On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 11:22 PM, Éric Archambault < eric.archamba...@science-metrix.com> wrote:
> Isidro > > Not so sure. Two weeks ago while visiting university libraries in Europe I > saw that many of them are switching/considering to switch to their CRIS > instead of continuing to rely on their traditional repositories and the > mostly open source software. We'll have to see how far it goes but the rise > of national research assessment exercises and national OA mandates, there > is growing pressure to consolidate research data and expect Elsevier, > Holtzbrinck (->Digital Science->Symplectic), and Thomson Reuters (and > whomever acquires the IP & Science unit - which the rumor mill suggests > could be acquired by BC Partners, itself Holtzbrinck's partner in Springer > Nature - thus possibly more consolidation on the way) to increase their > stronghold on research data and research intelligence. > > Only fools think we are witnessing an opening of research knowledge > dissemination. The winners of open data and open access will be large > corporates concerns. Research is big business and there are huge economies > of scale in that industry, just as in so many others. Consolidation is the > name of the game, and amateur bricolage solutions are giving way to > corporate professional solutions, whether we like it or not. > > Eric > > > Eric Archambault, Ph.D. > President and CEO | Président-directeur général > Science-Metrix & 1science > > T. 1.514.495.6505 x.111 > C. 1.514.518.0823 > F. 1.514.495.6523 > > > Completely agree with Eric. It's the increasing privatizing of academic Infrastructure that terrifies me. Geoff Bilder has also cogently argued this. Open (whether Green or Gold) is almost irrelevant if the material is held in non-discoverable fragmented repos. A commercial "solution" - TR, Elsevier, DigitalScience will effectively lock in discovery and access. The primary value of CC-BY open is that you can fork it. You can't fork Green. You can't fork academia.edu or Researchgate. You can't fork Mendeley (whose contents are "open" in name but not forkable in practice). My prediction is that DigitalScience and Elsevier will compete to manage university repos. What do repos cost? Peter Suber said 1.5 - 5 FTE/year. Multiply across UK (*150) and you get ca 400 FTEs. cost this at 100K real costs (e.g. RC costing) and you get 40 Million GBP. And that's for 5% of output. Suppose Digisevier goes to VCs or HEFCE or JISC and offers to do it for half and allow those valuable library staff to be "repurposed". We must build our own Open infrastructure. It's a matter of crisis. If we don't do it in the next 12 months it will be too late. There is enough Open technology to do it. If Universities, Funders, Libraries scholars and citizens get up and shout for Open infrastructure we can pool resources and do it. If we out-source our thinking and planning to Digisevier we shall be sidelined within 5 years. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069
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