Should read Holtzbrincksevier, not Digisevier.

;-)

Eric Archambault
1science.com<http://1science.com>
Science-Metrix.com<http://science-metrix.com>
+1-514-495-6505 x111

On May 20, 2016, at 07:51, Peter Murray-Rust 
<pm...@cam.ac.uk<mailto:pm...@cam.ac.uk>> wrote:



On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 11:22 PM, Éric Archambault 
<eric.archamba...@science-metrix.com<mailto: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<tel:1.514.495.6505%20x.111>
C. 1.514.518.0823<tel:1.514.518.0823>
F. 1.514.495.6523<tel: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<http://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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