[BOAI] Re: Wrong Advice On Open Access: History Repeating Itself

[Prof. Tom Wilson]

> > No one knows exactly how the 'open access' movement will pan out but  
> > I think
> > that some things are fairly clear.
> >
> > 1, scholarly publishers are facing very similar problems to the  
> > newspaper
> > industry - changes in technologies are making them redundant.
> 
> Newspapers do not provide the service of peer review.

Irrelevant - they are all subject to the same forces and, in any event, it is
the scholarly community that provides peer review, not the publisher.  Free OA
journals can provide peer review just as well as the commercial publisher,
since it is without cost in either case.
 
> > 2, anything that props up the industry will simply delay the  
> > inevitable and
> > institutional repositories prop up the industry - indeed, why else  
> > would
> > publishers give permission for authors' works to be archived?   
> > Strong advocacy
> > of repositories is strong advocacy of the status quo in scholarly
> > communication.
> 
> The purpose of the Open Access movement is not to knock down the  
> publishing industry. The purpose is to provide Open Access to refereed  
> research articles.

The only way to accomplish this in any true sense is for the scholarly community
to take over the publication process - as indeed was the case originally.
Commercial publishers provided a service that the technology has made
redundant.


> > 3, at least in the UK, universities seem to have other things on  
> > their minds
> > (like potential bankruptcies in a number of cases) to be too  
> > concerned about
> > such things as mandating repositories.
> 
> The enhanced research impact that OA will provide is a (virtually cost- 
> free) way of enhancing a university's research profile and funding.

The only way it is cost free is through the publication of free OA journals -
anything else has either a charge or, potentially, with withdrawal of
permission to archive.


> > 4, scholars are increasingly taking matters into their own hands and  
> > producing
> > free OA journals on some kind of subsidy basis and any economist  
> > will tell you
> > that social benefit is maximised by this form of OA.
> 
> Hardly makes a difference. The way to take matters in their own hands  
> is to deposit the refereed final drafts of all their journal articles  
> in their university's OA Repository.

No - the way to take matters into their own hands is to develop and publish in
free OA journals - archiving is with the permission of the publishers and that
can be withdrawn at any time the cost to the publisher becomes evident.

> > 5, change is difficult when status and promotion are made dependent  
> > upon
> > publication in journals that are highly cited in Web of Knowledge,
> > consequently, it is only when free OA journals make their way into  
> > the upper
> > quartile of the rankings that they will begin to attract as many  
> > submissions as
> > the established fee-based journals (whether subscription or author- 
> > charged).
> > Some OA journals are already in that position.
> 
> No need whatsoever to switch to or wait for OA journals. Just deposit  
> all final refereed drafts of journal articles immediately upon  
> acceptance.

I'm not arguing for waiting - and no one is waiting, it is happening now - there
is no reason why a dual strategy cannot be applied. The focus upon repositories
at the expense of adopting free OA publishing supports the status quo, which,
in any event cannot survive the changes taking place. 

> > 6, however, 5 above may be overtaken as scholarly communication  
> > methods
> > continue to evolve. The present situation is not the end of the  
> > line, but a
> > somewhat confused intermediate stage of development. Cherished  
> > features of such
> > communication, such as peer review, may disappear, to be replaced by
> > post-publication comments. These may be stronger affirmations of  
> > quality than
> > citation - particularly as we usually have no idea as to why a paper  
> > has been
> > cited.

> The goal of the OA movement is free peer-reviewed research from access- 
> barriers, not to free it from peer review.

I'm not arguing that publication should be freed from peer review - I'm saying
that the developments in such things as social networking, etc. make it
possible that non-peer-review open publication is one of the possibilties.

> > In brief - any strategy evolved today on the assumption that the  
> > future is
> > likely to be the same as the past is probably going to fail.
> 
> The only strategy needed for 100% OA to the OA movement's target  
> content -- the 2.5 million articles a year published in the planet's  
> 25,000 peer reviewed journals -- is author self-archiving and  
> institution/funder self-archiving mandates.

Impossible to achieve - arguing for a single strategy when that strategy is not
achievable is to bury one's head in the sand. Changes in communication methods
will continue to take place and it is likely that multiple methods of OA
publishing will evolve


> > Professor T.D. Wilson, PhD, Hon.PhD
> > Publisher/Editor in Chief
> > Information Research
> > InformationR.net
> > e-mail: t.d.wilson at shef.ac.uk
> > Web site: http://InformationR.net/
> > ___________________________________________________
> 
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