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

[Stevan Harnad]

On 1-Nov-09, at 10:21 AM, Prof. Tom Wilson wrote:

>> SH: Newspapers do not provide the service of peer review.
>
> TW: 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.

Irrelevant to what? I would say that it is the details of peer review  
that are irrelevant, when what we are seeking is access to peer- 
reviewed journal articles, all annual 2.5 million of them, published  
in all the planet's 25,000 peer reviewed journals -- of which only  
about a 5th at most, and mostly not the top 5th, are OA journals.

If researchers -- as authors and users -- want OA, it borders on the  
absurd for them to keep waiting for journals to convert to OA, rather  
than providing it for themselves, by self-archiving their journal  
articles, regardless of the economic model of the journal in which  
they were published -- but especially for the vast majority of  
journals that are not OA journals. (And it is equally absurd for  
researchers' institutions and funders to keep dawdling in doing the  
obvious, which is to mandate OA self-archiving.

And posting to unrefereed content to a "social network" is no solution  
to the problem.

Among the many dawdles that never seem to relent diverting our  
attention from this (and our fingertips from doing it) are irrelevant  
preoccupations with peer review reform, copyright reform, and  
publishing reform. And whilst  we keep fiddling, access and impact  
keep burning to ash...

>> SH: 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.
>
> TW: 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.

In "any true sense"? What on earth does that mean? The only sense in  
which articles are truly free online is if we make them free online.  
Waiting for publishers to do it in our stead has been the sure way of  
*not* accomplishing it.

>> SH: The enhanced research impact that OA will provide is a  
>> (virtually cost-
>> free) way of enhancing a university's research profile and funding.
>
> TW: 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.

Truly astonishing: Charging author/institutions publication fees today  
is decidedly not cost-free, especially while the potential funds to  
pay it are still locked up in subscriptions to journals whose articles  
authors are not self-archiving to make them free!

The cost per article of an Institutional Repository and a few author  
keystrokes is risible.

And as for the tired, 10-year-old "Poisoned Apple" canard, I expect  
that people can and keep invoking it, against all sense and evidence,  
for 10 more decades as yet another of the groundless grounds for  
keeping fingers in that chronically idle state of Zeno's Paralysis:
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12094/

>> SH: 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.
>
> TW: 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.

Repeating the Poisoned Apple canard does not make it one epsilon more  
true. Fifteen percent of articles are being self-archived, yet 63% of  
journals have already endorsed immediate OA self-archiving --  and for  
the rest, there is the immediate option of deposit plus the "Almost  
OA" via the IR's email eprint request button (for those authors who  
wish to honor publisher embargoes).
http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/274-guid.html

These are all just the same old, wizened Zeno's canards, being  
repeated over and over again, year in and year out.
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32-worries

I've lately even canonized them all as haikus -- http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/648-guid.html 
  --
upgraded from koans: http://bit.ly/1CfGir

But it doesn't work; they seem to be imperishable, and just keep being  
reborn, as my voice goes hoarse from making the same rebuttals and my  
fingertips decline into dystonia...

>> SH: No need whatsoever to switch to or wait for OA journals. Just  
>> deposit
>> all final refereed drafts of journal articles immediately upon
>> acceptance.
>
> TW: 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.

You may not think you are arguing for waiting, but what you have been  
doing is invoking the main classical canards that have kept people  
waiting (instead of depositing, and mandating) for well over a decade  
now (including Gold (OA) Fever). I'd say 4000 Gold OA journals vs. 100  
Green OA mandates is a a symptom of attention deficit, not focus. The  
total amount of OA provided via spontaneous Green OA self-archiving is  
and always has been greater than the amount provided by Gold OA  
publishing, but that (15%) is no consolation, considering that the  
other 85% is and has always been within reach all along too, whereas  
publishers' economic models are not.

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

I would say that keystrokes and keystroke mandates, for the existing  
peer-reviewed literature, such as it is -- the one OA is trying to  
free -- are a far better bet (for OA) than speculations about the  
future of peer review.

>> SH: 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.
>
> TW: 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

Impossible to achieve? Perhaps only in the sense that overcoming  
Zeno's Paralysis may not be possible to achieve. But certainly not  
because of the validity of any of the several Zeno rationales that you  
have invoked.

And changes in "communication methods" are not what is at issue, when  
the target is to communicate validated peer-reviewed research rather  
than simply posting or blogging in a social network. (The latter is a  
supplement, not a substitute.) http://cogprints.org/1581/

Stevan Harnad