On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Dana Roth <dzr...@library.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Stevan: In fairness to responsible publishers, I think it would be > appropriate to call George Monbiot to task for not differentiating between > commercial and society journals.  Wiley is especially egregious in > increasing prices while publishing fewer and fewer articles (e.g. > Biopolymers). Dana, I think it's wrong to demonize publishers at all, whether commercial or learned-society. Let them charge whatever subscription prices they can get. The real culprits are researchers -- the 80% of them that don't yet make their refereed final drafts freely accessible online immediately upon acceptance for publication. It's for that reason that "green" open-access self-archiving mandates from institutions and funders are the natural solution to the problem of making sure that refereed research is accessible to *all* potential users, not just those whose institutions can afford to subscribe to the journal in which they are published. But apart from not demonizing publishers, it's also important to name and laud those publishers that have endorsed immediate, un-embargoed green open-access self-archiving. On the side of the angels in this respect are most of the major commercial publishers: Elsevier, Springer and, yes, Wiley. (In contrast, some of the major society publishers -- notably the American Chemical Society -- are not yet on the side of the angels, and for that they deserve to be named and shamed. -- There are, however, work-arounds, even for such regressive cases: http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18511/ ) No, green OA self-archiving does *not* solve the journal affordability/over-pricing problem. But what gives that problem its urgency -- what makes it indeed a serials *crisis* -- will be completely remedied once green OA self-archiving is universally mandated by institutions and funders worldwide: For once the final drafts are accessible free for all, it becomes a far less critical matter to a university whether it can still afford to subscribe to any particular journal. What they cannot afford, their users can access in its green OA version. The real underlying problem -- research accessibility -- is completely solved by mandating green OA, even if the problem of journal affordability is not. Let me close with the pre-emptive re-posting of the abstract of the paper that answers the habitual rebuttal to what I have just said, namely, that green OA self-archiving is "parasitic" on journal publishers: Harnad, S. (2011) Open Access Is a Research Community Matter, Not a Publishing Community Matter. Lifelong Learning in Europe, XVI (2). pp. 117-118. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/22403/ ABSTRACT: It is ironic that some publishers are calling Green OA self-archiving âparasiticâ when not only are researchers giving publishers their articles for free, as well as peer-reviewing them for free, but research institutions are paying for subscriptions in full, covering all publishing costs and profits. The only natural and obvious source of the money to pay for Gold OA fees â if and when all journals convert to Gold OA -- is hence the money that institutions are currently spending on subscriptions -- if and when subscriptions eventually become unsustainable. Dixit, Your Weary Archivangelist (gone quite long of tooth during the past two wasted decades of inaction), Stevan Harnad EnablingOpenScholarship http://www.openscholarship.org > Dana L. Roth > Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 > 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 > 626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540 > dzr...@library.caltech.edu > http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm > ________________________________________ > From: American Scientist Open Access Forum > [american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org] on behalf of > Stevan Harnad [amscifo...@gmail.com] > Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 4:10 PM > To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org > Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a   >      socialist. > > From: Quentin Burrell, Isle of Man International Business School >> >> The following is the referenced version of an article recently published in >> the Guardian newspaper. >> http://www.monbiot.com/2011/08/29/the-lairds-of-learning/ >> Some responses can be found at >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/31/real-cost-academic-publishing >> >> Although the article is written by a journalist for a general readership, >> some interesting and pertinent points are made. Would anyone on the list >> care to comment? > > Ok, you asked! > > George Monbiot, though he puts it a bit shrilly, is basically right: > In the online era, peer-reviewed journal subscriptions are blocking > the access to -- and hence the usage and impact of -- research that > researchers wish to give away to all potential users for free, seeking > no revenue from its sales, just the impact of its uptake and usage in > further research. > > While subscriptions are still paying the bill, the solution is for all > researchers to self-archive all their final refereed drafts in their > institutional repositories, free for all, immediately upon acceptance > for publication. (This is called "Green Open Access".) This should be > mandated by all research institutions and funders to generate > universal OA. > > If and when universal Green OA makes subscriptions unsustainable as > the means of recovering the costs of peer-reviewed publication, the > print and online edition and their costs can be phased out, all > access-provision and archiving and their costs can be offloaded onto > the distributed worldwide network of Green OA Institutional > Repositories, and journals can convert to ("Gold") OA publishing, > recovering their sole remaining cost (peer review) via a small > per-submission fee to the author's institution -- easily covered out > of just a fraction of each institution's annual windfall subscription > cancelation savings. (Peers review for free too.) > > And if that went by too fast, here it is longhand, many times over: > > Harnad, S. (2007) The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged > Transition. In: Anna Gacs. The Culture of Periodicals from the > Perspective of the Electronic Age. L'Harmattan. 99-106. > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/13309/ > > Harnad, S., Brody, T., Vallieres, F., Carr, L., Hitchcock, S., > Gingras, Y, Oppenheim, C., Hajjem, C.,  & Hilf, E. (2004) The > Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access: An > Update. Serials Review 34: 36-40. > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/15852/ Shorter version: The green and > the gold roads to Open Access. Nature Web > Focus.http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/21.html > > Harnad, S. (2008) Waking OAâs âSlumbering Giantâ: The University's > Mandate To Mandate Open Access. New Review of Information Networking > 14(1): 51 - 68 and in Russian: //Nauch. i Tekhn. B-ki (Sci-Tech Lib). > - 2009. â N 10. â P. 61 â 72. > > Gargouri, Y., Hajjem, C., Lariviere, V., Gingras, Y., Brody, T., Carr, > L. and Harnad, S. (2010) Self-Selected or Mandated, Open Access > Increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality Research. PLOS ONE 5 (10) > e13636 http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18493/ > > Harnad, S. (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of > Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib Magazine 16 > (7/8). http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21348/ > > Harnad, S. (2010) The Immediate Practical Implication of the Houghton > Report: Provide Green Open Access Now. Prometheus, 28 (1). pp. 55-59. > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18514/ > > Harnad, S. (2010) Open Access to Research: Changing Researcher > Behavior Through University and Funder Mandates. In Parycek, P. & > Prosser, A. (Eds.): EDEM2010: Proceedings of the 4th Inernational > Conference on E-Democracy. Austrian Computer Society, 13-22 > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21003/ > > Harnad, S. (2011) Gold Open Access Publishing Must Not Be Allowed to > Retard the Progress of Green Open Access Self-Archiving. Logos > 21(3-4): 86-93 http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21818/ > > Carr, L., Swan, A. and Harnad, S. (2011) Creating and Curating the > Cognitive Commons: Southamptonâs Contribution. In: Curating the > European University http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21844/ > > Harnad, S. (2011) Open Access to Research: Changing Researcher > Behavior Through University and Funder Mandates. JEDEM Journal of > Democracy and Open Government 3 (1): 33-41. > http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/22401/ > > Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2012) > Open Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing" Button. In: Dynamic Fair > Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online (Rosemary J. Coombe & Darren > Wershler, Eds.) http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18511/ >
