I understand slightly more now that you have changed your position. Originally you said:
>> Unlike with today's Fool's Gold junk journals that were caught by Bohannon's >> sting, not only will no-fault post-Green, Fair-Gold peer-review remove any >> incentive to accept lower quality papers (and thereby reduce the reputation >> of the journal)... > You now accept: > Perhaps you meant that even in the no-fault Fair-Gold era there will still be > junk peer review, hence junk journals? No doubt. But they'll be known (as > they are now, except if they are new) and will no longer have the bogus > allure that they are worth trying, because they are OA (because everything > will be OA). But vanity press will no doubt continue to exist in the OA era > as long as human vanity -- and vain hopes -- continue to exist. It was the logical leap that you were trying to make that universal green would remove junk journals - i.e., there would be no inceptive to accept low quality journals - that I didn't undertsand. You now accept that junk journals will continue. You've removed that leap. Thanks David On 13 Oct 2013, at 16:56, Stevan Harnad wrote: > On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 10:38 AM, David Prosser <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I don't follow the logic of this. > > [1] Authors want to get the prestige of publication in journals. > > [2] Authors of very poor papers know they can only get published in journals > where the peer review is lax (perhaps to the point of non-existence). > > [3] Even if they make their papers Green OA, authors of poor papers will > still want 'prestige', so they will still look for a journal that will > publish their papers. > > [4] Whatever the status of green OA, poor journals will continue to exist for > as long as their are authors writing poor papers. > > Well, it's certainly true that you didn't follow the logic, David! > > We agree on every point: > > 1. Authors want to be published, preferably as prestigiously as they can. > Agreed. > > 2. Low quality papers can only be published in low quality journals (whether > junk Gold OA journals or junk subscription journals). Agreed. > > 3. Green OA means Green Open Access to published journal articles, so > whatever the quality level of the journal, the article's Green OA version > inherits that journal quality -- plus the bonus of OA. Agreed (but what's > your point?) > > 4. Low quality papers can only be published in low quality journals (whether > junk Gold OA journals or junk subscription journals). Agreed (but what's your > point?). > > My point was that there are indeed junk subscription journals as well as junk > pay-to-publish Gold OA journals, so the Bohannon sting would no doubt have > caught some of both, had it been done on both. > > But I added that it is very likely that the proportion would have still been > higher for the junk Gold (matched for field, age, and impact factor), because > subscription journals need to have enough of an appearance of peer review to > sustain subscriber appeal, not just author appeal, in order to make ends > meet, whereas junk pay-to-publish Gold journals can manage on author appeal > alone (or quit, always ahead, any time they run out of author submissions > because their scam is discovered by authors and users). > > (And that part of the spurious author appeal of junk Gold journals comes from > the appeal of OA itself, today, along with its mindless conflation with Gold > OA publishing.) > > And that (once mandatory Green has become universal) post-Green Fair-Gold -- > paid in exchange for no-fault peer review instead of for acceptance, as with > pre-Green Fool's Gold -- will protect (somewhat) against lowering quality > standards in order to increase paid acceptance revenue. > > Perhaps you meant that even in the no-fault Fair-Gold era there will still be > junk peer review, hence junk journals? No doubt. But they'll be known (as > they are now, except if they are new) and will no longer have the bogus > allure that they are worth trying, because they are OA (because everything > will be OA). But vanity press will no doubt continue to exist in the OA era > as long as human vanity -- and vain hopes -- continue to exist. > > Stevan Harnad >> The inevitable sensationalism inspired by the Bohannon Sting will soon die >> down, doing no damage to science, scholarship or peer review. And insofar as >> OA is concerned, it helps bring out an point about pay-to-publish junk >> journals riding the growing wave of clamor for OA: >> >> I would be surprised if there weren't subscription journals that would have >> accepted the Bohannon bogus paper for publication too. >> >> But I would be even more surprised if as high a proportion of subscription >> journals -- matched for field, age, size and impact-factor -- would have >> accepted Bohannon's bogus paper as did the pay-to-publish OA journals ("Gold >> OA"). >> >> Subscription journals have to maintain enough of an appearance of peer >> review to sustain their subscriptions. Pay-to-publish Gold OA journals just >> have to maintain enough of an appearance of peer review to attract authors >> (and maybe the lure of pay-to-publish is enough to attract many authors in >> our publish-or-perish world without even the appearance of peer review, >> especially when the journal choice is justified by the fashionable allure -- >> or excuse -- of the journal's being an OA journal). >> >> This problem would not be remedied by just lowering Gold OA journal >> publication fees. >> >> Nor is it a symptom of a general problem with peer review (though peer >> review could certainly do with some upgrading in any case). >> >> It is a specific problem of peer review standards of pay-to-publish Gold OA >> journals at a time when there is still far too little OA and when most >> journals are still subscription journals, most authors are still confused >> about OA, many think that OA is synonymous with Gold OA journals, and, most >> important, there are not yet enough effective mandates from research funders >> and institutions that require authors to make all their papers OA by >> depositing them in their institutional OA repositories ("Green OA"), >> regardless of where they were published. >> >> If it were mandatory to make all papers Green OA, all authors would simply >> deposit their peer-reviewed final drafts in their institutional OA >> repositories, free for all, immediately upon acceptance for publication. >> They would not have to pay to publish in Gold OA journals unless they >> especially wished to. Once all journal articles were being made Green OA in >> this way, institutions would be able to cancel all their journal >> subscriptions, which would in turn force all journals to cut costs and >> convert to Gold OA publishing at a much lower fee than is being charged now >> by OA journals: post-Green Fair Gold instead of today's pre-Green Fool's >> Gold. >> >> But, most important, the reason the Fair Gold fee would be much lower is >> that the only remaining service that journals (all of them having become >> Gold OA) would be performing then, post-Green, would be peer review. All >> access-provision and archiving would be offloaded onto the global network of >> Green OA institutional repositories -- so no more print or PDF editions or >> their costs. And for just peer review, journals would no longer be charging >> for publishing (which would then just amount to a tag certifying that the >> article had been accepted by journal J): they would be charging only for the >> peer review. >> >> And each round of peer review (which peers do for free, by the way, so the >> only real cost is the qualified editor who evaluates the submissions, picks >> the referees, and adjudicates the referee reports -- plus the referee >> tracking and communication software) would be paid for on a "no-fault" >> basis, per round of peer review, whether the outcome was acceptance, >> rejection, or revision and resubmission for another (paid) round of peer >> review. >> >> Unlike with today's Fool's Gold junk journals that were caught by Bohannon's >> sting, not only will no-fault post-Green, Fair-Gold peer-review remove any >> incentive to accept lower quality papers (and thereby reduce the reputation >> of the journal) -- because the journal is paid for the peer review service >> in any case -- but it will help make Fair-Gold OA costs even lower, per >> round of peer review, because it will not wrap the costs of the rejected or >> multiply revised and re-refereed papers into the cost of each accepted >> paper, as they do now. >> >> So post-Green Fair-Gold will not only reduce costs but it will raise >> peer-review standards. >> >> None of this is possible, however, unless Green OA is effectively mandated >> by all research institutions and funders worldwide, first. >> >> Harnad, S. (2013) The Science Peer-Review "Sting": Where the Fault Lies. >> Open Access Archivangelism 1059 >> >> ________ (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity Need >> Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib Magazine 16 (7/8). >> >> ______ (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. >> >> ______ (1998) The invisible hand of peer review. Nature [online] (5 Nov. >> 1998), Exploit Interactive 5 (2000): and in Shatz, B. (2004) (ed.) Peer >> Review: A Critical Inquiry. Rowland & Littlefield. Pp. 235-242. >> >> >> On Sat, Oct 12, 2013 at 2:51 PM, Heather Morrison >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> The Bohannon "study" published in Science may have consequences beyond what >> was intended. While Bohannon and Science may have meant this as an attack on >> open access, this study could easily be picked up by those who oppose >> science and scholarship. >> >> For example, the Economist article begins with a focus on the Sokal hoax; >> this was a subscription journal, not OA, so not focusing too strongly on OA >> is much appreciated. However, this means that an Economist article is >> focusing on a critique of scholarly peer review. >> >> Similarly, a CBC article focuses on the problems with peer review, rather >> than problems with a few new journals that happen to be OA: >> http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2013/10/11/why-a-harvard-scientist-wrote-a-bogus-paper-and-submitted-it-for-publication/ >> >> This article illustrates what I consider to be a potential danger to all of >> scholarship / science, not just open access. Here we have a newspaper >> article quoting a study as saying that the majority of peer-reviewed >> journals will accept an article that is obviously fabricated. It is not hard >> to imagine newspaper articles like this being used as fodder for climate >> change denial types. >> >> To me, this in itself illustrates the need for careful quality control in >> scholarly communication. It is unethical for Bohannon and Science to publish >> an article that could so easily be misinterpreted in this way and used as >> arguments by opponents of science and scholarship. This is a bigger problem >> for science and scholarship than all of the predatory journals exposed by >> the Bohannon sting. >> >> best, >> >> -- >> Dr. Heather Morrison >> Assistant Professor >> École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies >> University of Ottawa >> >> http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html >> [email protected] >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> GOAL mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >> >> _______________________________________________ >> GOAL mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
