[GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but from institutions and funders

Wed Jun 20 15:22:02 BST 2012

I find it very sad that the response on this list has been to denigrate both
the Finch report's authors and publishers in general.  It would seem that
the (relatively small number of) primary contributors to this list take it
as an article of faith that publishers are to be hated and destroyed;  they
do not want a balanced approach or a 'mixed economy' (e.g. of green, gold
etc).

However, if researchers themselves, both as authors and as readers, didn't
value what journals, and their publishers, add to research articles, they
would long ago have ceased publishing in, or reading, journals, and
contented themselves with placing their articles directly in, and reading
from, repositories.

If that were to change, those that benefit from the proceeds of the current
range of publishing models (not just shareholders, but also learned society
members etc...) would indeed face a major challenge.  But until it does, the
challenge with which publishers are currently engaging is how to enable
their authors' work to be as accessible as possible, without making it
impossible to continue to do those things that authors and readers value in
journals.   I don't see how that makes publishers bad?

Can't we grow up and have a rather more reasoned discussion?

Sally

Sally Morris
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex, UK  BN13 3UU
Tel:  +44 (0)1903 871286
Email:  sally at morris-assocs.demon.co.uk

  _____  

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf
Of Jean-Claude Guédon
Sent: 20 June 2012 14:05
To: goal at eprints.org
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Agreement on Green OA not needed from publishers but
from institutions and funders

What I really, and I mean *really* like about this exchange is that
priorities are finally being set up right. The business of research is
between researchers and the institutions supporting research. Researchers
ought to communicate among themselves as they choose, and not as external
players (such as publishers) might desire. I really like what all my
colleagues have been saying below, and they are all researchers. 

As for Dr. Wise, her statements amount to reasserting or seeking a role for
publishers, but she should understand that the point of research is not
publishers, and what researchers need is some form of publication, not
publishers. 

The problem publishers have in this new digital world is that they have
trouble justifying their role. To wit:

1.	Peer review is performed by researchers, not publishers. Peer
reviewers are selected by journal editors that are researchers, not
publishers. Managing the flow of manuscripts in peer review often requires
tools that publishers may or may not provide; however, free tools are
available (e.g. OJS) and are evolving nicely all the time; 

2.	Linguistic and stylistic editing could provide a small role for
publishers, except that they do it less and less for cost-cutting reasons
(i.e. profit-seeking reasons). 

3.	Marketing of ideas is done wrong: it is done through journals and it
is handled largely through the flawed notion of impact factors. More and
more studies demonstrate a growing disconnect between impact factors and
individual article impacts. Researchers do not need a marketing of journals;
they need a marketing of their articles through some device that clearly and
unambiguously reflects the quality of their visible (published) work. 

4.	To market their own articles, researchers should have recourse to OA
repositories. Once better filled up through mandates, repositories can
become platforms for the efficient promotion of articles. Such platforms are
entirely independent of publishers. 

And Stevan is absolutely right: OA policy is not the publishers' business,
but the business of institutions carrying on research.

Fundamentally, the publishers' problem is that they claim to know the
publication needs of researchers better than researchers themselves; they
also claim a degree of control over the "grand conversation" of science.
Obviously, both propositions are unacceptable.

Jean-Claude Guédon

Le mercredi 20 juin 2012 à 07:41 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit :

On 2012-06-20, at 7:15 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) wrote: 

...perhaps time to explore opportunities to work with publishers?

No, precisely the opposite, I think: It's time for institutions to realize
that institutional 

Green OA self-archiving policy is (and always has been) exclusively their
own 

business, and not publishers' (who have a rather different business...) 

Negotiate subscription prices with publishers. 

But do not even discuss institutional OA policy with publishers. 

(And advise institutional researchers to ignore incoherent clauses 

in their copyright agreements: Anything of the form "P but not-P" -- e.g. 

"you retain the right to self-archive, but not if you are required to 

exercise the right to self-archive" -- implies anything at all, as well as
the 

opposite of anything at all. Don't give it another thought: just
self-archive. 

And institutions should set policy -- mandate immediate deposit, specify 

maximum allowable OA-embargo-length, the shorter the better, and 

keep publisher mumbo-jumbo out of the loop altogether. Ditto for 

funders, but, to avoid gratuitous extra problems as a 3rd-party site, 

stipulate institutional rather than institution-external deposit.) 

Stevan Harnad 

Dr Alicia Wise

Director of Universal Access

ElsevierI The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB

M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.wise at elsevier.com

Twitter: @wisealic

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf
Of David Prosser
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:31 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA?

Laurent makes an important point.  OA policies are between the funders or
institutions and the researchers.  These agreements come before any
agreement regarding copyright assignment between authors and publishers.
So, it is the job of publishers to decide if they are willing to live with
the deposit agreement between the funder/institution and researchers, not
the job of funders and institutions to limit their policies to match the
needs of publishers.

David

On 20 Jun 2012, at 11:04, Laurent Romary wrote:

Not that I know. I think the French Research Performing Organizations are
not planning to put negotiation with editors as a premise to defining their
own OA policy. 

Laurent

Le 20 juin 2012 à 11:45, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit :

Hi Laurent,

Institutions already do have agreements with publishers via their libraries
and/or library consortia..  This is certainly the case for INRIA. 

With kind wishes,

Alicia

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf
Of Laurent Romary
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:11 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Why should publishers agree to Green OA?

This definitely makes no sense. Institutions are not going to start
negotiating agreements with all publishers one by one. Does Elsevier have so
much man power left to start negotiating with all institutions one by one as
well. The corresponding budget could then probably used to reduce
subscriptions prices ;-)

Laurent

Le 20 juin 2012 à 09:53, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) a écrit :

Hi all,

Just a quick point of clarification
. Elsevier doesn’t forbid posting if
there is a mandate.  We ask for an agreement with the institution that has
the mandate, and there is no cost for these agreements.  The purpose of
these agreements is to work out a win-win solution to find a way for the
underlying journals in which academics choose to publish to be sustainable
even if there are high posting rates.

With kind wishes,

Alicia

Dr Alicia Wise

Director of Universal Access

Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB

M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.wise at elsevier.com

Twitter: @wisealic

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf
Of Peter Murray-Rust
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:23 PM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Why should publishers agree to Green OA?

I have some simple questions about Green OA. I don't know the answers.

* is there any *contractual* relationship between a Green-publisher and any
legal body? Or is Green simply a permission granted unilaterally by
publishers when they feel like it, and withdrawable when they don't.
* if Green starts impacting on publishers' revenues (and I understand this
is part of the Green strategy - when we have 100% Green then publishers will
have to change) what stops them simply withdrawing the permission? Or
rationing it? Or any other anti-Green measure
* Do publishers receive any funding from anywhere for allowing Green? Green
is extra work for them - why should they increase the amount they do?
* Is there any body which regularly "negotiates" with publishers such as
ACS, who categorically forbid Green for now and for ever.

Various publishers seem to indicate that they will allow Green as long as
it's a relatively small percentage. But, as Stevan has noted, if your
institution mandates Green, then Elsevier forbids it. So I cannot see why,
if Green were to reach - say - 50%, the publishers wouldn't simply ration it
and prevent 100%.  

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069

Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane,
Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084
(England and Wales).

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Laurent Romary

INRIA & HUB-IDSL

laurent.romary at inria.fr

Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane,
Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084
(England and Wales).

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GOAL mailing list

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Laurent Romary

INRIA & HUB-IDSL

laurent.romary at inria.fr

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Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard, Langford Lane,
Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084
(England and Wales).

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