[GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List)
Sally, May I join you in the ranks of those who risk being pilloried or branded heretics? I think the solution is clear. We should get rid of pre-publication peer review (PPPR) and publish results in open repositories. PPPR is the one thing that keeps the whole publishing system standing, and expensive – in monetary terms, but also in terms of effort expended. It may have some benefits, but we pay very dearly for those. Where are the non-peer-reviewed articles that have caused damage? They may have to public understanding, of course (there's a lot of rubbish on the internet), but to scientific understanding? On the other hand, I can point to peer-reviewed articles that clearly have done damage, particularly to public understanding. Take the Wakefield MMR paper. Had it just been published without peer-review, the damage would likely have been no greater than that of any other drivel on the internet. Its peer-reviewed status, however, gave it far more credibility than it deserved. There are more examples. My assertion: pre-publication peer review is dangerous since it is too easily used as an excuse to absolve scientists – and science journalists – from applying sufficient professional skepticism and critical appraisal. Doing away with PPPR will do little damage – if any at all – to science, but removes most barriers to open access and saves the scientific community a hell of a lot of money. The 'heavy lifting is that of cultural change' (crediting William Gunn for that phrase), so I won't hold my breath. Jan Velterop On 10 Dec 2013, at 13:36, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: At the risk (nay, certainty) of being pilloried by OA conformists, let me say that – whatever ithe failings of his article – I thank Jeffrey Beall for raising some fundamental questions which are rarely, if ever, addressed. I would put them under two general headings: 1) What is the objective of OA? I originally understood the objective to be to make scholarly research articles, in some form, accessible to all those who needed to read them. Subsequent refinements such as 'immediately', 'published version' and 'free to reuse' may have acquired quasi-religious status, but are surely secondary to this main objective. However, two other, financial, objectives (linked to each other, but not to the above) have gained increasing prominence. The first is the alleged cost saving (or at least cost shifting). The second - more malicious, and originally (but no longer) denied by OA's main proponents - is the undermining of publishers' businesses. If this were to work, we may be sure the effects would not be choosy about 'nice' or 'nasty' publishers. 2) Why hasn't OA been widely adopted by now? If – as we have been repetitively assured over many years – OA is self-evidently the right thing for scholars to do, why have so few of them done so voluntarily? As Jeffrey Beall points out, it seems very curious that scholars have to be forced, by mandates, to adopt a model which is supposedly preferable to the existing one. Could it be that the monotonous rantings of the few and the tiresome debates about the fine detail are actually confusing scholars, and may even be putting them off? Just asking ;-) I don't disagree that the subscription model is not going to be able to address the problems we face in making the growing volume of research available to those who need it; but I'm not convinced that OA (whether Green, Gold or any combination) will either. I think the solution, if there is one, still eludes us. Merry Christmas! Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: 09 December 2013 22:10 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility ofBeall's List 'Lackeys'? This is going beyond parody. David On 9 Dec 2013, at 21:45, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: Wouter, Hello, yes, I wrote the article, I stand by it, and I take responsibility for it. I would ask Prof. Harnad to clarify one thing in his email below, namely this statement, OA is all an anti-capitlist plot. This statement's appearance in quotation marks makes it look like I wrote it in the article. The fact is that this statement does not appear in the article, and I have never written such a statement. Prof. Harnad and his lackeys are responding just as my article predicts. Jeffrey Beall From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Gerritsma, Wouter Sent: Monday, December 09, 2013 2:14 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises
[GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List)
Each further day of thinking makes me feel closer and closer to this view. As an author, I just like when colleagues are happy with one of my texts online. As a reviewer I am fed up with unreadable junk. Let us burn together, Jan. Laurent Le 10 déc. 2013 à 15:36, Jan Velterop velte...@gmail.com a écrit : Sally, May I join you in the ranks of those who risk being pilloried or branded heretics? I think the solution is clear. We should get rid of pre-publication peer review (PPPR) and publish results in open repositories. PPPR is the one thing that keeps the whole publishing system standing, and expensive – in monetary terms, but also in terms of effort expended. It may have some benefits, but we pay very dearly for those. Where are the non-peer-reviewed articles that have caused damage? They may have to public understanding, of course (there's a lot of rubbish on the internet), but to scientific understanding? On the other hand, I can point to peer-reviewed articles that clearly have done damage, particularly to public understanding. Take the Wakefield MMR paper. Had it just been published without peer-review, the damage would likely have been no greater than that of any other drivel on the internet. Its peer-reviewed status, however, gave it far more credibility than it deserved. There are more examples. My assertion: pre-publication peer review is dangerous since it is too easily used as an excuse to absolve scientists – and science journalists – from applying sufficient professional skepticism and critical appraisal. Doing away with PPPR will do little damage – if any at all – to science, but removes most barriers to open access and saves the scientific community a hell of a lot of money. The 'heavy lifting is that of cultural change' (crediting William Gunn for that phrase), so I won't hold my breath. Jan Velterop On 10 Dec 2013, at 13:36, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: At the risk (nay, certainty) of being pilloried by OA conformists, let me say that – whatever ithe failings of his article – I thank Jeffrey Beall for raising some fundamental questions which are rarely, if ever, addressed. I would put them under two general headings: 1) What is the objective of OA? I originally understood the objective to be to make scholarly research articles, in some form, accessible to all those who needed to read them. Subsequent refinements such as 'immediately', 'published version' and 'free to reuse' may have acquired quasi-religious status, but are surely secondary to this main objective. However, two other, financial, objectives (linked to each other, but not to the above) have gained increasing prominence. The first is the alleged cost saving (or at least cost shifting). The second - more malicious, and originally (but no longer) denied by OA's main proponents - is the undermining of publishers' businesses. If this were to work, we may be sure the effects would not be choosy about 'nice' or 'nasty' publishers. 2) Why hasn't OA been widely adopted by now? If – as we have been repetitively assured over many years – OA is self-evidently the right thing for scholars to do, why have so few of them done so voluntarily? As Jeffrey Beall points out, it seems very curious that scholars have to be forced, by mandates, to adopt a model which is supposedly preferable to the existing one. Could it be that the monotonous rantings of the few and the tiresome debates about the fine detail are actually confusing scholars, and may even be putting them off? Just asking ;-) I don't disagree that the subscription model is not going to be able to address the problems we face in making the growing volume of research available to those who need it; but I'm not convinced that OA (whether Green, Gold or any combination) will either. I think the solution, if there is one, still eludes us. Merry Christmas! Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: 09 December 2013 22:10 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility ofBeall's List 'Lackeys'? This is going beyond parody. David On 9 Dec 2013, at 21:45, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: Wouter, Hello, yes, I wrote the article, I stand by it, and I take responsibility for it. I would ask Prof. Harnad to clarify one thing in his email below, namely this statement, OA is all an anti-capitlist plot. This statement's appearance in quotation marks makes it look like I wrote it in the article. The fact is that this statement does not appear in the article, and I have never written such a
[GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List)
Jan, you may well be right. Certainly we will have to give up some of what we hold dear (pun not intended!) in the old system, if scholarly communication to cope in future. The losses may be even more drastic - who knows? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: Jan Velterop [mailto:velte...@gmail.com] Sent: 10 December 2013 14:37 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk Subject: Re: [GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List) Sally, May I join you in the ranks of those who risk being pilloried or branded heretics? I think the solution is clear. We should get rid of pre-publication peer review (PPPR) and publish results in open repositories. PPPR is the one thing that keeps the whole publishing system standing, and expensive in monetary terms, but also in terms of effort expended. It may have some benefits, but we pay very dearly for those. Where are the non-peer-reviewed articles that have caused damage? They may have to public understanding, of course (there's a lot of rubbish on the internet), but to scientific understanding? On the other hand, I can point to peer-reviewed articles that clearly have done damage, particularly to public understanding. Take the Wakefield MMR paper. Had it just been published without peer-review, the damage would likely have been no greater than that of any other drivel on the internet. Its peer-reviewed status, however, gave it far more credibility than it deserved. There are more examples. My assertion: pre-publication peer review is dangerous since it is too easily used as an excuse to absolve scientists and science journalists from applying sufficient professional skepticism and critical appraisal. Doing away with PPPR will do little damage if any at all to science, but removes most barriers to open access and saves the scientific community a hell of a lot of money. The 'heavy lifting is that of cultural change' (crediting William Gunn for that phrase), so I won't hold my breath. Jan Velterop On 10 Dec 2013, at 13:36, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: At the risk (nay, certainty) of being pilloried by OA conformists, let me say that whatever ithe failings of his article I thank Jeffrey Beall for raising some fundamental questions which are rarely, if ever, addressed. I would put them under two general headings: 1) What is the objective of OA? I originally understood the objective to be to make scholarly research articles, in some form, accessible to all those who needed to read them. Subsequent refinements such as 'immediately', 'published version' and 'free to reuse' may have acquired quasi-religious status, but are surely secondary to this main objective. However, two other, financial, objectives (linked to each other, but not to the above) have gained increasing prominence. The first is the alleged cost saving (or at least cost shifting). The second - more malicious, and originally (but no longer) denied by OA's main proponents - is the undermining of publishers' businesses. If this were to work, we may be sure the effects would not be choosy about 'nice' or 'nasty' publishers. 2) Why hasn't OA been widely adopted by now? If as we have been repetitively assured over many years OA is self-evidently the right thing for scholars to do, why have so few of them done so voluntarily? As Jeffrey Beall points out, it seems very curious that scholars have to be forced, by mandates, to adopt a model which is supposedly preferable to the existing one. Could it be that the monotonous rantings of the few and the tiresome debates about the fine detail are actually confusing scholars, and may even be putting them off? Just asking ;-) I don't disagree that the subscription model is not going to be able to address the problems we face in making the growing volume of research available to those who need it; but I'm not convinced that OA (whether Green, Gold or any combination) will either. I think the solution, if there is one, still eludes us. Merry Christmas! Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk _ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser Sent: 09 December 2013 22:10 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility ofBeall's List 'Lackeys'? This is going beyond parody. David On 9 Dec 2013, at 21:45, Beall, Jeffrey wrote: Wouter, Hello, yes, I wrote the article, I stand by it, and I take responsibility for it. I would ask Prof. Harnad to clarify one thing in his email below
[GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List)
Same inkling as Jan Laurent. The way fwd for OAP would be some form of accreditation by repository publisher. One would need to show what review quality assurance mechanism is used, e.g. Pre- Post- Open peer review and demonstrate annually to the accreditation agency that this is what you are doing. The rest can be left to authors, readers and reviewers... Chris Von Samsung Mobile gesendet Ursprüngliche Nachricht Von: Laurent Romary Datum:10.12.2013 17:31 (GMT+01:00) An: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Betreff: [GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List) Each further day of thinking makes me feel closer and closer to this view. As an author, I just like when colleagues are happy with one of my texts online. As a reviewer I am fed up with unreadable junk. Let us burn together, Jan. Laurent Le 10 déc. 2013 à 15:36, Jan Velterop velte...@gmail.commailto:velte...@gmail.com a écrit : Sally, May I join you in the ranks of those who risk being pilloried or branded heretics? I think the solution is clear. We should get rid of pre-publication peer review (PPPR) and publish results in open repositories. PPPR is the one thing that keeps the whole publishing system standing, and expensive – in monetary terms, but also in terms of effort expended. It may have some benefits, but we pay very dearly for those. Where are the non-peer-reviewed articles that have caused damage? They may have to public understanding, of course (there's a lot of rubbish on the internet), but to scientific understanding? On the other hand, I can point to peer-reviewed articles that clearly have done damage, particularly to public understanding. Take the Wakefield MMR paper. Had it just been published without peer-review, the damage would likely have been no greater than that of any other drivel on the internet. Its peer-reviewed status, however, gave it far more credibility than it deserved. There are more examples. My assertion: pre-publication peer review is dangerous since it is too easily used as an excuse to absolve scientists – and science journalists – from applying sufficient professional skepticism and critical appraisal. Doing away with PPPR will do little damage – if any at all – to science, but removes most barriers to open access and saves the scientific community a hell of a lot of money. The 'heavy lifting is that of cultural change' (crediting William Gunn for that phrase), so I won't hold my breath. Jan Velterop On 10 Dec 2013, at 13:36, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: At the risk (nay, certainty) of being pilloried by OA conformists, let me say that – whatever ithe failings of his article – I thank Jeffrey Beall for raising some fundamental questions which are rarely, if ever, addressed. I would put them under two general headings: 1) What is the objective of OA? I originally understood the objective to be to make scholarly research articles, in some form, accessible to all those who needed to read them. Subsequent refinements such as 'immediately', 'published version' and 'free to reuse' may have acquired quasi-religious status, but are surely secondary to this main objective. However, two other, financial, objectives (linked to each other, but not to the above) have gained increasing prominence. The first is the alleged cost saving (or at least cost shifting). The second - more malicious, and originally (but no longer) denied by OA's main proponents - is the undermining of publishers' businesses. If this were to work, we may be sure the effects would not be choosy about 'nice' or 'nasty' publishers. 2) Why hasn't OA been widely adopted by now? If – as we have been repetitively assured over many years – OA is self-evidently the right thing for scholars to do, why have so few of them done so voluntarily? As Jeffrey Beall points out, it seems very curious that scholars have to be forced, by mandates, to adopt a model which is supposedly preferable to the existing one. Could it be that the monotonous rantings of the few and the tiresome debates about the fine detail are actually confusing scholars, and may even be putting them off? Just asking ;-) I don't disagree that the subscription model is not going to be able to address the problems we face in making the growing volume of research available to those who need it; but I'm not convinced that OA (whether Green, Gold or any combination) will either. I think the solution, if there is one, still eludes us. Merry Christmas! Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.ukmailto:sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk From: goal-boun...@eprints.orgmailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal
[GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List)
zeroPPPR leads to an immediate immense saving of human effort and cost - the removal of the arbitrary authoring torture-chambers created by publishers. This has the following benefits: * authors can choose the means of authoring that their community converges on. The crystallographers (and I am proud to be involved) have created the best scientific authoring system (CIF) for data-rich science. The community uses it. Download Knuth created the best document authoring system LaTeX 30 years ago. TimBl created HTML - a brilliant, simple flexible tool. Why do we not use these? Because the publishers can be bothered to change their arcane, archaic systems. At least 1 billion USD of data is destroyed in the publication process in chemistry alone. * authoring would be faster. No retyping for different journals * authoring would be higher quality. There could be an intermediate market for organizations and companies who helped authors created better documents if they wanted to pay. Markup languages, etc. would flourish * the higher quality (e.g. HTML5) leads to better ways of presenting the material. Why do people have to turn their heads through 90 deg simply to read a landscape table. It could be i-n-t-e-r-a-c-t-i-v-e (there's a thought!) * Gosh, we might even have versions (like Github) The saving of time, the better quality will rapidly add up to saved billions both upstream and downstream of the publication event. New publication-consuming industries would arise. But see how strongly publishers resist the re-use of information - lobbying against content-mining and spraying CC-ND around. ... it was all a dream. On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 3:30 PM, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: Jan, you may well be right. Certainly we will have to give up some of what we hold dear (pun not intended!) in the old system, if scholarly communication to cope in future. The losses may be even more drastic - who knows? Sally Sally Morris South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK BN13 3UU Tel: +44 (0)1903 871286 Email: sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk -- *From:* Jan Velterop [mailto:velte...@gmail.com] *Sent:* 10 December 2013 14:37 *To:* Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) *Cc:* sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk *Subject:* Re: [GOAL] Re: Pre-publication peer review (was: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List) Sally, May I join you in the ranks of those who risk being pilloried or branded heretics? I think the solution is clear. We should get rid of pre-publication peer review (PPPR) and publish results in open repositories. PPPR is the one thing that keeps the whole publishing system standing, and expensive – in monetary terms, but also in terms of effort expended. It may have some benefits, but we pay very dearly for those. Where are the non-peer-reviewed articles that have caused damage? They may have to public understanding, of course (there's a lot of rubbish on the internet), but to scientific understanding? On the other hand, I can point to peer-reviewed articles that clearly have done damage, particularly to public understanding. Take the Wakefield MMR paper. Had it just been published without peer-review, the damage would likely have been no greater than that of any other drivel on the internet. Its peer-reviewed status, however, gave it far more credibility than it deserved. There are more examples. My assertion: pre-publication peer review is dangerous since it is too easily used as an excuse to absolve scientists – and science journalists – from applying sufficient professional skepticism and critical appraisal. Doing away with PPPR will do little damage – if any at all – to science, but removes most barriers to open access and saves the scientific community a hell of a lot of money. The 'heavy lifting is that of cultural change' (crediting William Gunn for that phrase), so I won't hold my breath. Jan Velterop On 10 Dec 2013, at 13:36, Sally Morris sa...@morris-assocs.demon.co.uk wrote: At the risk (nay, certainty) of being pilloried by OA conformists, let me say that – whatever ithe failings of his article – I thank Jeffrey Beall for raising some fundamental questions which are rarely, if ever, addressed. I would put them under two general headings: 1) What is the objective of OA? I originally understood the objective to be to make scholarly research articles, in some form, accessible to all those who needed to read them. Subsequent refinements such as 'immediately', 'published version' and 'free to reuse' may have acquired quasi-religious status, but are surely secondary to this main objective. However, two other, financial, objectives (linked to each other, but not to the above) have gained increasing prominence. The first is the alleged cost saving (or at least cost shifting). The second - more malicious
