[GOAL] Re: Jeffrey Beall Needlessly Compromises Credibility of Beall's List

[Couture Marc]

Sally Morris wrote :

>
I find it interesting that no one has commented at all on the two main points I was trying to make (perhaps not clearly enough):
>
>1)    The focus of OA seems to be, to a considerable extent, the destruction of the publishing industry:  note the hostile language of, for example, Peter M-R's 'occupying power'
>
> 2)    It still seems curious to me (as to Beall) that scholars have to be forced, by mandates, to comply with a behaviour which is considered be self-evidently beneficial to them
>

I think these  two points have been extensively discussed, but if it needs repeating (of stated in different words), here is my take.

1) I know some OA advocates suggest that science could do without publishers and/or journals. But I don't share your opinion that this is "to a considerable extent the focus of OA". I rather think the opposite : to me it seems to be a marginal position. But, absent any serious study of the OA movement, these are just that: opinions.

By the way, what is missing in Beall's recent opinion piece can help define what one should do in such a study: define and categorize the actors (OA advocates???), analyze their discourse in forums, blog posts, etc. (text-mining?). That would certainly be interesting...

2) Scholars (well, in the academe) are forced by explicit and implicit rules (mostly self-imposed in a collective way) to do many things they would often prefer not doing, or doing less, because they don't like them or, more likely, because they don't have enough time to do them all: teaching large classes, publishing scholarly papers, supervising students, peer-reviewing (papers, grant proposals), sitting on committees, writing administrative reports, etc. etc. So they all do the same: they decide what they won't do according to what non-action entails the less dire or less immediate consequences. Thus I don't find it curious, but rather easy to understand that even if they know self-archiving is good for them, and would like to do it, it's simply one of the easiest things to defer when you look at your workload, unless of course there is a consequence. Thus the success of Liège (no publication considered for promotion or internal funding request if you don't self-archive) and NIH mandates (continuation grant awards not processed).

Marc Couture

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