Hi Eric, For a direct response to the publisher claim that OA will cost jobs, see my blog post from January of this year. https://plus.google.com/109377556796183035206/posts/L6QNRbt4S8x
For a longer version of same response, see my article in the March 2012 issue of SOAN on the Research Works Act and Federal Research Public Access Act. (The article covers many other topics; for this particular argument, see Section 1.11.) http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/03-02-12.htm#rwa&frpaa Peter Peter Suber gplus.to/petersuber On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 2:47 PM, Eric F. Van de Velde < eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com> wrote: > The statement > > Publishers are concerned that if an open access policy is adopted then > some of the biggest scientific companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline, might > move research work from British labs to those overseas where it will able > to protect itself from open access. > > is particularly ridiculous. That a newspaper puts this out is even more > amazing. By this reasoning, freedom of the press should be really harmful. > > However, as open access moves into the political realm, the larger issue > of "jobs" should not be dismissed cavalierly. When replacing a high-margin > industry with a low-margin one, when increasing efficiency in the > distribution by going open access, there will be job losses and job > substitutions in the whole pipeline of information delivery. These costs of > Open access do not invalidate the goals and the value of open access. > > The open access movement has sidestepped this issue by being rather > pollyannaish. The message was simple: Everyone just keeps doing what they > have always been doing. Just add Green Open Access to mix. Eventually, this > will evolve "the system" in favor of openness. > > How this evolution was supposed to happen was always a bit foggy. As Open > Access is closing in on its goals, reality will set in that there is no > gradual, evolutionary path of disruption where the system remains in > perfect equilibrium at every step of the way. One cannot disrupt without > being disruptive. > > I do not think one can counter the jobs argument by simply denying it. > Open access will destroy jobs initially, but it will also create jobs by > making access to research free, which is particularly significant for > start-up ventures. It may also lower the cost of education or, at least, > help tame the educational rate of inflation. This will not be an easy > argument to make to a skeptical public, which will be presented with > misleading PR like the one in the Daily Mail article. > --Eric. > > http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com > > Google Voice: (626) 898-5415 > Telephone: (626) 376-5415 > Skype: efvandevelde -- Twitter: @evdvelde > E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com > > > > On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 8:34 AM, Stevan Harnad <amscifo...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> >>> From: CHARLES OPPENHEIM <c.oppenh...@btinternet.com> >>> To: "Global Open Access List \(Successor of AmSci\)" <goal@eprints.org> >>> Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:31:21 +0100 (BST) >>> Subject: Dreadful Daily Mail article on Open Access >>> The author is the City/Economics Editor of Daily Mail I believe. That >>> makes the lack of research and the taking of an unnamed organisation's >>> statement as gospel truth all the more unacceptable. This would have been >>> bad for a rookie journalist, but for a respected senior journalist, well, >>> words fail me. >>> >>> >>> http://m.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2160753/Open-access-puts-UK-jobs-risk.html >>> >>> Charles >>> Professor Charles Oppenheim >>> >> >> Prepare for more press distortions when the Finch Report is released >> tomorrow. >> >> We won't be able to counter it if we all run off in all directions. The >> essence of what we need to say to debunk Finch report (which is itself >> almost as distroted and biassed as the Daily Mail article!) is super-simple: >> >> 1. The Finch Report is a successful case of lobbying by publishers to >> protect the interests of publishing at the expense of the interests of >> research and the public that funds research. >> >> 2. The Finch Report proposes doing precisely what the US Research Works >> Act (RWA) -- since discredited and withdrawn -- failed to accomplish: to >> push the Green OA self-archiving and Green OA self-archiving mandates off >> the UK policy agenda as inadequate and ineffective and, too boot, likely to >> destroy both publishing and peer review -- and to replace them instead with >> a vague, slow evolution toward Gold OA publishing, at the publishers' pace >> and price. >> >> 3. The result would be very little OA, very slowly, and at a high Gold OA >> price, taken out of already scarce UK research funds, instead of the rapid >> and cost-free OA growth vouchsafed by Green OA mandates from funders and >> universities. >> >> 4. Both the loss in UK's Green OA mandate momentum and the expenditure of >> further funds to pay pre-emptively for Gold OA would be a major historic >> (and economic) set-back for the UK, which has until now been the worldwide >> leader in OA. The UK would, if the Fitch Report were heeded, be left behind >> by the EU (which has mandated Green OA for all research it funds) and the >> US (which has a Bill in Congress to do the same -- the same Bill that the >> recently withdrawn RWA Bill tried to counter). >> >> 5. The UK already has 40% Green OA -- twice as much as the rest of the >> world. Rather than heeding the Finch Report, which has so obviously fallen >> victim to the publishing lobby, the UK should shore up and extend its >> cost-free Green OA funder and institutional mandates to make them more >> effective and mutually reinforcing, so that UK Green OA can grow quickly to >> 100%. >> >> 6. Publishers will adapt. In the internet era, the research publishing >> tail should not be permitted to wag the research dog, at the expense of the >> access, usage, applications, impact and progress of the research in which >> the UK tax-payer has invested so heavily, in increasingly hard economic >> times. The benefits to research of cost-free Green OA vastly outweigh the >> (natural) pressure to adapt to the internet era that they will exert on the >> publishing industry. >> >> Stevan Harnad >> >> _______________________________________________ >> GOAL mailing list >> GOAL@eprints.org >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > >
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