Stevan, why not wait to criticise our new questionnaire until you have seen it?
Your earlier question was about our attitude to OAI. Briefly, the problem is this. While DISorganised self-archiving, or even institutional archiving, need not threaten the survival of the journals on which (as you agree) it parasitizes, organised cross-searchable archives are considerably more alarming. Thus the development of OAI is actually making a number of publishers, who were previously relatively relaxed, considerably more concerned. If search tools in effect allow a user to emulate the original journal without having to pay for it, then all the added value - which, as we have shown, authors and readers do in fact value highly - will disappear because it will no longer be paid for. Hence our emphasis on developing robust new economic models (and a migration path towards them) before, and not after, damaging or even destroying what is valuable about traditional journals. However, perhaps this will turn out to be a non-problem given the widespread total ignorance of eprint and preprint archives which we have found outside the very specific world of physics! Sally Sally Morris, Secretary-General Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK Phone: 01903 871686 Fax: 01903 871457 E-mail: sec-...@alpsp.org ALPSP Website http://www.alpsp.org Learned Publishing is now online, free of charge, at www.learned-publishing.org ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stevan Harnad" <har...@cogprints.soton.ac.uk> To: <american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org> Sent: Monday, April 08, 2002 8:40 PM Subject: Re: ALPSP statement on BOAI > On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Sally Morris wrote: > > > There have been various comments on our Association's reaction to the > > Budapest Open Access Initiative. Our response seems to have been > > somewhat misunderstood: we do not oppose initiatives which advocate the > > widest possible access to information - far from it, since dissemination > > is part of the mission of most of our member societies. However, we > > believe that it is essential that a business model is first found which > > will pay for all the elements which researchers value. > > I have twice tried to state the question that it would be very helpful > if Sally would answer. I shall state again here: > > ALPSP says it is for the widest possible access to information. > > Open access (i.e., free online access to all) is the widest possible > access. Open access can be achieved immediately by self-archiving. > ALPSP's recommended copyright transfer statements seem to explicitly > allow self-archiving. http://www.alpsp.org/grantli.pdf > > So what does Sally mean that "it is essential that a business model is > first found"? > > Does she mean it has to be found BEFORE authors exercise the prerogative > to self-archive that ALPSP specifically allows? > > (This the ambivalence or ambiguity I was asking Sally to resolve.) > > > Contrary to > > Stevan's view, researchers - as authors and as readers - do value very > > highly the whole spectrum of functions which publishers traditionally > > perform, and not just peer review itself. > > That is, as I have likewise stated, not the way to put it. The way to put > it is to make the possibilities clear, and let authors then rank them. > > Not "Do you value feature X," but "Do you value feature X higher than > open access" (possibly without feature X, or possibly with feature X > payable as an option)? > > In other words, the ALPSP questionnaires are, as stated several times > before, self-serving, if not biassed. They do not present the options and > their respective trade-offs. They are merely product-satisfaction > questionnaires: "Do you like feature X?" > > The old Maine joke is the relevant one here: > > Jake: "How's yir woife?" > Clem: "C'mpayured ti whot?" > > See: "ALPSP Research study on academic journal authors" > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0263.html > > In other words, peer-review is, by definition, an essential, if we are > talking about open access to the peer-reviewed literature (and not > something else). But all other features are options, and the right way > to put the question is whether they should be offered as options or > continue to be bundled in obligately, at the expense of open access, > as they are now. > > > Our latest, recently > > completed, research study established very high ratings for all of the > > following (listed in order of importance): management (as distinct from > > execution) of the peer review process; > > What on earth does that mean? The peers review for free, so > management/implementation IS the process we are talking about paying for, > as peer review. > > And what do "high ratings" mean, if the trade-offs (c'mpayured ti whot?) > are not made explicit? > > > selection of relevant and quality-controlled content; > > Again sounds like 100% redundancy with peer review: Those are the quality > labels. What further "selection" is meant here? > > (Sounds like asking about how high people rate having cops on the beat, > and then further asking them how high they rate their doing their work, > and how high they rate the results of having them do their work...) > > If some other form of selection is meant here, other than the selection > inherent in peer review itself, say so explicitly, and ask them to rate > it relative to open access (from both the reader's point of view, i.e., > your own potential access to everything, and from the author's point of > view, i.e., potential impact to your work when there are no more > toll-barriers). > > "Would you rather (as author and reader) do without open access in > exchange for X, or would you rather have open access, with X sold as an > option for those who want it (and their institutions can afford it)?" > > It is hard to set up an unbiassed questionnaire like this, and even > then the results are of limited value, because often respondents cannot > weigh how they would actually value options that they have never > actually had a chance to try. (We will return for this below, with the > nonphysicists.) > > > gathering articles together to enable > > browsing of relevant and quality-controlled content; > > Same as above. > > > content editing and improvement of articles; language or copy-editing; > > Editing and copy-editing need to be considered in their own right, apart > from peer review, to see how much value they add, as weighed against open > access. To the extent it is judged essential, editing can be added into the > peer-review price, but this will vary greatly from field to field, and > again is hard for a user to judge hypothetically. > > > checking of citations/adding citation links; > > This is becoming a separable module if ever there was one (and an > increasingly automatable one). Again, needs to be weighed, alone or in > combination, against open access, rather than in isolation. See wording > for feature "X" above. > > > and (even) marketing (maximising visibility of journal). > > I'd love to see how much of their research impact authors think > actually comes from journal marketing! and how highly they would weight > that, relative to open online access, in today's online age. -- But it > wouldn't hurt if the respondents supplemented their intuitions with > some actual data on this too...: > > "Online or Invisible" > http://www.neci.nec.com/~lawrence/papers/online-nature01/ > > > Respondents predominantly believe that > > libraries should continue to pay for these processes in some way, > > And they would rather themselves (and their would-be readers) have no > access at all to whatever their libraries cannot afford, then? For the > sake of the citation-checking, perhaps, or the citation-checking plus > the "marketing"? > > You see what I mean? > > > and > > clearly more thinking and experimentation is urgently needed both on > > viable alternative business models, and on the potential migration path > > towards these. > > Indeed, but in the meanwhile, while all this urgent thinking and > experimentation is going on, should they or should they not generate > immediate open access by self-archiving (or publishing in open-access > journals)? (In other words, how urgent is open access? to authors? to > readers? how important is lost potential impact?) > > Open-ended positive ratings, not weighted or informed by the trade-offs, > are merely recipes for reaffirming the status quo. > > > Interestingly, other than in physics, respondents mostly > > had little or no idea what we meant by preprint or eprint archives. > > And was there perhaps a difference between the pattern of preferences > expressed by the physicists, who have direct experience with open > access, and the rest of your respondents? Objectivity would make one > curious to examine this more informed sub-population... > > > The full results of the study, Authors and Electronic Publishing, will > > be available for sale very shortly and details will appear on our > > website, http://www.alpsp.org > > Here's another survey, on users and nonusers of archives. And the full > results are available free...: > > http://www.eprints.org/results/ > > > One small clarification - Bernard Lang was under the impression that > > members only permitted free archival access to authors. This is not > > what I meant; a growing number of our member publishers make their > > online archival volumes freely accessible to all after a certain period. > > Research is not conducted and published in order to be embargoed for "a > certain period" so as to keep paying for features that are no longer > needed. Open access to peer-reviewed research means open access from the > moment of acceptance (and indeed before it, for the pre-peer-review > preprints): > > Harnad, S. (2001) AAAS's Response: Too Little, Too Late. Science dEbates > [online] 2 April 2001. > http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/eletters/291/5512/2318b > Fuller version: > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/science2.htm > http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/41/index.html > > Stevan Harnad > > NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free > access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the > American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): > > http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html > or > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html > > Discussion can be posted to: > american-scientist-open-access-fo...@amsci.org > > See also the Budapest Open Access Initiative: > http://www.soros.org/openaccess > > and the Free Online Scholarship Movement: > http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
