[GOAL] Re: Elsevier, Flip your journals to Gold OA and/or offer an acceptable Hybrid Model

[Graham Triggs]

On 20 December 2013 13:51, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:

> SCOAP3 and the pre-emptive "flip" model for Gold OA conversion<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/421-SCOAP3-and-the-pre-emptive-flip-model-for-Gold-OA-conversion.html>
>
>
To quote:

"*5. Conclusions.* In sum, the problem is not only that a Rowsean "flip" is
profligate and premature at today's asking prices in fields where universal
Green OA self-archiving has not yet downsized publishing and its costs to
their post-OA essentials."

SCOAP3. High Energy Physics. Isn't this the one field that you keep telling
us has 1005 Green OA, via arXiv? Which you also say is why 100% Green OA is
achievable and sustainable, because it hasn't led to journal subscriptions?

But wait! We can't "flip" to a cheaper Gold OA that will also deliver
immediate access and re-use rights to the final published material, because
it hasn't downsized publishing to "post-OA essentials" - as Green OA
inevitably will. Despite 20 years of arXiv failing to downsize publishing,
and having reached 100% there is nowhere left for it to go. So in another
20 years we would still be looking at the subscription based status quo -
unless some additional action is taken to change that.


> Fool's Gold: Publisher Ransom for Freedom from Publisher Embargo?<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1066-Fools-Gold-Publisher-Ransom-for-Freedom-from-Publisher-Embargo.html>
>
>
"But the publisher who embargoes Green and then pockets the extra revenue
derived from hybrid Gold, over and above subscriptions, without even
reducing subscription charges proportionately, is indeed charging twice for
publication, i.e., double-dipping (and offering absolutely nothing in
return except *freedom from the publisher's own Green OA embargo*)."

Oh, but they do reduce subscription prices, based on Gold OA option uptake:

http://www.nature.com/press_releases/emboopen.html
http://static.springer.com/sgw/documents/1345327/application/pdf/Springer
+Open+Choice_Journal+Price+Adjustments+2013.pdf

And it offers more than "freedom from the publisher's own Green OA
embargo". It allows:

1) Authors to retain full copyright
2) [Generally] immediate publication of provisional material upon acceptance
3) [Generally] freely available machine-readable markup (e.g. XML)
4) [Generally] a CC-BY licence for all content consumers

- the use of which can drive economic growth and improve efficiency of
public spending. According to:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/reports/value-and-benefits-of-text-mining

one estimate puts such use of material in the US Health Care sector alone
as delivering $300bn in value per annum. If you believe those numbers, then
that would represent twice the the entire 2011 R&D budget for the US (and
more than half of that was in the defence sector). Again, if that was the
case, then it could easily not only justify ring-fencing the R&D budget,
but possibly increasing it - potentially by more than the 1% of the budget
that it would take to make everything Gold OA.

But lets not do that. Lets not lower the cost of publishing [maybe only by
a relatively modest amount, but still],. Lets not have authors retain their
copyright. Lets not have freely available marked up content, which can then
drive economic growth. Lets not have economic growth be the reason for
increasing R&D spending, allowing more, better research to be conducted.
Lets not do any of that, because the absolute worst thing that anyone can
ever do is make a profit.

But while we're at it, it's probably a good idea to get rid of all of those
other for-profit companies that supply resources that are used in
conducting and reporting on research. After all, aren't Apple supposed to
be making about 25-30% per laptop?

G
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