_on_Science_Europe_Plan_S.pdf">response</a></span> to Plan S the British Academy wrote: “In HSS, nearly all reputable journals are hybrid, in that they publish articles not supported by funders, for which libraries or private individuals pay subscriptions, at the same time as making possible the publication of Gold OA articles. We cannot accept that attempting to abolish them all would contribute positively to the successful dissemination of scientific research. Nor do we believe that preventing researchers from publishing in the journals which they believe to be the most appropriate is an ethically sustainable position.” I assume you would agree with the BA over this, and presumably a three-year stay of execution will not satisfy you? How serious a threat do you think there remains here?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The long-term effect of Plan S, if implemented, will be to bifurcate journals into Gold OA journals available to funded academics (most scientists) and subscription journals available to unfunded academics (most humanists). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unfunded scientists and funded humanists will get caught in the middle – probably a lot of social scientists too. Most humanities journals didn’t want to become hybrid journals but were forced into this by funder policies that obliged their clients to pay APCs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Under Plan S they will have to choose, and because most of their contributors are unfunded, they will have to choose to reject funded scholars with their APCs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That would be bad enough – a bizarre system of apartheid. If the funders go further and try to extend Plan S to all scholars, e.g. through the REF, then that will instantly put out of bounds most of the leading journals in my discipline. Many of them are American, whose principal constituencies are under no funder mandates, and they will just shrug their shoulders and say bye-bye to European scholars. It will be the European scholars’ loss – in terms of academic quality <u>and</u> academic freedom. And where will European scholars without funding – most of us – get the funds to publish <u>at all</u>?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Can I just clarify this: As I understand it, cOAlition S funders are intent on eradicating subscription journals. Even if they were not, the compliance requirements they have set for green OA (immediate deposit with CC BY in repositories that have to meet technical specifications that very few if any repositories are currently able to meet) would seem to put the future of subscription journals at serious risk -- especially, as you say, if Plan S is extended to all scholars not just those that are funded. On the other hand, if Plan S does not propagate widely (although it seems that China <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07659-5">may be sympathetic</a></span> to the initiative), then subscription journals will persist, but they will be out of bounds to European researchers, who could even discover that they are not able to publish in journals at all. Is that how you see it?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> It’s hard to say. I think probably they are trying to eliminate subscription journals altogether. But they don’t say so explicitly, so I am trying to puzzle out the range of short- and long-term outcomes envisaged or likely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Funded academics are certainly effectively excluded from subscription journals for the reasons you suggest (even if they wanted to, they can't comply with the Green OA route 2). But this leaves most of us in humanities who most of the time are not funded by research councils. Only if they intend to extend this plan to us does the scenario I sketch out in the final paragraph come into play.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: While it has rowed back on hybrid OA, the guidance document seems to have embedded mandatory CC BY more firmly in Plan S. It has yet to be confirmed exactly how monographs will be impacted by this, but in any case it <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.alpsp.org/news/20180309booksellerinterviewhill/196071">had previously been announced</a></span> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk532215824">that to be eligible for the 2027 REF long-form scholarly works and monographs will have to be published OA. </a>Again, there has yet to be a decision made about licensing, but I assume you hope there will not be an insistence that books are published CC BY? Can you share your thoughts on what you feel the future holds for HSS scholars in this regard?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Very simply I hope that any OA monographs mandate and Plan S will just say we accept NC-ND as the current REF mandate does. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But OA monographs raise many other problems that we haven’t yet discussed. They cost <u>a lot</u> more to edit and produce – even in online only form – than articles. Who is going to pay? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was on the advisory body to <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Crossick">Geoff Crossick</a></span> when he wrote his <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/21921/1/2014_monographs.pdf">report</a></span> on OA monographs, and we all concluded that there was not yet a viable funding model that could make monographs universally open-access. I haven’t noticed any substantial advance on that position (indeed, some substantial retreats – e.g. the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-oa-interviews-frances-pinter.html">snaffling up</a></span> of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/">Knowledge Unlatched</a></span> by corporate interests). What makes UKRI think we are suddenly ready to proceed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: More broadly, and based on where we are today, what impact do you think Plan S and the increasingly demanding REF requirements for OA are likely to have on history journals, and indeed on learned societies? Is the threat you see now greater than it was in 2013, or is there less of a threat?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> A bit of both. On the one hand, we do have some useful experiences and experiments. I think some journal publishers have realised that the REF compromise – which distinguishes between the open-access manuscript and a paid-for Version of Record – won’t make their current models unviable, even without embargoes. That’s a plus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There are a few more high-quality OA outlets now (like the Royal Historical Society monograph series!). That’s a plus. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But are we any nearer to a system where all humanities scholars have equal access to open access regardless of their funding and institutional standing? No. And the funders seem just as if not more willing to proceed regardless. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What are your current thoughts on the likely impact of mandatory OA policies like Plan S on academic freedom?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I do think academics ought to be able to publish wherever they like. I don’t mind a Green OA mandate that doesn’t interfere with that right, because I think the public ought to have as much access as possible to publicly-funded research, so long as it doesn’t jeopardise academic quality and freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But most worrying of all is the way in which (in the UK) OA mandates form part of a broader trend towards closer government control of academic research. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/29/contents/enacted">The Higher Education and Research Act of 2017</a></span> explicitly rewrote the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane_principle">Haldane Principle</a></span> so as to empower it in this way against the arm’s-length conventions of the previous century. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It also put both the research councils and the once more arm’s-length apparatus of the funding councils under a single body whose members sit at the pleasure of the government. We have to see all new mandates in this context. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: The BA document I referred to questions the cOAlition S claim that there is no valid reason to maintain any kind of subscription-based business model for scholarly journals in the digital world. What are your views on this? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The OA movement originated in well-founded righteous indignation against corporate publishers monopolising academic research and charging us sky-high rates to read our own work. (They then often boasted about the premium profits they made on their academic publishing units – see <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://informa.com/">Informa</a></span> reports to shareholders from a few years back – they seem to have toned that down since!) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But it has now extended its reach to charitable and academic publishers who charge a reasonable price for substantial infrastructural and editorial services. Even in the digital world these essential services <u>are not free</u>. Look at the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><a href="https://oieahc.wm.edu/publications/wmq/">William & Mary Quarterly</a></i></span> that provides a superb service to authors and readers at a low price. What good end would be served by trying to drive them out of business?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Do you have any views on preprint servers and their role in scholarly communication as we move towards an open access future? Do preprint servers have much use or interest for historians?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Circulating your work before publication has been a standard operating procedure for historians for decades. We give lectures and seminars and circulate our drafts to interested parties. At the point where we are ready to publish, we ask journals (i.e. our peers) to invest a lot of time and effort to get our drafts up to the required level – through peer review, editorial advice, copy-editing, proofreading. This is an essential community service to early-career scholars in particular and deserves to be cherished (and its modest costs paid for). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Any wider circulation of drafts seems to be an unmitigated good; at the point where journals start to make their contribution, circulation should be constrained only to the degree necessary to protect that contribution. The Green OA compromise for the REF was designed to try to find that point – i.e. between the accepted manuscript and the version of record.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I sometimes think that the end point of the increasingly onerous OA mandates we are seeing being imposed on researchers, and their increasing discomfit with them, could eventually see universities and/or funders start to insist on acquiring all faculty copyright (which I believe the law already allows universities, as employers, to do). I recall that in 2002 there was a row over copyright in Cambridge when the University sought to acquire faculty IP. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_J._Anderson">Ross Anderson</a></span>, Professor of Security Engineering at the Computer Laboratory in Cambridge was <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/cornish.html">heavily involved</a></span> in a successful campaign to stop what he called the “expropriation” of faculty copyright. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Might we see a re-run of this in response to the increasingly demanding OA mandates? After all, even if universities and funders are not (currently) insisting on acquiring faculty copyright for themselves, by insisting on the use of CC BY they are telling researchers that they have to give away all the rights in their works bar the right of attribution are they not?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The wider UK context is an ever tighter managerial control over academic work, which leads to all sorts of power-grabs, not confined to IP. Academics are rightly worried about this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://ukscl.ac.uk/">Scholarly Communication Licence</a></span> which was the flavour of the month in managerial circles earlier this year was one good example. It said, let’s ignore the compromise that was struck on REF, and try to circumvent it by requiring our academics to sign over their IP (leaving formal copyright but not much else in their academics’ hands). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I don’t imagine such power-grabs will diminish in likelihood unless there is some major political or cultural upheaval in British higher education in coming years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: For historians and others in HSS there is presumably also the issue of trade books. Do you have concerns that OA policies could kill off the trade book, a possibility <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://twitter.com/HistorianHelen/status/966032118202748928">mooted</a></span> by fellow Cambridge historian <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-helen-mccarthy">Helen McCarthy</a></span> earlier this year. Your Wikipedia page indicates that you support popular, public history over the narrow, specialist study of the discipline. If researchers stopped producing trade books as a result of OA policies might we see public access to scholarly thinking reduced rather than increased?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> If the funding councils do as they say, and seek to extend the REF OA mandate to monographs next time around, I imagine they will introduce a raft of exemptions such as were negotiated for the current REF OA mandate for journal articles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There will have to be in this case so many exemptions that you really wonder why they think the struggle is worth the candle. (I am horrified to see you quoting ‘my Wikipedia page’ as a reliable source. What does that statement even mean?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I have been hearing rumours of a legal challenge to Plan S. Do you think that might happen? Would you welcome a legal challenge?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">PM:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know enough to have an opinion. I understand that the legal challenges mooted so far mostly come from academics in German-speaking lands where there are more constitutional protections for academic freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I believe that the law academics at Aberdeen mounted a challenge recently to managerial attempts to expropriate their IP and one might expect such challenges to mount if there are more skirmishes over who owns IP. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But I wouldn’t want to reduce this to a narrow legal question. It is also a moral, political and cultural question – how much control should government and management have over academic work?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-3935435581710547302018-11-25T07:46:00.000+00:002018-11-26T05:42:43.600+00:00The OA Interviews: Frances Pinter<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2012 serial entrepreneur <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Pinter">Frances Pinter</a></span> founded a new company called Knowledge Unlatched (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/">KU</a></span>). The goal, she <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/2013/01/an-interview-with-frances-pinter/">explained</a></span> in 2013, was to “change the way we fund the publishing of quality content” for book-length publications, and in a way that would allow them to be made open access. </div>
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With that end in mind, Pinter launched a pilot project in which research libraries were invited to pool money to fund the “fixed costs” of publishing monographs. By doing so, Pinter reasoned, PDF and HTML versions of these “unlatched” books could be made freely available on the Web, but print and other premium versions would continue to be sold in the traditional manner. And those libraries that contributed to the pool would earn the right to buy the premium versions at a discounted price. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In a spirit of civic-mindedness Pinter created Knowledge Unlatched as a UK non-profit Community Interest Company (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_interest_company">CIC</a></span>). And with Pinter’s formidable reputation as a publisher, KU quickly acquired mindshare and influence, and went on to play an important role in the thinking about the scope and opportunities for OA monographs, as well as in policy development – both in the UK and globally. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Above all, says Pinter below, KU went on to provide proof of concept for a new way of funding OA monographs, and perhaps of funding OA more generally. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/knowledge-unlatched-moves-second-phase-314212">Initial funding</a></span> for KU came from (amongst others) the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/trust/">British Library Trust</a></span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/">Open Society Foundations</a></span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_Funding_Council_for_England">HEFCE</a></span>, as well as a number of Australian libraries. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When that funding ended, however, as a non-profit CIC, KU struggled to raise further funds or capital. And with few assets to offer as collateral, commercial loans were equally hard to come by. Consequently, it was not immediately clear how KU could become financially sustainable, or even whether it could. Faced with this truth, says Pinter, she was minded to call it day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Supporters, however, were urging her to continue and so Pinter drew down a six-figure sum from her pension savings and, with some additional funding from Australia’s Curtin University, she proceeded to a second pilot round. This saw increased support from publishers and a larger number of books offered for unlatching. But while this was encouraging, the sustainability issue had not gone away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At this point, Pinter was approached by former <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/">De Gruyter</a> CEO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/svenfund/">Sven Fund</a> and invited to sell some of KU’s assets. She agreed, and Fund acquired the bulk of KU.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As a result, KU was transformed from a UK non-profit CIC to a for-profit GmbH based in Berlin, and KU is now owned by another Sven Fund for-profit company called <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://fullstopp.com/">fullstopp</a></span>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After acquiring KU, Sven Fund moved quickly to develop and launch a raft of new products and initiatives, including a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/ku-journals/">journal collection</a></span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://knowledgeunlatched.org/ku-partners/">KU Partners,</a></span> <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/ku-select-library-info/">KU Select</a></span> and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/book-processing-charge-calculator/">KU Open Funding</a></span>. The latter is a platform designed to act as a broker between research institutions, publishers, and authors who want to make their monographs OA.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Criticism</span></h3>
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However, KU’s change of status and its more aggressive stance in the marketplace has attracted criticism from the research community. This came to a head last month when former KU employee Marcel Knöchelmann published a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/10/03/knowledge-unlatched-failed-transparency-and-the-commercialisation-of-open-access-book-publishing/">post</a></span> on the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/15/scholarly-communications-shouldnt-just-be-open-but-non-profit-too/">LSE Impact Blog</a></span> in which he complained that KU had undergone a process of silent commercialisation. He also suggested that the decision by UK funder <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://re.ukri.org/">Research England</a></span> to <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://re.ukri.org/blog/helen-snaith/open-access-and-monographs/">contract</a></span> KU parent fullstopp to undertake a survey of the OA monograph landscape raised conflict of interest issues. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The problem, he said, is that “The parent company of the commercial entity which stands to profit from a future of open access book publishing is advising on what the future of open access book publishing in the UK should be”. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In a separate <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://blogs.openbookpublishers.com/why-obp-is-not-participating-in-ku-open-funding-and-why-libraries-should-understand-the-reasons/">post</a></span> two days later the Director of Open Book Publishers <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupert-gatti-113b3620/?originalSubdomain=uk">Rupert Gatti</a></span> complained that KU was insisting that those publishers who use the KU Open Funding platform must sign an exclusive contract. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As a result, said Gatti, OBP would not be participating in KU Open Funding. “These types of exclusivity contracts can be used by digital ‘platforms’ as a strategy to monopolise and dominate an industry.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Other OA monograph publishers have indicated that they too plan to boycott the KU Open Funding platform, including members of the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarled.org/">ScholarLed</a></span> consortium of academic-led, not-for-profit, open access book publishers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In response, KU has agreed to cease insisting on exclusive contracts and Research England and fullstopp have said that both the survey questions and (some of ) the responses fullstopp receives to that survey will be made publicly available (more from Research England <a href="https://plus.google.com/+RichardPoynder/posts/Ek8Wg2oQiLz">here</a>). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Nevertheless, it is not clear that critics are yet convinced that KU’s business model is the right one. Nor have they come to terms with its new for-profit status. “I feel crowdfunding from libraries to unlock back- and front-list titles merely funnels more money to conventional academic publishers, who don’t have to change their broken business models at all,”<span class="MsoHyperlink"> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/eileen-joy-b6a06a5/">Eileen Joy</a></span> of non-profit <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://punctumbooks.com/">punctum books</a></span> told me on Twitter. “In other words, it’s not a transformative approach to OA and it keeps broken systems in place.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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She added, “We don’t want to see too many for-profit ‘middlemen’ between publishers and librarians. We want to build partnerships with libraries (and have already done that; e.g. punctum just inaugurated a two-year pilot partnership with UCSB Library at UC Santa Barbara).”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Eileen Joy concludes: “We are also troubled by the transfer of KU from a non-profit directed by Frances Pinter to a for-profit directed by Sven Fund in Berlin. Does anyone know anything about the details of that transaction / hand-over? Did Sven Fund buy KU from Pinter and for how much? What is her role now? Isn’t Fund a venture capitalist? Does he really have a commitment to the long-term health of a more equitable ecosystem for OA and scholarly communications or is KU a business venture for him?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hopefully, the interview below with Pinter (and what I have said above) will go some way to answering these questions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Logical and inevitable?</span></h3>
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We should also note that some view KU’s transformation as both logical and inevitable. “I’m not terribly surprised to see KU shifting to a more – shall we say – corporate model,” says <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-anderson-1475689/">Rick Anderson</a></span>, Associate Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library. “I think it had two choices: either continue trying to do something that its marketplace can’t really support (and do it at a loss) or shift to a mode that recognises market realities but upsets the ‘free everything all the time’ ideologues. Unsurprisingly, KU seems to have chosen the sustainable path rather than the politically correct one.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anderson adds, “Now, is the sustainable path they’ve chosen the right one? I don’t know. But I will say this: pearl-clutching reactions to the ‘commercialisation’ of OA book publishing are disingenuous at best. If the OA community objected to commercialisation they wouldn’t insist on CC BY.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Nevertheless, Anderson too is sceptical about KU’s business model. “I have to confess that the KU plan has never made much sense to me from the very beginning”.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The KU story is an interesting one. More importantly, however, I think it is instructional, since it invites wider questions about open access and the open access movement. For instance, it draws our attention to the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2017/08/15/scholarly-communications-shouldnt-just-be-open-but-non-profit-too/">growing anxiety</a></span> amongst OA advocates about the role of for-profit companies in scholarly communication. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is striking, for instance, that an organisation whose founder was just three years ago on the verge of calling it a day is now viewed as a dangerous shark in the OA waters bent on monopolising the monograph business. But perhaps there are good reasons for OA advocates to be anxious: we have learned that in an online world first movers in any new platform market can quickly come to dominate and control that market (and we have a new term for this: “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Platform-Capitalism-Theory-Redux-Srnicek/dp/1509504877">platform capitalism</a></span>”). <o:p></o:p></div>
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At the same time a view has emerged that says that the real issue here is not whether an organisation is for- or non-profit, but the degree to which it is willing to embrace openness. And many now believe that openness in scholarly communication needs to encompass not just the <i>content</i> being distributed, but all parts of the <i>infrastructure</i> that allows that distribution to take place. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Thus, we can see growing calls for “open infrastructures”. This is necessary, the authors of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://cameronneylon.net/blog/principles-for-open-scholarly-infrastructures/">this 2015 piece</a></span> explain, because, “Everything we have gained by opening content and data will be under threat if we allow the enclosure of scholarly infrastructures.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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Interestingly, one of the authors of that document was <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Neylon">Cameron Neylon</a></span>, the new Executive Director of that part of KU that Sven Fund did not acquire – <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.kuresearch.org/">KU Research</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We could also note that one of those advocating for this greater openness today is<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://about.hindawi.com/team/paul-peters/"> Paul Peters</a></span>, the CEO of for-profit OA publisher Hindawi. Last year Peters made a case for the necessity of what he refers to as <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://about.hindawi.com/blog/a-radically-open-approach-to-developing-infrastructure-for-open-science/">four basic principles of openness</a></span> in any model where commercial providers develop and maintain open scholarly communications infrastructure. These are: open source, open data, open integrations, and open contracts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I hope to cover <span style="font-family: inherit;">these</span> wider issues in a future post.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Above all, the KU story is a timely reminder that we live in uncertain times, and we don’t know what the future holds. We certainly don’t know what the fate of the KU business model will be, or how successful the company will prove in its new for-profit status. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Whatever the future holds, Frances Pinter, through her work with KU, has surely helped move our thinking forward. She has also conducted a real-life experiment at a time when experimentation is vital. If she risked some of her own pension in order to do that then it is to her greater credit.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But please read the interview with Frances Pinter below for a fuller picture of the KU story. </div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B5pWIHDTsR8/W_pME3Tw8cI/AAAAAAAAiDU/FBQXtGF9BO4Hfhj5lbEbogRIasAZEZLEgCLcBGAs/s1600/FP%2BCropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="439" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B5pWIHDTsR8/W_pME3Tw8cI/AAAAAAAAiDU/FBQXtGF9BO4Hfhj5lbEbogRIasAZEZLEgCLcBGAs/s200/FP%2BCropped.jpg" width="170" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Hlk530666633"><span style="font-size: large;">The interview begins …</span></a></h2>
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<b><i>RP: I understand that you founded Knowledge Unlatched (KU) in 2012 in order to, as you </i></b><a href="http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/2013/01/an-interview-with-frances-pinter/"><b><i>put it</i></b></a><b><i>, “change the way we fund the publishing of quality content” for book-length publications. To this end KU began inviting research libraries to pool money in order to fund the “fixed costs” of publishing OA<span style="font-family: inherit;"> mono</span>graphs. The idea is that this allows PDF and HTML versions of “unlatched” books to be made freely available on the Web, with premium versions sold in the traditional way. And those libraries who have contributed to the pool are able to buy the premium versions (including, presumably, print copies) of the books at a special discounted price. Is that an accurate description? <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>A full explanation of the original concept for the Knowledge Unlatched model can be found in the detailed <a href="https://culturalscience.org/articles/abstract/10.5334/csci.68/">report on the pilot project</a>. The description you give is accurate as far as it goes but misses important details.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Knowledge Unlatched was conceived as a crowdfunding model. In its early stages, it was focused on libraries. This was to ensure that we understood, and were able to respond to, the needs of a clearly defined community. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Initially, libraries indicated a preference for the OA version of titles to be made available as a fully downloadable PDF. ePub is now more widely used and the OA versions of Knowledge Unlatched titles are now often available in ePub format. Print and retail ebooks continue to remain available through the normal commercial channels.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As Knowledge Unlatched moved beyond the proof of concept and pilot it has been exploring a wider range of constituencies. Supporters of OA through Knowledge Unlatched now include learned societies, and even individuals. An example is <a href="http://langsci-press.org/">Language Science Press</a>, which works with Knowledge Unlatched as its crowdfunding agent.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: The formula appears to have </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt;">been</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> successful: I understand KU is now the largest gatekeeper to OA scholarly books. What aspect of KU’s success do you take particular pride in and why?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> The term ‘gatekeeper’ is an odd choice of word. I’ve always thought of KU as a ‘facilitator’ of OA. Knowledge Unlatched facilitates OA for books that have already passed the editorial threshold for a monograph publisher. Knowledge Unlatched should certainly not be the only model for funding OA monographs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I would suggest that ‘largest’ is also misleading. Knowledge Unlatched has succeeded in crowdfunding OA for a few hundred front-list and a similar number of backlist titles each year. In the context of around 30 thousand monographs published annually in English (an estimate from <a href="https://royalhistsoc.org/person/richard-fisher/">Richard Fisher</a> and others) <a href="http://www.oapen.org/search?f1-language=English">over 4,000 English language monographs in the OAPEN index</a>, and well over 10,000 listed in DOAB, Knowledge Unlatched is a small part of the overall landscape. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I am most proud of the fact that we changed people’s thinking about possible approaches to funding OA publishing. Regardless of whether or not the core Knowledge Unlatched model ultimately turns out to be one of the better models for supporting OA, Knowledge Unlatched has encouraged people to think about new approaches to supporting the costs of high-quality OA publishing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Rick Anderson has described <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/09/22/proof-of-concept-proof-of-program-and-proof-of-scale-in-scholarly-communication/">three levels of proof</a> for ongoing projects or initiatives in scholarly communication – they are proof of concept, proof of program and proof of scalability. I succeeded in providing the scholarly communications community with a proof of concept for a new approach. It is now up to others to adapt and learn from this proof of concept – and to continue driving the OA agenda forward.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: In addition to enabling OA the expectation was that the KU model would lower the costs of monograph publishing. I am wondering how this works. Production costs aside, there is still an intermediary to be paid (KU), which is presumably charging both libraries and publishers for the services it provides. So, there are still intermediary costs to factor in. Have we yet seen prices fall? If so, by how much do you estimate they have fallen? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>We know from <a href="https://academicbookfuture.org/discoverability-demand-and-access-the-role-of-intermediaries-in-the-uk-supply-chain-for-academic-books-richard-fisher-and-michael-jubb/">work by Michael Jubb and Richard Fisher</a> that intermediaries can take as much as 50% of the cost of a book that is paid by libraries. Knowledge Unlatched charges 15% of the BPC [<a href="https://www.nature.com/openresearch/publishing-with-palgrave-macmillan/publication-charges/">Book Publication Charge</a>] equivalent to cover coordination costs. This is used to pay staff and to market the packages to potential contributors.<o:p></o:p></div>
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An important principle and contributor to the success of the Knowledge Unlatched pilot mode was to not interfere with, or set, input costs. <a href="https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/the-costs-of-publishing-monographs/">The Maron Report</a> shows there are huge variations in ‘getting to first copy’ publishing costs. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In the longer term, it is possible to speculate that both the coordination costs and the input costs could fall. To achieve a reduction of the coordination costs requires substantial scaling up which was not feasible with the capital available to KU as originally constituted. <o:p></o:p></div>
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An important contribution of the Knowledge Unlatched model is that it makes it possible for publishers to receive an upfront payment. By helping publishers to recoup the costs of publishing a monograph early in its life-cycle the Knowledge Unlatched model reduces the risks associated with publishing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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For instance, publishers may then choose to produce paperback versions at lower prices as soon as a book is published – where they might otherwise have had to stick to the hardback format in order to recover their input costs before making paperback versions of a title available. I’ve written more on BPC charges <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jep/3336451.0021.101?view=text;rgn=main">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: You recently stepped down as CEO of KU in order to do other things. Preparatory to your handing management over to Sven Fund, KU was transitioned from being a UK-based non-profit to a German-based for-profit and is now owned by Fund’s consultancy company </span></i></b><a href="http://fullstopp.com/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">fullstopp</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. I think this happened in 2016. But when did you formally leave KU, and can you talk me through the process by which KU moved from being a non-profit to a for-profit, and how the staff were formally moved from a UK non-profit to a for-profit based in Germany? How does such a transition work? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> I set up Knowledge Unlatched as a membership-based Community Interest Company (CIC) in 2012. This is a UK legal form that is similar to a US B-Corp.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Between 2012 and 2014 direct and in-kind support for the Knowledge Unlatched CIC start-up and proof of concept phases came from a range of sources, including from philanthropic foundations and libraries. Full details of how the first phases of the project were funded are available in the Full Pilot Report <a href="https://culturalscience.org/articles/abstract/10.5334/csci.68/">here</a>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The goal of the pilot was always to develop a financially <i>sustainable</i> model for coordinating the costs of OA for high-quality scholarly monograph publishing. After the proof of concept phase our financial modelling showed that if Knowledge Unlatched was able to achieve a sufficient volume to support core overhead and marketing costs, it could be sustainable. What was required was a capital investment to reach this scale.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This capital was hard to raise. As a not-for-profit CIC with few assets, we were not able to take on commercial loans. Grant-giving bodies and philanthropic funders regarded the proof of concept as a success – and therefore not requiring further funding from them. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-montgomery-8929a41/?originalSubdomain=au">Lucy Montgomery’s</a> ability to continue working full time on Knowledge Unlatched had come to an end (she had been funded by a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellowship from an Australian University, and her fellowship term had concluded). <o:p></o:p></div>
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Like many such efforts seeking funding to expand to sustainability, Knowledge Unlatched was neither fish nor fowl – not seen as an investment opportunity with future returns, nor appropriate for grants. Despite approaching several players with both capital and a potential strategic interest we could not raise the necessary funding. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was at the point of calling it a day, and in any case was seriously stretched myself as CEO of Manchester University Press. <o:p></o:p></div>
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However, others urged us to continue beyond proof of concept. I therefore provided the capital personally by loaning the CIC a small six-figure amount of money (obtained from my pension savings) to continue covering costs. That is, I provided a loan to KU CIC to cover the running costs of the second round, which was launched in 2015.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We also secured some additional funding from <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/">Curtin University</a> in Australia and in the second pilot round we doubled the number of publishers and tripled the number of books. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Then in late 2015 Sven Fund – who had already left de Gruyter and was setting up fullstopp – made an offer for some of the Knowledge Unlatched CIC assets, which we accepted. The agreement with fullstopp was completed at the end of March 2016.<br />
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At that point, I handed over Knowledge Unlatched operations to manage the coordination of monograph funding to Sven. I helped out a bit in the next 12 transition months, in order to maximise the chances that Knowledge Unlatched would scale successfully.</div>
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After the sale, in 2016 the GmbH paid for some CIC staff time (including a small amount of my time) for assistance over a transition period of a year. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The only person permanently on the payroll of the CIC was the partnership manager who continued working for Knowledge Unlatched CIC part-time from 2016 through to early 2017.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: You say Sven Fund made an offer for some of the Knowledge Unlatched CIC assets and you accepted. Can you say how much you were paid?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> The external valuation of the operations agreed at the time was essentially the amount of the loan that I had made to Knowledge Unlatched CIC. Sven paid this amount to the CIC, and the loan amount was then returned to my pension pot. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There are strict restrictions on how a CIC can sell assets and what it can do with the proceeds (see <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-of-the-regulator-of-community-interest-companies">here</a>). We were guided through the process by <a href="https://www.bwbllp.com/">BWB</a>, who incidentally also developed the CIC legal form in the UK and were especially well placed to make sure we followed the rules.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I note you are still listed on the KU web site as a member of the advisory board. How would you describe your role and relationship with KU now? Do you have any ownership stake in the company today?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP</b>: I am an unpaid member of the advisory board and I have no stake in Knowledge Unlatched GmbH. The advisory board is consulted from time to time – with about 2-3 conference calls a year. Although called a ‘board’ it has no legal status under German law. I will be stepping down from this advisory board in March 2019.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>RP:<i> Do you have any role within/ownership of fullstopp?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> No.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>RP: I see there is also still </i></b><a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08147371/officers"><b><i>an active non-profit UK company</i></b></a><b><i> called Knowledge Unlatched listed in Companies House.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>Yes,<b> </b>KU Research (<a href="http://www.kuresearch.org/index.html">KUR</a>) is the current trading name of Knowledge Unlatched CIC. During 2014-15 we were developing the idea of KU Research. This would be a vehicle to develop a high-quality collaborative research programme to support community members to address the new challenges associated with OA for scholarly books.<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, after the sale of the KU core business to Sven Fund I continued as Executive Director of KU Research which remained with the <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08147371">UK based Community Interest Company</a>. This operates independently from the German-based Knowledge Unlatched GmbH and has no legal relationship with it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>RP: Earlier this year it was </i></b><a href="http://www.kuresearch.org/news9.htm"><b><i>reported</i></b></a><b><i> that you had stepped down from that organisation too, to be replaced by Cameron Neylon. You are still listed on the KU Research web site. Do you have a continuing role at KU Research?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> Yes, about six months ago Cameron Neylon took over as Executive Director of KU Research. He and Lucy Montgomery are in the process of developing a new business plan for KU Research, which will include a formal change of name to avoid confusion. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fullstopp and Knowledge Unlatched GmbH have no role in KU Research. The formal name will be changed as soon as practicable. Ideas for a name would be welcomed. Names are hard. It took me two years to find and settle on Knowledge Unlatched!<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I remain a member of the board of KU Research (the UK CIC) and plan to step down in March 2019.<b> </b>A new website is in the pipeline – along with the name change for KU Research. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The website you refer to has been static since Cameron Neylon took over.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>RP: You say that KUR has no legal relationship with KU GmbH. However, I believe there is a profit-sharing scheme in place, and that KU Research receives money from KU? How does that work?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> As part of the sale of the KU core business it was agreed that in the event that Knowledge Unlatched GmbH made a surplus in the first three years of operation then 50% of that surplus would be paid to Knowledge Unlatched CIC.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>RP: Can you say how much has been paid to KUR by Knowledge Unlatched GmbH under the profit-sharing scheme, and whether there will be any further payments?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> The 50/50 profit share which covers the first three years of the GmbH operations produced no income for the CIC in the first year, £12,000 for the second year and as yet an unknown amount for the 3<sup>rd</sup> year, though we expect it to be in the same ballpark.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">New products</span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: KU has been very active this year launching a range of new products/initiatives, including KU Select, KU Partners and KU Open Funding. Were you involved in the development of these products?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">FP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">No.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: As I understand it, KU Open Funding is intended to act as a broker between authors, publishers and research institutions so that authors can publish their books open access. How significant a change of direction do you think this is for KU? Do you think it could prove a powerful force in the growth of OA monographs?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> I think Knowledge Unlatched GmbH has identified a need to bring some order to how funding is channelled from sources of funding to publishers. Managing APCs is problematic, and it would be good if the community did not make the same mistakes with BPCs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: One of the criticisms we have seen recently is that KU Open Funding was asking publishers to sign exclusive contracts. The concern is that these exclusive contracts would allow KU to dominate and monopolise the OA monograph market, not least because it will make it difficult for competing platforms to emerge. And as the tool incorporated into KU Open Funding will be tied to the platform there is concern that customers will become locked into a for-profit proprietary platform. Do you see any dangers here, or understand why some are concerned about this development?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>I understand Knowledge Unlatched GmbH has responded to the complaints about exclusivity and these contracts are now not made on an exclusive basis. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I encourage competition and hope this will bring forth lots of new ideas on how the support of high-quality OA monographs can be provided.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>RP: Other OA monograph publishers seem more inclined to develop jointly-owned and managed (and open) alternative platforms. Do you think they can be as successful as a for-profit proprietary platform like Knowledge Unlatched GmbH?<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>I am sure there are many successful routes to OA publishing. I believe in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Crossick">Geoff Crossick’s</a> <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20180322111256/http:/www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/pubs/indirreports/2015/Monographs,and,open,access/2014_monographs.pdf">statement</a> that there is no single model that will work for all books.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>RP: Unless I missed it, both the change of ownership and the change of status (nonprofit to for-profit) of KU was not shared with the research community. Indeed, it seems it was only when a former KU employee published a blog post about KU last month that it became widely known, with some who work in the area expressing </i></b><a href="https://twitter.com/samoore_/status/1039483048528621569"><b><i>surprise</i></b></a><b><i> at the news. Do you think that perhaps it was this that led to the recent criticism of KU? <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> This is incorrect. A press release was issued and distributed widely. The legal status of the current KU GmbH is stated clearly on every invoice and every formal letter of correspondence as required by German law. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I cannot comment on why people did not note the change, or why it has suddenly, now two and a half years later, become an issue for some people. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Another concern that has been raised by some in the research community is that Research England has </span></i></b><a href="https://re.ukri.org/blog/helen-snaith/open-access-and-monographs/"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">commissioned fullstopp</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> to conduct a quantitative analysis of the current landscape of book publishing in order to provide key evidence to the Universities UK monograph working group. Research England </span></i></b><a href="https://plus.google.com/+RichardPoynder/posts/Ek8Wg2oQiLz"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">say</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> that fullstopp was open about its relationship with Knowledge Unlatched in its bid submission and that the bid assessors did not perceive there to be a conflict of interest. Nevertheless, it has been put to me that if the Research England report comes back recommending a KU-like model, it will smack of conflict of interest, even though that model may be the most workable/the most sensible. What are your views on this?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> I hope it is now clear the ‘Knowledge Unlatched model’ includes a number of initiatives. It would be unfortunate, if not downright silly, if the choice of a contractor for a highly specific piece of quantitative landscape research limited the scope for Research England as a strategic organization to come to an informed conclusion. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Knowledge Unlatched GmbH and/or fullstopp are not producing policy recommendations. Any recommendations made by Research England, Universities UK, Jisc or other bodies are likely to raise some controversy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A well-crafted and transparent quantitative study providing high-quality data on the details of publishers of UK monographs will be important in helping to navigate these challenging issues.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What might seem strange is that last October you co-authored a </span></i></b><a href="http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/6693/1/Landscape_study_on_OA_and_Monographs_Oct_2017_KE.pdf"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">180-page landscape study</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> of the OA monograph environment. Does that not suggest that the study aspect of moving to an OA monograph environment is being somewhat over-egged?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">FP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is a peculiar question. The studies are quite different, and, in any case, surely more comprehensive information is the basis for making informed policy decisions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The KE Landscape Study examined monograph publishing in eight countries at a high level looking at funding streams and business models. The UKRI RFI called for a detailed quantitative analysis of the diversity and concentration of publishers of UK academic monographs, with a focus on submissions to REF2014, including pricing and other aspects not covered in the Landscape Study. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: One controversial topic with regard to OA monographs is that of licensing, with considerable resistance – especially from historians – to the idea of having to attach CC BY licences to their books. What are your views on licensing?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>My views on licensing have always been that authors should have the right to restrict books to CC BY-ND if that is their preference. If a publisher wants to apply a non-commercial restriction that should be allowed as they are generally in a good position to provide alternative formats which do require some investment – even if nothing like the initial “getting to first copy” costs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What other important issues do you think the topic of OA monographs raises that have still to be worked out?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">FP: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I think discovery still needs a lot of work – and it is good to see that this is being recognised. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">As we say in the Knowledge Exchange funded Landscape Study </span><a href="http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/6693/1/Landscape_study_on_OA_and_Monographs_Oct_2017_KE.pdf"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> there are issues around monograph funding, but these are not as insurmountable as people think.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What is your view on the likely future of OA monographs, both in Europe and the world generally? Do you think eventually all publicly-funded scholarly monographs will be available on an OA basis, or just a proportion of them?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>I think the majority of monographs will be made OA. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Some of the obstacles that we face today will find solutions. Remember, we are not living in a static world. I support Geoff Crossick’s view taken in 2015 that the ‘direction of travel is clear’. <o:p></o:p></div>
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There will be road bumps, but if people of good will work together there is a bright future for monographs and the global dissemination of knowledge. That is the prize and we mustn’t lose sight of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Finally, can you say where you will be putting your efforts going forward? Will you continue to be involved in scholarly publishing for the foreseeable future?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b>FP: </b>I’m now a research associate at the London School of Economics. I am working on the history of book-burning, as a rich source of examples of past efforts to de-legitimise knowledge. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I expect to be bowing out of the OA arena entirely in 2019. I wish all of you well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>RP: Ok, good luck with your new endeavours. And thank you for agreeing to do this interview.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<b>FP:</b> And I would like to thank you for the opportunity to tell your audience the KU and KU Research stories. It has been a fascinating journey for me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In setting out to solve a single problem I learnt a great deal about the complexities of scholarly communications and have met some wonderful people who are all working hard to make access to knowledge more open for the global good.</div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-55285039322166389762018-11-18T14:09:00.000+00:002018-11-18T14:11:17.893+00:00The OA Interviews: Arul George Scaria<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One common criticism of the open access and open science movements is that they tend to take a standardised view of science and scholarship, and so propose one-size-fits-all approaches when advocating for ways of making research and the research process more open and transparent. This often poses significant challenges for, for instance, researchers in non-STEM disciplines. It is also often deeply problematic for those based in the global South.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is one of the reasons why open access has become a source of considerable conflict and divisiveness, particularly as more and more researchers find themselves subjected to increasingly demanding and standardised OA mandates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For instance, while many scientists (but by no means all) may be willing to make their work available with a CC BY licence attached, those working in arts, humanities and social science (AHSS) subjects often object strongly when told they must do so – usually for <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13555502.2013.865981?src=recsys">good reasons</a></span>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Likewise, the increasing move to pay-to-publish gold OA poses serious problems for those without access to the necessary funds to pay the associated publishing costs. With growing calls for a global flip of all subscription journals to a pay-to-publish model, this is now a very real issue. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Again, it is those working in AHSS and the global South who are particularly challenged by this development. In addition, it presents those journals published by learned societies with an existential threat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Global process</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is also important to bear in mind that scholarly communication is a global process and endeavour. As such, changes introduced in the global North tend to have implications for those in the South as well, often with harmful consequences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is the possible outcome, for instance, of the current European initiative dubbed <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S">Plan S</a></span>. If it triggered a global flip to pay-to-publish (which currently seems very possible) Plan S would disenfranchise researchers based in the global South in a more fundamental way than the current subscription system does.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">(For a more detailed exposition of the concerns researchers have over Plan S see this <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/plansopenletter/open-letter">open letter</a></span>, which has attracted the signature of over 1,300 researchers so far).</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is important, therefore, that advocates for greater openness do not assume the world of science and scholarship to be uniform when advocating for change, and that those implementing open policies consider carefully disciplinary differences, local needs, local conditions and local practices before seeking to force change on the research community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In short, governments and funders need to understand both the global forces at play and local conditions prior to introducing new open policies and initiatives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is therefore to be welcomed that the Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://ciipc.org/">CIIPC</a></span>) in New Delhi has conducted a landscape survey of the current situation in India as concerns open science (although due to feasibility concerns, the sample was restricted to a limited number of disciplines and institutions: Economics, Law, Mechanical Engineering, Medicine, and Physics were). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The study’s principal investigator was Arul George Scaria, Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director at CIIPC, and he is currently working on a report based on the survey (available in draft form <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osf.io/aj9gw/">here</a></span>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the interview with me below Arul George Scaria explains what the survey discovered and what recommendations the report will make as a result. He also answers some additional questions I put to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here are a few quotes from the interview, but please read the full interview to get the complete picture. Those interested in the matter will clearly want to read the report too:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“The overall scenario with regard to open science practices in India is not that promising and we need to take a lot more steps to make science open.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Some of the most experienced scientists and policymakers in India maintain strongly that there is no crisis in science in India, despite clear evidence of the magnitude of the problem. Some of them might be taking that position because they think that accepting the existence of the crisis is harmful to the image of science in India.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It may not be advisable or possible to transplant the approaches being adopted for open science in the global North to a country like India, where access conditions and socio-economic situations are vastly different.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“In the context of global South, it is also important to focus on creating offline resources and some of the specific suggestions put forward in the report include more focus on print media, community radio stations, and creation of shared physical infrastructures.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“We need to ensure that initiatives like Plan S do not incentivise a complete shift to the pay-to-publish gold open access model. This would certainly be detrimental to researchers in the global South, as it would mean that most would be unable to share their research due to the exorbitant charges imposed by publishers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Predatory publishing is an important challenge that needs to be addressed in India.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">-<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What we are witnessing today is the capture of shared community resources by a handful of cash-rich conglomerates who want to monopolise every aspect of science communication. We as a community need to fight back against the monopolisation of our resources. As most researchers still appear to be unaware of the long-term consequences of such monopolisation, extensive campaigns are needed in order to create awareness among researchers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The interview begins …</span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Can you start by saying something briefly about yourself, your background and your current research interests?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I’m an Assistant Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://ciipc.org/">CIIPC</a></span>) at the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://nludelhi.ac.in/home.aspx">National Law University, Delhi</a></span>. I’m also an Affiliate Faculty of the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://copyx.org/">CopyrightX</a></span> program, which is a course offered under the auspices of the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://hls.harvard.edu/">Harvard Law School</a></span>, the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://harvardx.harvard.edu/">HarvardX</a></span> distance-learning initiative, and the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/">Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society</a></span>, Harvard University. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I teach and research in the areas of innovation, intellectual property, and competition law. My current research interests are open science, open innovation, and regulation of digital markets in the context of big data, AI, and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things">IoT</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: How did you become interested in open access and open science? Would you describe yourself as an OA advocate? If so, why? What strengths and benefits do you feel it offers over traditional methods?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Access to knowledge resources is a constant challenge in the global South, and my own experiences as a student/ researcher in India have confirmed this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As a student, I noticed that even the most resourceful libraries in India did not have access to all the essential journals and books. But I was clueless about the root causes of this crisis and its magnitude. It was never a talking point since most of my colleagues did not even realise that the crisis existed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Perhaps it was internalised as one among the many life-struggles and everyday bureaucratic trials that one has to live with and undergo in a country like India. Most research mentors also did not push students to go beyond materials that are easily accessible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, when I moved for my doctoral studies to the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ip.mpg.de/en.html">Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition</a></span> in Munich, I could see how much effort a country like Germany has been putting into making knowledge more accessible to the public, in spite of the fact that Germany is a far more economically wealthy country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here I’m talking not just about the specific open access initiatives we see in Germany, but also about the excellent network of public libraries which make knowledge accessible for the broader public. This prompted me to open myself up to the growing number of open access initiatives across the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Subsequently, as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Catholic University of Louvain (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://uclouvain.be/en/index.html">UCL</a></span>) in Belgium, under the guidance of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://biogov.uclouvain.be/staff/dedeurwaerdere/tom.html">Prof. Tom Dedeurwaerdere</a></span>, I had an opportunity to learn a lot more about diverse open movements and to read closely the works of scholars like <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom">Prof. Elinor Ostrom</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">All this convinced me how exigent inclusive knowledge production is for countries like India. On my return to India and my joining the National Law University in Delhi, open science naturally became a compelling research priority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I prefer to call myself an open science advocate, as open science is a much broader movement than open access. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">With regard to the third part of your question, yes, there are obvious advantages to open access. The traditional methods of access (which remains the contemporary research scenario in India) promotes exclusivity in access to knowledge as well as in the production of knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The open science movement challenges this by trying to make knowledge production more inclusive. It advocates for broader participation in the production of knowledge through diverse open initiatives. That’s the biggest strength I see the open science movement having. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Open access vs. open science</span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: How would explain open access and open science – and how they differ/ interact with one another – to a layperson?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I would say the simplest but most comprehensive definition of open access I have seen is Prof. Peter Suber’s. His definition reads: “Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This definition can to a great extent also help us in differentiating open access from the broader concept of open science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While the key focus of the open access movement is to make content available free of cost online, open science goes much beyond that and tries to make knowledge production more inclusive and transparent. So, open science encompasses all the ‘open’ movements, including open access, open data, open source software, and open lab notes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I must add here that there is no single, comprehensive definition of open science. In our open science project, we defined it (based on the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TUgPNtjZUak753cHG0J6YnrjkR7rZpv0IteWxlbQIxI/edit#gid=223687104">mapping of diverse definitions</a> of open science available today) as “scientific inquiries wherein the characteristics of accessibility, transparency, usability, and non- or minimal existence of IP restrictions, are evident and exist throughout all stages of research. It is also characterised by openness to inclusiveness, collaboration, constant and continuous transfer of knowledge between producers and users of knowledge, and prioritisation of research and innovation based on social needs.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To summarise, open access is part of the broader open science movement and one cannot practise open science without open access. However, it may not be the case vice-versa. There are many scholars who have adopted open access, but they may not be practising open science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For example, people may share their scientific publications through open access repositories, but they may not make their works accessible to lay-people, or they may not support collaboration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: believe you take a particular interest in the copyright aspects of open science. What, in your view, are the implications of the current copyright regime for the open access and open science movements?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Fine-tuning the IP system – particularly copyright law – is integral to the success of the open science movement. Over the years, most countries have added more and more layers of IP protection and extended the duration of protection for most subject matter. It is high time we asked ourselves whether we should continue with this IP maximalist approach. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the specific context of copyright, it is important that we do not allow copyright law to prevent dissemination of knowledge resources. We need to broaden the exceptions and limitations under the copyright system so that we can regain a balance within the copyright system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the context of the broader open access and open science movements, we may even have to think about a shift from today’s automatic protection regime (i.e. copyright protection doesn’t require registration) to a registration/ renewal-based system for copyright protection. This would mean that more works would be available in the public domain without access and usage restrictions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Needless to say, this would require radical changes to the current multilateral legal system. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Research findings</span></h3>
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<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: You were the principal investigator for the “Open Science India Report” (currently in draft form <a href="https://osf.io/aj9gw/">here</a></span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">). I believe this is based on a survey that set out to explore the current situation in India with regard to open science. Can you say briefly what your main findings were?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Yes, the report results from a survey we conducted among researchers in India working in different disciplines/ institutions. The data, in general, suggest that open science is yet to become a priority for most researchers. While it may not be possible to discuss all the findings, let me share some of the key findings: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The survey data show that while most researchers use publications and data which are accessible online, only a minority share their publications or data through open access repositories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While unwillingness to pay article processing charges (APCs) and an inability to pay these are cited by many as important factors dissuading them from sharing their publications, it is important to note that around 44% of respondents said that they would be prepared to share their data openly <i>only</i> when all the research and publications based on those data are completed. This reveals the “exclusivity” approach we currently follow with regard to knowledge resources! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In considering these responses we need also to be aware that for most researchers there will never come to a point in their academic life in which they feel that all potential research and publications based on their data have been completed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I would also note that our survey also shows that most of the researchers we surveyed did not see any benefit from sharing either publications or data! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I noted, making knowledge production inclusive is an important aspect of open science. Unfortunately, our survey data also reveal that we as researchers are not taking sufficient steps to make science inclusive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">If we take the case of people with disabilities as an example here: we still view such people as consumers of science and not potential producers. Thus, our survey data show that although many institutions have started to provide ramp and wheelchair facilities, only around 11% provide Braille textbooks and only around 18 % provide audiobooks. Don’t we need a change in this approach? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We also found that most researchers are unaware of any institutional measures for making research outputs produced in their institution accessible to people with disabilities, further indicating that there are hardly any measures taken at the institutional level in this regard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We found a similar situation with regard to communicating science in a language accessible to the broader public. The survey data show that only a small number of researchers regularly share simplified versions of their research findings. In a multilingual country like India, it is also important to communicate science in regional languages in order for it to be accessible to the broader public. While some of our policymakers, including the current Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister, have emphasised this aspect in many interviews and talks, our data show that the vast majority of respondents (around 79%) have never shared translated versions of their research in regional languages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The survey data also provide some insights into transparency-related measures taken by respondents. While close to half of them were of the view that the failure to reproduce scientific studies is a major problem in their field, the data also indicate that there are insufficient disclosure practices on the part of researchers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That is, while most researchers reported that they share research methodology, most of them do not appear to be routinely sharing other important information like negative results and sources of funding. Yet these are integral to addressing the reproducibility crisis in science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Our survey data also show that most respondents are unaware of any mandates from their funding agencies or institutions with regard to the disclosure of research methodology, research tools, negative results, errors in research, errors in data, and other limitations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To summarise, the overall scenario with regard to open science practices in India is not that promising and we need to take a lot more steps to make science open. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Recommendations</span></h3>
<h2>
<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: What recommendations do you make in the report, and to whom are these recommendations addressed?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Our main recommendations are made in Chapter 4 of the report. So, we suggest that if Indian researchers want to address the crisis in science, we need a holistic and inclusive approach involving participation from all stakeholders. Hence our chapter is addressed to all the stakeholders in science including, but not limited to, researchers, policy makers, funding agencies, and institutions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Apart from providing examples wherever possible with most of our recommendations, we have also tried to specifically mention what each stakeholder can do with regard to that recommendation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This was done with the aim of not just making it easier for each stakeholder to understand what they can do, but also to convey to each stakeholder that their action is part of a broader set of actions required in that particular area. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The main recommendations of the study include the need to create more awareness of the necessity for open science; to make openness and open science a priority in science at all levels; to introduce more robust open access, open data, open source software, and open hardware policies and practices; to have funding agencies, institutions and the government properly monitor and enforce such policies; to create shared resources; to fine-tune approaches towards IP (in particular, taking a more liberal approach to the limitations and exceptions under the copyright law); to introduce broader educational policy reforms to alleviate socio-economic barriers with regard to gender, caste, disability, etc. so as to make production of science more inclusive; to create facilities that enable the accessibility of knowledge resources for people with disabilities; to create incentives for sharing simplified and translated versions of research; to make research outputs available in machine-readable and interoperable formats; to enable a shift from pursuing sensational or “attractive” findings in favour of transparent and socially relevant research; to introduce and implement transparency-related mandates; to improve peer review; to encourage intra- and interdisciplinary collaboration; to share intermediate processes and findings; and to pursue more meaningful engagement with people outside the ‘mainstream’ scientific community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The report also suggests the need for re-thinking the criteria used by policymakers, institutions, and funding agencies when evaluating the performance of researchers. We need a radical shift from the current approach which focuses solely on the number of publications, journal impact factor, number of patents, etc. Open science practices must be given due weight in the evaluation process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, the report points out that it may not be advisable or possible to transplant the approaches being adopted for open science in the global North to a country like India, where access conditions and socio-economic situations are vastly different. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the context of the global South, it is also important to focus on creating offline resources, and some of the specific suggestions we put forward in the report include a greater focus on print media, community radio stations, and creation of shared physical infrastructures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Can you say a little bit more about offline open access resources and who would benefit from them? I assume this is intended to inform and educate the public, and perhaps “citizen scientists”, rather than researchers? Can you give me an example? Do you see this as a peculiarly Indian need?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://indiankanoon.org/doc/560422/">Art. 51 (h) of the Constitution of India</a></span> says that it is the duty of every citizen to develop “scientific <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/temper">temper</a></span>, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. Can the citizens of India develop this scientific state of mind without access to scientific knowledge? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In a country like India, where the digital divide is substantial (some estimates suggest that only around 31% of the population in India has internet access, while a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/16/china-outpaces-india-in-internet-access-smartphone-ownership/">2017 report from Pew Research Centre</a></span> suggest that only around 21% of adults in India use the internet at least occasionally or own a smartphone), it is extremely important to focus on alternative offline resources. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One way of doing this would be to share simplified versions of scientific information in print form. In fact, it should be mandatory to share simplified summaries of research produced in publicly-funded research and educational institutions. So doctoral candidates defending their theses could be asked to make a short and simplified presentation of their research on the thesis defence day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some of the more reputable universities (e.g. the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/">University of Tilburg in the Netherlands</a></span>) are already insisting on this, and as a thesis examiner, I have witnessed how useful it is for both the public and the doctoral candidate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another important area where we need radical change is in providing access to libraries. In a country like India, it is important to invest in building an excellent network of public libraries across all villages and towns in the country. Every such library should be able to provide access to a good collection of books. Inter-library loans can facilitate this to a great extent, as the practices in German public libraries demonstrates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This network of libraries should also provide easy access to digital journals. The Government of India should use the power of collective bargaining to reduce the costs of both print and digital materials in this regard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is also important to provide easy access to the libraries of publicly-funded educational institutions. While technically many of these institutions allow access to the public, they tend to put in place enormous bureaucratic procedures, including requiring recommendation and authorisation letters from faculty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Why should the public need a recommendation letter before they can access materials bought using taxpayers’ money? It is high time to challenge and change such elitist practices in educational and research institutions in India. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I briefly indicated earlier, we should also try to make use of opportunities like community radio stations to communicate science to the broader public. Maybe specific incentives could be given to educational and research institutions to encourage this. We should also encourage them to communicate science in the context of local problems, with the use of local examples. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Only through such diverse efforts will we be able to develop scientific temper in the country, as envisaged under the Constitution of India. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: Who funded your survey and report? Does it have any official status, and so require a response/ action from the Indian Government or from Indian institutions/ funders/ researchers? Or is it an advisory report?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The report is being produced under the aegis of the Centre for Innovation, IP and Competition, with the help of funding from Qualcomm Inc. It has no “official” status and is advisory in character. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, we hope that all stakeholders, particularly policymakers, funders and researchers, will read the report and work towards developing at least some of the solutions we discuss in the report.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">RP: What would you say were the distinctive characteristics of the research and political environment in India that need to be considered when seeking to introduce open science practices in the country, and what are the distinctive challenges advocates for open science face?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> While there are many distinctive challenges to making open science the norm in India, I would suggest that two of them need specific mention. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The first one is the lack of awareness among researchers and policymakers that there is a serious crisis in science in India. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">During many of my interactions with researchers at different academic levels and different institutions, one thing I have observed is that although most of them have directly experienced at least one aspect of the crisis (for example, an inability to access relevant journal articles for their research and/or teaching), not many see it as an issue that needs to be urgently addressed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Most Indian researchers silently accept the status quo, and many times they (unknowingly) contribute to the problem (by, for example, not sharing their publications and data). This issue has to be addressed. We need to create greater awareness in the hope of persuading more researchers to challenge the status quo. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The second issue is more complex: Some of the most experienced scientists and policymakers in India maintain strongly that there is no crisis in science in India, despite clear evidence of the magnitude of the problem. Some of them might be taking that position because they think that accepting the existence of the crisis is harmful to the image of science in India. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But it is very difficult to make meaningful change when policymakers take this attitude. Accepting the existence of a problem is the most important step in addressing it, and so open science advocates need to fight to change the attitude of policymakers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">More challenges </span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: You said that it may not be advisable or possible to transplant the approaches to open science being developed in the Global North to a country like India. As you know, in Europe right now there is a new initiative called <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_S">Plan S</a></span>. This aims to ensure that from 2020 all new research funded by a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/">growing number of funder signatories</a></span> is made freely available on the internet. Clearly, for Indian researchers as consumers of scholarly papers, it would be a positive thing if the Plan S objectives were realised. But if (as some argue it will) Plan S triggered a global flip of subscription journals to a pay-to-publish gold OA model it would presumably have a negative impact on researchers in India and the global South as authors of research, particularly if they need/want to publish in international journals. What are your views on Plan S and its likely impact on India and the global South? For instance, if pay-to-publish became the norm would not researchers in the global South find that they had to pay a lot of money to have their research published?</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I have mixed feelings about Plan S. On the positive side, it is really great to see different national research funding agencies coming together and strongly asserting that the results from publicly-funded research must be communicated through open access journals or open access platforms from January 1, 2020. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I truly hope that this will incentivise more countries to join the open access movement. Only through such collective efforts will we be able to address the global crisis in access to knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is also good to see that Plan S has taken a strong position against hybrid journals, as they often engage in double dipping (taking money both from contributors to the journal as well as from readers of the journal). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other side, we need to ensure that initiatives like Plan S do not incentivise a complete shift to the pay-to-publish gold open access model. This would certainly be detrimental to researchers in the global South, as it would mean that most would be unable to share their research due to the exorbitant charges imposed by publishers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It would also be detrimental to science in general, since science without the perspectives and participation of the global South is incomplete science, and in many cases also misleading science! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I hope that this danger of Plan S is given due attention during the implementation planning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One way to address the issue is to promote green open access as a component of the implementation of Plan S – through the sharing of preprints in repositories for instance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The other option would be to support researchers in different disciplines so that they can establish open access journals that do not charge APCs. This is practically feasible today as digital communication technologies have considerably lowered the cost of disseminating knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is also important to note that most of the important aspects of the publication process (for example, the preparation of manuscripts and the review of manuscripts) are undertaken by researchers without remuneration. Given this, funding agencies could easily subsidise APC-free journals by underwriting the administration costs. It would also help establish excellent open and inclusive journals in diverse disciplines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Other modes of communication, including the sharing of simplified versions of findings through social media, should also be emphasised in initiatives like Plan S with the aim of making science more inclusive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: You said some Indian researchers fear that the image of science in India will be harmed if they acknowledge that there is a crisis in the areas you mentioned. As you will know, pay-to-publish gold OA has encouraged the rise of a phenomenon that has been dubbed “predatory publishing”, and some maintain that India is a hotbed for predatory publishing. The Indian Government appears to have been <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06048-2">struggling to tackle this problem</a></span>. Others, however, argue that so-called predatory publishing is not what critics claim and that many publishers and journals in the global South have been wrongly classified as predatory. What are your views on predatory publishing, the exact nature and extent of the problem (if you accept that there is one), and the impact it is having on the Indian research community?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Predatory publishing is an important challenge that needs to be addressed in India. Some studies have shown that India has the highest number of predatory publishers, and some show that Indian researchers are the greatest contributors to predatory journals. However, I feel these two issues need more deliberation if we want to address the challenge effectively. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">First, it is important to recognise that the issue of predatory publishing is not limited to open access journals. There are many closed-access publishers in India who will publish anything for a payment. So, in discussing the issue of predatory publishing we have to understand that this is an issue related to scientific publishing in general. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Second, we need to ask ourselves why predatory publishers have flourished in a country like India. And it is clear that the primary reason is the current incentive structure. When deciding whether to promote researchers most institutions in India use the Academic Performance Indicators (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.fmuniversity.nic.in/pdf/API_UGC_FORM.pdf">API</a></span>) produced by the University Grants Commission (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Grants_Commission_(India)">UGC</a></span>). If one examines the API system, it is immediately evident that the focus is on quantity and not quality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Consequently, researchers are being given the perverse incentive of increasing the number of their publications and in doing so not many will have the time or patience to focus on quality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Was this ever the purpose of science communication? The situation is alarming and only by means of radical change to the current incentive structure will we be able to address this issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: You said earlier that while the key focus of the open access movement is making content available free of cost online, open science goes well beyond this and aims to make the whole knowledge production process more inclusive and transparent, including making things like lab notes freely available online. You will perhaps know that there is today some concern among OA advocates at the way in which legacy publishers like Elsevier are acquiring more and more of the knowledge production infrastructure – including services that are essentially a product of the open access movement (e.g. Mendeley and SSRN) – as well as traditional pieces of the publishing infrastructure such as publication workflow solutions like <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/corporate/elsevier-to-acquire-aries-systems-a-best-in-class-publication-workflow-solutions-provider">Aries Systems</a></span>. The concern is that in doing so legacy companies will be able to lock the research community into proprietary systems that will prove as expensive and controversial as the subscription <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.infotoday.com/it/sep11/the-big-deal-not-price-but-cost.shtml">Big Deal</a></span>. For instance, in 2016 Elsevier acquired a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=9,430,468.PN.&OS=PN/9,430,468&RS=PN/9,430,468">peer review patent</a></span> and recently it acquired the manuscript submission and peer-review tracking system <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ariessys.com/software/editorial-manager/">Editorial Manager</a></span>. EM is widely used by publishers, including OA publishers like PLOS. (Elsevier’s moves in this area have been documented in <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://knowledgegap.org/index.php/sub-projects/rent-seeking-and-financialization-of-the-academic-publishing-industry/preliminary-findings/">this article</a></span>). In light of this, we are seeing calls for “open infrastructures”. As the authors of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://cameronneylon.net/blog/principles-for-open-scholarly-infrastructures/">this post</a></span> put it, “Everything we have gained by opening content and data will be under threat if we allow the enclosure of scholarly infrastructures.” What is your take on this development, and what implications do you feel it might have for open science, particularly for those working in the global South?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">AGS: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I completely agree with the views expressed by Geoffrey Bilder, Jennifer Lin, and Cameron Neylon in ‘<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://cameronneylon.net/blog/principles-for-open-scholarly-infrastructures/">Principles for Open Scholarly Infrastructures’</a></span>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What we are witnessing today is the capture of shared community resources by a handful of cash-rich conglomerates who want to monopolise every aspect of science communication. We as a community need to fight back against the monopolisation of our resources. As most researchers still appear to be unaware of the long-term consequences of such monopolisation, extensive campaigns are needed in order to create awareness among researchers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We should also fight this issue legally. Antitrust law might be a useful tool in this regard, as in my view many of the actions of legacy publishers like Elsevier violate antitrust law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Likewise, we should use the opposition procedures available under patent law to prevent frivolous patents like the peer review patent you highlighted being granted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-34441326756426697022018-11-12T15:56:00.000+00:002018-11-12T15:56:51.671+00:00Plan S and Researchers’ Rights: (Re)Framing Academic Freedom<div class="n00" style="line-height: normal; margin-top: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When in 1915 the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was formed, and published its <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/A6520A9D-0A9A-47B3-B550-C006B5B224E7/0/1915Declaration.pdf">Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure</a></span>, it was responding to a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_of_University_Professors#History">specific historical situation</a></span>. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Today the historical situation researchers find themselves in is different and academic freedom faces <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://ceupress.com/book/academic-freedom">new challenges</a></span>. What complicates the picture is that there is considerable disagreement over what exactly academic freedom is, and what aspects of academic life it covers. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This lack of consensus has become all too apparent in the current discussions about Plan S. Indeed, some of those who support Plan S maintain that academic freedom is no longer relevant, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://twitter.com/jasonHoyt/status/1059784394116947968">or has ceased to exist in any meaningful way</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/">key principle</a></span> of Plan S – which a growing number of funders are signing up to – is that “After 1 January 2020 scientific publications on the results from research funded by public grants provided by national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Most (if not all) researchers would surely agree that this is a laudable goal. But for some (we don’t know how many) the way in which it is currently envisaged that Plan S will be implemented raises a red flag with regard to academic freedom. It does not help that those who devised the initiative dismiss these concerns out of hand. The main architect of Plan S – Robert-Jan Smits – <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06936-7">has even bemoaned</a></span> the fact that people are citing academic freedom in the context of Plan S, “because it stifles a lot of debate.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Be that as it may, it is clear that some researchers believe Plan S does have implications for academic freedom. And a growing number of them (currently approaching 1,000) are signing <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/plansopenletter/open-letter">a petition</a></span> that asserts, amongst other things, that Plan S “is a serious violation of academic freedom”. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Given the apparent disenchantment with Plan S amongst at least some in the research community, and given that researchers find themselves increasingly subjected to ever more demanding OA policies like it (in which new duties, new restrictions and limitations, and new responsibilities are imposed on them), it is surely time to look again at what academic freedom does and does not mean, and what it should and should not mean in today’s context, and try to redefine and/or refine it for today’s historical situation; or at least to, as Marc Couture puts it in his guest post below, seek to “reframe” it?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What seems clear to me is that there is a pressing need for a debate about the relevance, role and responsibilities of academic freedom in the context of the growing list of open access policies, with a view to arriving at some kind of consensus. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What also seems clear to me is that this discussion ought to take place amongst researchers before funders seek to impose radical initiatives like Plan S on them. After all, if academic freedom means anything, it surely means that it is researchers and their institutions who should be in the driving seat over this, not funders.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But why not read what Marc Couture has to say below and think about the questions he asks before reaching your own conclusion on these matters. It may well be that Marc’s views on whether and how Plan S has implications for academic freedom are different to mine. But I am not a member of the research community, so my views are not what counts here. What I think <b>does</b> count is what the majority of researchers think. And without a meaningful debate, we will never know that.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">Plan S and Researchers’ Rights: (Re)Framing Academic Freedom</span></i></h3>
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<i>By Marc Couture</i><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Oacf2_KQYKY/W-mdCfbvcII/AAAAAAAAh1g/M5wVOMmiXJQkftMoPBoDpJud9VBwlLAkgCLcBGAs/s1600/MC_2018-11-08-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Oacf2_KQYKY/W-mdCfbvcII/AAAAAAAAh1g/M5wVOMmiXJQkftMoPBoDpJud9VBwlLAkgCLcBGAs/s200/MC_2018-11-08-01.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The announcement of </span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s">Plan S</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> has generated many much needed (and much heated) discussions. I’m pleased to observe that these don’t concern the relevance of open access, whose </span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://works.bepress.com/jean_gabriel_bankier/27/">wide-ranging benefits</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> now seem to be almost universally acknowledged, but only potentially negative side-effects of the massive, if not global, shift to open access that the plan hopes to bring about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Though many aspects of the plan are somewhat unclear, and most details of its implementation are still being drafted, what we do know already raises various worries. One is a possible conflict with academic freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Two requirements of the plan are specifically targeted: (1) publication only in compliant journals (full OA, no hybrid) and (2) dissemination under a licence compliant with the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration">Berlin OA definition</a></span>, which would require authors to accept ceding generous usage rights in their works to others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I must say first that I firmly believe that academic freedom is important; it is at the very heart of higher education. Drawing from the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://dailyacademicfreedom.wordpress.com/">numerous available definitions</a></span>, I would formulate its basic, most general definition as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Academic freedom (AF) is the right, for individual academics as well as their institutions, to decide by themselves the subjects and ideas they wish to investigate, disseminate or teach upon without fear of reprisal or censorship, with the ultimate purpose of benefitting both scholarship and the common good.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Some definitions of AF include further rights, for instance the right – individually or as a community – to decide not only what is investigated, disseminated or taught, but how it is done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Others add more specific freedoms, the most relevant in relation to Plan S being the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001132/113234mb.pdf">freedom to choose the publication venue</a></span> for one’s research results. One also remarks that the language used in some definitions can be very strong, qualifying such freedoms as “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure">full</a></span>”, “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.ucdenver.edu/policy/Pages/Academic-Freedom.aspx">complete</a></span>” or “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.gmu.edu/resources/facstaff/senate/EXC_MINUTES_8-17-18.pdf">without constraints</a></span>”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A <i>quid pro quo</i></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It must be pointed out that AF is neither an absolute, divine-like right, nor a “blank check” granted to researchers. It’s rather a privilege, bestowed to academia by society. Moreover, a <i>quid pro quo</i> is at work here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the one hand, society acknowledges that scholarship is the most powerful and trustworthy way to explain the world and solve its problems, as long as it is protected from ideological, political and economic vested interests. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the other hand, scholars, both individually and collectively, must act in a responsible way, by living up to the values underpinning scholarship (rationality, critical thinking, honesty and respect in debates) and the common good (equity, inclusivity, human dignity).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So far, the discussions on actual or potential conflicts between Plan S and AF have involved specific freedoms found in one or another definition, with participants arguing that:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">(1) This or that requirement of Plan S does (or doesn’t) concern, or conflict with, AF<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">(2) This or that measure proposed in Plan S may concern or conflict with AF, but other things as problematic, if not more, have been going on for years in academia without anybody complaining<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">(3) (Generally, in response to #1 or #2) this or that definition of AF is unclear, outdated or irrelevant, and must be dismissed, or interpreted in this or that way<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My stance is that while more freedom is <i>a priori</i> preferable in the academy, the exercise of rights included in AF, especially the more specific ones found in its various definitions, may or may not contribute, in a given situation or context, to AF’s ultimate purpose of benefitting scholarship and/or the common good. In fact, it could even do the exact opposite, or entail both benefits and harms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thus, when a measure or a policy seems to conflict with those rights, one should not simply brandish AF as a “trump card” as an argument to counter it, but see this conflict as a warning, inviting one to examine to what extent the exercise of AF, in the situation at hand, effectively benefits – or hinders – scholarship and the common good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let me illustrate this approach by looking at the two issues I mentioned in relation to Plan S where the topic of AF has been brought forth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(1) Constraints on publishing venues</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Plan S puts severe constraints on the venues where research results may be published. This will reduce the choices available to researchers. However, to what extent it will do so is currently hard to assess, as it depends on publishers’ response to Plan S. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Here, any conflict with AF would be of utmost concern, since the right to disseminate one’s results is viewed as part of the basic definition of AF. One such conflict I could foresee in this context is if, when Plan S is finally implemented, researchers choosing marginal or unpopular, yet legitimate, topics or methods found they were unable to publish their results in peer-reviewed scholarly journals altogether, because not one, or too few of those complying with Plan S would consider, let alone accept, their papers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">However, I haven’t seen any mention of such a dire scenario in the discussions about Plan S; considering the ever-increasing number of OA journals in all fields, this is understandable. Rather, the major complaint is that Plan S will impede researchers from publishing in very specific journals, meaning highly selective, high impact ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This is viewed as conflicting with AF, on the grounds that definitions of AF either imply researchers must be the only ones to have a say in the way research is done (this may or may not include publication), or with reference to more specific freedoms, like “full freedom in publication” or the right to choose the publishing venue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is thus not surprising that critics have invoked specific rights associated to AF to oppose measures that could either (1) hurt leading, generally (for the time being) non-compliant journals or (2) impede researchers from publishing in them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">However, researchers wouldn’t lose the possibility of disseminating their results. Most papers submitted to these highly selective journals are rejected not for being faulty, but because they are deemed unimportant, not original enough, or unfit for the venue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nevertheless, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-017-9921-3">most of them</a></span> are subsequently published in other journals, often journals that focus less on criteria like relevance and potential impact and more on the general quality of the paper and the soundness of reasoning and analysis. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What those researchers who succeed in having their papers published in prestigious journals really fear is losing the ability to benefit, career-wise, from the so-called “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://fennia.journal.fi/article/view/70469/32624">prestige economy</a></span>”, where journals are evaluated and ranked according to qualitative (perceived prestige) and, increasingly, quantitative criteria (rejection rates, impact factors), and where individual researchers are judged by their peers in large part on the number of papers and the journals in which the papers appeared.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But there are strong reasons to believe, and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00037">mounting evidence</a></span> to that effect, that this prestige-based evaluation system, as deeply ingrained in academia as it may be, is deeply flawed on many accounts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In addition, the “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">publishing oligopoly</a></span>” of large publishers has skillfully used it to increase its stranglehold on scholarly publication and to justify its skyrocketing costs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One can even argue that the current system conflicts with the freedom of choice in research included in AF’s basic definition. After all, giving prominence to the number of papers and restricting journals that really “count” towards evaluation to leading, high impact ones may in practice make researchers, if they hope to remain in academia, avoid research topics or methods that take too much time to produce results, or that won’t be considered by these highly selective journals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Here we face a peculiar situation where, in the very name of AF, the research community hesitates to let go of, or significantly reform, a system that is far from optimal and that, quite paradoxically, may well limit the AF of individual researchers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cOAlitionS_Preamble.pdf">Preamble of Plan S</a></span> alludes to this prestige economy, by speaking of a “misdirected reward system” and by endorsing the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sfdora.org/">DORA Declaration</a></span>, which proposes that researchers are judged upon the quality and impact of their research, both multi-faceted notions not reducible to numbers and journal names. And while its principles don’t refer explicitly to this system, Plan S has certainly the potential to disturb, or even disrupt it, again to an extent difficult to assess.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thus, one has to put into balance two consequences of the drastic change Plan S hopes to achieve. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the one side, there could be drawbacks for some researchers, though one can think that under a new evaluation paradigm, many if not most of them would still see their valuable work recognized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The importance of high-impact journals, possibly imperilled by Plan S, for assessing the quality of scholarship has also been highlighted, although studies (like <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1418218112">this one</a></span>) draw a more nuanced picture of the efficiency of the gatekeeping they provide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the other side, there are potential benefits to scholarship, in terms of efficiency (e.g., the overall burden of peer-review being reduced, publication delays shortened), and to society (e.g. fewer public funds diverted towards publishers’ revenues and profits, universal access to research results).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(2) The requirement to publish with a liberal licence</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Plan S also requires that the main research results are disseminated under a licence with minimal restrictions (CC BY or similar). Since deciding the way in which one’s works are used may be part of “full freedom in publication”, this requirement may also be viewed as conflicting with AF. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">True, some researchers don’t like to see their works used by others to “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://schadtlab.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/a-rant-on-strawberries-open-access-licenses-and-the-reuse-of-published-papers/">make money</a></span>”; many are also reluctant to let others adapt them, fearing that this may endanger both the quality of scholarship and the author’s own reputation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Again, we might wonder to what extent allowing researchers to decide how their works are used (this includes, ironically, letting publishers become the ones to decide) is beneficial to scholarship and society. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What contributes more to AF’s ultimate purpose: protecting works against uses researchers dislike or fear, or allowing those works to be easily used and adapted? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There are numerous studies and discussions on this topic, covering issues like fear <i>vs</i> actual risk, the fuzziness of the various usage restrictions, and their effects on potential users, that could feed the discussion (see for instance <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://doi.org/10.1629/2048-7754.107">here</a></span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.150.2189">here</a></span> and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://openglam.org/files/2013/01/iRights_CC-NC_Guide_English.pdf">here</a></span>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In short, what I propose here is to reframe the role that academic freedom plays in discussions about the proposals put forth in Plan S, by assessing both their potential consequences on scholarship and the common good as well as the nature of their actual or potential conflict with AF, keeping in mind that the <i>raison d’être</i> of AF is, after all, to benefit scholarship and the common good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">While this leaves much room for interpretation and discussion, notably how we define quality in scholarship and what constitutes the common good, I believe it would help answer questions like: Is Plan S a sound, or reasonable proposal? How can it be improved and implemented in order to reach its stated goal, that is flipping to OA a sizable part of scholarly communication, while bringing benefits to both scholarship and society? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">These are crucial issues, and I see a real danger that a strict, almost dogmatic stance on AF could cause Plan S to fall short of its potential to pave the way towards a less costly, yet <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://fairopenaccess.org/">more fair</a></span>, full-OA scholarly publication system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The author thanks Marie-Josée Legault and Richard Poynder for their helpful comments.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">----<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://teluq.ca/~mcouture/home.htm">Marc Couture</a></span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> was until recently science professor at <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://teluq.ca/site/en">TELUQ</a></span>, University of Quebec distance education arm. He views himself as a generalist, having over his 30-year career had his areas of interest and activity evolve from physics (his PhD was in optics and lasers) to the application of IT in science education, to intellectual property in academia and, above all, open access, for which he remains a dedicated and shameless advocate.</span></i></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-49176589347067853952018-10-10T12:08:00.001+00:002018-10-11T04:32:33.126+00:00“It is for publishers to provide Plan S-compliant routes to publication in their journals.”<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">An interview with Robert-Jan Smits, with preface<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Robert-Jan Smits</span></span></i></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On 4<sup>th</sup> September, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/epsc/team/robert-jan-smits_en">Robert-Jan Smits</a></span>, the Open Access Envoy of the European Commission, and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-schiltz-439663a6/">Marc Schiltz</a></span>, the President of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cOAlitionS_National_Funders.pdf">Science Europe</a></span>, announced <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/">Plan S</a></span>, a radical new initiative designed to ensure that by 2020 all research papers arising from funding provided by 11 (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cOAlitionS_National_Funders.pdf">now 13</a></span>) European funders are made open access immediately on publication. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The plan is based on <a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/">10 clear principles</a> but short on detail as to how those principles will be implemented. If successful, however, Plan S could have a dramatic impact on both publishers and researchers. For instance, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7">reported</a></span> <i>Nature</i>, as written the 10 principles could see European researchers barred from publishing in 85% of journals, including influential titles such as <i>Nature</i> and <i>Science</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The ‘S’ in Plan S can stand for ‘science, speed, solution, shock’, Smits <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7">told</a></span> <i>Nature</i>. Shock would certainly seem to be an appropriate word, and shock was surely what publishers felt when Plan S was announced. After all, they have successfully managed to delay and subvert open access for some 25 years now. They perhaps assumed they could continue doing so. But if successful, Plan S could bring this dilly-dallying to a dramatic end. Alternatively, Plan S could fail to achieve its objectives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That publishers do not like Plan S is, of course, no surprise. That was doubtless what the architects of the initiative anticipated. What they perhaps did not anticipate was that they would face pushback from researchers. Yet just a week after the announcement nine researchers published a critical article entitled, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><a href="https://forbetterscience.com/2018/09/11/response-to-plan-s-from-academic-researchers-unethical-too-risky/">A Response to Plan-S from Academic Researchers: Unethical, Too Risky!</a></i></span> This appears to have shocked the Plan S architects as thoroughly as their plan must have shocked publishers. Smits immediately summoned two of the authors to Brussels, and Schiltz took to Twitter to <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://twitter.com/marcschiltz1/status/1041806272042098689">suggest</a></span> that the article was “slanderous”. [See <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/10/it-is-for-publishers-to-provide-plan-s.html?showComment=1539208540398#c285038190704286201">comment below</a> for more on this].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Since then there has been a torrent of commentary and critique of Plan S, and the initiative is proving uncomfortably divisive. While publishers (and at least some researchers) are appalled by Plan S, open access advocates, as could be expected, have welcomed the initiative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Disappointed</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The problem right now, however, is that there is too little information on how Plan S would work in practice. This means it is nigh impossible for informed commentary to take place, and we are seeing frequent calls for clarification. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On 12<sup>th</sup> September, therefore, I invited Smits to do an interview with me, in the hope that he could provide that clarification. I suggested we do this either by telephone or email. Smits agreed and said he would prefer to do it by email. So, I emailed him a list of questions and waited for his replies. These arrived on Monday this week. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have to confess to being disappointed on reading them. From my perspective, they do not provide the clarification I was hoping they would. I accept that my questions are long and somewhat sceptical (some might say tendentious) but, as I saw it, they offered Smits a chance to dispel some of the confusion around Plan S and to demonstrate that my scepticism is misplaced. I didn’t feel he did either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When I shared my disappointment with Smits he expressed surprise and replied, “I looked once more to the replies I sent to your questions and remain of the opinion that they address the issues you put forward.” He added that he is getting over 300 emails a day and tries to reply to each one – signalling that time is in short supply for him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I am, of course, entirely sympathetic to the challenge Smits faces with Plan S, and the huge demand it must be making on his time. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of confusion out there, and on reading his replies I could not help but feel he had missed an opportunity to clarify matters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This seemed the more striking given his assurance to me that, “my door is open to anyone who wants to drop by to discuss Open Access and Plan S”. He added that he prefers a ‘face to face’ approach to using email. Perhaps it might have helped, I thought, if he had taken up my offer of a telephone interview – or even a face to face on Skype.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Meat in the sandwich</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But maybe I was missing the point. What we learn from what Smits says below perhaps is something that had not occurred to me, and perhaps has not occurred to the many commentators on social media calling for clarification. In two of his answers, Smits indicates that the ball is now in the publishers’ court. As he puts it the first time he says it, “We expect publishers to come forward with offerings which comply with the principles outlined in Plan S”. Later he says, “It is for publishers to provide Plan S-compliant routes to publication in their journals so that researchers can choose where to publish when accepting funding from those who sign Plan S.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This would seem to imply that Smits and the members of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/">cOAlition S</a></span> (the group of funders who have signed up to Plan S) are not currently especially concerned about the details of how the 10 principles will be implemented, just that they will be implemented. In other words, cOAlition S is saying to publishers: “These are the conditions that we plan to insist on when funding research in Europe from 2020. So long as you can meet these conditions the details of how you do so are not of great interest to us right now. It is for you publishers to tell us how <i>you</i> plan to implement the principles.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Presumably, it is only after publishers have done this that cOAlition S expects to publish the implementation plan that Smits talks about below. And while he says he is happy to discuss Plan S with “all interested groups”, Smits insists that cOAlition S will “stand by the principles set out in Plan S”. We might wonder what benefit there is in discussions if cOAlition S is immoveable on the 10 principles. And in the meantime, of course, researchers can expect to face a great deal of uncertainty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That said, at first blush, this might seem like a good approach. In fact, I have myself on a number of occasions argued that publishers should not be treated as stakeholders, but as service providers. As such, the research community should be telling them what services it would like them to provide, and then inviting them to quote for providing them. Only if the conditions and the price are acceptable should the research community then proceed to contract any particular publisher to provide the service tendered for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The problem with the way in which Plan S seems intent on doing this, however, is two-fold. First, regardless of the talk of (unspecified) APC caps, it is not clear how these can be effectively applied – particularly if the rest of the world does not follow Europe’s example. As a result, the research community may find it has to shell out even more money for publishers’ services, regardless of any caps. And what happens if publishers decide not to engage with Plan S in any meaningful way? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Second (and more importantly), it could be argued that European funders are not part of the research community. They are its paymasters. And in the neoliberal environment in which universities now have to operate, researchers’ interests are not fully aligned with those of research funders. This means that in its battle with publishers, cOAlition S may end up punishing European researchers as, or more, brutally than it punishes the real target – publishers. Researchers will be the meat in the sandwich of Plan S, collateral damage in a war that the vast majority of them never signed up to, or wanted to see take place. There are also very real concerns that Plan S will wreak havoc on learned societies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is for these reasons, I believe, that in opposing Plan S researchers often do so in terms of a threat to academic freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That OA advocates tend to ridicule and deride those who fret over academic freedom suggests to me that they have become so focused on the <i>ends</i> of OA that they are blind to the damage that the <i>means </i>might inflict on their peers, and on many societies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Highly unlikely</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Finally, I want to answer one of the questions that Smits puts back to me below. He asks, “Why do you keep on saying that Plan S is about Gold Open Access? Do read the 10 principles again and you will notice that the plan does not use Gold or Green terminology. The plan welcomes self-archiving and repositories.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My answer is this: It doesn’t matter whether the terms Green or Gold are used. Principle 1 of Plan S states, “Authors [must] retain copyright of their publication with no restrictions. All publications must be published under an open license, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY.” And cOAlition S insists that this applies to both gold and green OA, and in all cases OA must be immediate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It seems highly unlikely to me that for-profit legacy publishers will offer green OA on those terms. Instead, they will focus on gold OA and seek to extract as much money as possible from the research community, caps or no caps, even as many non-profit learned societies face an existential financial threat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Importantly, as Peter Suber has <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://plus.google.com/+PeterSuber/posts/iGEFpdYY9dr">pointed out</a></span>, there is no acknowledgement in Plan S that repositories can provide OA. This suggests they are seen as archival tools alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The good news is that when I expressed my disappointment with his answers Smits said he would be happy to meet with me when he is in London next month. If that meeting takes place perhaps I will be able to get a clearer view of how Smits sees Plan S achieving its objectives, and why he routinely pooh-poohs any talk of academic freedom in relation to his initiative.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The interview begins …</span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: As I understand it, the background to Plan S is that during the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2016 the EU issued the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Call_for_Action_on_Open_Science">Amsterdam Call for Action on Open Science</a></span>. (At the time you were Director-General for Research and Innovation at the EU). This called for “immediate” open access to all scientific papers by 2020. But by the end of 2017 it was clear that this goal was not going to be achieved unless more drastic action was taken, not least because the Amsterdam Call offered no specific strategy for achieving OA by 2020. Earlier this year, therefore, you were appointed Special Adviser on Open Access and Innovation and charged with making sure it happened. Plan S is your solution and it consists of 10 principles, the key one being that “After 1 January 2020 scientific publications on the results from research funded by public grants provided by national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access Journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms.” In fact, Plan S is a list of principles, not a detailed action plan. That is, it is not a mandate but what OA advocate Peter Suber <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://plus.google.com/+PeterSuber/posts/iGEFpdYY9dr">describes as</a></span> “a plan for a mandate”. I realise that some transition arrangements are envisaged, but how realistic is it to expect that in 15 months’ time all European research will be made immediately available on an OA basis, particularly if legacy publishers prove reluctant to co-operate in a meaningful way?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: The 2016 Amsterdam Call set the 2020 target and, since little progress is being made, Plan S provides the specific strategy which you mention to achieve that target. However, Plan S cannot and will not override contracts which are in place before 1/1/20 and of course, we are willing to respect short-term transitional arrangements and on-going discussions on such arrangements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I wonder if it might be more accurate to say that Plan S is intended to frighten legacy publishers into moving more quickly towards OA, with the end game (presumably) of having them flip all their subscription journals to open access (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://openaccess.mpg.de/2121558/MPDL_Open_Access_White_Paper">as some have propo</a>sed</span>), and reducing their prices in the process? Either way, do you expect legacy publishers to accept all the principles outlined in Plan S (and incorporated into <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/coalition-s/">cOAlition S</a></span> under the aegis of Science Europe?). As things stand, it would seem that the International Association of STM Publishers does not accept the proposal that hybrid OA be outlawed. And I do not think it expects publishers to reduce their prices. As STM <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.stm-assoc.org/2018_09_04_STM_Statement_on_PlanS.pdf">puts it</a></span>, “in the absence of adequate funding a transition to Open Access as envisaged by cOAlition S is unlikely to happen in practice.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: We expect publishers to come forward with offerings which comply with the principles outlined in Plan S. We make no statement about whether publishers are ‘legacy’ or whether they are new providers with new platforms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I assume you anticipated there would be pushback from publishers, but perhaps you did not expect pushback from researchers? Either way, we are seeing pushback. Last week, for instance, one of the leading open access advocates Stevan Harnad <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1205-Open-Access-Plan-S-Needs-to-Drop-Option-B.html">called</a></span> for Plan S (and all OA policies) to drop any requirement for gold OA publishing and focus exclusively on mandating green OA (self-archiving). This would seem to envisage Plan S being reversed since it is currently almost exclusively focused on gold OA. Three days earlier, eight researchers published <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://forbetterscience.com/2018/09/11/response-to-plan-s-from-academic-researchers-unethical-too-risky/">a highly-critical article</a></span> about Plan S, denouncing it as unethical and too risky. I assume such criticism is of concern as I am told you called the lead author of the article <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://kamerlinlab.com/groupleader/">Lynn Kamerlin</a></span> and invited her to Brussels to discuss Plan S. How confident are you that you can address her and other researchers’ concerns? They clearly feel they are becoming the meat in the sandwich in the struggle between research funders and legacy publishers. And might we see resistance amongst researchers grow as the implications of Plan S are more widely publicised and become clearer? Combined with publisher resistance might this necessitate significantly watering down or even abandoning key Plan S principles?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: You probably have seen the many positive reactions from researchers and representatives of the science community to Plan S. Of course, there are also critical voices. I have indeed invited Britt [<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbrittholbrook/">J Britt Holbrook</a></span>, one of the co-authors of the above paper] and Lynn for a meeting to see why it is we differ of opinion. In developing the implementation plans there will, of course, be discussion with all interested groups. We will, however, stand by the principles set out in Plan S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: One of the concerns being expressed is that Plan S portrays green OA and repositories as having little more than an archival role, not as providers of OA. This is one of the concerns expressed by de facto leader of the OA movement Peter Suber, who <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://plus.google.com/+PeterSuber/posts/iGEFpdYY9dr">has written</a></span> of Plan S, “There's no acknowledgement of their [repositories and green OA] importance for OA itself! This is the same mistake made by the Finch Group in 2012, which was inexcusable even at the time, and should never be repeated by informed, high-level policy-makers.” I assume, however, that the reality is that green OA inevitably conflicts with the principles of Plan S, which calls, amongst other things, for papers to be made OA “immediately” and with a CC BY licence attached. I cannot envisage many legacy publishers agreeing to this. So I guess the point is that if green OA cannot conform to the principles of Plan S then it cannot be viewed as providing open access, and that is presumably why Plan S does not view it as such. Would that be right? If not, how can this circle be squared?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Plan S does not talk about Gold, Green, Diamond or Platinum Open Access. Plan S is entirely supportive of pre-prints and repositories and welcomes those journals where the final publication is published without paywalls and no embargo, being also published under a CC-BY or similar licence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Another concern that has been raised is that Plan S is contrary to long-standing principles of academic freedom. For instance, since Plan S says that hybrid OA is not compliant with its principles European researchers will be banned from publishing in a great many journals that they currently publish in and love. As Nature put it, “as written, Plan S would bar researchers from publishing in 85% of journals, including influential titles such as Nature and Science.” This concern about academic freedom might seem a genuine grievance in light of a 1997 <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13144&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">UNESCO document</a></span> that states, “higher-education teaching personnel should be free to publish the results of research and scholarship in books, journals and databases of their own choice”.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Concern about academic freedom is also being cited as <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/09/nwo-wil-weg-van-de-impact-factor/">one of the reasons</a></span> why some countries (notably Germany) have not signed up to Plan S. Indeed, researchers at the University of Konstanz <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.uni-konstanz.de/en/university/news-and-media/current-announcements/news/news-in-detail/verpflichtendes-zweitveroeffentlichungs-recht/">have taken their university to court</a></span> for simply trying to mandate them to self-archive their papers in their institutional repository, which might seem far less of an imposition than telling them that they are henceforth barred from publishing in 85% of the journals they currently publish in. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Some also <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/12/15/mandatory-open-access-publishing-can-impair-academic-freedom-essay">argue</a></span> that requiring researchers to publish their work with a CC BY licence attached raises issues of academic freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other hand, in <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.leru.org/files/cOAlitionS_Preamble.pdf">the Plan S document signed by Science Europe President Marc Schiltz</a></span> it says, “We recognise that researchers need to be given a maximum of freedom to choose the proper venue for publishing their results and that in some jurisdictions this freedom may be covered by a legal or constitutional protection.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">How do you respond to the claims that Plan S threatens to infringe researchers’ academic freedom? And how does Schiltz’s statement about freedom to choose fit with the principles of Plan S? Once again, how can this square be circled?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Strong mandates have been in place from many funders in different countries for many years so the principle of funder mandates in the research system is well-established. See what Peter Suber writes about this. It is for publishers to provide Plan S-compliant routes to publication in their journals so that researchers can choose where to publish when accepting funding from those who sign Plan S.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Plan S also argues that current researcher evaluation systems need to be changed so that publishing in prestigious legacy journals is no longer encouraged. Might it not have been better to change evaluation systems before banning publication in subscription journals? Would this not have been fairer than suddenly telling them to stop publishing in 85% of the journals that their universities are still incentivising them to publish in, and have been doing for many decades?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sfdora.org/">The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment</a></span> and the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.leidenmanifesto.org/">Leiden Manifesto</a></span> both pre-date the Amsterdam Call for Action. There is nothing ‘suddenly’ happening. That during all years not much action was undertaken, is exactly the reason why Plan S was developed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Costs </span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Another reason why some European countries appear to be dragging their heels over signing up to Plan S is that they assume it will increase the costs of publishing rather than reduce it. The DFG, for instance, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.dfg.de/en/research_funding/announcements_proposals/info_wissenschaft_18_56/index.html">says</a></span> that “it surmises that open access mandates can lead to increased article processing charges (APC), an effect that the DFG strives to minimise.” I understand Plan S envisages APCs being capped, but what in your view is a reasonable APC? And how would a cap work in practice? (Presumably, for instance, universities and researchers could decide to themselves pay more than the cap in order to have their papers published, and indeed to publish them in expensive hybrid journals produced by Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Elsevier?). <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Caps on APCs will be considered as part of the implementation of Plan S. Publications arising from our funding must be Plan S-compliant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Plan S says that it will support the creation of open access journals or platforms and open access infrastructures where necessary. Another concern raised by Suber is that this does not include a commitment to creating and supporting open infrastructure. I.e., he says, “platforms running on open-source software, under open standards, with open APIs for interoperability, preferably owned or hosted by non-profit organizations.” As such, Suber says, Plan S, will not prevent open infrastructure being appropriated by legacy publishers in the way that SSRN and bepress were acquired. As you will know, a number of funders (Wellcome, Gates etc.) have created their own publishing platforms but outsourced fulfilment to the for-profit company F1000. The F1000 platform, I believe, is a proprietary, and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-oa-interviews-ashley-farley-of.html">details of what it charges funders are secret</a></span>, which does not seem to fit with the ethos of open science. The EU also plans to create its own publishing platform. I wonder, therefore, if the reference to platforms and OA infrastructures in Plan S is essentially a reference to the planned EU Open Research Publishing Platform? As I understand it, this will not necessarily be open source, and some believe that the exacting requirements specified in <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=3418">the tender document</a></span> means that it <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.martineve.com/2018/04/01/the-tender-document-for-the-european-commissions-open-access-platform-asks-for-an-awful-lot/">could only be operated by a large legacy publisher or similar</a></span>. Can you comment on these points?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Plan S sets out the principles for an open access funding system. It says nothing about the ownership of journals and platforms. It does not mention any particular platform.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Open access is a hugely complex topic. I believe you suggested to Kamerlin that in order to better understand the issues she should watch the movie </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paywall<i>. However, I wonder if the issues are more complicated than either </i>Paywall <i>or Plan S assumes? The movie, we could note, was made by an OA advocate, funded by an OA advocacy organisation, and consists of interviews primarily with other OA advocates. It includes interviews with just two legacy publishers. As such, as I pointed out in the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06140-7">review</a></span> I did for </i>Nature<i>, </i>Paywall <i>is an advocacy film, not one intended to explore the complexities of open access. At no point, for instance, does the movie mention APCs or explain how OA can be funded. As such, it tells us what OA advocates want, but fails to explain how this can be achieved financially. The OA movement has a history of making declarations, issuing calls, and offering up what in the movie John Wilbanks calls “witness and testimony” but it has consistently failed to come up with financially feasible solutions. Is there a danger that Plan S has fallen into the same trap</i></span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Plan S does not mention the <i>Paywall </i>movie. All of the parties involved in Plan S will have their own views about the publishing industry but Plan S states what we have collectively signed up to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: How likely do you think it is that all European countries will sign up to Plan S? Neither Germany nor Switzerland has yet done so, and researchers in Norway are <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://khrono.no/publisering-uib-ntnu/utfordringer-med-plan-speed/237583">asking</a></span> whether the likely consequences of the proposed changes are proportionate to what can realistically be achieved in such a short period of time. Meanwhile, those European countries with limited research budgets will surely be unhappy to commit to paying for gold OA. I understand you also hope to get the US to buy into the Plan, which would seem to be an even greater challenge since the US has historically preferred green OA and it does not have the same centralised system as Europe. As Roger Schonfeld has <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/06/18/will-european-contagion-spread/">put it</a></span>, “[T]he higher education sector in most of North America is very different from Europe, in one key element: North America is as decentralized as Europe is, at a national level, centrally coordinated.” The challenge here surely is that Plan S can only achieve its objectives if the whole world signs up to it, or at least all those countries with large research budgets? Unless they do, for instance, Europe will find it is having to pay for gold OA plus continue to pay subscriptions in order to access the research produced in countries that do not sign up. Would you agree? How hopeful are you that you will manage to sign up a sufficient number of countries to make Plan S workable?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Why do you keep on saying that Plan S is about Gold Open Access? Do read the 10 principles again and you will notice that the plan does not use Gold or Green terminology. The plan welcomes self-archiving and repositories. I am confident that Plan S is workable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: On the other hand, if Plan S does succeed it will further marginalise and disadvantage those in the global South. If all the world’s subscription journals flipped to gold OA, for instance, where today researchers in the global South are not able to afford to access the world’s research, in future they would be unable to afford to publish their own research – which might seem a worse position to be in. Does Plan S have a solution to this problem? Will it provide money to enable those in the global South to publish their research? I am not aware that this issue is discussed in the various Plan S documents. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Getting rid of paywalls will help researchers in the global South to access publicly funded research without charge. This huge advantage cannot be denied. Furthermore, there are many routes to publishing research available to all countries including no-embargo open access. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: It seems to me that one thing most people agree on today is that legacy publishers have become too powerful and have acquired indefensible monopoly powers. Is it not time to hand the matter over to the EU Commissioner for Competition <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/vestager_en">Margrethe Vestager</a></span> with a view to, say, breaking up these monsters?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: I still am optimistic that through plan S, we can accelerate the transition to full and immediate Open Access in partnership, including in partnership with the publishers you are referring to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I understand that on 1<sup>st</sup> March you will be moving on, to become <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://eindhovennews.com/news/2018/09/robert-jan-smits-new-chairman-tu/">President of TU-Eindhoven.</a></span> Would it not be better to stay with the project until it is clear that it has been a success?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">R-J S</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">: Plan S is carried by a consortium of funders under the umbrella of Science Europe. It is not the work of one person. Furthermore, I am far from being indispensable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-6461092388184140692018-09-08T07:45:00.000+00:002018-09-26T07:56:48.287+00:00Paywall: The Business of Scholarship — a review<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">My review of <i>Paywall: The Business of Scholarship</i> has been published in <i>Nature</i>. Below are the first two paragraphs. The full review can be read <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06140-7">here</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Billed as a documentary, <i>Paywall</i> would be more accurately described as an advocacy film. Its intention seems to be to persuade viewers that the paywalls that restrict access to journal content online are an unnecessary hangover from the print era, and now serve only to perpetuate the excessive profits that legacy publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley and Springer Nature make from the public purse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The film makes a convincing case that the paywall system creates problems — and that universal open access (OA) to scholarly articles would be better for society. But it fails to adequately explore the thorny challenges that arise with OA publishing. These include the fact that the publishers castigated by the film would continue to dominate scholarly communication in an OA world; the increasingly expensive ‘pay-to-publish’ model, which substitutes inequities in access for inequities in affording publication; and the rise of predatory publishing. And although <i>Paywall</i> acknowledges that current reward systems have slowed the progress of OA publishing, it does not address the puzzling question of why academics have proved so reluctant to make copies of their published papers freely available in their institutional repositories ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">More </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06140-7" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">here</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-25391359865924135162018-07-29T14:50:00.001+00:002019-09-26T05:39:05.667+00:00The OA Interviews: Virginia Steel, Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian at UCLA<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>Those wishing to go directly to the Q&A with Virginia Steel can access the pdf <a href="http://www.richardpoynder.co.uk/Interview_ginny_steel.pdf">here</a> and then click on the link at the top of the document.</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Who would have thought in 2002 that the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read">sixteen “open” enthusiasts</a></span> who that year launched the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/">Budapest Open Access Initiative</a></span> were about to unleash on the world a chain of events that some believe will eventually upend the 350-year old scholarly publishing system, and has in the meantime thrown researchers, librarians, universities, funders, governments and scholarly publishers into what at times looks like a dance of death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Virginia Steel</b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Of course, the key driver for the changes that scholarly publishing is currently going through was the emergence of the internet, since those changes would not be possible without the web. And in fact, publishers had begun to take advantage of the new digital network a decade before open access became a thing. Elsevier, for instance, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://richardpoynder.co.uk/sciencedirect.htm">launched</a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;"> its online database of electronic journals ScienceDirect</span></span> eight years prior to BOAI. But publishers had assumed they would simply port the traditional subscription model to the online environment and carry on much as before, all be it a subscription model re-imagined as the now infamous <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.infotoday.com/it/sep11/The-Big-Deal-Not-Price-But-Cost.shtml">Big Deal</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In other words, as the name suggests, what was radical about the BOAI was not its recognition that journals could now be put online, but the assumption that this could be done without the imposition of paywalls. In retrospect, we can see that this simple idea has ended up calling into question practically every aspect of traditional scholarly publishing, not excluding traditional peer review and the need for legacy publishers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Yet for all its revolutionary potential, and the significant mindshare that open access has acquired over the past 16 years, some of the key <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read">aspirations articulated</a></span> by BOAI have yet to be realised. And they may never be. Yes, today more research is freely accessible. But leaving aside the fact that the openness of that content <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osf.io/uaw27/">is fragile</a></span><a href="file:///D:/Dropbox/1Virginia%20Steel/post.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>, the truly revolutionary potential of making it open has not yet been exploited. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So, for instance, OA has yet to solve <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144706/">the affordability problem</a></span> that BOAI promised it would, and in pursuit of which goal most librarians joined the OA movement in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">More importantly, OA has failed to create the more equitable knowledge infrastructure envisaged by BOAI. Let’s recall: the promise was that removing access barriers would allow the world to “accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich … and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The reality today, however, is that paywalls are simply being replaced by publication walls, a development that threatens to disenfranchise those in the global South even more thoroughly than paywalls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">These failings are a product of the fact that the strategies adopted and promoted by OA advocates have too often had unintended consequences. Above all, they advocated for the use of pay-to-publish gold OA. In doing so they enabled legacy publishers to co-opt open access, and so lock themselves and their high profits into the new environment, not least by introducing overpriced <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_open-access_journal">hybrid OA</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The pay-to-publish model also gave rise to a plague of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_open-access_publishing">predatory publishers</a></span>, and the accompanying tide of fake science now threatens to <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.icij.org/blog/2018/07/new-international-investigation-tackles-fake-science-and-its-poisonous-effects/">corrupt the scientific record</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The nub of the problem is that OA advocates too often fail to think through their ideas and strategies, with the result that their interventions often worsen rather than improve the situation. It does not help that they are susceptible to groupthink and tend to flock around any idea that has superficial appeal. The way that dissident voices are challenged and policed on Twitter is indicative of this tendency. Moreover, OA advocates will often cling to a faulty idea long after it has become clear that it is flawed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And while there were plenty of warnings about likely unintended consequences, these were ignored or poo-pooed. In 2004, for instance, the world’s largest and most experienced publisher Elsevier <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/elsevier-submits-evidence-on-scientific-publishing-to-committee-of-uk-mps">cautioned</a></span>: “By introducing an author-pays model, Open Access risks undermining public trust in the integrity and quality of scientific publications that has been established over hundreds of years.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Elsevier added, “Because the number of articles published will drive revenues, Open Access publishers will continually be under pressure to increase output, potentially at the expense of quality.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Elsevier is of course not a disinterested party. Nevertheless, its point was a valid one and should have been listened to since it is also an obvious one. (Ironically, as soon as it realised that gold OA would allow it to increase its profits Elsevier quickly distanced itself from its warnings, thus proving the point it had made!).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But the most knowledgeable and far-sighted commentator has been publishing consultant <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/author/jesposito/">Joseph Esposito</a></span>. True, Esposito is not a disinterested party either, and he has a habit whenever a change to the <i>status quo</i> is mooted of muttering darkly “be careful what you wish for” (e.g. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://liblicense.crl.edu/ListArchives/0610/msg00029.html">here</a></span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://twitter.com/JosephJEsposito/status/1020025202607120384?s=19">here</a></span> and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2014/02/24/inadvertent-innovation">here</a></span>). Nevertheless, his warnings have generally been on the money. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In 2004, for instance, Esposito <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1163/1083">predicted</a></span> that in an OA environment, “the overall cost of research publications will rise, though the costs will be borne by different players, primarily authors and their proxies.” This has proved accurate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the same vein, in 2014 Esposito predicted that open access would be additive rather than substitutive, and so further increase the costs of scholarly communication. As he put it, “revenue from OA will be additive to the revenue from traditional journals.” That is today’s reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And in 2105 Esposito <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2015/10/14/return-of-the-big-brands/">predicted</a></span> that open access would be co-opted by legacy publishers. Few would now deny that that too is today’s reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For open access advocates, this is all hugely frustrating and the cause of a lot of hand-wringing. The uncomfortable truth is that almost every initiative, idea or proposal introduced by the OA movement is rapidly derailed, subverted, or co-opted by publishers for their own benefit, or leads to undesirable developments like predatory publishing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But is this to take too gloomy a view? While many of Esposito’s predictions may be today’s reality, it does not mean that they will be tomorrow’s. After all, we are in the middle of a revolution, and perforce seeing through a glass darkly. We may simply be witnessing the inevitable teething problems that any largescale social change can expect to experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">To put my cards on the table: I am a sceptic by nature and so Esposito’s views resonate more with me than the perpetual Pollyannaism of many OA advocates. Nevertheless, I can see that it may just be that the research community is going to have to wade through a lot more mud before it reaches the promised land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I assume, however, that whether the vision of BOAI is ever fully realised will to a great extent depend on whether those who support, promote and implement open access learn from experience and adapt and change their strategies as a result. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Here there are encouraging signs. Conscious that the institutional repository movement <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2016/09/q-with-cnis-clifford-lynch-time-to-re_22.html">has failed</a></span>, for instance, the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.coar-repositories.org/">Confederation of Open Access Repositories</a></span> has developed a new strategy focused on creating what it calls a “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/advocacy-leadership/open-science-and-sustainable-development/">Sustainable Knowledge Commons</a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;">”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">More interestingly, in Europe we are seeing a new determination to insist that publishers start offering big deals that include a clear transition path to an all-OA environment. These deals, those pushing for them assert, must be fairly priced and they must consist of a package that includes both access to existing paywalled content <i>plus</i> the ability for researchers to publish papers OA on a constantly increasing basis. The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB">VSNU</a></span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">), for instance, has been flexing its consortial muscle to that end and </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://www.utwente.nl/en/news/!/2018/3/79107/no-new-agreement-with-royal-society-of-chemistry-and-a-new-agreement-with-springer">turning down deals</a></span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> it does not feel meet its requirements.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Meanwhile in Germany, </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/">Project Deal</a></span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> is insisting on what it calls “</span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/08/bold-open-access-push-germany-could-change-future-academic-publishing">Publish and Read</a></span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">” contracts that make even greater demands of publishers. This has led to a long-standing faceoff between Elsevier and the German research community. And after Sweden followed Germany’s lead</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> earlier this year Elsevier <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05754-1">cut off access</a></span> to its electronic journals in both countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What has focused European minds is a fast-approaching deadline. In 2016, the EC made <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/may/28/eu-ministers-2020-target-free-access-scientific-papers">a rash promise</a></span> that by 2020 all European publicly-funded research would be freely available. Two years out, it has become apparent that Europe will need to take dramatic action if it wants to fulfil its promise – or pay legacy publishers ever larger wads of public money in order to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One response has been the EC’s announcement that it plans to <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=3418">build its own publishing platform</a></span>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">More significantly, hard hitter <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/epsc/team/robert-jan-smits_e">Robert-Jan Smits</a></span> (“<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sciencebusiness.net/framework-programmes/news/eu-research-chiefs-next-act-changing-future-academic-publishing">one of Europe’s most powerful figures in research</a></span>”) has been appointed Senior Advisor on Open Access within the European Political Strategy Centre at the European Commission. His task is to ensure that the 2020 goal is met.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">To that end, Smits is currently working on what has been dubbed <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/making-open-access-a-reality-by-2020">Plan S</a></span>. Strikingly, the signals are that Plan S could see legacy publishers excluded from the solution proposed, or assigned a significantly curtailed role. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A similar message is coming from Project Deal. In May, for instance, Gerard Meijer, director of the German Fritz-Haber Institute and member of Project Deal <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/05/open-access-negotiators-prepare-for-a-future-without-publishers/">indicated</a></span> that academic publishers may not be included in its future plans. This may be necessary, he said, because “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;">If we keep moving at this pace, we’ll never reach our goals</span></span>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Much of this may be little more than sabre rattling (we don’t know), but we can surely expect it to focus minds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One problem with Europe’s more aggressive stance is that it is seeing it double down on an anti-democratic and authoritarian trend already evident in its push for OA. We have seen, for instance, ever more demanding and oppressive OA mandates imposed on European researchers – a development at its most extreme in the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2015/02/open-access-and-research-excellence.html">OA policy</a></span> announced in 2014 by the (former) Higher Education Funding Council for England (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/">HEFCE</a></span>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There are now also noises being made to the effect that European researchers may have to give up publishing with legacy publishers and begin using “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05191-0">alternative platforms</a></span>” (presumably platforms like the one planned by the EC). And it has been suggested that researchers who do not make their work OA could be <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sciencebusiness.net/framework-programmes/news/eu-research-chiefs-next-act-changing-future-academic-publishing">fined</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As such, Plan S could end up alienating not just publishers, but the people who actually produce the research in question, even as they are told that they will be the main beneficiaries of open access. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Librarians could also find themselves being sidelined. Smits </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">has </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">suggested, for instance, that librarians are acting as a brake on progress. As he <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/open-access-scientific-publications-must-become-reality-2020-robert-jan-smits_en.html">put it</a></span>, “They want to preserve the money and power they have to finance the subscriptions to the prestigious journals. They fear that if they don’t have this money anymore, their role will be less important.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Since they pride themselves on being the premier OA advocates and leaders of the movement this will feel like a punch in the face for librarians. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">True, the increasingly robust stance Europe is taking in its war with publishers <i>could</i> speed up the transition to OA. But there must be concern that it will cause collateral damage, with researchers and librarians the most likely potential victims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What we learn from this is that the most high-profile OA activity today is taking place in Europe. But what about the country that gave us the ground-breaking 2004 <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm">NIH Public Access Policy</a></span>, and the 2008 <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/policies/">Harvard OA policy</a></span>? What is the state of play in the US today?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Certainly, we can see new OA policies regularly rolled out, and these are invariably Harvard-style policies.<a href="file:///D:/Dropbox/1Virginia%20Steel/post.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> (The Harvard policy model, we could note, is unlike the top-down compulsory ones being imposed on researchers in Europe. Rather, it involves faculty voluntarily agreeing to adopt policies that invariably include a no-questions-asked waiver element).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We can also see a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.crossref.org/blog/preprints-growth-rate-ten-times-higher-than-journal-articles/">re-invigorated preprint movement</a></span> gathering pace in the US, in part as a result of the advocacy and technology of the Virginia-based <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Open_Science">Center for Open Science</a>, but also, of course, <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/">bioRxiv</a>, <a href="https://peerj.com/preprints/">PeerJ Preprints</a> etc.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In addition, the long-standing attempts to have OA legislation like <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Access_to_Science_and_Technology_Research_Act">FASTR</a></span> and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Research_Public_Access_Act">FRPAA</a></span> enacted continue. (With little success to date). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What we are not seeing in the US, however, is the same determination to take on publishers. This is doubtless in part because academic culture is different in the US, but also because it would be difficult to organise. As Roger Schonfeld has <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/06/18/will-european-contagion-spread">pointed out</a></span>, the US university system is not centralised in the way it tends to be in Europe. As such, he says, there is “no national-level common negotiating posture” for dealing with publishers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nevertheless, there is clearly the same desire to move forward with open access, if by different means. And it would seem that the University of California (UC) is keen to take <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2018/06/championing-change-in-journal-negotiations/">a leadership role</a></span> in this, judging at least by the range of OA activities and initiatives it is involved in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For instance, UC Libraries have been taking part in <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.cdlib.org/cdlinfo/2009/01/22/uc-libraries-and-springer-sign-pilot-agreement-for-open-access-journal-publishing/">OA pilots</a></span> since at least 2009, and since <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.library.ucsf.edu/open-access/policy/">2012</a></span> the University has introduced a series of <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-policy/">open access policies</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Then in 2015 <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/">UC Press</a></span> launched the OA journal <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.collabra.org/">Collabra</a></span> (Now <i>Collabra: Psychology</i>) and an open access monograph publisher called <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.luminosoa.org/">Luminos</a></span> (some background <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-oa-interviews-alison-mudditt.html?m=0">here</a></span>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A year later (2016), the California Digital Library (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.cdlib.org/">CDL</a></span>) took part in <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/icis/uc-pay-it-forward-project/">a joint study</a></span> designed to estimate what the institutional costs would be if subscription journals were converted<i> en masse</i> to an entirely APC business model. This was preparatory to proposing a “global flip” strategy in which a largescale conversion of subscription journals to pay-to-publish would be engineered. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The US study came in the wake of a similar exercise undertaken by the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/">Max Planck Digital Library</a></span>. Max Planck concluded that there is already enough money in the system to pay for a large-scale transformation to OA and published its findings in a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:2148961:7/component/escidoc:2149096/MPDL_OA-Transition_White_Paper.pdf">white paper</a></span> in April 2015. This became the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://oa2020.org/learn_more/">foundational document</a></span> for the 2016 <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://oa2020.org/">OA2020 Initiative</a></span>. UC followed up by overseeing the launch of a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://oa2020.us/">US version</a></span> of OA2020. [Please see correction <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-oa-interviews-virginia-steel-norman.html?showComment=1533102218638#c4297425113854092181">here</a>].<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2018 has seen the pace of UC’s OA advocacy activities increase further. In February it published <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/groups/files/about/docs/UC-Libraries-Pathways%20to%20OA-Report.pdf">Pathways to Open Access</a></span> (some context on this <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://update.lib.berkeley.edu/2018/07/27/pathways-to-open-access-choices-and-opportunities/">here</a></span>), followed in April by a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/committees/ucolasc/scholcommprinciples-20180425.pdf">Declaration of Rights and Principles to Transform Scholarly Communication</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And in June the University published a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2018/06/championing-change-in-journal-negotiations/">Call to Action</a></span> with the stated aim of addressing the “twin challenges of journal affordability and the moral imperative of achieving a truly open scholarly communication system”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What does this vision mean in practice, and how will it be achieved? What is the endpoint being worked towards? What, in short, is the University’s current thinking on open access? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Who better to put these questions to than <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.library.ucla.edu/content/virginia-steel">Virginia Steel</a></span>, the Norman and Armena Powell University Librarian at UCLA, and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sparcopen.org/people/virginia-steel/">Chair of the SPARC Steering Committee</a></span>?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Nuanced and undogmatic</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In contrast to many OA advocates in Europe, Steel’s views on open access are nuanced and undogmatic. For this reason, perhaps, she seems to be wary of “big idea” solutions like the global flip. As she puts it, “Succeeding with OA will require multiple models that will vary depending on disciplinary needs and the cultures and scholarly communications models of those disciplines.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">She also appears to be more independently minded than many OA advocates, and not shy to challenge and question proposals she has doubts about – as evidenced by her decision in 2016 to write <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.library.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/Ginny-Steel_open-letter_OA2020-PIF_October-2016_0.pdf">an open letter to the academic community</a></span> setting out her concerns about the OA2020 Initiative and the notion of a “global flip”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Steel’s approach is doubtless partly a product of the more democratic academic culture evident in the US. As a result, discussions about OA tend to major on voluntarism, persuasion and academic freedom, not compulsion, confrontation and punishment, as we see in Europe today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Explaining the reasoning behind her more consensual approach Steel says, “Incentivising adherence to OA is better than compelling faculty to comply – the carrot will be better received than the stick – and it’s likely that more faculty will adopt OA practices sooner rather than later if they have a positive reason to do this.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Nor does Steel believe we can rush the transition to OA. “[T]urning the scholarly publication system upside down will probably take several decades,” she says, adding that convincing researchers to get on board “requires continued effort to explain, cajole, and convince”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The process cannot be hurried, she suggests, not just because it will require a lot of persuasion, but because there is still no consensus on many aspects of open access. As she puts it, “Making content openly available … will take time and discussion since there isn’t consensus on, say, whether or not content should be available for reuse by commercial publishers.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Risks</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This last point is an important one. It reminds us that there has never been consensus within the OA movement. It is for this reason that funders, universities and governments in Europe have adopted a top-down compulsory approach. The danger of this approach, however, is that it will diminish and erode important academic values, alienate key stakeholders, and maybe even prove counterproductive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">On the other hand, the more <i>laissez-faire</i> approach we see in the US might mean that by the time a consensus is reached, and by the time researchers have been persuaded in sufficient numbers of the merits of embracing OA, legacy publishers will have so fully embedded themselves into the OA environment, and indeed across the entire research workflow, that it will prove impossible to stand up to them, or even to contemplate doing without their services, whatever they might charge for those services. Such an outcome would mean that any hope of resolving the affordability problem would have to be abandoned, as would any hope of creating the more equitable knowledge infrastructure envisage by BOAI. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In conclusion, the vision articulated at BOAI in 2002 has yet to be realised, and there must be doubts that it will be. For sure, we are seeing more research made open access, but it is often <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osf.io/uaw27/">a fragile openness</a></span>, and the problem of affordability remains. Most disappointingly, the possibility of COAR’s “sustainable knowledge commons” ever becoming reality looks increasingly unlikely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It may be that I take too sceptical a view. but whatever happens, it is unclear to me that the European approach of confrontation and compulsion will prove any more successful than the US emphasis on persuasion and consensus building. And both approaches would seem to come with risks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In short, the future is uncertain. In fact, sitting in the middle of the OA revolution as we are, we might even be tempted to think that the outcome will depend as much on luck as on schemes, strategies and plans. Like Pierre Bezukhov wandering around the chaos of the Battle of Borodino in <i>War and Peace</i>, we might have to conclude that the actions of leaders, and of plans and policies, are far less effective than we like to think! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><b>The interview with Virginia Steel is available in a pdf file <a href="http://www.richardpoynder.co.uk/Interview_ginny_steel.pdf">here</a>. </b></span></div>
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<a href="file:///D:/Dropbox/1Virginia%20Steel/post.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> “[M]ore documents are freely available in unsustainable sources and/or in violation of their copyright, than through sustainable and legal ways.” <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://osf.io/uaw27/">https://osf.io/uaw27/</a></span> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///D:/Dropbox/1Virginia%20Steel/post.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/Additional_resources">73 universities</a></span> have introduced a Harvard-style OA policy to date, mostly institutions in the US. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-83167055500310505262018-07-20T12:32:00.000+00:002018-07-26T06:42:05.526+00:00Falling prey to a predatory OA publisher: Individual failure or community problem?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Depending on whom you speak to, so-called predatory publishing is a serious threat to the scientific record, a minor irritant, or an elitist misunderstanding.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e1DOhbjosFc/W1HAvjOEXiI/AAAAAAAAeko/rQIG0hQaaSsCMBCvMI7q7wSskA3BdNyywCLcBGAs/s1600/512px-%25D8%25AD%25D9%2588%25D8%25B1%25D8%25B3_%25D9%2585%25D8%25B5%25D8%25B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="512" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e1DOhbjosFc/W1HAvjOEXiI/AAAAAAAAeko/rQIG0hQaaSsCMBCvMI7q7wSskA3BdNyywCLcBGAs/s200/512px-%25D8%25AD%25D9%2588%25D8%25B1%25D8%25B3_%25D9%2585%25D8%25B5%25D8%25B1.jpg" width="170" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy Azizofegypt <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thus, while some <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.4open-sciences.org/articles/fopen/abs/2018/01/fopen180001s/fopen180001s.html">argue</a></span> that predatory publishers represent “the dark dangerous force” of scholarly publishing, others <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://davidwojick.blogspot.com/2016/09/predatory-versus-low-cost.html">insist</a></span> that, by contrast, they have introduced valuable low-cost journals that have levelled the playing field for less privileged members of the research community. As such, the latter say, the journals they publish would be better described as “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/osi2016-25/ZNes8t0yaAM/0wNCplDZAgAJ">new wave journals</a></span>” or examples of “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://twitter.com/GinnyBarbour/status/1016921343101526016">innovation in publishing</a></span>”, not predatory journals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Others <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/867/1041">argue</a></span> that any harm predatory publishers do is small and has been significantly overblown by the enemies of open access, or that the problem is “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://oaspa.org/spotlight-on-the-oaspa-board-lars-bjornshauge/">not as big now as it once was</a></span>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet others maintain that the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.scielo.br/pdf/aabc/2018nahead/0001-3765-aabc-201820170959.pdf">real predators</a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;"> of scholarly publishing are legacy subscription publishers</span></span>, who have been <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist">robbing the research community blind</a></span> for years and are now <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/jun/29/elsevier-are-corrupting-open-science-in-europe">corrupting open science</a></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">These complexities point to a central problem in any discussion of predatory publishing: no one is able to adequately define (or agree on a definition of) the phenomenon. And yet however one defines it, it is clearly casting the research community in a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ndr.de/der_ndr/presse/More-than-5000-German-scientists-have-published-papers-in-pseudo-scientific-journals,fakescience178.html">bad</a></span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2018/07/19/la-france-fait-partie-des-gros-contributeurs-aux-revues-scientifiques-douteuses_5333431_1650684.html">bad</a></span>, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/inside-indias-fake-research-paper-shops-pay-publish-profit-5265402/">bad</a> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">light.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Whatever the truth (and likely predatory publishing is some mix of the above) the topic is a hugely controversial one and engenders bitter disputes. For instance, the person who coined the term predatory publisher – <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Beall">Jeffrey Beall</a></span> – has been the recipient of a constant stream of verbal attacks and legal threats, not least because he created the foundational blacklist of what he calls “potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers”. Beall also regularly publishes articles (e.g. <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/525/514">here</a></span>) in which he maintains that predatory publishing is a direct consequence of open access, and that OA has as a result <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.4open-sciences.org/articles/fopen/abs/2018/01/fopen180001s/fopen180001s.html">thrown scholarly publishing into “crisis mode</a></span>”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Many were not surprised, therefore, when last year Beall’s site <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://retractionwatch.com/2017/01/17/bealls-list-potential-predatory-publishers-go-dark/">disappeared overnight</a></span>. And shortly afterwards he <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Beall#cite_note-1">left his post</a></span> at the University of Colorado without explanation (that I am aware of). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">[<b>Update 22</b></span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><b>nd</b></sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b> July</b>: On the same day I posted this an interview with Beall was published in the </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Indian Express</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> in which he offered </span><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/jeffrey-beall-american-librarian-predatory-publishers-threaten-scientific-integrity-are-embarrassment-to-india-5266858/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">his explanation</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> as to why he left his job.]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To add to the confusion, as concern grew, and both blacklists (e.g. Beall’s list, now <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/07/25/cabells-new-predatory-journal-blacklist-review/">Cabells</a></span>) and whitelists (e.g. the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://doaj.org/">Directory of Open Access Journals</a></span>) began to appear, a new problem emerged: even if an OA publisher tries to be honest and straightforward and has the papers submitted to it assessed in a diligent manner, it may at any point (and for whatever reason) be deemed by the community to be predatory. As a result, all those researchers who have published with it can expect to suffer reputational damage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Given these complexities, I plan to use the term predatory publishing in this article in a very specific way. I will be referring to those OA publishers who clearly and deliberately trick researchers </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">– essentially, by </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">failing to provide the promised (or even a meaningful) service and/or deceiving them about the nature of that service, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">simply in order to extract money from them. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I will not name any publishers, or journals, but simply refer to some of the deceptive practices they engage in that I know take place. I know they take place because I am regularly contacted by the victims of such unethical behaviour, and these victims share with me the details of what has happened to them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So, for instance, the publishers/journals I am talking about often do not inform authors at the point of submission that they will be charged an APC if their paper is accepted. And they often tell them (or imply) that the papers they publish are properly peer-reviewed where in reality they are not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s true, there are also some dishonest researchers who deliberately seek out predatory publishers in order to bulk up their CVs. Nevertheless, I have been contacted by a sufficiently large number of scholars who have been tricked by unscrupulous OA publishers that I am confident there is a serious problem out there. And it leads me to believe that a great many of the researchers who publish in these journals are hapless victims of a scam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In my view, predatory publishing (or whatever you choose to call it) is a serious problem and a solution will eventually have to be found. Here, however, I am concerned primarily with the victims of predatory publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When authors fall victim to a predatory publisher the consequences can be serious. Not only will they be conned into handing over (usually public) money for a service that is never (or very inadequately) provided, but (more seriously for them) their reputation (and likely their career) may be negatively impacted as a result. Unsurprisingly, therefore, victims of predatory publishers experience a great deal of anguish, anger and resentment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What surprises me is that while no one can agree on what predatory publishing is, or how prevalent or damaging it is, there nevertheless appears to be a consensus that if anyone falls victim to one of these publishers they have only themselves to blame. In other words, it is viewed as an individual failure. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">By contrast, I view predatory publishing as a community problem. And, as such, I believe the community has a responsibility to come up with a solution for those researchers who become victims. After all, as I <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2015/09/predatory-publishing-modest-proposal.html">pointed out</a></span> three years ago, predatory publishing could not exist without the co-operation of the research community – e.g. by universities and funders encouraging researchers to engage in pay-to-publish gold OA, and by (often senior) researchers agreeing to join the editorial boards of journals they know little or nothing about, in which they are unlikely ever to publish themselves, and for which they will probably never do any reviewing or editorial work. (Yes, I know, some researchers say they are listed on EBs without having opted-in, but many clearly do volunteer, if only because it adds another line to their CVs) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To my mind, the community</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">’</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">s apparent lack of concern for the victims of predatory publishing represents a moral failure on its part. Certainly, that was the conclusion I reached recently when – during the same week – I was contacted by two different researchers from two different continents (neither, by the way, were from the global South, which is commonly said to be where most victims of predatory publishing are based).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In both cases, the researchers (and their co-authors) had inadvertently submitted papers to predatory publishers. As a result, both had quickly discovered that if you mistakenly submit a paper to a predatory publisher it can be difficult to extricate yourself from what is inevitably a distressing situation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is difficult because the victims of a predatory publisher are likely to discover what has happened only after their paper has been published, or when they receive an invoice (for sometimes thousands of dollars) with a demand that they pay up ASAP. The realisation that they have been conned will, of course, make them angry. But the more distressing moment comes when they realise that their name and reputation are now forever linked to a predatory publisher – unless they can persuade the publisher to take their paper down again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The first researcher who contacted me realised something had gone wrong when the manuscript that he and his co-authors had submitted was returned to them with no peer review reports attached and no suggested changes. There was, however, a note to say that it had been accepted, and could they please pay the attached invoice. They later learned that the paper had already been published.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Quickly realising what had happened, and desperate to recover the situation, the authors agreed to pay the publisher the journal’s full APC (over $2,000) – not for publishing their paper, but for taking it down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Even then, they discovered that several copies of the paper had been posted on the publisher’s site and one was still publicly available. In addition, copies (with the publisher’s name attached) were proliferating across the Web, including on a number of paper sharing sites (Oh the joys of CC BY!). They had emailed me in the hope that I could offer some advice, and perhaps approach the publisher on their behalf.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The second author who contacted me had likewise realised that he and his co-authors had submitted their latest paper to a predatory journal. And even though they refused to pay the publication fee, their paper was published. In addition, they discovered that the publisher was seeking to get it indexed on <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/">PubMed</a></span>. Since the journal in question is listed in PubMed, as are a number of the publisher’s other journals, this was a real possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Fortunately, after I became involved the first paper was fully removed from the publisher’s web site, and the second one had a retraction notice attached to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I say, I know these things go on because over the past 7 years I have had many researchers like these contact me with tales of the nefarious deeds that predatory publishers engage in. Interestingly, sometimes they turn to me only after their university’s counsel has failed to resolve the situation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I have always been happy to try and help, but I have also always been aware that even though I am often able to resolve the situation, I cannot provide a scalable solution. It is a time-consuming process and I am just one person working on their own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">That is one reason why I believe a community solution is essential, but it is certainly not the most compelling one. The more important reason is that since it is the wider research community that has created the monster that predatory publishing has become the community has a responsibility to help the victims. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aside from the fact that many members of this community are willing to sit on the editorial boards of predatory journals, the community supports and promotes the pay-to-publish business model that created the conditions for predatory publishing. And when the problem became apparent the community either denied there was a problem or simply sat on its hands and allowed the problem to grow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But who should organise a community solution?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One organisation that could surely play a useful role is the Committee on Publication Ethics (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://publicationethics.org/">COPE</a></span>). This is an organisation, after all, that says it is “committed to educate and support editors, publishers and those involved in publication ethics with the aim of moving the culture of publishing towards one where ethical practices becomes the norm, part of the publishing culture.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As it happens I discovered last year that in 2016 COPE published a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://publicationethics.org/case/withdrawal-accepted-manuscript-predatory-journal">case study</a></span> exemplifying the kind of deceptive practices predatory publishers engage in, and in which it mooted a solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The COPE case study points out that because, as a rule, predatory publishers do not ask for copyright to be assigned to them, authors are able to demand that their paper is taken down. Once they have done that, the case study adds, they can then resubmit the paper to a “legitimate journal” with an editorial note explaining what had happened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">COPE goes on to explain how the author highlighted in the case study wrote to the predatory journal that had tricked her to say, “Immediately remove my article from your website. If you do not do so immediately, I will take legal action”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When the publisher asked for the name of the article and the journal in which it had been published, the author provided the information and repeated that she would proceed with legal action if the article was not removed from the journal’s website by a given date. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The case study concludes by saying that the author, “will now proceed with submission to a legitimate journal, and the editor of the legitimate journal is comfortable that duplicate publication is no longer a problem.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Leaving aside the fact that predatory publishers are routinely robbing the public purse, this might, at first sight, seem a practical solution for victims. After all, the sole objective of a predatory publisher is to make money, not “<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/tips-to-avoid-predatory-journals-and-conferences/">to advance knowledge and share new scientific and research findings following an established and rigorous peer review process</a></span>”. Having been paid an APC, the publisher will have achieved that objective. And if an author refuses to pay up the publisher can hold the paper hostage until a withdrawal fee is paid. Ironically, the worse the publisher’s reputation the more leverage it has in demanding a high withdrawal fee since the more desperate researchers will be to dissociate themselves from it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, having a predatory publisher take down a captured paper only solves half the problem for the victim; in order to recover the situation the author also needs to find an alternative journal willing to republish it. The case study might seem to imply that this is a formality. But is it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Curious to find out, I suggested to one of the researchers who contacted me that he try the method proposed in the COPE case study. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">“Your current submission cannot be considered further”</span></i></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A few weeks later the author reported back to say that he had sent his paper to a widely recognised OA publisher, and had received the following reply: “Unfortunately, once a paper has been formally published anywhere, even in a predatory journal without the author’s agreement, it still counts as a double submission and therefore your current submission cannot be considered further by us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Part of the problem may have been that the author contacted the legitimate journal before his paper had been removed from the predatory journal. Nevertheless, if the editor who replied had read the COPE case study (and accepted its argument) a more helpful reply would surely have gone along the lines of, “I am sorry to hear that this has happened to you. Can I suggest you ask the predatory publisher to take down your paper? Once that has been done I would be happy to consider sending it out for review.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">So, I emailed the editor and copied in COPE. I referred to the case study and asked whether the publisher of the journal was a member of COPE. I also asked why the editor seemed unwilling to help authors who have fallen victim to a predatory publisher (in contrast to the publisher in the COPE case study).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The editor replied that the publisher he represented was indeed a member of COPE and “follows COPE guidelines in dealing with cases of publication ethics.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">He added, however, “the COPE advice to which you refer was given at a COPE forum in response to a specific case submitted by a member and reflects the discussion at that forum. This advice is not necessarily applicable to other cases, as stated on COPE’s website”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Again, this did not seem to be a very helpful response. Sadly, however, when COPE replied it simply echoed the journal editor. “The intention behind posting Forum case discussions is to provide a guide on how to manage a similar case, but we do note that advice on a specific case may not necessarily be applicable to other, even similar, cases. COPE attempts to reflect all of the discussion of that case when we post Forum case discussions online which, quite often, present and explore opposing opinions and viewpoints. We’d advise anyone reflecting on records of cases discussed at COPE Forum to consider all the points of discussion noted to see whether it is applicable to their own case.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Personally, I could see no difference between the situation I had contacted COPE about and the situation described in the case study, but it is possible I am not privy to all the facts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I responded by asking to be pointed to COPE’s advice to editors and publishers on how to deal with situations like the one discussed in the case study. To this COPE replied, “COPE is a founding partner and active participant of the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://thinkchecksubmit.org/">Think.Check.Submit</a></span> campaign and we actively support and promote that initiative when responding to the conversation around predatory publishing.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Unfortunately, that did not answer my question. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">COPE also sent me a copy of a report it had published and helpfully highlighted for me areas in the report that discussed predatory publishing. Again, however, this was a discussion of the issues of predatory publishing, not practical advice to editors and publishers on what to do when a victim approaches them looking for a legitimate home for their paper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“What continues to puzzle me,” I replied, “is that COPE appears to have no published policy or advice for editors or journals on what to do when a researcher finds him/herself in the position outlined in your case study (which you say is not advice). I am sure the Think. Check. Submit idea is a good one, but it is of no use whatsoever for researchers who have been (for whatever reason) entrapped by a predatory publisher.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I added, “Does COPE really not intend to publish specific advice on what editors/ journals/ publishers should do in this situation, which I know is very common because many authors contact me who find themselves in it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I also copied the journal editor into the email and informed him that I had been in contact with the predatory publisher, who said he was going to take down the paper from his site. Would the editor be willing to reconsider the paper once it had been taken down?, I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The editor replied, “I am unable to discuss individual manuscripts with anyone who is not an author on the manuscript, therefore I cannot comment on the specifics of this case. However, in light of this information, we will be reaching out to the authors to investigate further.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Shortly afterwards, the author who had asked for my help emailed me to say that the publisher had agreed to reconsider a revised submission of his paper “on a semi-urgent basis.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Separately, COPE emailed me to say, “COPE recently held its biannual meeting where this issue was raised and discussed further. It has been agreed to consider what advice COPE can provide in these circumstances and we are beginning the dialogue with our members to decide how best to approach the issue.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is hard not to feel that such a dialogue should have begun long ago, but better late than never perhaps.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">With luck, COPE will eventually fashion a solution, or at least <i>publish some advice</i> for editors and journals, if only to encourage them to treat the victims of predatory publishing with more sympathy than they currently experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">From a selfish point of view, it would certainly be useful if every time a researcher contacted me for assistance and/or advice I could point them to the COPE web site for the help they need. If nothing else this could avoid my having to spend my time emailing publishers on behalf of individuals whom (so far as I can see) no one else currently seems willing to help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A community solution would also be timely as I am finding it increasingly difficult to get the attention of predatory publishers – I assume because they are having to put more and more effort into handling complaints from their victims!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What frustrates me is that people are happy to rail against predatory publishers, to argue over whether blacklists or whitelists are preferable, or to dismiss predatory publishing as no more than an anti-OA slur, but they continue to insist that the victims are the authors of their own fate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I say, my view is that the wider research community should not be leaving these people hanging in the wind but helping them. After all, it is a wind that the community set in motion the day it embraced and promoted pay-to-publish gold OA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I also find it somewhat high-minded and hypocritical for publishers to parrot </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">“</span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Think.Check.Submit</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> every time the topic of predatory publishing comes up. How many researchers know about this initiative? Of those who do, how many can say that using it prevented them from being stung, or that its advice is as useful as claimed?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is worth noting, for instance, that the Think.Check.Submit site says that one sign of a journal’s legitimacy is if it is “indexed in services that you use”. As I noted, one of the journals I was approached about recently is listed in PubMed. Indeed, it would appear that other predatory journals are still listed in PubMed too, as may be the case with DOAJ (despite it having <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.nature.com/news/open-access-index-delists-thousands-of-journals-1.19871">delisted thousands of predatory journals from its service</a></span> in 2016). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As further evidence of how difficult it is to navigate the world of predatory publishing, we could note that the University Grants Commission (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ugc.ac.in/">UGC</a></span>) in India has <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://journosdiary.com/2017/09/05/india-ugc-white-list-predatory-journals/">struggled to weed out</a></span> predatory journals from its whitelist of approved journals. (See also <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/sc-lakhotia-professor-emeritus-at-bhu-universities-ugc-responsible-for-relaxed-attitude-to-predatory-journals-5266866/">here</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">More importantly, Think.Check.Submit is of no use to those unfortunate enough to discover that they have been already scammed. As such, it is a half-solution at best. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Clearly more needs to be done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The COPE case study suggests one possible way forward. However, its solution requires more work than should surely be necessary. More importantly, it requires the co-operation of the scammers, making it a morally suspect solution, and a somewhat fragile one at that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Surely there is a better way? I think so. Earlier this year, for instance, it was <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://twitter.com/AJOLinfo/status/1001751743099785216?s=19">suggested</a></span> on Twitter that papers captured by predatory journals “could be published a second time in [a] legitimate journal once [a] scam [has been] proven, and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.crossref.org/">CrossRef</a></span> could consider changing the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.doi.org/">DOI</a></span> to the legit later one.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The appeal of this approach is that there would be no need to go through the time-consuming and painful process of persuading predatory publishers to take down papers, or in fact to engage with them at all. As I understand it, the idea is that an appeal would be made to, say, CrossRef or COPE, and if that appeal was successful the paper could be republished in a legitimate journal, at which point the article DOI would be re-assigned to the version published in the latter version. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Such a solution would be another timely development since both the research community and publishers are currently grappling with the issue of versioning in the online environment, particularly as the preprint movement gathers pace (see <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://medium.com/@OmnesRes/biorxiv-a-postprint-server-944359ac65d4">this</a></span> for instance, and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/the-preprint-dilemma-good-for-science-bad-for-the-public-a-discussion-paper-for-the-scientific-community">this</a></span>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The point is that there is only ever one “<span class="MsoHyperlink">version of record</span>” (<span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/questions/article-versions/">VoR</a></span>) and (as I understand it) this is signalled by means of its DOI. In the case of predatory publishing, therefore, presumably the DOI could (as suggested on Twitter) be re-assigned to the VoR and the predatory publisher’s version left to fester. Perhaps the DOI assigned to the predatory version could even be deactivated or turned off in some way, leaving it to wallow in relative obscurity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">But I am no expert in these matters and no doubt more thought would need to be given to the matter by wiser heads than mine. Either way, the DOI, CrossRef and COPE would seem to me to be essential partners in any solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Let us hope that COPE will indeed take this forward and finally begin to offer hope to those isolated and lonely individuals who discover they have been conned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">These people are the collateral damage of the pay-to-publish business model devised and promulgated by influential publishers like PLOS and BMC and subsequently endorsed and promoted by the research community. It’s time for the community to hold out a helping hand to the victims of predatory pubishing. If it cannot do this I do not think it can justifiably call itself a community any longer.</span></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-2113641919566084452018-07-09T15:22:00.000+00:002018-07-10T11:39:18.172+00:00OA Big Deals: VSNU embraces greater transparency<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QT0_Qr4CHUg/W0N4SyYTLAI/AAAAAAAAeXs/iEj_7TUpliInHnUS4XTpMI8bQtj-yoZJACLcBGAs/s1600/Logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="212" data-original-width="238" height="178" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QT0_Qr4CHUg/W0N4SyYTLAI/AAAAAAAAeXs/iEj_7TUpliInHnUS4XTpMI8bQtj-yoZJACLcBGAs/s200/Logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>
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Over three months ago (in March) the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) published a <a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/393-springer-nature-and-vsnu-renew-agreement-on-open-access-publishing.html">very brief news item</a> announcing that it had reached agreement with Springer Nature on a new OA Big Deal. </div>
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Curious as to the details of the agreement, I invited VSNU to answer some questions, both about the Springer Nature deal and VSNU’s f<a href="https://vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/394-no-agreement-with-the-royal-society-of-chemistry-publishing%C2%A0.html">ailure to reach agreement </a>with the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), concerning which another short news item had been published at the same time. <o:p></o:p>VSNU’s Spokesperson and Advisor Public Affairs Bart Pierik agree to answer my questions.</div>
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When I sent my list of questions to him, however, Pierik appeared to change his mind. “Considering the fact that we are finalising some more deals with publishers at this moment (we just published <a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/396-oxford-university-press-and-vsnu-reach-agreement-on-100-open-access-deal.html">good news about Oxford University Press</a>) my proposal is that we would be glad to make one Q&A in April about all of these deals,” he emailed me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I was disappointed but decided instead to write something <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-open-access-big-deal-back-to-future.html">more wide-ranging</a> about the growing number of OA Big Deals we can see being agreed between legacy publishers and the research community and to mention VSNU in that larger piece.</div>
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I concluded that article by again inviting VSNU to answer my questions, adding, “By doing so they can help shine a light on this somewhat crepuscular corner of scholarly communication and demonstrate that <i>affordability</i> and <i>transparency</i> are just as important as <i>accessibility</i>.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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April came and went, and I assumed my questions had fallen into a black hole somewhere never to be seen again. </div>
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To my surprise, however, this morning I received an email from <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/wezenbeek/">Wilma Van Wezenbeek</a>, Programme Manager Open Access at VSNU.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not only did Van Wezenbeek attach answers to my questions but she informed me that VSNU has now published the contracts it has signed with both Springer Nature and Taylor & Francis (although Springer Nature has not permitted VSNU to disclose their general terms and conditions).<o:p></o:p></div>
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I publish below both the email and the Q&A, as I received them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I could have wished that the answers were fuller and more detailed, but I guess Rome wasn’t built in a day!</div>
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The only other comment I would make at this stage is that it seems to me that if OA advocates and the wider research community want to see greater transparency over the rising number of OA Big Deals that universities, consortia and funding agencies are now signing with publishers on their behalf they are going to have to push hard. And they are going to have to keep pushing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The email</span></h3>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dear Richard Poynder,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It has been a while that you sent Bart Pierik a list of questions to be answered by us. As we mentioned earlier we wanted to respond but needed some more time to flesh out the details. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We also thought the best moment would actually be now so that we could “put the money where the mouth is”, because we also worked on getting the contracts with Springer Nature and Taylor & Francis disclosed. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As you might have seen today, <a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/416-contracts-springer-nature-and-taylor-francis-published.html">we have</a> (partially, Springer Nature has not agreed with opening up their general terms & conditions) now done so. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Together with the Springer Nature negotiation team, I have answered the questions. I hope that you find them satisfactory. Please note that you can make them public if you wish to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Kind regards <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wilma van Wezenbeek<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Programm Manager Open Access, VSNU<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Q&A</span></h3>
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<o:p></o:p></h2>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i3ems0yNOxs/W0N6lOnzvZI/AAAAAAAAeX4/xF6O2XCU51knTTaYMPVGc-57C5NSxhL7wCLcBGAs/s1600/Wilma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="732" data-original-width="1100" height="132" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i3ems0yNOxs/W0N6lOnzvZI/AAAAAAAAeX4/xF6O2XCU51knTTaYMPVGc-57C5NSxhL7wCLcBGAs/s200/Wilma.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Wilma Van Wezenbeek</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What are the main details of the new Springer Nature deal? How does it differ from previous OA deals with Springer Nature? What are the key changes over the last deal? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The new deal is a continuation of the Springer Nature Compact deal, comprising both reading and publishing rights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I am thinking it is a deal that covers both reading and publishing, but perhaps not what the DEAL negotiators call a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.wikitribune.com/story/2018/01/08/europe/germany/german-scholars-seek-open-access-in-academic-papers-deal/33444/">Publish & Read</a></span> contract? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is too early to compare what we are doing, and what the result of the German DEAL negotiations will be. We can learn from each other, and for sure we know that there are more roads that lead to open access. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: </span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What about numbers: In terms of access, how many journals does the deal provide access to? Is this all of Springer Nature’s journals? If not, what percentage of them?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> All of the Compact Collection, comprising 2,268 journals (compared to 2,079 in 2017).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: In terms of publishing, how many journals does the deal allow authors to publish OA in? Is this all of Springer Nature’s journals? If not, what percentage of the publisher’s journals? Are there any limits on the number of papers that can be published OA?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> In over 1,854 journals the articles </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">by corresponding authors from the Dutch universities are </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">published in open access (in 2017 we had 1,712 journals).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: How many (and what percentage of the total number of journals that authors can publish in as part of the deal) are hybrid OA journals, and how many (and what percentage of the total) are pure gold?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The publishing part of the deal only covers the Compact Collection, being the hybrid journals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Has VSNU signed an NDC with Springer Nature over this? If not, are there nevertheless constraints on what it can release in the way of information about the deal and its costs?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> VSNU advocates openness and transparency regarding the contract. In the bilateral agreement between the <a href="https://www.government.nl/ministries/ministry-of-education-culture-and-science">Ministry of OCW</a> (Education, Culture and Sciences) and higher education recently closed, the VSNU is asked to have “disclosure” as one of the conditions with which they enter the negotiations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It took us several months after we published our notification that we had an agreement on the main issues to flesh out the details, but we are happy to note that Springer agreed with publishing the major details of our contract. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Either way, can you say how much will be paid to Springer Nature as part of the deal, and how the price was calculated?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Yes, this is in the public part of the contract which covers both reading and publishing rights. BTW, you might know that we did also have a request in the context of the Government Information (Public Access) Act and <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/cost-of-publication">published</a></span> a graph of costs incurred by publishers over the years 2011-2015.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What is the estimated APC cost for the OA publishing part of the deal? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Our negotiations are about non-APC based offsetting agreements. VSNU arranges what has been common practice for subscriptions for years – central financing. Calculations have been made of the virtual APCs in our deal; we</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">refer to a <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.scienceguide.nl/2017/09/what-is-the-price-per-article/">publication</a></span></span></span> written by Leo Waaijers, in September 2017, to the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://treemaps.intact-project.org/apcdata/openapc/#publisher/">OpenAPC</a></span></span></span> website, and to the most recent figures we update frequently on <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="http://openaccess.nl/en">openaccess.nl</a></span></span></span>. What you find about the APC costs in the contract, is Springer’s own interpretation/calculation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: How do these costs compare with previous deals? Are there savings, or is it cost neutral, or perhaps higher than previous deals?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Our VSNU mandate at the time of the start of our negotiations last year was very clear – no price increase (we only accepted the cpi, i.e., consumer price index) and a continuation of our full open access deal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">However, a full comparison is tricky, e.g. the Adis journals have been added to the reading part (we used to pay separately, i.e., we held individual subscriptions at several of our institutes). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: How do universities pay for the deal, and on what basis are their individual bills calculated, or is the government top-slicing the deal (i.e. paying Springer Nature directly for the deal)?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Dutch universities make use of a model to allocate the costs. Cost division is based on the total budget of a university, student numbers and scientific output. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Does the deal cover all Dutch research institutions and all researchers based in The Netherlands? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The deal covers all Dutch universities and university hospitals. <a href="https://www.knaw.nl/en/homepage">The KNAW</a> is also taking part in the same deal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: When does the deal go into effect? (I think the last contract ended in 2017)?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The deal covers the period 1/1/2018 until 31/12/2021.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: So presumably it is a 3-year deal? I think the previous contracts were for 1 year. Is 3 years not too long a period to sign up for in today’s somewhat volatile OA environment?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Yes, this (actually 4-year deal) is covering a long period. For us, it includes an important milestone year: 2020. The articles by Dutch corresponding authors in Springer journals will then be openly available for all to read. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What went wrong with the Royal Society of Chemistry <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.openaccess.nl/en/events/no-deal-with-rsc">negotiations</a></span>? What is the next move with the RSC?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The Dutch universities and Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing (RSC) have been unable to reach a new agreement on access to scientific journals. The VSNU would be happy to reopen negotiations with RSC if and when the publisher is willing to make comprehensive and fair agreements on open access, which they have not been until now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What other publishers has VSNU failed to reach agreement with, and why?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There was one other publisher, namely Oxford University Press. Happily, OUP was able to <a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/396-oxford-university-press-and-vsnu-reach-agreement-on-100-open-access-deal.html">present an acceptable offer</a> a year after the previous contract had ended.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Why has VSNU published so little information about the deal? At a Couperin event in January VSNU president, Koen Becking <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://webcast.in2p3.fr/video/session-question-un-modele-economique-avec-les-editeurs">said</a></span> that the take-home point of the meeting for him was that VSNU and other negotiators need to communicate with the research community much better over what they are doing and why. Does that not imply a far greater amount of information should have been released with the <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/393-springer-nature-and-vsnu-renew-agreement-on-open-access-publishing.html#.WqaMjisE-4Y.twitter">announcement</a></span> of the Springer Nature deal, and with the announcement that the RSC deal has failed.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> As happened in the past, we try to share information whenever and wherever we can, and we will continue to do so. The moment that we have reached mutual ground, it does not mean that every detail of the contract has been settled. It took us longer than we anticipated, and we are happy that we can share some more information with you now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: The VSNU announcement says: “the proportion of Dutch articles published open access in Springer Nature journals has risen from 34% in 2014 to 84% in 2017.” What does that mean? 84% of what: of Dutch output? Of the output of participating institutions? These are Springer figures I believe. Has VSNU done its own calculations?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The figure means that 84% of the output by Dutch eligible authors have published his or her article OA at Springer Nature. In the author’s submission process the default option to publish is under a Creative Commons license. The VSNU receives monthly reports from Springer; in which these figures are shared. More information on the numbers of articles published open access at Dutch universities is available on <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="http://www.openaccess.nl/en/node/675">openaccess.nl</a></span>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: At the Couperin <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://webcast.in2p3.fr/video/session-question-un-modele-economique-avec-les-editeurs">event</a></span> Ralf Schimmer (Max-Planck Society) and Koen Becking (VSNU) said that these kind of OA Big Deals are simply not sustainable on a country-by-country basis. In other words, countries need to coordinate their strategy. But history suggests that this is very unlikely does it not, even within the EU? Science Business <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://sciencebusiness.net/news/77453/Few-countries-ready-to-adopt-gold-standard-open-access-to-scientific-journals">reported</a></span> in 2016 that only five EU countries want to abandon the traditional journal subscription model and move to open access publication, and most EU countries prefer green OA. How then can these deals achieve their objective, or reduce costs in the way that Schimmer and Becking predicted at Couperin?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://oa2020.org/"><span style="color: windowtext;">OA2020 initiative</span></a></span></span> is growing, but you are right, we need more countries to follow us. This is something we also mention in our <span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="https://www.vsnu.nl/Roadmap-open-access-2018-2020-English/the-road-to-2020.html"><span style="color: windowtext;">roadmap open access 2018-2020</span></a></span></span>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Meanwhile, we see funders moving towards building their own publisher platforms (mainly using the F1000 platform). Might that not be a better approach?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Joining forces is an important condition to change the publishing landscape. For this reason, VSNU aligns with amongst others the Dutch funding organisation NWO and the <a href="https://www.knaw.nl/en/homepage">Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences KNAW</a> at the national level, and at international level (e.g. with EUA). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As we mentioned in our open access roadmap, we would like to see the research(er) to be more in control. Creating a publication platform is one of the actions to change the way of producing and disseminating knowledge in order to reach the goal of making research output publicly available without delay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Many predict that these kinds of OA Big Deal contracts will lock legacy publishers into the new OA environment, lock in unsustainable prices, and threaten the continued existence of smaller publishers and pure OA publishers. How can you allay the concerns of those who worry about this?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> These are real concerns. VSNU strives for changing the scholarly output system, not to push researchers into the hands of some publishers that impose their rules and regulations. Therefore, other actions are needed, such as a change in the rewarding and recognition policies underlying researchers’ career paths and funding policies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">For smaller or pure OA publishers the VSNU takes into account what reasonable steps can be taken towards open access, as is mentioned in our open access roadmap.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: What happens if an organisation like VSNU agrees one of these OA Big Deals with a large legacy publisher and then when it comes up for renewal cannot agree on pricing for the new one. Much has been made of the fact that researchers cannot get access to journal articles if a subscription Big Deal is not renewed, but what happens if an OA Big Deal fails? Researchers will presumably struggle to pay to publish their papers and so are more vulnerable? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The preferred road to open access for the VSNU is the gold route. In case this seems to be not feasible in the end, there are alternatives of green open access or delayed open access making use of Dutch legislation (the “Taverne” amendment, see again our roadmap open access). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: It turns out that most open-access articles do not have a license attached to them. This has led Jon Brock to <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/bronze-open-access-supersedes-green-and-gold">argue</a></span> that publishers can deny access to the majority of open-access articles at their discretion. What if anything is VSNU doing to avoid that possibility in the deals it is signing</span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">VSNU:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> In the contracts, the VSNU negotiates the CC-BY license is seen by VSNU as the preferred default to prevent copyright issues. </span></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-21953503758578069322018-06-12T14:12:00.000+00:002018-07-05T09:39:12.797+00:00The OA Interviews: Taylor & Francis' Deborah Kahn discusses Dove Medical Press<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Please note the postscript to this interview <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-oa-interviews-taylor-francis.html?showComment=1530778208926#c4137691345791354473">here</a></b></span></h3>
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i> <i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The open-access publisher Dove Medical Press has a controversial past and I have written about the company on a number of occasions (<a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2008/11/open-access-interviews-dove-medical.html">here</a>, <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-access-linked-to-alabama-shooting.html">here</a>, <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-i-wont-be-doing-that-video.html">here</a> and <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2017/07/on-sponsorship-transparency-scholarly.html">here</a>).</span></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xKYVoxqnpn0/Wx_OcJHaw9I/AAAAAAAAdVg/aZquOe3byWkSVJhEy5PVi53aqxv4mCNlwCLcBGAs/s1600/Kahn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="336" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xKYVoxqnpn0/Wx_OcJHaw9I/AAAAAAAAdVg/aZquOe3byWkSVJhEy5PVi53aqxv4mCNlwCLcBGAs/s200/Kahn.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Deborah Kahn</td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When Dove was <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/taylor-francis-buys-open-access-journal-publisher-dove-medical-644721">acquired</a> by Taylor & Francis last September it was assumed (by me at least) that controversy had become a thing of the past for the publisher.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Seven months after the purchase, however, a medical technology company called <a href="http://minervasurgical.com/">Minerva Surgical</a> took the unusual step of publishing a </i><a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/minerva-surgical-requests-immediate-retraction-of-misleading-intl-journal-of-womens-health-publication-that-compares-novasure-to-minerva-sponsored-by-hologic-300637791.html" style="font-style: italic;">press release</a><i> alleging that </i><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/I1I7CrkEYwi8nAVEQSwP-n3?domain=dovepress.com" style="font-style: italic;">a paper</a><i> published in Dove’s </i><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/W64GCqxV2vt8kO0ZYSw9okT?domain=dovepress.com">International Journal of Women</a></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/W64GCqxV2vt8kO0ZYSw9okT?domain=dovepress.com"><i>’</i>s Health</a></span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> makes “material misleading statements” about the nature of a study funded by a rival in “clear violation of the COPE guidelines.”</i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As a result, Minerva said, the paper should be retracted immediately.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">To discuss this latest incident, Dove’s background, and some of the “historical issues” the publisher has faced, Taylor & Francis’ Director, Medicine and Open Access, agreed to do a Q&A with me, which I publish below.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Of the latest controversy Kahn says, “our investigations show that the peer review was carried out to high standards and that the journal behaved well, and the authors responses have satisfied us that the complaints are unfounded.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the historical issues, she adds, the naysayers were wrong to have doubted Dove’s probity. “We went through very detailed due diligence, carrying out an extremely thorough process, when we acquired Dove Medical Press. We were satisfied that, after some historical issues, improvements had been made to their peer review process working with the OASPA membership team … Eight months on from our acquisition, Dove are performing well in all areas, we remain confident that we got value for money, and are delighted that they are part of Taylor & Francis Group.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There are one or two places in the Q&A where readers may feel there is a little repetition. If so, this is because the interview was done by email in a staged way. I have, however, not edited the text as I am keen to publish Kahn’s answers exactly as she emailed them to me. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: I am wondering why Taylor & Francis (T&F) decided to buy Dove Medical Press? I have seen the short <a href="https://newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/dove-medical-press-joins-taylor-francis-group/">press release</a> published at the time, which talks of Dove journals having Impact Factors (and of T&F wanting to expand in OA and medical journals) but I am also aware that the perception in the market is that (as this article <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/U80xCjRvnlfnGj58ot4-9e3?domain=statnews.com">puts it</a>), titles from Dove “tend to rank poorly on impact factor”. Can you say more about why T&F chose to buy Dove? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Open Access and Medical publishing are both strategically important areas of investment and growth for Taylor & Francis. So we were delighted when we were able to enter into discussions with Dove Medical Press, as they fit so well with our plans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dove Medical Press is a small and entrepreneurial company, with staff based in Auckland and Macclesfield, all of whom are committed to excellent service to authors, and high-quality peer review. They publish around 100 journals, of which 12 have impact factors ranging from 1.7 to 7 – almost all of them placed within the top two quartiles of the Journal Citation Report. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Two more titles are set to receive Impact Factors in the next release of the JCR. The vast majority of the rest of the journals are indexed in the DOAJ, PubMed and the Emerging Sources Citation Index (<a href="http://mjl.clarivate.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=EX">ESCI</a>). All of these indexes perform in-depth checks on the quality and integrity of the contents of journals before accepting them for indexing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We chose to buy Dove because we were impressed by the quality of their content, the quality of their peer review, their focus on author experience, and their loyal author following, with a high percentage of repeat authors. We rated it a very good business in its own right and knew that we would learn from them as we continued to develop our own open access offerings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: How much did T&F pay for Dove?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> This wasn’t disclosed at the time of acquisition. Please see the <a href="https://informa.com/media/press-releases-news/latest-news/informa-extends-open-access-position-and-capability-with-addition-of-dove-medical-press/">press statement</a> released by Informa, our parent company. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Yes, I saw that, but I was hoping you could tell me anyway? Frankly, I don’t understand why this information needs to be secret, although I suppose it fits with the secrecy that has always surrounded Dove. When I interviewed Dove’s Tim Hill in 2008 he refused to tell me who the owners of Dove were and denied that (despite what some believed) there was any connection between Libertas Academica (LA) and Dove, or with him (aside from the fact that the owner of LA was his son). <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Then, when in 2010 I <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-i-wont-be-doing-that-video.html">emailed him</a> to point out that New Zealand Companies House records that he had one time been the sole director and shareholder of LA, and had in fact been a director of LA when he told me in 2008 that there was no connection, he responded, “Henceforth I will not be providing you with any comment or information on any subject.” In 2016, I tried to make contact with Dove directors Graeme Peterson and Kevin Toale, neither of whom responded. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Can you tell me why there has always been this kind of secrecy surrounding Dove? OA advocates argue that scholarly publishing is primarily funded by the taxpayer and so should be transparent both in process and financing. There is now also a widespread belief that there should be even greater transparency with regard to medical research, and those who publish it, not least because it is felt that pay-to-publish OA has made it easier for pharmaceutical and medical device companies to use scholarly papers as marketing tools. Do you agree that there are dangers here and that greater transparency is essential? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I do believe that there should be transparency in all scholarly publishing, both in traditional subscription and open access publishing. <a href="https://publicationethics.org/">COPE</a>, <a href="https://oaspa.org/">OASPA</a>, <a href="http://www.wame.org/">WAME</a> and the <a href="https://doaj.org/">DOAJ</a> have collaborated to identify <a href="https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing">Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing</a>, and these principles form part of the criteria on which membership applications to those organizations are evaluated. All Dove journals are <a href="https://bit.ly/2JeQrsr">included in the DOAJ</a> and have “<a href="https://doaj.org/faq#thetick">the tick</a>”, which means they have met the high level of compliance to these criteria. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">All Dove journals are also members of COPE and have met their membership criteria also.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I don’t think that there has been secrecy around Dove Medical Press. Information about the company <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/04967656">has been available from Companies House</a> since they came into existence in 2003. Nothing in our due diligence suggested anything to the contrary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Tim Hill (from Dove) is Tom Hill’s father, and he may have helped his son establish Libertas Academica in the first instance. However, Tim Hill was not involved in the direction or any of the operations of Libertas Academica. No current Dove staff have ever worked with or as part of Libertas Academica, nor do the two companies share any operations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Dove is registered in the UK but, as I understand it, the company actually operates out of New Zealand. Did that present any particular issues during the negotiation process? Does it present any difficulties today?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Dove has offices in both Macclesfield and Auckland with 1/3 of the staff in the UK and 2/3 in New Zealand. These two locations are actually a real advantage, as it means we can offer global coverage and 24-hour customer service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Apart from a few late night and early morning meetings for people in both locations, there are few disadvantages, and as a bonus I have been very much enjoying getting to know Auckland, and reacquainting myself with Macclesfield which is close to where I grew up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Dove had quite a number of directors. Who did T&F deal with when negotiating the purchase? Was Dove’s MD involved in the negotiations? Apart from the company’s directors (who I believe have all left), have most Dove staff remained with the company? Has the Dove Press Publisher remained?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Dove had three founders all of whom were involved in the negotiations. They have left the business, but almost all of the staff have remained. Dove has a very loyal staff, and it seems has much lower staff turnover than other publishing companies I have worked in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Unfortunately, you didn’t answer my question about the Dove Press Publisher Tim Hill. Is he still with the company? You also did not say whether the Dove MD Graeme Peterson was involved in the negotiations. I would be grateful if you could address these questions? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The founders of the company were Philip Smith, Kevin Toale and Tim Hill, all of whom have left the company, and with whom we negotiated. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Philip Smith was Managing Director of Dove. Graeme Peterson has never been the Managing Director of Dove. When he became a Director of Dove, he was (and still is) Managing Director of Prime Global (previously Prime Medica). The Companies House listing clearly shows that he was Company Secretary and Director of Dove from 2004 to 2017. His listing shows his occupation as Managing Director, but this was of Prime Global not of Dove.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: You talk of three founders of Dove. When I <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2008/11/open-access-interviews-dove-medical.html">spoke to</a> Tim Hill in 2008, he told me the company was founded by “a group of former publishing executives, mostly from ADIS International” and that it was owned by “six private individuals”. Companies House records show there were four directors of the company – Graeme Peterson, Philip Smith, Kevin Toale and John Stolz. The shareholders included Peterson, Smith, Toale, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-dolben-96b526/">William Dolben</a> (CEO of <a href="http://www.contentednet.com/corporate/content/solutions">ContentEd</a>, which offers “a complete publishing service for the pharmaceutical industry”), a company called JSI Communications (a <a href="http://www.jsi.co.uk/">medical communications company</a> owned by John Stolz, who <a href="http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Comp/comp.sys.mac.misc/2005-09/msg00037.html">appears</a> also to have also acted as a Dove commissioning editor) and the T&A Hill Family Trust (which I assume is connected with Tim Hill). Who were the three founders you talked to?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As I said above, the company was founded by Kevin Toale, Philip Smith and Tim Hill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>RP: Was T&F aware at the time it made a bid for Dove how controversial the company was? For instance, Dove was one of the first OA publishers to attract criticism for spamming authors (and was </i><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/-89XCkRwomfOXnW92SxTN6x?domain=gunther-eysenbach.blogspot.co.uk" style="font-style: italic;">dubbed</a><i> a “black sheep” by Gunther Eysenbach); it has featured on Retraction Watch fairly regularly; it was at one time on Jeffrey Beall’s list of “Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers”; it was caught in the </i>Science<i> open access </i><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/6eXJCmZ2EotjP5JzyFPaUzP?domain=science.sciencemag.org" style="font-style: italic;">sting</a><i> (for which it had its </i><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/RZdxCn5Yzpc73GOv9C5KQYw?domain=oaspa.org" style="font-style: italic;">membership of OASPA terminated</a><i>); it got mixed up in the </i><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/qRp7Co2vOqfrPXqE2t8TftA?domain=poynder.blogspot.co.uk" style="font-style: italic;">Dr Amy Bishop incident</a><i>; and one of its peer reviewers </i><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/bz-FCpYRz0unOzMm4tEpNuO?domain=retractionwatch.com" style="font-style: italic;">roundly condemned</a><i> its publishing platform, saying that it did not even allow reviewers to reject papers. </i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Did any of this concern T&F during the negotiation process? If so, why did it go ahead with the purchase? What exactly does T&F do in terms of due diligence before it acquires another company? Did it go through this process in the case of Dove?<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> We went through very detailed due diligence, carrying out an extremely thorough process, when we acquired Dove Medical Press. We were satisfied that, after some historical issues, improvements had been made to their peer review process working with the OASPA membership team. This <a href="https://oaspa.org/dove-medical-press-reinstated-as-oaspa-members/">led to their OASPA membership being reinstated</a>, resulted in an extremely robust peer review process described in detail in their peer review schematic on <a href="https://www.dovepress.com/editorial_policies.php?content_id=3526">this page</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In fact, some of the additional checks they have added since that schematic was published go way beyond what most publishers do in their peer review process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">These are in addition to the usual ethical checks which quality medical journals perform, and include: checking the affiliations of all authors and checking retractionwatch.com to identify whether any of the authors have been involved in unethical practices; manuscripts being checked for duplicate submission or publication and run through the SciDetect software; and IP address checks to make sure that there is no COI between author, reviewer and Editor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Publishing a schematic is surely a good idea. What is key, of course, is routinely following that process. But you didn’t answer my question: what exactly does T&F do in the way of due diligence before it acquires another company?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> All papers submitted to Dove go through the same rigorous process which, as I said, is more rigorous than that on the schematic and than many I have seen in other publishers. Any implication that this is not routinely followed is unfounded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As far as due diligence is concerned, as part of Informa, all acquisitions by Taylor & Francis go through a very detailed and thorough due diligence. Cross-functional teams of experts from Finance, Legal, Tax, Treasury and Communications meet weekly with the business leads to analyse and assess the risks and considerations concerning any acquisition and follow a detailed process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">No acquisition is complete until all questions are answered in detail, and there has been a thorough review by Informa’s senior management. This process was followed with this acquisition. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: On Dove’s membership of OASPA: I think it would be fair to say that this has been more of an on-off affair than the above might imply. The timeline is this: Dove joined OASPA in late 2009; Dove withdrew from OASPA on 7th April 2010; Dove applied to join again in May 2012; Dove was re-accepted on 12th July 2012; Dove’s membership was terminated by OASPA on 5th November 2013. Dove reapplied in June 2015 and was accepted on 23rd September 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What is not clear is why Dove withdrew from OASPA in 2010. What we do know is that it occurred in the wake of the Amy Bishop affair, in which publicity was given to a controversial paper authored by her and published by </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.dovepress.com/international-journal-of-general-medicine-journal">Dove’s International Journal of General Medicine</a><i>. Controversially, Bishop added the names of her minor children as co-authors of the paper. At the time (February 2010) I <a href="https://poynder.blogspot.com/2010/02/open-access-linked-to-alabama-shooting.html">wrote an article</a> about the incident in which I raised the issue of ownership and transparency, and quoted Peter Suber saying, “I am deeply suspicious of publishers who are unwilling to disclose their owners. We need that kind of transparency to be able to investigate whether the owners have financial interests, e.g. with pharma companies, that might compromise the integrity of their journals.” When I asked OASPA for the reason Dove had withdrawn I was told, “We had a few exchanges by email following your article and they then withdrew their membership. I asked them if they could give me a reason but they gave none.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Here it is worth noting that co-founder of OASPA Gunther Eysenbach <a href="https://oaspa.org/response-to-the-recent-article-in-science/#comment-5201">has repeatedly alleged</a> that Dove engages in “questionable publishing practices”. And at the time when OASPA terminated Dove’s membership in 2013 he referred back to the Amy Bishop paper and said that it had disappeared from its website without “any proper retraction notice/process”. (The <a href="https://www.dovepress.com/effects-of-selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors-on-motor-neuron-sur-peer-reviewed-article-IJGM">paper</a> appears to have been reposted later, again with no indication of its disappearance and reappearance). This will all be part and parcel of what you call Dove’s “historical issues”, but did none of this really give T&F any pause for thought? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I have already discussed the very detailed due diligence we went through which satisfied us that there are no issues that should concern us with their operations. And in working closely with Dove in the eight months since the acquisition, I have been impressed by their high standards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">There is absolutely no evidence of any misconduct on Dove’s part, and despite persistent attempts to find some over the years, it doesn’t seem that you have evidence of any wrongdoing either. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is clear that in the two cases you mention, Bishop and Bohannon, authors who set out to deceive the system managed to do so. This showed up some inadequacies in the peer review processes of those journals. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As a result of the Bohannon sting in 2013 and their OASPA membership being terminated, Dove worked closely with OASPA to improve their editorial processes and the OASPA Membership Committee were satisfied with those improvements. As I mentioned earlier, Dove also continue to enhance those processes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: While we are on the historical issues, in 2011 I was contacted by a US-based publisher who said that Dove had on two occasions launched a journal “identical or nearly identical” to this publisher’s own journals. The publisher added that only after a great deal of pressure from them did Dove change the titles of the two copycat journals. The publisher also pointed out that nine of Dove’s journals had the same EiC, many of which journals were unrelated to that EiC’s specialism. I do not know if this is still the case, but can you confirm that Taylor & Francis would not sanction such things? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> None of the current Dove senior management know anything about this allegation. Dove do have Editors-in-Chief who edit more than one journal, but only in their own specialist area and never more than two or three. Taylor & Francis also have some Editors-in-Chief editing multiple journals, but again only in their specific subject field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: As you note, many of these things may be historical issues. However, it seems that the controversy over Dove continues after the acquisition. Seven months after T&F purchased Dove, for instance, its </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/W64GCqxV2vt8kO0ZYSw9okT?domain=dovepress.com">International Journal of Women's Health</a><i> published <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/I1I7CrkEYwi8nAVEQSwP-n3?domain=dovepress.com">a paper</a> that has attracted some worrying criticism – as reported recently by STAT. The paper in question compared patient satisfaction with two competing devices for endometrial ablation, and concluded that the product developed by <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/yfJsCv2YjAf7LWNxwCNJUzh?domain=minervasurgical.com">Minerva Surgical</a> was inferior to the competing product developed by <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/RbqrCwpEkBHGVL8Klin2NQY?domain=hologic.com">Hologic</a> (which funded the study). On April 26th Minerva published a <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/weEmCxkVlDi1RJMkEU6eZLm?domain=prnewswire.com">press release</a> alleging that the Dove article makes “material misleading statements” about the nature of the study and that this is “a clear violation of the COPE guidelines”. <o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Writing in STAT, Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky say, “We can’t judge the essence of Minerva’s claims, although some — particularly that paid personnel for a device maker biased the selection process for patients in the trial — are quite troubling and would constitute grounds for retraction.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When I raised this on Twitter, T&F <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/D8IeCyP6mEtr2NXZOtmXtBv?domain=twitter.com">responded</a> that it was “currently working with the editor-in-chief to look into the concerns surrounding this paper”. But in light of Dove’s history does it not cause you some concern that this has occurred not long after the acquisition?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> It is an unfortunate fact of life that all publishers are having to field more and more disputes between academics and researchers. It is keeping COPE very busy, and there are few journals or publishers who have avoided being featured on Retraction Watch’s pages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the case of the <i>International Journal of Women’s Health</i> paper our investigations show that the peer review was carried out to high standards and that the journal behaved well, and the authors</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> responses have satisfied us that the complaints are unfounded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As per ethical guidelines, we have offered the complainant the chance to write a Letter to the Editor with his concerns, which we would publish along with a response from the authors. However, he has not chosen to do so as yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Can I just check what you are saying: you see nothing untoward or unusual in a publisher appearing fairly frequently on Retraction Watch? And are you implying that the cases COPE deals with are generally the result of disputes between academics and researchers, not of misconduct, faulty peer review or conflicts of interest?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Actually, I don’t. The fact that publishers are amending the scholarly record when they find that there are errors in the literature is a healthy thing. I would be worried if a publisher never retracted anything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In fact, <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/why-high-profile-journals-have-more-retractions-1.15951">this article</a> in Nature shows that journals with higher impact factors have higher levels of retractions, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/why-high-profile-journals-have-more-retractions-1.15951">this one</a> suggests that higher levels of retractions may in fact be a good thing. In fact, this second paper finds that the rising number of retractions is most likely to be caused by a growing propensity to retract flawed and fraudulent papers, and there is little evidence of an increase in the prevalence of misconduct. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And no, you are misinterpreting my previous comment. The cases COPE see fall into nine areas, as outlined in their <a href="https://publicationethics.org/core-practices">core practices</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: On the issue of COIs: My understanding is that the MD of Dove was also the MD of a Medical Education and Communication Companies (MECC), and so presumably was engaged in publication planning. As I noted above, two of the other shareholders appear to have been running MECCs and/or providing publication services for pharmaceutical companies. Do you think that being a shareholder and/or MD of a medical publisher while also being the shareholder and MD or owner of a MECC might raise conflict of interest issues?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> This is a misunderstanding on your part. The MD of Dove was Philip Smith who did not run any other company. As for the shareholders, shareholders in any organization will have a number of interests. None of the shareholders you refer to played an active role in the organization or its operations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: In March 2017 Dove <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/dove-press/nanomedicine-academy/prweb14143325.htm">announced</a> that it was sponsoring <a href="https://www.northeastern.edu/nanomedicineacademy/">The Nanomedicine Academy of Minority Serving Institutions at Northeastern University</a>. The Director and co-founder of this Academy is listed as being on the <a href="https://www.dovepress.com/journal-editor-international-journal-of-nanomedicine-eic5">editorial board</a> of </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.dovepress.com/international-journal-of-nanomedicine-journal">The International Journal of Nanomedicine</a><i>, which is a Dove journal and has an impact factor of 4.300. Its website also says that it is indexed in PubMed and Medline. As such, it would seem to be one of the journals that attracted T&F to Dove (In fact, it was singled out for mention in the Informa <a href="https://informa.com/media/press-releases-news/latest-news/informa-extends-open-access-position-and-capability-with-addition-of-dove-medical-press/">press release</a> you cited earlier). The EiC of the journal is the other <a href="https://www.che.neu.edu/news/faculty/368?page=8">co-founder</a> of the Nanomedicine Academy, and appears to have <a href="https://www.dovepress.com/search_results.php?search_word=%22thomas+j+webster%22">published over 100 papers</a> with Dove, almost exclusively (if not exclusively) in his own journal (two of the papers seem to have been co-authored with the Director of The Academy). <o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I must assume that T&F would have established this during the due diligence process it undertook, and so is comfortable with the arrangement. But I cannot help but think that some would feel it raises conflict of interest issues. What would you say to those who might be concerned about it? Or am I simply misunderstanding the situation and how these things work?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Journals and Publishers often sponsor conferences and educational courses of various types. I think that if you look at the Academy, you will see that it is an academic partnership dedicated to providing education in nanomedicine to minority populations. This sounds like a great educational initiative, and I cannot see any COI from a Publisher donating to an initiative of this kind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As far as the Editor publishing in his own journal is concerned, COPE guidelines do not preclude editors submitting to their own journals. They do expect journals to “have a procedure for handling submissions from editors or members of the editorial board that will ensure that the peer review is handled independently of the author/editor”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dove have <a href="https://www.dovepress.com/editorial_policies.php?content_id=3523">clear guidance</a> on Editors publishing in their own journals whereby <i>“Editors-in-Chief must declare any financial and/or personal conflict of interest for each submitted manuscript, and decisions on manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest will be made by another editor”. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">No Dove Editor is involved in the peer review of a paper that they are author on, and this is the case with the papers published by this editor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: After SAGE bought Dove’s sister company Libertas Academica it had to <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/ImX0CzpBnGHMwRg6WCLIc6L?domain=plus.google.com">conclude</a> that following “detailed review” it was unlikely that many of LA’s journals would be successful over the long-term. As a result, it shuttered over ¼ of those it had acquired. I wonder if Dove might have to do the same. </span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">On Twitter T&F <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/D8IeCyP6mEtr2NXZOtmXtBv?domain=twitter.com">said</a> “When any list joins T&F we go through an integration phase where we check on all processes and standards and integrate / amalgamate the best of what both orgs do. This is a process that has happened with Dove and is on-going.” Do you anticipate having to close many Dove journals? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> As I said earlier, Libertas Academica had no connection with Dove and was not a sister company so there is no comparison between the two companies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It is good publishing practice to regularly review the journals portfolio, and make changes accordingly. Dove had done this review prior to become part of Taylor & Francis and had decided to cease the publication of some journals which were not receiving enough quality submissions to sustain them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We reviewed this list together and agreed with their plans. Some of these journals were closed prior to the acquisition but not all had gone through the process by that point, so some are currently being closed. At the end of this process 92 journals will remain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: We may disagree over the definition of a sister company, but as noted earlier, the former MD of Libertas Academica is the son of Tim Hill. And according to New Zealand Companies House it was Tim Hill who registered LA, and he was listed as a shareholder until at least 2009. Does that not suggest to you that the companies were connected?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Please see my previous response on this. No Dove staff, now and previously, have ever been involved in the direction or operations of Libertas Academica.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: On the issue of journal closures, Wikipedia reports that in 2013 Dove published 131 journals. Unless I am miscounting, the Dove website currently lists 136 journals. This would seem to suggest that 44 (32%) of them are due to be closed – which is a higher percentage than were closed at LA. Is it normal for such a high percentage of journals to be closed after an acquisition? Is T&F still confident that it got value for money in buying Dove?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">DK: </span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dove Press has launched 136 journals in the last 14 years. Some of these were not successful and were closed. It is not uncommon for this to be the case, and for publishers to close journals which are not thriving. When we acquired Dove they were publishing 109 journals, and we were aware of and agreed with their plans to close 17 of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Eight months on from our acquisition, Dove are performing well in all areas, we remain confident that we got value for money, and are delighted that they are part of Taylor & Francis Group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">RP: Thank you for answering my questions. </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-40771084053699616052018-05-14T10:00:00.000+00:002018-05-16T09:03:21.306+00:00Six questions about openness in science<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Recently I was contacted by a student from a Russian university who is writing a dissertation on the influence of open access on modern scientific communication. She sent me six questions. The questions and my answers to them are below.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Why does society need science to be open?</span><o:p></o:p></h2>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: It’s a rather common opinion (at least among Russian researchers) that the research community has access to all the materials it needs, and non-scientists are not interested in this information as they can’t understand it or use it. Why does society need science to be open?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Yes, I think these are common views amongst researchers everywhere. Much has been said and written about why the world needs open science but for me, there are essentially two main reasons: transparency and efficiency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Transparency has become important if only because science appears to be facing a major credibility crisis right now. There are a number of reasons for this, not least the so-called reproducibility crisis (also referred to as the </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis">replication</a> crisis) that has become apparent in recent years. In addition, we have seen a rise in <a href="http://research.hsr.it/en/research-integrity/misconduct-and-detrimental-practices.html">research misconduct and detrimental research practices</a> (which of course is related to the replication crisis). There is also increasing suspicion of science and scientists within society. The latter is part and parcel of a global loss of faith in professionals, a phenomenon captured in an <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c">oft-cited statement</a> by UK politician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove">Michael Gove</a> – who in 2016 declared that people “have had enough of experts”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Coupled with the “fake news” phenomenon we are experiencing today this is a dangerous development as it suggests that emotions, prejudice and ideology may increasingly be displacing facts. Let’s not be mistaken, the new scepticism about professionals and </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-m-parsons/worst-enemy-of-science_b_5978360.html">distrust of scientists</a> has real-world implications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">In fact, the seeds of the loss of faith in scientists were sown some while ago, as a result of things like the </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy">MMR vaccine controversy</a>, the exaggerated claims that we have seen scientists and pharmaceutical companies make about the efficacy of drugs like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib">Vioxx</a> (scholarly publisher Elsevier was <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27376/title/Merck-published-fake-journal/">associated with</a> this activity by <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/27383/title/Elsevier-published-6-fake-journals/">producing fake journals</a>, apparently intended to promote drugs), and conflicting claims over <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversie">genetically modified food</a>. Additionally (in the US in particular), we have seen a growing gap between the public and scientists over <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation%E2%80%93evolution_controversy">creationism-evolution</a>, and political rejection of scientists’ warnings about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy">global warming/climate change</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We must hope that open science and the greater transparency it affords can play an important role in mitigating this scepticism and distrust of scientists. If, for instance, all research papers, and the data generated during the research process, were freely available online scientific results could be checked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">And if we are talking about the wider issue of open science (rather than just open access and open data), then I would point out that the growth of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trials_registry">clinical trials registries</a> and the <a href="https://cos.io/blog/transparent-definitions-and-community-signals-growth-open-science-community/">pre-registration of studies</a> will increase transparency too. In providing public access to information about trials and studies the greater transparency that results should help reduce or eliminate unethical practices like <a href="http://goodsciencebadscience.nl/?p=347">HARKing</a> and <a href="https://www.methodspace.com/primer-p-hacking/">P-hacking</a>. It would also go some way to address the problem of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib">positive publication bias</a>, in which negative or null results are today far less likely to be published than positive results. Amongst other things, this helps pharmaceutical companies to hype their drugs inappropriately.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We can also hope to see increasing interest in opening up the entire research process – by, for instance, the use of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_notebook_science">open notebook science</a> techniques. Here I am talking about the kind of things that Jean-Claude Bradley <a href="http://www.infotoday.com/IT/sep10/Poynder.shtml">pioneered</a> a decade ago. This too brings greater transparency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">In terms of making science more efficient, if research papers and data were all freely available online (particularly null results) it would be easier for scientists to avoid wasting public money by unknowingly repeating experiments. Freely available data also allows for cross-pollination between disciplines and enables other scientists to find patterns in data that the producers of the data did not, if only because these other scientists will be looking at the data from another angle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, if research papers and data were all made freely available it would be possible to deploy machines to </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">text and data mine (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_mining">TDM</a>) them. Amongst other things, this would allow computers to provide far more substantive aid to researchers and, some argue, it would see machines start to make new scientific discoveries on their own. All these things would clearly make research more effective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">How one makes TDM commonplace is, of course, a very different matter, not least because of the continuing (and perhaps intractable) barriers that copyright imposes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the issue of non-scientists having access to research: I think the growth of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_science">citizen science</a> suggests that it is no longer true (if it ever was) that members of the public have no need to access research, or that they cannot understand it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">True, most citizen science today consists of little more than recruiting members of the public to do grunt work (counting butterflies, bugs or birds, or staring at images of galaxies on their computer), and then have them hand the results over to professional scientists in the lab. I.e. the “real” science continues to be undertaken by professionals. I would hope, however, that we can move beyond this. Citizens can also <i>do</i> scientific work – even, it would seem, a </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/Unbelievable-This-9-year-old-Indian-American-boyinvented-a-device-that-saves-water/articleshow/52506123.cms">9-year old</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: Databases like Web of Science (</span></i></b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_Science"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">WoS</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">) and </span></i></b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopus"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Scopus</span></i></b></a><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> now indicate if articles are open access or not, but publishers often open some materials for a short period of time and then close them again. It seems to be a bit misleading when articles drift from open to closed status and it also creates uncertainty over the current state of OA in different disciples. Does open access require the use of open licenses? Can we call “bronze” access “open”?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>A:</b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> You draw attention to a couple of serious problems. The term </span><a href="https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/bronze-open-access-supersedes-green-and-gold"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">bronze OA</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (where articles are “made free-to-read on the publisher website, without an explicit open license.”) stems from </span><a href="https://peerj.com/articles/4375/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">a paper</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> published in PeerJ earlier this year. The issue of papers being made OA only temporarily (which is far more likely if a licence has not been attached to a work) was </span><a href="http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5881.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">highlighted</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> by </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevan_Harnad"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Stevan Harnad</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> as long ago as 2006 when he talked about what he called “peek-a-boo OA”. This reminds us that many open access issues are long-standing and hard to resolve! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">But is bronze access really “open”, and does OA require the use of open licences? That depends on your point of view, and your definition of open access! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">When those who attended the 2002 </span><a href="http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">BOAI</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> meeting adopted the term open access and set out to define it, they did not specify the use of a licence. In fact, if one looks closely at the actual definition of open access, it becomes apparent that two important words are missing – namely “immediate” and “permanent”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thus according to BOAI, open access <a href="http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read">implies</a> “<i>its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">While the BOAI section on open access publishing suggests that publishers “will use copyright and other tools to ensure permanent open access to all the articles they publish” this is not in the actual definition. Moreover, as I say, no specific license was named.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Today OA advocates argue that the BOAI definition implies use of the most liberal Creative Commons licence (</span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">CC BY</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">). But not everyone agrees. Perhaps part of the problem here is that at the time of the BOAI meeting the CC licences had not been released. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">But I think the larger problem is that no one thought to create an official OA organisation, or foundation, in order to police the use of the term open access and/or monitor how it is used. This is an issue I raised in 2006 (</span><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/where-is-open-access-foundation.html"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">These omissions have allowed publishers to claim works are open access when – in the view of OA advocates – they are not. Consider, for instance, what the publisher Springer Nature </span><a href="https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/about/what-is-open-access"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">says</span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> of OA. Open access, it asserts, “refers to free, unrestricted online access to research outputs such as journal articles and books. OA content is open to all, with no access fees.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whatever one’s views of the BOAI definition, Springer Nature’s definition of OA would appear to be a watered-down version. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The problem of licensing is all the greater with green OA. Since subscription publishers routinely acquire exclusive rights in the papers they publish they are able to impose embargoes and so delay the moment when works are made open access. Green OA, therefore, cannot provide immediate open access. Moreover, it means publishers are (generally) able to control where papers can be self-archived, what licence is attached to them, and so what can be done with them, and how they can be used.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So OA can mean different things to different people, and the high percentage of bronze OA means that many papers are vulnerable to being re-enclosed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Disciplinary differences</span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: Are there any differences in how open access should develop in different disciplines and which? For example, </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://arxiv.org/"><b><i>arXiv</i></b></a><b><i> is a good instrument for physics and mathematics, but it seems that researchers in the humanities are not that motivated to publish preprints or use repositories at all. <o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Yes, there are differences between disciplines, and I think OA does need to develop differently in different fields. These differences are often cultural. For instance, physicists were sharing preprints long before the arrival of the internet, so arXiv was a natural extension of that sharing habit and gave them a head start. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">By contrast, in </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://f1000research.com/articles/7-501/v1">engineering</a> concern over patents and other intellectual property appears to have made open access a particularly hard sell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the case of biology and biomedical research, the problem has been less a cultural one, but a consequence I think of publishers successfully resisting early OA initiatives. So, for instance, they </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">succeeded in having a pre-internet preprint service that was developed at the US National Institutes of Health (<a href="https://www.nih.gov/">NIH</a>) in the 1960s <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5690419/">closed down</a>. A second NIH initiative intended to create a life sciences service 30 years later was emasculated before launch. In 1999, the then NIH director <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Varmu">Harold Varmus</a> proposed what he called <a href="https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/MVBBWN.pdf">E-BIOMED</a>. Following heated criticism and effective lobbying by publishers, however, the preprint component of E-BIOMED was abandoned, and a <a href="https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/170/wp01-03B.html">watered-down</a> version of the service was launched as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/">PubMed Central</a> in 2000. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">In some cases, we have seen a combination of cultural and practical considerations hamper open access. In the humanities, for instance, the nature of research outputs produced by humanities scholars, and the primary format they use (the monograph) has made progress difficult. Books do not lend themselves to digital sharing as readily as scientific papers, both because of their length and their online readability. Additionally, the arguments used in the works of humanities scholars are often more personal in nature. Originality is often seen to lie in reimagining and reinterpreting known facts rather than producing a welter of new facts (certainly for historians).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">For this reason, the most important issue open access raises for humanists is that of licensing. This has become all too evident as institutions and funders have begun to consolidate around the idea that OA works must have a CC BY licence attached to them. For humanists, this raises a number of issues including a fear that if derivative use is permitted their work will be plagiarised and concern that they could suffer reputational damage if it is translated poorly, or incorrectly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">There are also concerns that authors’ arguments could be deliberately distorted. (For this reason, humanities scholars dislike not just CC BY, but any licence that permits derivative use). These issues are outlined in a recent discussion document published by the UK’s Royal Historical Society (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://5hm1h4aktue2uejbs1hsqt31-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UK-SCL-March-2018.pdf">here</a>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, we could note that many journals in the humanities are published by learned societies who depend on the subscriptions they earn from the journal to survive. And since funding is far more limited in the humanities the opportunity to charge APCs is often minimal. See </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/2048-7754.89/galley/127/download/">here</a> for a further discussion on this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: Four years ago, green OA seemed to be a good alternative, but where does it stand today? For example, in the field of media communication (which I am studying as part of my dissertation) authors who publish in the top journals almost never post their papers in a repository (even after the embargo period expires). How can this problem be solved? Is there still any place and role for green OA?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> It’s true that most researchers have shown little interest in self-archiving in institutional repositories (IRs), although as you point out, physicists have long been happy to deposit their papers in arXiv. We could also note that most researchers routinely post their work in commercial repository services like </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/">ResearchGate</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/">Academia.edu</a> (often in breach of copyright). I think this is partly because depositing in an IR has been presented to scholars as some kind of moral duty, and librarians pester them to death with emails and <a href="https://twitter.com/StrathclydeOA/status/994487957481492480">social media</a> messages urging them to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">But perhaps the real issue here is that librarians have signally failed to make institutional repositories either interesting or useful. One need only compare the benefits of depositing a scholarly work in a commercial repository service like Academia.edu – where it may attract a lot of attention from other researchers and allow the author to network in advantageous ways – with depositing in an institutional repository, where the work may wallow in obscurity, and </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://twitter.com/RickyPo/status/994479581901049857">serve only to help</a> universities increase the level of monitoring and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management">Taylorism</a> that they increasingly subject researchers to today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">How can the problem of low deposit rates be addressed? OA advocates argue that the solution is to force researchers to do so by mandating them. Unfortunately, one consequence of this is that funders and institutions have been introducing ever more draconian deposit mandates. Some worry about the implications of this for academic freedom (which is a </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">growing concern today – see <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2015/12/15/mandatory-open-access-publishing-can-impair-academic-freedom-essay">here</a>, <a href="https://www.ucu.org.uk/academic-freedom-in-2017">here</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/13/lawsuits-fight-campus-free-speech-bias/">here</a>), especially when the mandate requires works to be made available with a liberal licence attached. This mandatory approach is at its most oppressive today in the UK. That problem I see is that rather than win hearts and minds this tends to alienate researchers from open access. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I have outlined my views on this issue </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/open-access-and-research-excellence.html">here</a>. Personally, I think researchers should be <i>persuaded</i> to embrace OA, not <i>forced</i> to do so. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.uni-konstanz.de/en/university/news-and-media/current-announcements/press-releases/press-releases-in-detail/entscheidung-zum-verpflichtenden-zweitveroeffentlichungsrecht-noch-nicht-bekannt/">In Baden-Württemberg in Germany</a>, meanwhile, a number of professors have challenged a mandatory deposit requirement on the grounds that it infringes their academic freedom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Institutional repositories and commercial repository services aside, we have recently seen renewed interest in preprints servers. This has seen the successful launch of </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/">bioRxiv</a> and the emergence of a growing number of new servers using the <a href="https://osf.io/">Open Science Framework</a> preprint platform. (See <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/">here</a> for instance). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">These servers are often set up in opposition to publishers, but in fact would seem to be as vulnerable to being co-opted by legacy publishers as the wider open access movement has been co-opted. Many of these servers may become little more than submission tools for legacy journals for instance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the other hand, if the new generation of preprint servers were to encourage a wave of scholar-led overlay journals like </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://discreteanalysisjournal.com/"><i>Discrete Analysis</i></a> to be launched, one could imagine a different scenario playing out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Back to your question: Is there still a place and role for green OA? I really don’t know. Much will depend on how events unfold (as I discuss in my answer to your last question), and the success of the new preprint servers would seem to be an important factor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Another development to consider here is the move by Elsevier to acquire repository services like </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.bepress.com/">bepress</a> and <a href="https://www.ssrn.com/en/">SSRN</a>. This could see a revival of IRs and green OA and have a big impact on the preprint scene. But what that impact would be remains uncertain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">For instance, I was struck by </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/05/03/supercontinent-scholarly-publishing/">some remarks</a> made by <a href="http://www.sr.ithaka.org/people/roger-c-schonfeld/">Roger Schonfeld</a> on <i>The Scholarly Kitchen</i> blog recently. He said: “In acquiring SSRN and bepress, Elsevier is also developing the opportunity to make an end run around publishers with which it competes. Through these services, it now has the ability to substitute the preprint for other publishers’ version of record in providing seamless access to an increasing share of the published literature.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">That IRs could become a competitive tool for publishers would be a strange turnaround given that they were conceived as tools to subvert publishers. It would allow legacy publishers to control and dominate green OA in a more innovative way than they have done heretofore (by, for instance, imposing embargoes), but such a development would also help them to further embed themselves into the new OA environment and so continue to charge unjustifiably high prices for the services they provide. This is a matter of public concern since the bill is ultimately picked up by the taxpayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: How can developing countries deal with the APC model of OA that is now emerging in Europe and seems likely to grow even faster in the next two years? For example, in Russia, only a very few top universities can pay $1,000 to $3,000 per article, and while we can use local journals these are usually published in Russian. This could see us effectively having to work outside the global scientific communication system. In an APC world, we would be able to read more research but could struggle to get our own work in front of a global audience. You mentioned this problem in a </span></i></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/north-south-and-open-access-view-from.html"><b><i>recent interview</i></b></a><b><i>. Do you have any idea how to solve this problem? What should developing countries do?<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Yes, the rise of pay-to-publish gold OA is a real problem, especially for less wealthy countries. As you know, there are growing calls in the global North to flip all subscription journals to gold OA, a strategy that is being spearheaded by the </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://oa2020.org/">OA2020 initiative</a>. If this “global flip” were to become a reality many in the developing world could expect to see paywalls replaced by publication walls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Interestingly, academic negotiators are hoping to leverage the flip strategy to also force publishers to lower their prices. The plan may, therefore, already be hitting the rocks. In Germany, for instance, there is a </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/deal-impasse-severs-elsevier-access-some-german-universities">long-running stand-off</a> between the negotiating team known as <a href="https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal/">Projekt Deal</a> and Elsevier, and I have yet to see any real sign that the publisher plans to lower its prices. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I was, therefore, struck to read in a report about a recent European meeting of OA negotiators a quote by </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/mp/meijer/">Gerard Meijer</a>, director of the <a href="http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/">Fritz-Haber Institute</a> (and a member of Projekt Deal) in which he <a href="https://www.scienceguide.nl/2018/05/open-access-negotiators-prepare-for-a-future-without-publishers/">said</a>: “If we keep moving at this pace, we’ll never reach our goals.” The reporter added that this confirms “that a future plan might not include the academic publishers whatsoever.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">And in a post-meeting press release published by the German Rectors Conference (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.hrk.de/hrk-at-a-glance/">HRK</a>) – which organised the meeting – HRK president Horst Hippler <a href="https://www.hrk.de/press/press-releases/press-release/meldung/european-high-level-summit-meeting-on-open-access-negotiations-4364/">said</a>: “We see that the transition to open access is too slow, and I am utterly upset and concerned about this. It was broadly echoed in the meeting, that the limits of partnership of academic institutions with these large publishers have been reached.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">That there were apparently no representatives for OA2020 at the meeting makes me wonder if a new rift is opening up in the open access movement – with some happy to continue negotiating OA Big Deals with legacy publishers, while others are beginning to look for more radical alternatives in which traditional publishers play no part. In any case, it seems likely that a new fault line will develop in the OA movement around this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So, what should developing countries do? Egypt’s Mahmoud Khalifa </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/north-south-and-open-access-view-from_24.html">suggests two possible strategies</a>. Less-wealthy countries could, for instance, focus on building up their own local low-cost journals (perhaps using <a href="https://ask-open-science.org/1013/what-is-platinum-open-access">platinum OA</a>, where neither an access nor a publishing fee is charged). There would still be the language issue to consider, but perhaps this will be resolved over time as a result of improvements to machine translation technology? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">The larger problem, however, would seem to be one of visibility. Since local journals are not normally indexed in WoS and Scopus (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/osi2016-25/6TVIcUDjlw4/eIy4At3mBgAJ">95% of the articles indexed in WoS in 2017 are in English</a>, for instance) papers published in local journals will struggle to get the audience they deserve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Khalifa’s second suggestion, therefore, is for developing countries to create their own national and regional indices. However, this would presumably require substantial funding and most funders and research institutions in the developing world seem more focussed on having their researchers publish in international journals than developing local solutions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">How much of a solution local indices would be is, in any case, not immediately clear to me. As you will know, in 2009 a Russian Science Citation Index (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://elibrary.ru/project_risc.asp">RSCI</a>) was created. Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Science_Citation_Index">reports</a> that only around 5% of the journals in RSCI are in global databases. But to what extent does RSCI increase the visibility of Russian journals? The Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Science_Citation_Index">entry</a> suggests it does, but I don’t know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Another possibility is that if a wave of new OA platinum journals emerged in the global North, presumably researchers in the developing world could publish in them at no cost, and perhaps these journals would stand a better chance of being indexed in international services like WoS and Scopus. It would not be an ideal solution, but it strikes me as a possibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">In short, there are things the developing world could and should be doing, but unless the developed world takes account of the needs of less-wealthy countries as it sets about creating the new OA infrastructure it could end up making the deeply unsatisfactory situation that these countries find themselves in today far worse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">One gets a sense of how discriminatory the new environment could end up being if one considers Elsevier’s </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.elsevier.com/connect/working-towards-a-transition-to-open-access">response</a> to European demands for gold OA. Last year the publisher proposed what it calls <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/osi2016-25/OVFO5yHpAs0/X9u8OTiSBQAJ">region-specific OA</a>. This would see those countries able and/or willing to pay for gold OA provided with superior access to research, while those unable or unwilling to pay would get delayed access at best – a proposal that seems to me to be fundamentally at odds with the vision outlined at BOAI.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Future developments</span></h3>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: How do you see the further development of OA around the world? How will the new scholarly communication infrastructure be arranged in 5-7, 10-15 years? Which new services/platforms need to appear to change the system/make it more convenient/innovative?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">A:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> I really would not want to make any predictions about the future of scholarly communication. I believe we are in a very volatile historical moment and everything is currently up for grabs. I can even imagine us seeing a revival of interest in the subscription journal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">That said, I have suggested some possible futures above and I think a number of developments are worth watching. For instance, the preprint server resurgence I mentioned, used in conjunction with post-publication peer review (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://www.enago.com/academy/post-publication-peer-review-of-scientific-manuscripts-boom-or-bust/">PPPR</a>) and overlay journals, could see a far more affordable, fair, effective, and transparent system emerge, particularly if these journals were platinum OA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So it could be that in the future most papers will start their life on a preprint server, be subjected to PPPR, and then perhaps be pulled into a scholar-led overlay journal like <i>Discrete Analysis</i> and </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://quantum-journal.org/"><i>Quantum</i></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the other hand, the growing interest in Europe in negotiating OA Big Deals with legacy publishers (a topic I have discussed in some detail </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/the-open-access-big-deal-back-to-future.html">here</a>) would seem likely to simply replace one overpriced system with another (albeit it an open access system).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">And as I noted, if legacy publishers were persuaded to flip all their subscription journals to OA (the “global flip”) the new system would pose a particular challenge for those in the developing world – for the reasons outlined above and in the Q&As I did on the topic recently (</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/north-south-and-open-access-jeff-mackie.html">here</a>). However, unless most countries signed up to a global flip it is hard to see how it could succeed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">At the same time, we can see a growing trend for research funders to build their own publishing platforms (currently mainly using the technology developed by </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://f1000research.com/">F1000Research</a>). This is the route being taken by <a href="https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/">The Wellcome Trust</a> and <a href="https://gatesopenresearch.org/">The Gates Foundation</a> for instance. And the EU recently <a href="https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=3418">published a tender</a> as the first step in commissioning a third-party to build a European-wide platform.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We can perhaps assume that these new platforms would introduce a less-costly publishing system than one provided by commercial publishers, and they might allow the research community to take back ownership of scholarly communication. But it is unclear whether many researchers will find these services any more attractive than the institutional repositories they have spurned. We might also want to worry about the implications (and possible unintended consequences) of funders becoming their own publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">To my mind, the greatest danger the research community faces today comes from legacy publishers’ current moves to insert themselves directly into the research workflow process, by creating and acquiring new workflow tools. This could allow them to lock themselves not just into the new OA environment, but into the entire research process. This is a topic that Schonfeld takes a particular interest in. See his thoughts on the topic </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/01/02/workflow-lock-taxonomy/">here</a> for instance. Personally, I cannot imagine a scenario in which this would turn out to be a desirable development.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">We should also note that even if the research community took back the publishing process – by means, for instance, of building out funder publishing platforms and/or launching scholar-led platinum OA journals – and all future research was made available on an open access basis, publishers would still effectively “own” the huge backfiles of research papers that they have amassed over time (or at least own them until the copyright in them expired). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">This gives them a huge advantage, not just in continuing to sell access to research, but in creating and acquiring workflow solutions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">This suggests that governments really ought to be thinking about taking back ownership of these backfiles. Unfortunately, however, the current political climate makes it extremely unlikely that this will happen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Platform capitalism?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Finally, there is the role that sites like </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub">Sci-Hub</a> will play going forward to consider. Right now, this is not clear. Logically these sites would seem to pose a serious future threat to publishers (assuming publishers fail in their <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/pirate-paper-website-sci-hub-dealt-another-blow-by-us-courts-1.2297">attempts</a> to have them forcibly shut down, or to convince institutions to accept a <a href="http://www.kraftylibrarian.com/medlibs-needs-ra21-on-their-radar/comment-page-1/">technical fix</a>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">On the other hand, although Sci-Hub often appears to be the only place where those in the developing world can access international research papers, since they cannot afford to buy access from publishers in any case this activity may actually be no threat to publishers’ revenues. Likewise, I do not think there is any evidence that such sites are triggering subscription cancellations in the global North, even though researchers in these countries appear to be regular users of Sci-Hub too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">On this last point, we could note that in its recent </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://proxy.dbagproject.de/mediacenter/ressourcen/pdf/emissionen/springernature_prospectus.pdf">IPO prospectus</a> (an IPO that was <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-springer-nature-ipo/weak-demand-forces-springer-nature-to-cancel-3-2-billion-euro-float-at-last-minute-idUKKBN1I928O">cancelled</a> at the last minute) Springer Nature said: “We believe that our subscription customers access SciHub in parallel, but not as a replacement to, our traditional subscription services. To our knowledge the availability of our content through these aggregators has not resulted in subscription terminations.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">So, there are a number of different possible futures. However, if I were asked to wager, I would bet that the most likely scenario is that legacy publishers will continue to control and dominate scholarly communication (however they achieve this), and that the taxpayer will continue to pay through the nose for the services they provide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I will end by referring you to a </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306312718772086">recent article</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Mirowski">Philip Mirowski</a>. While I don’t agree with everything he says, I think he is probably right to argue that many of the problems science faces today are a consequence of neoliberalism, and that open science is itself turning out to be a neoliberal phenomenon, one that could see the research process subject to its own form of <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2017/06/05/book-review-platform-capitalism-by-nick-srnicek/">platform capitalism</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is not what those attending BOAI envisaged, but it could easily end up being the outcome of the movement that BOAI launched. Consequently, the world may get near universal open access, but in the process of bringing that about the research community will likely miss a big window of opportunity to rid itself of what critics like to refer to as the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist">ruthless capitalists</a>” of scholarly publishing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Richard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.com7