tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post5359401434836123211..comments2024-03-17T08:30:21.129+00:00Comments on Open and Shut?: The OA Interviews: Ian Gibson, former Chairman of the UK House of Commons Science & Technology CommitteeRichard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-72609769618501524882012-11-05T22:05:04.049+00:002012-11-05T22:05:04.049+00:00Ross Mounce wrote:
"I'm hoping the new R...Ross Mounce wrote:<br /><br />"I'm hoping the new RCUK policy will drive researchers to take a cost-savvy attitude towards publishing making use of the countless free-to-publish in journals (e.g. Journal of Machine Learning Research, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, eLife...) and the low-cost Gold OA journals (e.g. BMC Research Notes, Copernicus Publications journals,"<br /><br />Why on earth would anyone do that? People go into huge amounts of debt to study at Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Surely, a few thousand more don't matter if the publication raises your chances of getting a job?<br /><br />Show me the market without a luxury segment and explain to me why it is similar to academic publishing and I'll trust CNS won't charge 10-20k (as they claim is their cost) per article if there were ever universal gold OA.Bjoern Brembshttp://brembs.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-27941331925467658852012-11-03T13:28:44.096+00:002012-11-03T13:28:44.096+00:00ACCESSIBILITY, AFFORDABILITY AND QUALITY: THINK IT...<b>ACCESSIBILITY, AFFORDABILITY AND QUALITY: THINK IT THROUGH</b> [part 2 of 2]<br /><br /><b>6.</b> This hierarchy is already provided by the known track-records of journals, and can and will be enhanced by a growing set of <a href="http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2874/2570" rel="nofollow">new</a>, rich and diverse <a href="http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/265619/" rel="nofollow">metrics</a> of journal and article quality, importance, usage and impact. What authors and users need is not just a "<a href="http://rossmounce.co.uk/2012/08/30/a-visualization-of-gold-open-access-options/" rel="nofollow">Gold OA plot</a>" but a clear sense of the quality standards of journals. <br /><br /><b>7.</b> I think it is exceedingly unrealistic and counterproductive to advise researchers to simply give up the journal with the known and established quality standards and track-record for their work in favour of another journal simply for the sake of making their paper Gold OA (let alone to free it from the tyranny of the impact factor) -- and especially at today's still vastly-inflated Gold OA "publishing fee," and while the money to pay for it is still locked into institutional subscriptions that cannot be cancelled <i>until/unless those journal articles are accessible in some other way</i>.<br /><br /><b>8.</b> <em>That other way is cost-free Green OA.</em> And it is global Green OA self-archiving of all journal articles, published in the journal with the highest quality standards the author's work can meet -- not a pre-emptive switch to new journals just because they offer Gold OA today -- that will make those journal articles accessible in the "other way" that (i) solves the accessibility problem immediately, (ii) mitigates the affordability problem immediately, and (iii) eventually induce a transition to Gold OA at a fair and affordable price.<br /><br /><b>9.</b> Today -- i.e., pre-Green-OA --Gold OA means double-pay -- whether for hybrid Gold OA, or for pure Gold OA while subscriptions must still be paid too.<br /><br /><strong>10.</strong> It is short-sighted in the extreme to wish authors to renounce journals of established quality and pay extra pre-emptively to new Gold OA journals for an OA that they can already provide cost-free today through Green OA self-archiving, with the additional prospect of easing the affordability problem now, as well as preparing the road for an eventual liberation from subscriptions and a <a href="http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/265753/" rel="nofollow">leveraged transition</a> to affordable, sustainable Gold (and Libre) OA.Stevan Harnadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14374474060972737847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-39516159308596991322012-11-03T13:27:05.561+00:002012-11-03T13:27:05.561+00:00ACCESSIBILITY, AFFORDABILITY AND QUALITY: THINK IT...<b>ACCESSIBILITY, AFFORDABILITY AND QUALITY: THINK IT THROUGH</b> [part 1 of 2]<br /><br /><i>Reply to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/02722518972624656199" rel="nofollow">@Ross Mounce</a></i>:<br /><br /><b>1.</b>The affordability problem loses all of its importance and urgency once globally mandated Green OA has its dual effect of (i) making peer-reviewed journal articles free for all (not just subscribers), thereby (ii) making it possible for institutions to cancel subscriptions if they can no longer afford -- or no longer wish -- to pay for them. (And, Ross, you seem have skipped over something in my reply to Sandy...):<br /><br /><b>2.</b> <b><i>"If and when global Green OA should go on to make subscriptions unsustainable (because users are satisfied with just the Green OA versions) that will in turn induce journals to cut costs (print edition, online edition, access-provision, archiving), downsize to just providing the service of peer review, and <a href="http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271348/" rel="nofollow">convert to the Gold OA cost-recovery model</a>. Meanwhile, the subscription cancellations will have released the funds to pay these residual service costs."</i></b> <br /><br /><b>3.</b> In other words, it is <i>global Green OA itself</i> that will "<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3319915/" rel="nofollow">decouple</a> the scholarly journal, and separate the peer-review process from the integrated set of services that traditional journals provide. (And then the natural way to charge for the service of peer review will be on a "no-fault basis," with the author's institution or funder paying for each round of refereeing, regardless of outcome [acceptance, revision/re-refereeing, or rejection], minimizing cost while protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality standards.)<br /><br /><b>4.</b> Because of the Gaussian distribution of virtually all human qualities and quantities, research quality and quality-assessment is not just a 0/1 pass/fail matter. Research and researchers need the much more nuanced and informative hierarchy of quality levels that journals afford. <br /><br /><b>5.</b> Please don't conflate the simplistic reliance on the journal impact factor (the journal's articles' average citation counts) -- which is not, by the way, an OA issue -- with the much more substantive and important fact that the existing journal hierarchy does represent a vertical array of research quality levels, corresponding to different standards of peer-review rigour and hence selectivity. <i>[cont'd]</i>Stevan Harnadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14374474060972737847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-40179579037954136682012-11-02T22:34:27.631+00:002012-11-02T22:34:27.631+00:00There's only an 'affordability problem'...There's only an 'affordability problem' with Gold OA if one assumes that researchers will continue to publish in the journals that they have traditionally have.<br /><br />I'm hoping the new RCUK policy will drive researchers to take a cost-savvy attitude towards publishing making use of the countless free-to-publish in journals (e.g. Journal of Machine Learning Research, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, eLife...) and the low-cost Gold OA journals (e.g. BMC Research Notes, Copernicus Publications journals, Hindawi journals, MDPI journals, SIGS, JAMES, Pensoft journals...).<br />see my Gold OA plot for more:<br />http://rossmounce.co.uk/2012/08/30/a-visualization-of-gold-open-access-options/ <br /><br />Education & awareness-raising of these 'alternative' journals is key. Academics also need *a lot* of reassuring that they won't be judged on the journal Impact Factor of where they publish. From most of the academics I've talked to about this it seems to be *drummed* into them at a very deep-level and will be hard to change but that's the thing holding back OA at the moment, not this new RCUK policy (which I'm cautiously supportive of tbh).<br /><br />just my $0.02 from the front-line ;)<br /><br />PS I totally agree with Sandy Thatcher's comment above. Green OA cannot exist without journals, or perhaps more detailed than this - it can't exist successfully without trusted mechanisms of peer-review (the key element that journals provide, but as Priem and others have noted we could decouple the scholarly journal, and separate the peer-review process from the integrated set of services that traditional journals provide, etc...).<br /><br />I would take the green OA movement more seriously if there were prominent and trusted mechanisms of peer-review that could be applied to (& bought for?) green OA deposits.<br /><br /> Ross Mouncehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02722518972624656199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-33163702630296080622012-10-29T23:22:13.667+00:002012-10-29T23:22:13.667+00:00IF/WHEN GLOBALLY MANDATED GREEN OA MAKES SUBSCRIPT...<b><a href="http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271348/" rel="nofollow">IF/WHEN GLOBALLY MANDATED GREEN OA MAKES SUBSCRIPTIONS UNSUSTAINABLE</a>: <br />Reply to Sandy Thatcher</b><br /><br />Plans by universities and research funders to pay the costs of Open Access Publishing ("Gold OA") are premature. Funds are short; 80% of journals (including virtually all the top journals) are still subscription-based, tying up the potential funds to pay for Gold OA; the asking price for Gold OA is still high; and there is concern that paying to publish may inflate acceptance rates and lower quality standards. <b>What is needed now is for universities and funders to mandate OA self-archiving</b> (of authors' final peer-reviewed drafts, immediately upon acceptance for publication) ("Green OA"). That will provide immediate OA; and <b>if and when universal Green OA should go on to make subscriptions unsustainable (because users are satisfied with just the Green OA versions) that will in turn induce journals to cut costs (print edition, online edition, access-provision, archiving), downsize to just providing the service of peer review, and convert to the Gold OA cost-recovery model; meanwhile, the subscription cancellations will have released the funds to pay these residual service costs.</b> The natural way to charge for the service of peer review then will be on a "no-fault basis," with the author's institution or funder paying for each round of refereeing, regardless of outcome (acceptance, revision/re-refereeing, or rejection). This will minimize cost while protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality standards.Stevan Harnadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14374474060972737847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-72908729894712210562012-10-29T18:27:17.705+00:002012-10-29T18:27:17.705+00:00I agree with what Stefan Harnad says here, but doe...I agree with what Stefan Harnad says here, but doesn't this imply that Green OA is a temporary expedient ultimately dependent on TA (toll-access) publishing such that, as TA journals get cancelled and disappear, so too does Green OA disappear--unless researchers take it upon themselves to manage the peer-review system as publishers do now--and then Gold OA will eventually take its place anyway?Sandy Thatchernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-67039428956357675462012-10-28T20:58:34.342+00:002012-10-28T20:58:34.342+00:00The Plot Thickens:
Emily Commander Interview Need...<b>The Plot Thickens: <br />Emily Commander Interview Needed Next...</b><br /><br />Another brilliant whodunnit, Richard! Yet the mystery is still not altogether dispelled.<br /><br />Ian Gibson is clearly brilliant, and his heart is clearly in the right place. But although his 2004 <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm" rel="nofollow">Gibson Committee Report</a> clearly had (and continues to have) enormous (positive) ramifications for OA worldwide, Ian himself just as clearly <i>does not fully grasp those ramifications</i>! <br /><br />Ian still thinks that OA is about somehow weaning authors from their preferred highly selective journals (such as <i>Nature</i>), even though the cost-free Green OA that his own Report recommended mandating <i>does not require authors to give up their preferred journals</i>, thereby mooting this issue (and even though the ominous new prospect of double-paying for hybrid Gold OA out of shrinking research funds favoured by the <a href="javascript:void(0);" rel="nofollow">Finch Committee Report</a> does not require authors to give up their preferred journals either). <br /><br />Research access, assessment and affordability are being conflated here. Green OA does not solve the affordability problem directly, but it sure makes it much less of a life/death matter (since everyone has Green access, whether or not they can afford subscription access). And of course that in turn makes subscription cancelations, publisher cost-cutting, downsizing and conversion to Gold much more likely -- while also releasing the institutional subscription cancelation windfall savings to pay the much lower post-Green Gold OA cost many times over. This leaves journals' peer-review standards and selectivity up to the peers -- and journal choice up to the authors -- where both belong.<br /><br />Giving up authors' preferred journals in favour of pure Gold OA journals was what (I think) BMC's Vitek Tracz and Jan Velterop had been lobbying for at the time (and that is not what the Gibson Report ended up recommending)!<br /><br />So I think if you really want to get to the heart of the mystery of how the Gibson Report crystallized into the epochal recommendation for all UK universities and funders to mandate Green OA you will have to dig deeper, Richard, and interview its author, Emily Commander, who -- as Ian indicates -- was the one who crafted it out of the cacophony of conflicting testimonials.<br /><br />Don't ask Emily about the bulk of the report, which is largely just ballast, but about how she arrived at its <a href="javascript:void(0);" rel="nofollow">revolutionary core recommendation</a>. That's what this is all about...Stevan Harnadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14374474060972737847noreply@blogger.com