[GOAL] Re: Elsevier's query re: "positive things from publishersthat should be encouraged, celebrated, recognized"

[Sally Morris]

Surely hybrid journals are a reasonable way of testing authors' ability (or
will) to go Gold OA (i.e. make the final, published version freely
available)?  Authors say that's what they want to do (not just 'preprints',
however, interpreted) but few seem able, or willing, to pay for it.

If the uptake was anywhere near 100%, no doubt the publishers would make the
journals fully Gold OA.  However, it's my understanding that it's much, much
lower

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

-----Original Message-----
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf
Of Steve Hitchcock
Sent: 16 May 2012 10:46
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier's query re: "positive things from
publishersthat should be encouraged, celebrated, recognized"

Lots of valid viewpoints. We can agree, we can disagree. But somewhere there
needs to be some action. My suggestion is aimed at top-level OA
policy-making, at updated advice from BOAI, and from governments and funders
agitating for open access, such as in the UK. 

Broad policy should be set to allow two specific routes to OA:

1 Gold-only journals, CC-BY only
2 Green (best model policy to be specified, no publisher fudges allowed)

Do NOT allow

3 Hybrid journals.

Hybrid journals are 'experiments'; it's time to decide green or gold, or
call the publishers' bluff. Without this the advisory committees will be
mired.

I believe the political will is there. Now is the moment for clear decisive
action.

The objective is clear - open access. We should not let the common desire
for open access to divide. Remove non-OA from the equation and the two
routes will take care of themselves. 

Steve Hitchcock
WAIS Group, Building 32
School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton, SO17
1BJ, UK
Email: sh94r at ecs.soton.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevehit
Connotea: http://www.connotea.org/user/stevehit
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 9379    Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 9379


On 15 May 2012, at 21:28, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:

> On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Eric F. Van de Velde
<eric.f.vandevelde at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> If Open Access is the only goal then all we need to do is follow Stevan's
advice. However, the goal of Open Access itself is to change the scholarly
information system into a system suitable for the 21st century. In this
sense, Green Open Access is an incremental change, which is expected to lead
to more fundamental changes over time. It is disheartening to witness how
hard it is to implement this incremental change.
> 
> It is also clear that Green OA fixes our view of publishing in the last
century. It does not encourage change. It holds the "paper" (sic) as the
element of value and the publisher as an essential component and legislates
for the continuance of both. It also builds in inefficiency into the system.

> 
> However, it does not matter. Major disruption will come. When it comes, it
will be sudden and chaotic. We have witnessed it before. It has been
documented extensively. Most people in technology have read Clayton
Christensen's seminal work The Innovator's Dilemma, and whoever has not
should do as soon as possible. We are right in the run-up to a classical
disruption where a low-margin/low-overhead business replaces a
high-margin/high-overhead business. Initially, the low-margin business is
sneered at because it offers low quality. By the time the high-margin
business realizes it is in trouble it is too late.
> 
> I completely agree. The tensions in the earthquake zone are palpable.
Among the most obvious ones are:
> * the increasing failure of the academic-publisher system to follow the
rapid development of technology. Sending manuscripts off to be retyped must
be one of the most inefficient activities on the planet.
> * no evidence of the social web revolution
> * the impatience of the younger generation with the closed minds of the
present.
> 
> These are additional to the other tensions of:
> * financial strain in the system
> * the mismatch between traditional citation analysis and more modern 
> forms of assessment
> * the voice of the scholarly poor
> 
> There are more, but that's enough. 
> 
> 
> 
> This disruption (or one similar to it) is inevitable. The only question is
when it will happen, and the precise path it will take.
> 
> Yes - anyone getting it right and backing it stands to become rich and
famous. There is a huge opportunity for well-directed investment.
> 
> P.
> 
> 
> --
> Peter Murray-Rust
> Reader in Molecular Informatics
> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> University of Cambridge
> CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069
> _______________________________________________
> GOAL mailing list
> GOAL at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal




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