Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Heather Morrison]

I would like to thank Eric for this useful and unusually candid response, an 
approach that I wish more people in the private sector would emulate. Some 
comments:

I argue for public ownership of scholarly works. The question of who owns the 
works is not the same as who produces the works. For example, governments often 
partner with private industry to build roads and other infrastructure which are 
then owned by the public. Most doctors in Canada's public health care system 
are entrepreneurs in private practice.

The subscriptions system we aim to transform involves public funding of the 
vast majority of the work which is then given freely to private interests for 
their profit, traditionally with no rights reserved for the public.

Universities, governments, and very large corporations tend to be very 
bureaucratic. In the long term, it would be great to develop organisations that 
can combine size, complexity, social responsibility. In the short term, we rely 
heavily on entrepreneurs like Eric Archambault.

I hope that Eric does co-write a book on the dilemmas and challenges for the 
small to medium size entrepreneur, because I believe he is on to something. 
When we did the 2014 DOAJ survey we noticed a skew in publisher size - many 
very small publishers (mostly one-offs), and many journals produced by large 
publishers (50 plus journals at the time), with not much in the middle. John 
Thompson reported similar results in a major study of academic book publoshing 
published in 2005.

Scholarly publishing is not the only area where concentration is happening. 
When governments subsidize or bail out large industries because they are "too 
big to fail", that too reflects a unhealthy market concentration.

Is there a global dysfunctional dynamic at play here, I wonder, and if so what 
is the remedy?

best,

Heather Morrison


 Original message 
From: Éric Archambault 
Date: 05-20-2016 7:20 AM (GMT-05:00)
To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

Stevan – my answers are in the text.

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of 
Stevan Harnad
Sent: May 18, 2016 6:30 PM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

And then, if Science-Metrix & 1science succeeds in helping librarians harvest 
back the output that university researchers have deposited elsewhere in the web 
than their own university's repository, Elsevier can buy Science-Metrix & 
1science as it bought Mendeley, SSRN and PURE and tighten yet again the 
stranglehold on our research output that they should never have had in the 
first place.

-->So your suggestion for us is what? Close the company now and all the staff 
join a university and we would finally achieve the level of nobility and 
disinterestedness that all good humans should aim for? La noblesse publique! Or 
is it to develop a product that is so stupid that no one will buy it, to close 
the shop, then repeat same until we have been consigned to oblivion? Are you 
suggesting that companies leave everything that is university-related to 
universities? And that we also leave everything governmental to government 
employees? Perhaps we should also leave customers to barter among themselves? 
Yes, I know, the world would be so happy without these greedy entrepreneurs, 
there would be no profit taking, and we would obtain a perfect distribution of 
wealth. Dream on.

Like most of the people who completed a Ph.D. I seriously considered going into 
academia but for a variety of reason life decided differently. So what do we do 
when we have a drive to change the world? We find a job at Google that you seem 
to admire so much that you always promote as a solution for every ill created 
by companies just equally greedy but who are not advertising businesses. We 
need a world more complex than the choice between being noble academics or 
being employed at virtuous Google. I know I’m not noble, but I feel no shame 
getting my hand dirty working in a private corporation. We also play a part in 
making this world work. Evil certainly is present in business, but it is not 
entirely absent from academia even if academia has way more checks and balances 
to keep this low.

The economics of small firms is tough, real tough, I know something about it 
after 15 years running Science-Metrix. We are squeezed by large entities that 
have economies of scale that make us extremely inefficient in comparison. I am 
so constantly aware of it that one day I’d like to call upon Thomas Piketty to 
jointly write a book showing that rate of scale return in countries is 
persistently greater than that associated with creativity and flexibility and 
this leads “naturally” to concentration in industry. Also, as small firms, we 
are also frequently competing against noble academics w

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Stevan Harnad]

I greatly admire Eric's creative work. I also highly recommend his sincere,
thoughtful and highly impassioned text, below, about the value of creative
commercial ventures like his own. What his reflections don't resolve,
however, is the very special problem of scientific and scholarly research:
the fact that it is being relentlessly held hostage by an obsolete
industry, because of chance historic contingencies. Everything Eric says is
and remains true of just about any other area of academic spin-off
entrepreneurship. But the special case of OA is different, perhaps even
unique. Eric's eloquent defence of his company (which needs no defence, by
the way) does not resolve this particular conundrum.

On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 12:46 PM, Éric Archambault <
eric.archamba...@science-metrix.com> wrote:

> Stevan – my answers are in the text.
>
>
>
> *From:* goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Stevan Harnad
> *Sent:* May 18, 2016 6:30 PM
> *To:* Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
> *Subject:* Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation
>
>
>
> And then, if Science-Metrix & 1science succeeds in helping librarians
> harvest back the output that university researchers have deposited
> elsewhere in the web than their own university's repository, Elsevier can
> buy Science-Metrix & 1science as it bought Mendeley, SSRN and PURE and
> tighten yet again the stranglehold on our research output that they should
> never have had in the first place.
>
>
>
> àSo your suggestion for us is what? Close the company now and all the
> staff join a university and we would finally achieve the level of nobility
> and disinterestedness that all good humans should aim for? La noblesse
> publique! Or is it to develop a product that is so stupid that no one will
> buy it, to close the shop, then repeat same until we have been consigned to
> oblivion? Are you suggesting that companies leave everything that is
> university-related to universities? And that we also leave everything
> governmental to government employees? Perhaps we should also leave
> customers to barter among themselves? Yes, I know, the world would be so
> happy without these greedy entrepreneurs, there would be no profit taking,
> and we would obtain a perfect distribution of wealth. Dream on.
>
>
>
> Like most of the people who completed a Ph.D. I seriously considered going
> into academia but for a variety of reason life decided differently. So what
> do we do when we have a drive to change the world? We find a job at Google
> that you seem to admire so much that you always promote as a solution for
> every ill created by companies just equally greedy but who are not
> advertising businesses. We need a world more complex than the choice
> between being noble academics or being employed at virtuous Google. I know
> I’m not noble, but I feel no shame getting my hand dirty working in a
> private corporation. We also play a part in making this world work. Evil
> certainly is present in business, but it is not entirely absent from
> academia even if academia has way more checks and balances to keep this low.
>
>
>
> The economics of small firms is tough, real tough, I know something about
> it after 15 years running Science-Metrix. We are squeezed by large entities
> that have economies of scale that make us extremely inefficient in
> comparison. I am so constantly aware of it that one day I’d like to call
> upon Thomas Piketty to jointly write a book showing that rate of scale
> return in countries is persistently greater than that associated with
> creativity and flexibility and this leads “naturally” to concentration in
> industry. Also, as small firms, we are also frequently competing against
> noble academics who triple dip with their salaries, their research grants
> and generating some non-taxable research income to top it all up. Of
> course, we are the greedy ones, we the entrepreneurs, in contrast to these
> disinterested academics for whom money doesn’t count and for whom
> profiteering is such a filth. In case there is a doubt here, yes I am
> sarcastic. Like many entrepreneurs, I work nearly every day of the week,
> from dusk to long after dawn and my son ask my wife when we’ll have a
> normal life. I didn’t start 1science to sell it up to Elsevier, but I would
> think one could understand if one day I ran out of steam I ended up doing
> so. Many entrepreneurs are like farmers, the only money they have is in the
> value of their enterprise, so selling is not a shame, it’s a pension
> scheme.
>
>
>
> With all my admiration for what Science-Metrix & 1science do, it's
> nothing that a few bright graduate students in computer science could not
> do 

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Éric Archambault]

Stevan – my answers are in the text.

From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of 
Stevan Harnad
Sent: May 18, 2016 6:30 PM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

And then, if Science-Metrix & 1science succeeds in helping librarians harvest 
back the output that university researchers have deposited elsewhere in the web 
than their own university's repository, Elsevier can buy Science-Metrix & 
1science as it bought Mendeley, SSRN and PURE and tighten yet again the 
stranglehold on our research output that they should never have had in the 
first place.

-->So your suggestion for us is what? Close the company now and all the staff 
join a university and we would finally achieve the level of nobility and 
disinterestedness that all good humans should aim for? La noblesse publique! Or 
is it to develop a product that is so stupid that no one will buy it, to close 
the shop, then repeat same until we have been consigned to oblivion? Are you 
suggesting that companies leave everything that is university-related to 
universities? And that we also leave everything governmental to government 
employees? Perhaps we should also leave customers to barter among themselves? 
Yes, I know, the world would be so happy without these greedy entrepreneurs, 
there would be no profit taking, and we would obtain a perfect distribution of 
wealth. Dream on.

Like most of the people who completed a Ph.D. I seriously considered going into 
academia but for a variety of reason life decided differently. So what do we do 
when we have a drive to change the world? We find a job at Google that you seem 
to admire so much that you always promote as a solution for every ill created 
by companies just equally greedy but who are not advertising businesses. We 
need a world more complex than the choice between being noble academics or 
being employed at virtuous Google. I know I’m not noble, but I feel no shame 
getting my hand dirty working in a private corporation. We also play a part in 
making this world work. Evil certainly is present in business, but it is not 
entirely absent from academia even if academia has way more checks and balances 
to keep this low.

The economics of small firms is tough, real tough, I know something about it 
after 15 years running Science-Metrix. We are squeezed by large entities that 
have economies of scale that make us extremely inefficient in comparison. I am 
so constantly aware of it that one day I’d like to call upon Thomas Piketty to 
jointly write a book showing that rate of scale return in countries is 
persistently greater than that associated with creativity and flexibility and 
this leads “naturally” to concentration in industry. Also, as small firms, we 
are also frequently competing against noble academics who triple dip with their 
salaries, their research grants and generating some non-taxable research income 
to top it all up. Of course, we are the greedy ones, we the entrepreneurs, in 
contrast to these disinterested academics for whom money doesn’t count and for 
whom profiteering is such a filth. In case there is a doubt here, yes I am 
sarcastic. Like many entrepreneurs, I work nearly every day of the week, from 
dusk to long after dawn and my son ask my wife when we’ll have a normal life. I 
didn’t start 1science to sell it up to Elsevier, but I would think one could 
understand if one day I ran out of steam I ended up doing so. Many 
entrepreneurs are like farmers, the only money they have is in the value of 
their enterprise, so selling is not a shame, it’s a pension scheme.

With all my admiration for what Science-Metrix & 1science do, it's nothing that 
a few bright graduate students in computer science could not do as a JISC 
project, and afterwards the software is available to all universities. As 
foolish as a Fool's-Gold membership consortium of universities is, a consortium 
to support and sustain the skills and tools needed to repatriate universities' 
research as well as its processing would be wise thing to form. The research 
funders would stand to benefit from supporting it too.

--> Now obviously you don’t have much admiration for our work if your sense 
that the work done by the 20 employees at 1science and the 25 at Science-Metrix 
can be done by a few bright students in computer science. We are a diverse team 
of proud professionals. I have three degrees in science, technology and 
society, studying innovation and science policy as core interest. Surely that 
must have a bit of value whilst driving a team that develops products that seek 
to provide benefits to users and create overall public returns on investments. 
Plus my twenty years on the work market including the last fifteen running a 
successful business which despite being so relatively minuscule is seen as such 
as a threat by companies that have revenues mor

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Olivier Speciel]

t; something of the kind was really needed), IRs are going to be way more 
>> populated, way faster, and librarians and researchers will be able to spend 
>> more time archiving and self-archiving pre-prints and post-prints that do 
>> not exist anywhere else. For libraries to spend time looking at what is 
>> uniquely missing makes sense, this is an exercise in search engine 
>> optimization as the Bing and Google bots will see unique content. This 
>> solution will help move universities towards 100% OA availability at the 
>> institutional level. Take Caltech – they already have a stunningly good IR 
>> but using 1science’s data it’ll be every better – we can find close to 80% 
>> of Caltech’s paper in Gratis OA somewhere on the internet. Of course, this 
>> solution is not a silver bullet and some problems will remain but it will 
>> help creating a more robust, distributed architecture.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Éric
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 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
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf 
>> Of Eric F. Van de Velde
>> Sent: May 18, 2016 4:39 PM
>> To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
>> Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Stevan:
>> 
>> Yes, 
>> 
>> distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and 
>> immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early 
>> as the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> But,
>> 
>> it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes 
>> with significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in 
>> recruiting content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the 
>> network of IRs federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for 
>> professional-level research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply 
>> disappear into obscurity. Distributed management does not immunize IRs 
>> against becoming irrelevant. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not the 
>> broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the full 
>> text (many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain bad 
>> scans. Many IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally inconsistent 
>> metadata, it is impossible to search and find anything with consistent 
>> reliability. Moreover, in its institutionalized form, the supposedly-cheap 
>> IR has become rather expensive.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it 
>> bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the 
>> early 2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like 
>> figshare, academia.edu, etc. look increasingly better in comparison.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --Eric.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
>> 
>> Twitter: @evdvelde
>> 
>> E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad  wrote:
>> 
>> The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories is by 
>> far the best prophylactic against Elsevier predation. I hope universities 
>> and research funders will be awake enough to realize this rather than 
>> falling for quick "solutions" that continue to hold their research output 
>> hostage to the increasingly predatory publishing industry. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> "We have nothing to lose but our chains..."
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:
>> 
>> "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of 
>> independent repositories.”
>> 
>> I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software doesn’t 
>> matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this principle). It’s 
>> about the distribution of *control*.
>> 
>> We are truly fortunate to have a global, distr

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[William Gunn]

 faster, and librarians
> and researchers will be able to spend more time archiving and
> self-archiving pre-prints and post-prints that do not exist anywhere else.
> For libraries to spend time looking at what is uniquely missing makes
> sense, this is an exercise in search engine optimization as the Bing and
> Google bots will see unique content. This solution will help move
> universities towards 100% OA availability at the institutional level. Take
> Caltech – they already have a stunningly good IR but using 1science’s data
> it’ll be every better – we can find close to 80% of Caltech’s paper in
> Gratis OA somewhere on the internet. Of course, this solution is not a
> silver bullet and some problems will remain but it will help creating a
> more robust, distributed architecture.
> >
> >
> >
> > Éric
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On
> Behalf Of Eric F. Van de Velde
> > Sent: May 18, 2016 4:39 PM
> > To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
> > Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation
> >
> >
> >
> > Stevan:
> >
> > Yes,
> >
> > distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs
> and immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as
> early as the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.
> >
> >
> >
> > But,
> >
> > it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes
> with significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in
> recruiting content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the
> network of IRs federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for
> professional-level research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply
> disappear into obscurity. Distributed management does not immunize IRs
> against becoming irrelevant.
> >
> >
> >
> > Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not
> the broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the
> full text (many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain
> bad scans. Many IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally
> inconsistent metadata, it is impossible to search and find anything with
> consistent reliability. Moreover, in its institutionalized form, the
> supposedly-cheap IR has become rather expensive.
> >
> >
> >
> > The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it
> bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the
> early 2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s.
> >
> >
> >
> > Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like
> figshare, academia.edu, etc. look increasingly better in comparison.
> >
> >
> >
> > --Eric.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
> >
> > Twitter: @evdvelde
> >
> > E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad 
> wrote:
> >
> > The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories is
> by far the best prophylactic against Elsevier predation. I hope
> universities and research funders will be awake enough to realize this
> rather than falling for quick "solutions" that continue to hold their
> research output hostage to the increasingly predatory publishing industry.
> >
> >
> >
> > "We have nothing to lose but our chains..."
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:
> >
> > "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network
> of independent repositories.”
> >
> > I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software
> doesn’t matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this
> principle). It’s about the distribution of *control*.
> >
> > We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of
> institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control.
> This is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should
> regard it as precious and inherently powerful i

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[WALK Paul]

’ll be every better – we can find close to 80% of Caltech’s paper in Gratis 
> OA somewhere on the internet. Of course, this solution is not a silver bullet 
> and some problems will remain but it will help creating a more robust, 
> distributed architecture.
> 
>  
> 
> Éric
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 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
> 
>
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of 
> Eric F. Van de Velde
> Sent: May 18, 2016 4:39 PM
> To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
> Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation
> 
>  
> 
> Stevan:
> 
> Yes, 
> 
> distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and 
> immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early as 
> the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.
> 
>  
> 
> But,
> 
> it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes with 
> significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in 
> recruiting content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the 
> network of IRs federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for 
> professional-level research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply 
> disappear into obscurity. Distributed management does not immunize IRs 
> against becoming irrelevant. 
> 
>  
> 
> Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not the 
> broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the full 
> text (many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain bad 
> scans. Many IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally inconsistent 
> metadata, it is impossible to search and find anything with consistent 
> reliability. Moreover, in its institutionalized form, the supposedly-cheap IR 
> has become rather expensive.
> 
>  
> 
> The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it 
> bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the 
> early 2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s. 
> 
>  
> 
> Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like 
> figshare, academia.edu, etc. look increasingly better in comparison.
> 
>  
> 
> --Eric.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
> 
> Twitter: @evdvelde
> 
> E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com
> 
>  
> 
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad  wrote:
> 
> The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories is by 
> far the best prophylactic against Elsevier predation. I hope universities and 
> research funders will be awake enough to realize this rather than falling for 
> quick "solutions" that continue to hold their research output hostage to the 
> increasingly predatory publishing industry. 
> 
>  
> 
> "We have nothing to lose but our chains..."
> 
>  
> 
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:
> 
> "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of 
> independent repositories.”
> 
> I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software doesn’t 
> matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this principle). It’s 
> about the distribution of *control*.
> 
> We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of 
> institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control. 
> This is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should 
> regard it as precious and inherently powerful in its denial of the 
> possibility of “ownership” by one party.
> 
> We should do what we can to both hang on to this infrastructure, and to 
> exploit it more fully, in pursuit of a better scholarly communications system.
> 
> Paul
> 
> > On 17 May 2016, at 22:06, Leslie Carr  wrote:
> >
> > The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of 
> > independent repositories.
> >
> > Prof Leslie Carr
> > Web Science institute
> > #⃣ webscience #⃣ openaccess
> >
> > On 17 May 2016, at 21:35, Joachim SCHOPFEL 
> > mailto:joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr>> 
> > wrote:
> >
> > Uh - "the distributed network of Green institutional repositories worldwide 
> > is not for sale"? Not so sure - the green institutional repositories can be 
> > replaced by other solutions

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[William Gunn]

ill help creating a
>> more robust, distributed architecture.
>>
>>
>>
>> Éric
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Eric Archambault, Ph.D.*
>> President and CEO | Président-directeur général
>> Science-Metrix & 1science
>> [image: http://1science.com/images/LinkedIn_sign.png]
>> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarchambault>
>> *T.* 1.514.495.6505 x.111
>> *C.* 1.514.518.0823
>> *F.* 1.514.495.6523
>>
>> [image: http://1science.com/images/Logo_SM_horizontal_small.png]
>> <http://www.science-metrix.com/>   [image:
>> http://1science.com/images/1science.png] <http://www.1science.com/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] *On
>> Behalf Of *Eric F. Van de Velde
>> *Sent:* May 18, 2016 4:39 PM
>> *To:* Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
>> *Subject:* Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation
>>
>>
>>
>> Stevan:
>>
>> Yes,
>>
>> distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and
>> immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early
>> as the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.
>>
>>
>>
>> But,
>>
>> it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes
>> with significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in
>> recruiting content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the
>> network of IRs federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for
>> professional-level research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply
>> disappear into obscurity. Distributed management does not immunize IRs
>> against becoming irrelevant.
>>
>>
>>
>> Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not
>> the broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the
>> full text (many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain
>> bad scans. Many IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally
>> inconsistent metadata, it is impossible to search and find anything with
>> consistent reliability. Moreover, in its institutionalized form, the
>> supposedly-cheap IR has become rather expensive.
>>
>>
>>
>> The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it
>> bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the
>> early 2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s.
>>
>>
>>
>> Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like
>> figshare, academia.edu, etc. look increasingly better in comparison.
>>
>>
>>
>> --Eric.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
>>
>> Twitter: @evdvelde
>>
>> E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad 
>> wrote:
>>
>> The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories
>> <http://roar.eprints.org> is by far the best prophylactic against
>> Elsevier predation. I hope universities and research funders will be awake
>> enough to realize this rather than falling for quick "solutions" that
>> continue to hold their research output hostage to the increasingly
>> predatory publishing industry.
>>
>>
>>
>> "We have nothing to lose but our chains..."
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:
>>
>> "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of
>> independent repositories.”
>>
>> I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software doesn’t
>> matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this principle). It’s
>> about the distribution of *control*.
>>
>> We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of
>> institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control.
>> This is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should
>> regard it as precious and inherently powerful in its denial of the
>> possibility of “ownership” by one party.
>>
>> We should do what we can to both hang on to this infrastructure, and to
>> exploit it more fully, in pursuit of a better scholarly communications
>> system.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> > On 17 May 2016, at 22:06, Leslie Carr  wrote:
>> >
>> > Th

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Eric F. Van de Velde]

Eric Archambault:
This is quite impressive and potentially very helpful.

Stevan:
We started with IRs that would grow organically. When that did not work, we
pursued institutional mandates. Now, it is national funder mandates. This
attitude of top-down enforced innovation is at odds with today's tech
culture of bottom-up innovation. The top-down approach is just too slow.

Libraries have now been managing IRs for over 15 years without any
significant changes to IRs. They still have no social component, like
Figshare or academia.edu. As we have seen elsewhere, the social component
is crucial to achieve organic growth.

Worse than not adding features is the attitude that IRs are the goal. The
real goal should be better scholarly communication. This may require a new
IR: Individual Repositories. Social platforms are far more suited for the
individual researcher.

I am not an absolute free marketer, but the free market is rather good at
forcing innovation. Perhaps, it is time to make libraries compete for the
IR/OA management business and force some innovation that way.
--Eric.


http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
Twitter: @evdvelde
E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 2:53 PM, Éric Archambault <
eric.archamba...@science-metrix.com> wrote:

> Eric
>
>
>
> At 1science, we have developed a robust solution to address some of the
> problems you are mentioning. In contrast to the optimistic view of the
> repositories that Stevan has, in our efforts to locate all the contents
> which is available in green and gold (including hybrid), we are finding
> that most of the IRs have only about 5-8% of the papers published by
> authors at the universities hosting these repositories. Another contrast,
> the latest data we have compiled at 1science shows that we are fast
> approaching 60% of the papers indexed the Thomson Reuters Web of Science
> which can be found in gratis OA form somewhere on the internet. Given the
> law of large numbers, on average, there is a gap of more than 50% between
> what is available somewhere on the net, and what is available in local IR.
> It’s clear tat a solution that fills that gap quickly can remove a huge
> pain point in the filling of IR with full-text (or links to full-text) and
> proper metadata.
>
>
>
> We have developed a product called oaFoldr which basically repatriates
> these papers to the IRs. Our privileged model is to feed the IRs with good
> quality metadata (and when institutions are subscribing to the Web of
> Science, we can install the WoS API and populate the repository with very
> high quality metadata and this removes a lot of the pain of entering data
> manually) and then place URLs that points to locations (other IR,
> publishers’ websites, arXiv, Scielo, PMC,…) where a gratis OA version is
> located. This turns empty IRs into institutional knowledge hubs. Of course,
> many librarians are also actively examining these links and copying a
> physical version of the paper in the IR (where possible considering
> licencing and rights issues). If the uptake is good for this product (which
> we think it will as we developed this solution because we kept hearing from
> tens of university librarians that something of the kind was really
> needed), IRs are going to be way more populated, way faster, and librarians
> and researchers will be able to spend more time archiving and
> self-archiving pre-prints and post-prints that do not exist anywhere else.
> For libraries to spend time looking at what is uniquely missing makes
> sense, this is an exercise in search engine optimization as the Bing and
> Google bots will see unique content. This solution will help move
> universities towards 100% OA availability at the institutional level. Take
> Caltech – they already have a stunningly good IR but using 1science’s data
> it’ll be every better – we can find close to 80% of Caltech’s paper in
> Gratis OA somewhere on the internet. Of course, this solution is not a
> silver bullet and some problems will remain but it will help creating a
> more robust, distributed architecture.
>
>
>
> Éric
>
>
>
>
>
> *Eric Archambault, Ph.D.*
> President and CEO | Président-directeur général
> Science-Metrix & 1science
> [image: http://1science.com/images/LinkedIn_sign.png]
> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarchambault>
> *T.* 1.514.495.6505 x.111
> *C.* 1.514.518.0823
> *F.* 1.514.495.6523
>
> [image: http://1science.com/images/Logo_SM_horizontal_small.png]
> <http://www.science-metrix.com/>   [image:
> http://1science.com/images/1science.png] <http://www.1science.com/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Eric F. Van de Velde
> *Sent:* Ma

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Stevan Harnad]

 *F.* 1.514.495.6523
>
> [image: http://1science.com/images/Logo_SM_horizontal_small.png]
> <http://www.science-metrix.com/>   [image:
> http://1science.com/images/1science.png] <http://www.1science.com/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Eric F. Van de Velde
> *Sent:* May 18, 2016 4:39 PM
> *To:* Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
> *Subject:* Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation
>
>
>
> Stevan:
>
> Yes,
>
> distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and
> immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early
> as the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.
>
>
>
> But,
>
> it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes
> with significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in
> recruiting content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the
> network of IRs federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for
> professional-level research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply
> disappear into obscurity. Distributed management does not immunize IRs
> against becoming irrelevant.
>
>
>
> Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not the
> broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the full
> text (many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain bad
> scans. Many IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally inconsistent
> metadata, it is impossible to search and find anything with consistent
> reliability. Moreover, in its institutionalized form, the supposedly-cheap
> IR has become rather expensive.
>
>
>
> The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it
> bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the
> early 2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s.
>
>
>
> Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like
> figshare, academia.edu, etc. look increasingly better in comparison.
>
>
>
> --Eric.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
>
> Twitter: @evdvelde
>
> E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad 
> wrote:
>
> The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories
> <http://roar.eprints.org> is by far the best prophylactic against
> Elsevier predation. I hope universities and research funders will be awake
> enough to realize this rather than falling for quick "solutions" that
> continue to hold their research output hostage to the increasingly
> predatory publishing industry.
>
>
>
> "We have nothing to lose but our chains..."
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:
>
> "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of
> independent repositories.”
>
> I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software doesn’t
> matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this principle). It’s
> about the distribution of *control*.
>
> We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of
> institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control.
> This is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should
> regard it as precious and inherently powerful in its denial of the
> possibility of “ownership” by one party.
>
> We should do what we can to both hang on to this infrastructure, and to
> exploit it more fully, in pursuit of a better scholarly communications
> system.
>
> Paul
>
> > On 17 May 2016, at 22:06, Leslie Carr  wrote:
> >
> > The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of
> independent repositories.
> >
> > Prof Leslie Carr
> > Web Science institute
> > #⃣ webscience #⃣ openaccess
> >
> > On 17 May 2016, at 21:35, Joachim SCHOPFEL <
> joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr<mailto:joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr>>
> wrote:
> >
> > Uh - "the distributed network of Green institutional repositories
> worldwide is not for sale"? Not so sure - the green institutional
> repositories can be replaced by other solutions, can't they ? Better
> solutions, more functionalities, more added value, more efficient, better
> connected to databases and gold/hybrid journals etc.
> >
> > - Mail d'origine -
> > De: Stevan Harnad mailto:amscifo...@gmail.com>>
> > À: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)  <mailto:go

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Éric Archambault]

Forgot to specify – we are approaching 60% of WoS contents that can be found in 
gratis OA – that’s for the last few years (about 5 years – except the latest 
year which is still plagued by embargoes and the lack of reflex by researchers 
to self-archive immediately the pre-prints and post-prints).

Sorry for the typos in my previous post – I never read these enough without new 
modifications before pressing “send”.


Éric



From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of 
Eric F. Van de Velde
Sent: May 18, 2016 4:39 PM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

Stevan:
Yes,
distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and 
immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early as 
the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.

But,
it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes with 
significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in recruiting 
content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the network of IRs 
federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for professional-level 
research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply disappear into obscurity. 
Distributed management does not immunize IRs against becoming irrelevant.

Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not the 
broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the full text 
(many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain bad scans. Many 
IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally inconsistent metadata, it is 
impossible to search and find anything with consistent reliability. Moreover, 
in its institutionalized form, the supposedly-cheap IR has become rather 
expensive.

The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it 
bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the early 
2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s.

Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like 
figshare, academia.edu<http://academia.edu>, etc. look increasingly better in 
comparison.

--Eric.



http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
Twitter: @evdvelde
E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com<mailto:eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com>

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad 
mailto:amscifo...@gmail.com>> wrote:
The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional 
Repositories<http://roar.eprints.org> is by far the best prophylactic against 
Elsevier predation. I hope universities and research funders will be awake 
enough to realize this rather than falling for quick "solutions" that continue 
to hold their research output hostage to the increasingly predatory publishing 
industry.

"We have nothing to lose but our chains..."

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk 
mailto:paul.w...@bath.edu>> wrote:
"The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of 
independent repositories.”

I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software doesn’t 
matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this principle). It’s about 
the distribution of *control*.

We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of 
institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control. This 
is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should regard it as 
precious and inherently powerful in its denial of the possibility of 
“ownership” by one party.

We should do what we can to both hang on to this infrastructure, and to exploit 
it more fully, in pursuit of a better scholarly communications system.

Paul

> On 17 May 2016, at 22:06, Leslie Carr 
> mailto:l...@ecs.soton.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
> The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of 
> independent repositories.
>
> Prof Leslie Carr
> Web Science institute
> #⃣ webscience #⃣ openaccess
>
> On 17 May 2016, at 21:35, Joachim SCHOPFEL 
> mailto:joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr><mailto:joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr<mailto:joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr>>>
>  wrote:
>
> Uh - "the distributed network of Green institutional repositories worldwide 
> is not for sale"? Not so sure - the green institutional repositories can be 
> replaced by other solutions, can't they ? Better solutions, more 
> functionalities, more added value, more efficient, better connected to 
> databases and gold/hybrid journals etc.
>
> - Mail d'origine -
> De: Stevan Harnad 
> mailto:amscifo...@gmail.com><mailto:amscifo...@gmail.com<mailto:amscifo...@gmail.com>>>
> À: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
> mailto:goal@eprints.org><mailto:goal@eprints.org<mailto:goal@epri

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Éric Archambault]

Eric

At 1science, we have developed a robust solution to address some of the 
problems you are mentioning. In contrast to the optimistic view of the 
repositories that Stevan has, in our efforts to locate all the contents which 
is available in green and gold (including hybrid), we are finding that most of 
the IRs have only about 5-8% of the papers published by authors at the 
universities hosting these repositories. Another contrast, the latest data we 
have compiled at 1science shows that we are fast approaching 60% of the papers 
indexed the Thomson Reuters Web of Science which can be found in gratis OA form 
somewhere on the internet. Given the law of large numbers, on average, there is 
a gap of more than 50% between what is available somewhere on the net, and what 
is available in local IR. It’s clear tat a solution that fills that gap quickly 
can remove a huge pain point in the filling of IR with full-text (or links to 
full-text) and proper metadata.

We have developed a product called oaFoldr which basically repatriates these 
papers to the IRs. Our privileged model is to feed the IRs with good quality 
metadata (and when institutions are subscribing to the Web of Science, we can 
install the WoS API and populate the repository with very high quality metadata 
and this removes a lot of the pain of entering data manually) and then place 
URLs that points to locations (other IR, publishers’ websites, arXiv, Scielo, 
PMC,…) where a gratis OA version is located. This turns empty IRs into 
institutional knowledge hubs. Of course, many librarians are also actively 
examining these links and copying a physical version of the paper in the IR 
(where possible considering licencing and rights issues). If the uptake is good 
for this product (which we think it will as we developed this solution because 
we kept hearing from tens of university librarians that something of the kind 
was really needed), IRs are going to be way more populated, way faster, and 
librarians and researchers will be able to spend more time archiving and 
self-archiving pre-prints and post-prints that do not exist anywhere else. For 
libraries to spend time looking at what is uniquely missing makes sense, this 
is an exercise in search engine optimization as the Bing and Google bots will 
see unique content. This solution will help move universities towards 100% OA 
availability at the institutional level. Take Caltech – they already have a 
stunningly good IR but using 1science’s data it’ll be every better – we can 
find close to 80% of Caltech’s paper in Gratis OA somewhere on the internet. Of 
course, this solution is not a silver bullet and some problems will remain but 
it will help creating a more robust, distributed architecture.

Éric


Eric Archambault, Ph.D.
President and CEO | Président-directeur général
Science-Metrix & 1science
[http://1science.com/images/LinkedIn_sign.png]<https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarchambault>
T. 1.514.495.6505 x.111
C. 1.514.518.0823
F. 1.514.495.6523

[http://1science.com/images/Logo_SM_horizontal_small.png]<http://www.science-metrix.com/>
   [http://1science.com/images/1science.png] <http://www.1science.com/>





From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of 
Eric F. Van de Velde
Sent: May 18, 2016 4:39 PM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) 
Subject: Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

Stevan:
Yes,
distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and 
immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early as 
the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.

But,
it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes with 
significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in recruiting 
content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the network of IRs 
federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for professional-level 
research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply disappear into obscurity. 
Distributed management does not immunize IRs against becoming irrelevant.

Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not the 
broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the full text 
(many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain bad scans. Many 
IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally inconsistent metadata, it is 
impossible to search and find anything with consistent reliability. Moreover, 
in its institutionalized form, the supposedly-cheap IR has become rather 
expensive.

The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it 
bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the early 
2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s.

Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like 
figshare, academia.edu<http://academia.edu>, etc. look increasingly b

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Stevan Harnad]

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Eric F. Van de Velde <
eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Stevan:
> Yes,
> distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and
> immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early
> as the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.
>
> But,
> it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes
> with significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in
> recruiting content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the
> network of IRs federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for
> professional-level research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply
> disappear into obscurity. Distributed management does not immunize IRs
> against becoming irrelevant.
>
> Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not the
> broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the full
> text (many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain bad
> scans. Many IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally inconsistent
> metadata, it is impossible to search and find anything with consistent
> reliability. Moreover, in its institutionalized form, the supposedly-cheap
> IR has become rather expensive.
>
> The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it
> bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the
> early 2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s.
>
> Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like
> figshare, academia.edu, etc. look increasingly better in comparison.
>

Eric, this is yet another reason why the funders should have mandated
institutional deposit (rather than central, or fool's gold): so they could
then dictate uniform interoperability conditions to all their institutions,
including full text and maximized google scholar discoverability. The
funders can still dictate it. It's not too late.

Yes, a liability of distributed warehousing is divergent and incompatible
local practices. It would be good to upgrade the Harvard model policy model
that many US institutions are adopting, to include the interoperable
features all institutions would benefit from.

In the UK, HEFCE, with the REF, has gone a good way toward this, though the
UK too could use some collective shoring up. HEFCE will need to wisely and
firmly ignore the short-sighted and blinkered local bickering and
particularism and simply insist on the common features that all
institutions need to implement in order to make their holdings useful not
just locally but globally.

No fundamental obstacles here, just a little more mental interoperability
called for too...

Stevan

http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
> Twitter: @evdvelde
> E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad 
> wrote:
>
>> The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories
>>  is by far the best prophylactic against
>> Elsevier predation. I hope universities and research funders will be awake
>> enough to realize this rather than falling for quick "solutions" that
>> continue to hold their research output hostage to the increasingly
>> predatory publishing industry.
>>
>> "We have nothing to lose but our chains..."
>>
>> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:
>>
>>> "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network
>>> of independent repositories.”
>>>
>>> I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software
>>> doesn’t matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this
>>> principle). It’s about the distribution of *control*.
>>>
>>> We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of
>>> institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control.
>>> This is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should
>>> regard it as precious and inherently powerful in its denial of the
>>> possibility of “ownership” by one party.
>>>
>>> We should do what we can to both hang on to this infrastructure, and to
>>> exploit it more fully, in pursuit of a better scholarly communications
>>> system.
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> > On 17 May 2016, at 22:06, Leslie Carr  wrote:
>>> >
>>> > The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network
>>> of independent repositories.
>>> >
>>> > Prof Leslie Carr
>>> > Web Science institute
>>> > #⃣ webscience #⃣ openaccess
>>> >
>>> > On 17 May 2016, at 21:35, Joachim SCHOPFEL <
>>> joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Uh - "the distributed network of Green institutional repositories
>>> worldwide is not for sale"? Not so sure - the green institutional
>>> repositories can be replaced by other solutions, can't they ? Better
>>> solutions, more functionalities, more added value, more efficient, better
>>> connected to databases and gold/hybrid journ

Re: [GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Eric F. Van de Velde]

Stevan:
Yes,
distributed management of Institutional Repositories spread the costs and
immunize them against a take-over. That is why advocated for them as early
as the 1999 UPS meeting in Santa Fe.

But,
it is now also increasingly clear that this distributed management comes
with significant downsides. Any successes of the OA movement have been in
recruiting content for IRs and in enacting OA mandates. Unfortunately, the
network of IRs federated through OAI-PMH is simply not good enough for
professional-level research. If IRs fail at this task, they'll simply
disappear into obscurity. Distributed management does not immunize IRs
against becoming irrelevant.

Each IR is managed to accommodate idiosyncratic local concerns and not the
broader interests of the world. There is no consistent access to the full
text (many records contain only metadata). Many records just contain bad
scans. Many IRs prohibit/discourage data mining. With globally inconsistent
metadata, it is impossible to search and find anything with consistent
reliability. Moreover, in its institutionalized form, the supposedly-cheap
IR has become rather expensive.

The distributed nature has led to a paralysis in development. To put it
bluntly: Today's institutional repositories are run with software of the
early 2000s and managed with the cataloging mindset of the 1980s.

Frankly, I have no solution to offer. The crowdsourced alternatives like
figshare, academia.edu, etc. look increasingly better in comparison.

--Eric.



http://scitechsociety.blogspot.com
Twitter: @evdvelde
E-mail: eric.f.vandeve...@gmail.com

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Stevan Harnad  wrote:

> The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories
>  is by far the best prophylactic against
> Elsevier predation. I hope universities and research funders will be awake
> enough to realize this rather than falling for quick "solutions" that
> continue to hold their research output hostage to the increasingly
> predatory publishing industry.
>
> "We have nothing to lose but our chains..."
>
> On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:
>
>> "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of
>> independent repositories.”
>>
>> I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software doesn’t
>> matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this principle). It’s
>> about the distribution of *control*.
>>
>> We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of
>> institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control.
>> This is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should
>> regard it as precious and inherently powerful in its denial of the
>> possibility of “ownership” by one party.
>>
>> We should do what we can to both hang on to this infrastructure, and to
>> exploit it more fully, in pursuit of a better scholarly communications
>> system.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> > On 17 May 2016, at 22:06, Leslie Carr  wrote:
>> >
>> > The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network
>> of independent repositories.
>> >
>> > Prof Leslie Carr
>> > Web Science institute
>> > #⃣ webscience #⃣ openaccess
>> >
>> > On 17 May 2016, at 21:35, Joachim SCHOPFEL <
>> joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Uh - "the distributed network of Green institutional repositories
>> worldwide is not for sale"? Not so sure - the green institutional
>> repositories can be replaced by other solutions, can't they ? Better
>> solutions, more functionalities, more added value, more efficient, better
>> connected to databases and gold/hybrid journals etc.
>> >
>> > - Mail d'origine -
>> > De: Stevan Harnad mailto:amscifo...@gmail.com>>
>> > À: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) > >
>> > Envoyé: Tue, 17 May 2016 17:03:18 +0200 (CEST)
>> > Objet: Re: [GOAL] SSRN Sellout to Elsevier
>> >
>> > Shame on SSRN.
>> >
>> > Of course we know exactly why Elsevier acquired SSRN (and Mendeley):
>> >
>> > It's to retain their stranglehold over a domain (peer-reviewed
>> scholarly/scientific research publishing) in which they are no longer
>> needed, and in which they would not even have been able to gain as much as
>> a foothold if it had been born digital, instead of being inherited as a
>> legacy from an obsolete Gutenberg era.
>> >
>> > I don't know about Arxiv (needless centralization and its concentrated
>> expenses are always vulnerabe to faux-benign take-overs) but what's sure is
>> that the distributed network of Green institutional repositories worldwide
>> is not for sale, and that is their strength...
>> >
>> > Stevan Harnad
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Bo-Christer Björk <
>> bo-christer.bj...@hanken.fi> wrote:
>> >
>> > This is an interesting news item which should interest the
>> > readers of this list. Let's

[GOAL] Prophylactic Against Elsevier Predation

[Stevan Harnad]

The worldwide distributed network of Green Institutional Repositories
 is by far the best prophylactic against Elsevier
predation. I hope universities and research funders will be awake enough to
realize this rather than falling for quick "solutions" that continue to
hold their research output hostage to the increasingly predatory publishing
industry.

"We have nothing to lose but our chains..."

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 4:53 AM, Paul Walk  wrote:

> "The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of
> independent repositories.”
>
> I agree, and I think that this is the crucial point. The software doesn’t
> matter (well, it does matter, but it doesn’t affect this principle). It’s
> about the distribution of *control*.
>
> We are truly fortunate to have a global, distributed infrastructure of
> institutional repositories which are (mostly) under institutional control.
> This is quite an unusual arrangement these days - and I think we should
> regard it as precious and inherently powerful in its denial of the
> possibility of “ownership” by one party.
>
> We should do what we can to both hang on to this infrastructure, and to
> exploit it more fully, in pursuit of a better scholarly communications
> system.
>
> Paul
>
> > On 17 May 2016, at 22:06, Leslie Carr  wrote:
> >
> > The software may change, but you can't sell off a distributed network of
> independent repositories.
> >
> > Prof Leslie Carr
> > Web Science institute
> > #⃣ webscience #⃣ openaccess
> >
> > On 17 May 2016, at 21:35, Joachim SCHOPFEL <
> joachim.schop...@univ-lille3.fr>
> wrote:
> >
> > Uh - "the distributed network of Green institutional repositories
> worldwide is not for sale"? Not so sure - the green institutional
> repositories can be replaced by other solutions, can't they ? Better
> solutions, more functionalities, more added value, more efficient, better
> connected to databases and gold/hybrid journals etc.
> >
> > - Mail d'origine -
> > De: Stevan Harnad mailto:amscifo...@gmail.com>>
> > À: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)  >
> > Envoyé: Tue, 17 May 2016 17:03:18 +0200 (CEST)
> > Objet: Re: [GOAL] SSRN Sellout to Elsevier
> >
> > Shame on SSRN.
> >
> > Of course we know exactly why Elsevier acquired SSRN (and Mendeley):
> >
> > It's to retain their stranglehold over a domain (peer-reviewed
> scholarly/scientific research publishing) in which they are no longer
> needed, and in which they would not even have been able to gain as much as
> a foothold if it had been born digital, instead of being inherited as a
> legacy from an obsolete Gutenberg era.
> >
> > I don't know about Arxiv (needless centralization and its concentrated
> expenses are always vulnerabe to faux-benign take-overs) but what's sure is
> that the distributed network of Green institutional repositories worldwide
> is not for sale, and that is their strength...
> >
> > Stevan Harnad
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Bo-Christer Björk <
> bo-christer.bj...@hanken.fi> wrote:
> >
> > This is an interesting news item which should interest the
> > readers of this list. Let's hope arXiv is not for sale.
> >
> > Bo-Christer Björk
> >
> >
> >
> >  Forwarded Message 
> > Subject:
> >Message from Mike Jensen, SSRN Chairman
> > Date:   Tue, 17 May 2016 07:40:29 -0400 (EDT)
> > From:   Michael C. Jensen 
> > Reply-To:
> >supp...@ssrn.com
> > To: bo-christer.bj...@hanken.fi
> >
> >
> >
> > [http://papers.ssrn.com/Organizations/images/ihp_ssrnlogo.png]<
> http://hq.ssrn.com/GroupProcesses/RedirectClick.cfm?partid=2338421&corid=4024&runid=15740&url=http://www.ssrn.com>
>  [http://static.ssrn.com/Images/Header/socialnew.gif]
> >
> >
> > Dear SSRN Authors,
> >
> >
> > SSRN announced today that it has changed ownership. SSRN is
> > joining Mendeley and Elsevier<
> https://www.elsevier.com>
> > to coordinate our development and delivery of new products and
> > services, and we look forward to our new access to data, products,
> > and additional resources that this change facilitates. (See Gregg
> > Gordon’s Elsevier
> > Connect<
> https://www.elsevier.com/connect/ssrn-the-leading-social-science-and-humanities-repository-and-online-community-joins-elsevier>
> post)
> >
> >
> > Like SSRN, Mendeley and Elsevier are focused on creating tools
> > that enhance researcher workflow and productivity. SSRN has been
> > at the forefront of on-line sharing of working papers. We are
> > committed to continue our innovation and this change will enable
> > that to happen more quickly. SSRN will benefit from access to the
> > vast new data and resources available, including Mendeley’s
> > reference management and personal library management tools, their
> > new