[GOAL] More Finch Fallout: "The Royal Society welcomes leading institutions to its Open Access Membership Programme"

Tue Jul 16 02:07:58 BST 2013

On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 7:02 PM, LIBLICENSE <liblicense at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: "Romano, Maria" <maria.romano at royalsociety.org>
> Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 15:03:17 +0100
>

*"Remaining a fair player, The Royal Society ensures that published open
access articles bearing a publication fee are deducted from subscription
prices through its Transparent Pricing Mechanism"*

*http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/transparent_pricing.xhtml
"*

The Royal Society thereby pledges that it will not "double-dip" for hybrid
Gold OA. The RS continues to collect subscription fees from institutions
worldwide, but whatever additional revenue if gets from individual authors
for hybrid Gold OA, it pledges to return as a subscription rebate to all
subscribing institutions.

But does this mean the RS is a "fair player" insofar as OA is concerned?

Hardly.

Yet this is *not* because the hybrid Gold OA rebate amounts to individual
authors' full payments for Gold OA subsidizing the subscription costs of
institutions worldwide. (The author's own institution only gets back a tiny
fraction of its authors' Gold OA fee in its tiny portion of the worldwide
subscription rebate.)

No. Whether the RS is indeed a fair player depends on* whether RS authors
have the choice* -- between providing Gold OA by paying the RS that
additional cost over and above what the world's institutions are already
paying the RS in subscriptions -- or providing Green OA at no additional
cost, by self-archiving their article free for all online.

For if the RS does *not* give its authors this choice, then it is certainly
not a "fair player": It is holding RS authors who want to provide OA
hostage to the payment of an additional hybrid Gold OA fee.

>From 2005 - 2010, the RS has had a checquered history with OA:
http://j.mp/RoylSocOA

In 2010, however, the RS came down squarely on "the side of the angels",
endorsing immediate, unembargoed Green OA self-archiving of the author's
final refereed draft: http://j.mp/RSOANGELS

But now -- perhaps -- the RS seems to have adopted a 12-month embargo on
Green OA (under the fell influence -- perhaps -- of the new Finch/RCUK OA
policy?):

*"You are free to post…the “Author Generated Postprint” - Your personal
copy of the revised version of the Article as accepted by Us… on Your
personal or institutional web site and load it onto an institutional or not
for profit repository no earlier than 12 months from the date of first
publication of the Definitive Published Version."
http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/authors/licence.xhtml*

Or is this just another (silly) attempt to distinguish between authors
positing on their "institutional website" (unembargoed) versus posting in
their "institutional repository" (embargoed) -- in which case RS authors
can happily ignore this empty pseudo-distinction, knowing that their
institutional repository is indeed their institutional website.

But the RS would do itself a historic favour if it dropped all this
double-talk, unworthy of such a venerable institution, and lived up to its
decree that:

*"In keeping with its role as the UK's national academy of science,
The Royal Society<http://royalsociety.org/> is committed to the
widest possible dissemination of research outputs." *

by ceasing to try to hold Green OA self-archiving hostage to sustaining the
RS's subscription revenues at all costs.

There will be time for the RS to go Gold at a fair, affordable, sustainable
price, single-paid instead of over-charged and double-paid, as now (with or
without double-dipping) -- *after Green has prevailed worldwide and
made **subscriptions
no longer unsustainable.*

But that will be post-Green Fair-Gold. What the RS (and other publishers,
less venerable) are trying to use OA embargoes for today is to force
authors to pay pre-emptively for pre-Green Fools-Gold, so as to ensure that
their revenue streams do not shrink either way.

But shrink they must, because post-Green the only service the RS or any
other research journal publisher will need to perform is the management of
peer review in the online era.

And that only costs a fraction of what they are being paid now, with or
without double dipping.

The RS "Membership Programme" -- like all hybrid Fools-Gold, is a Trojan
Horse: http://j.mp/TRoaJan  <http://t.co/ikt7k8zh8N>

On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 7:02 PM, LIBLICENSE <liblicense at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: "Romano, Maria" <maria.romano at royalsociety.org>
> Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 15:03:17 +0100
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The Royal Society welcomes leading institutions to its Open
> Access Membership Programme
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The growing number of members since its launch early last year
> demonstrates the success of the Royal Society’s Open Access Membership
> Programme<
> http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/membership.xhtml>,
> as University of Cambridge, MIT and The University of Melbourne have
> joined the programme along with 30 other institutions →
> <http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/allmembers.xhtml>.
>
> The programme enables participating organisations to decrease the cost
> of the article processing charge to their authors by 25%, along with
> further promoting its open access publications and research output.
>
> Institutions choosing to affiliate themselves to the prestigious
> charity and support its open access initiatives can find out more by
> visiting our membership
> webpages<
> http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/membership.xhtml>.
>
> For more information on how your institution can support its
> researchers with discounted open access article processing charges,
> please contact marianne.haska at royalsociety.org.
>
> In keeping with its role as the UK's national academy of science, The
> Royal Society<http://royalsociety.org/> is committed to the widest
> possible dissemination of research outputs. Hence since 2006, any
> article can be published in open access under a Creative Commons
> license<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/> in any of its
> prestigious journals<http://royalsocietypublishing.org/journals>,
> including the fully gold journal Open
> Biology<http://rsob.royalsocietypublishing.org/>.
>
> Remaining a fair player, The Royal Society ensures that published open
> access articles bearing a publication fee are deducted from
> subscription prices through its Transparent Pricing Mechanism
> <
> http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/transparent_pricing.xhtml
> >.
>
> ---------------------------------
> About the Royal Society
> ---------------------------------
>
> The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the
> world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science,
> engineering, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental purpose, as it
> has been since its foundation in 1660, is to recognise, promote, and
> support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use
> of science for the benefit of humanity.
>
> The Society’s strategic priorities emphasise its commitment to the
> highest quality science, to curiosity-driven research, and to the
> development and use of science for the benefit of society. These
> priorities are:
>
> 1.       Promoting science and its benefits
>
> 2.       Recognising excellence in science
>
> 3.       Supporting outstanding science
>
> 4.       Providing scientific advice for policy
>
> 5.       Fostering international and global cooperation
>
> 6.       Education and public engagement
>
> For further information please visit http://royalsociety.org or
> http://royalsocietypublishing.org.
>
> Follow Royal Society Publishing on Twitter at
> http://twitter.com/RSocPublishing or on Facebook at
> http://www.facebook.com/RoyalSocietyPublishing.FanPage.
>
> Regards,
> Sana Kazmi
> Institutional Marketing Manager
> The Royal Society
> 6-9 Carlton House Terrace
> London SW1Y 5AG
> royalsocietypublishing.org
>
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