The first point, of course, is that if the "tenured saint" is not
available, the greedy devil is not the only behavioural alternative.
Neither is sainthood, so to speak, dependent upon tenure. Tenure was
invented to protect free expression. It might be useful to remind
everyone that many people looking for tenure, do so precisely for this
reason, while knowing that, given their level of education and
(presumably) competence, they could probably trade more money for less
freedom.
And this is not theory. Creating an Elsevier Hub for research on the
coronavirus is nothing more than a fig leaf for that company. Research
is not particularly helped by opening up only what someone thinks is
good for a particular field of research, while preserving the revenue
stream in other areas of knowledge. Doing so is assuming that fields of
knowledge do not overlap to some extent, and that one already knows the
broad contours of the solutions, however unexpected they may be. Both
claims are broadly incomplete, at best.
It would be amusing to know whether, in the Elsevier boardrooms, issues
arose such as : "if we open access too much, we are going to lose
significant revenue", or "there is threshold beyond which we lose both
control and revenue", etc.
Jean-Claude Guédon
On 2020-03-31 12:35 p.m., Éric Archambault wrote:
Peter, Stevan, and Jean-Claude,
Sorry if my life's circumstances led me to become a greedy devil
instead of a tenured saint.
That said, I don't think it's right to assume that we are working out
of self-interest to build the Coronavirus Research Hub - as early as
January individuals at Elsevier and people here in my team sought to
do our bit to make information discoverable. These people are like me,
we live outside a Manichean world and as we decided to do our part
with the tools at our disposal even if that didn't solve all the
issues in the world we live in. There are people in these
organizations and insulting us at the personal level doesn't help
creating the sense of community we all need to fight this bug. There
is time for theory, other for actions.
Cordially
Éric
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* goal-boun...@eprints.org <goal-boun...@eprints.org> on behalf
of Jean-Claude Guédon <jean.claude.gue...@umontreal.ca>
*Sent:* March 31, 2020 11:17 AM
*To:* goal@eprints.org <goal@eprints.org>
*Subject:* Re: [GOAL] COVID-19 and access to knowledge
I also strongly agree with Peter. As for Éric Archambault, it is
simply a pity to see greed trump principles.
One last note: OA will succeed, despite what Stevan says. Let us shape
OA the right way, and certainly not in the way supported by Elsevier:
in their view, OA is a "charitable" gesture that is applied only in
extreme cases. The reality is that the Great Conversation of science
constantly needs it.
The right way to go is OA free for authors and for readers, which
means that it must be subsidized. But that is all right because
scientific research is subsidized and scientific communication is an
integral part of scientific research (and it costs only 1% of the rest
of research).
Jean-Claude Guédon
Le 31/03/2020 à 08:28, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
I agree with Peter.
Eric has gone over to the devil.
This is a shameful time for token measures.
Covid-19 is a litmus test for disclosing who are going all out for
the public good and who are in it for themselves.
OA used to be for the sake of scientific and scholarly research -- an
abstraction, and it did not succeed.
Here it’s about survival.
Stevan Harnad
Editor,Animal Sentience
<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fanimalstudiesrepository.org%2Fanimsent%2F&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=u4SeHgBD0Upyemmp4Nf0%2Be9a3nOcKNimsGZ3BY2YhGA%3D&reserved=0>
Professor of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal
<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcrcsc.uqam.ca%2F&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=cXNp0TpmsXPsLTCN5AYm8hfmpZmgij7X2Up3%2FNnGjvo%3D&reserved=0>
Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science, McGill University
<https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcgill.ca%2Fpsychology%2Fabout%2Ffaculty-0%2Faffiliate-and-adjunct&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=FirEAYdQS9zIJvZwZOu3TyqInl7b71VCYxIDnoAQ6O4%3D&reserved=0>
Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton
<http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/people/harnad>
On Mar 30, 2020, at 6:14 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm...@cam.ac.uk
<mailto:pm...@cam.ac.uk>> wrote:
On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 7:48 PM Éric Archambault
<eric.archamba...@science-metrix.com
<mailto:eric.archamba...@science-metrix.com>> wrote:
Peter,
Two months ago, that is, on January 27, we started work at
Elsevier to make available as much as possible of the scholarly
literature on coronavirus research easily discoverable and
freely accessible.
At 1science, we created the Coronavirus Research Hub:
Why does Elsevier not simply open all its content and let the
scientific , medical and citizen community decide what they want?
Elsevier can't guess what we want.
The Royal Society has done this. Elsevier can afford to do it.
If we can help further, please let us know, we have been on it
for two months and we continue to evaluate options to help the
research community.
My colleague, a software developer, working for free on openVirus
software, is spending most of his time working making masks in
Cambridge Makespace to ship to Addenbrooke's hospital. When he goes
to the literature to find literature on masks, their efficacy and
use and construction he finds paywall after paywall after paywall
after paywall .... Some are 1-page notes behind a 36 USD Elsevier
paywall.
Do not tell us what we want. let us choose freely.
Peter Murray-Rust
Volunteer fighting for free scientific knowledge in a world crisis.
--
"I always retain copyright in my papers, and nothing in any contract
I sign with any publisher will override that fact. You should do the
same".
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader Emeritus in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dept. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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