[BOAI] Re: Univ of HK signs Open Choice agreement with Springer

[Stevan Harnad]

In February 2010, University of Hong Kong signed a hybrid Gold OA  
"Open Choice" agreement with Springer.

In October 2008 in ROARMAP, University of Hong Kong proposed to the  
University Grants Committee (RGC/UGC) an Open Access Mandate for all  
RGC/UGC-funded research.

It is not yet clear whether in the meantime this mandate has actually  
been adopted, by either HKU or RGC/UGC. The proposed mandate itself  
was an almost-optimal one:

It was an Immediate-Deposit mandate, but it seems to have  
misunderstood the fact that a postprint can be deposited in the  
Institutional Repository without having to seek "permission" from the  
publisher. Permissions are only at issue at all for the date when the  
deposit can be made Open Access:
ii. [HKU RGC/UGC-funded researchers] should send the journal the Hong  
Kong author’s addendum (University of Hong Kong, 2008), which adds the  
right of placing some version (preprint or postprint) of the paper in  
their university’s institutional repository (IR). If necessary, seek  
funds from the RGC to pay open access charges up to an agreed limit;  
perhaps US$3,000...

iv. deposit all published papers in their IR, unless the journal  
refuses in writing. If the published version is refused, deposit the  
preprint or postprint, as allowed in number ii above...
The proposed mandate's language makes it sound as if HKU wrongly  
believes that it needs to pay the publisher for the right to deposit!

It is to be hoped that this will be clarified and that the deposit  
mandate will be adopted (both for RGC/HGC-funded research and for  
unfunded HKU research) before HKU begins to pay any publisher anything  
at all.

Otherwise, as the Houghton Report shows, HKU is gratuitously paying a  
lot more money for a lot less OA and its benefits.

On Not Putting The Gold OA-Payment Cart Before The Green OA-Provision  
Horse
SUMMARY: Universities need to commit to mandating Green OA self- 
archivingbefore committing to spend their scarce available funds to  
pay for Gold OA publishing. Most of the university's potential funds  
to pay Gold OA publishing fees are currently committed to paying their  
annual journal subscription fees, which are thereby covering the costs  
of publication already. Pre-emptively committing to pay Gold OA  
publication fees over and above paying subscription fees will only  
provide OA for a small fraction of a university's total research  
article output; Green OA mandates will provide OA for all of it.  
Journal subscriptions cannot be cancelled unless the journals'  
contents are otherwise accessible to a university's users. (In  
addition, the very same scarcity of funds that makes pre-emptive Gold  
OA payment for journal articles today premature and ineffectual also  
makes Gold OA payment for monographs unaffordable, because the  
university funds already committed to journal subscriptions today are  
making even the purchase of a single print copy of incoming monographs  
for the library prohibitive, let alone making Gold OA publication fees  
for outgoing monographs affordable.) Universal Green OA mandates will  
make the final peer-reviewed drafts of all journal articles freely  
accessible to all would-be users online, thereby not only providing  
universal OA, but opening the doors to an eventual transition to  
universal Gold OA if and when universities then go on to cancel  
subscriptions, releasing those committed funds to pay the publishing  
costs of Gold OA.
The Immediate Practical Implication of the Houghton Report: Provide  
Green Open Access Now
ABSTRACT: Among the many important implications of Houghton et al’s  
(2009)timely and illuminating JISC analysis of the costs and benefits  
of providing free online access (“Open Access,” OA) to peer-reviewed  
scholarly and scientific journal articles one stands out as  
particularly compelling: It would yield a forty-fold benefit/cost  
ratio if the world’s peer-reviewed research were all self-archived by  
its authors so as to make it OA. There are many assumptions and  
estimates underlying Houghton et al’s modelling and analyses, but they  
are for the most part very reasonable and even conservative. This  
makes their strongest practical implication particularly striking: The  
40-fold benefit/cost ratio of providing Green OA is an order of  
magnitude greater than all the other potential combinations of  
alternatives to the status quo analyzed and compared by Houghton et  
al. This outcome is all the more significant in light of the fact that  
self-archiving already rests entirely in the hands of the research  
community (researchers, their institutions and their funders), whereas  
OA publishing depends on the publishing industry. Perhaps most  
remarkable is the fact that this outcome emerged from studies that  
approached the problem primarily from the standpoint of the economics  
of publication rather than the economics of research.
Springer's Already on the Side of the Angels: What's the Big Deal?
SUMMARY: The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has  
made adeal with Springer that articles by VSNU authors will be made  
OA. But Springer is already on the side of the angels on OA, being  
completely Green on immediate, unembargoed author OA self-archiving.  
Hence all VSNU authors are already free to deposit their refereed  
final drafts of their Springer articles in their institutional  
repositories, without requiring any further permission or payment. So  
what in addition is meant by the VSNU deal with Springer? that the  
Springer PDF rather than the author's final draft can be deposited?  
That Springer does the deposit on VSNU authors' behalf? Or is this a  
deal for prepaid hybrid Gold OA? In the case of Springer articles, it  
seems that what the Netherlands lacked was not the right to make them  
OA, but the mandate (from the VSNU universities and Netherlands'  
research funders like NWO) to make them OA. There are some signs,  
however, that this too might be on the way...
University of California: Throwing Money At Gold OA Without Mandating  
Green OA
On 23-Feb-10, at 8:01 AM, Peter Suber wrote:

> [Forwarding from University of Hong Kong.  --Peter Suber.]
>
>
> PRESS RELEASE
>
> University of Hong Kong signs Open Choice agreement with Springer
>
> Asian open access pilot project to run for one year
>
> Hong Kong / Berlin / London, 22 February 2010
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