[GOAL] Re: Fool's Gold vs. Fair Gold

[Graham Triggs]

On 5 October 2013 23:31, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Graham Triggs <grahamtriggs at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> In an author-pays model, the author is paying in part for the
>> peer-review, editing,
>>
> production, distribution - which are all replicable and comparable
>> services between
>>
> publishers, and in part the reputation of the journal they are being
>> published in
>>
>
> That's with pre-Green Fool's Gold.
>

Well, it was a response to what author-pays and subscription based options
exist today. What opportunities the market may develop in the future aren't
really practical to comment on.


> But with post-Green Fair Gold, the production and distribution and their
> costs are gone
> -- offloaded onto the global network of Green OA IRs. And the peer review
> costs are paid
> for as a service (most sensibly, a no-fault service for the review,
> regardless of outcome).
>

There would of course be no implications to the quality of production,
discoverability or usability of the research. It's as if you are saying
simply making a PDF is good enough, when PDFs are not all created equal,
and aren't always as portable as they should be.


> And the reason you choose to be reviewed first by this journal is because
> of its
> track-record for quality (as reflected in its title). No extra charge.
>

Maintaining a track record will inevitably involve higher (per-paper) costs
than having a low standard - even if you were only paying for peer-review,
on a per round basis.

The editorial function of evaluating the submission, picking referees, and
> adjudicating
> the referee reports and revision is part of the peer review service.
> (There's not much
> else going on by way of editing and copy-editing any more anyway, with
> journals,
> hence nothing worth paying for.)
>

Ah. Right. If you say so.
https://scholasticahq.com/innovations-in-scholarly-publishing/announcement/one-of-the-biggest-bottlenecks-in-open-access-publishing-is-typesetting-it-shouldn-t-be


> Pre-Green Fool's Gold, with all that other stuff bundled in, can cost from
> $1000-$5000+
> per accepted articles.
>

> My guess is that post-Green Fair Gold should cost around $200 per round of
> no-fault
> refereeing (because the costs of rejected or multiply revised and
> re-refereed papers
> will not have to be borne by the accepted papers only).
>

Based on what? Is that the cost, or the price? What margins are you
allowing for? How many rounds are there going to be (on average)?

And you've still not factored in the costs of running the IRs, of them
being able to provide for all the accesses on top of what they do right
now, or any provision for quality control, typesetting, etc. that somebody
really ought to be doing if you want this to be useful.

And that's without any provision for being able to innovate in the delivery
services provided - making things accessible from mobile devices, or
possibly even in just making them accessible at all (nobody wants to fall
foul of disability discrimination laws).
.

> If it's hybrid Fool's Gold, then their payments
>
may even be double-dipped.
>

The only evidence I've seen - e.g. Wellcome Trust's presentation -
indicates the contrary.

And besides - if you are paying an APC for an article to be made open
access, then you have entered into a contract with the publisher whereby
they have to make it available openly, in accordance with the terms in that
contract. They are only double-dipping if they are making it closed access
and charging for it - in which case they are in breach of contract.

What do you normally do when vendors are in breach of contract?


> The much lower cost of post-Green Fair Gold (for peer review) will be
> single-paid
> out of a fraction of the institutional windfall subscription cancellation
> savings.
> And it will all be fair, affordable, scaleable and sustainable.
>

When you really look at the total of what will need to be provided - even
if you aren't paying a publisher for all of those services - then I don't
believe the true costs will be "a fraction" (not globally anyway - there
may be some small institutions that could benefit).

But lets see how we get to those subscription cancellations. In order to do
that, we have to look at publisher incentives. As you submitted to the BIS
report:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/99we07.htm

"The UK’s new policy of funding Gold OA pre-emptively ... encouraging
publishers to adopt or lengthen Green OA embargoes in order to makes sure
UK authors must choose the paid Gold option."

Or, as stated here:
http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html

"You would offer to “allow” your authors to pay you for hybrid Gold OA
... you would ratchet up the Green OA embargo length ... to make sure your
authors pay you for hybrid Gold rather than picking the cost-free option"

or even
http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/open-access-emeralds-green-starts-to.html

"publishers like Emerald are also trying to hedge their bets and clinch the
deal by adopting or extending Green OA embargoes to try to force authors to
pick and pay for the hybrid Gold option instead of picking cost-free Green"

Well, let's examine the RCUK policy. The decision tree is here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/9907.htm#a7

Let's assume we're dealing with publicly funded research, and the
publishers in question (Springer, Emerald) already offered a Gold option on
their journals - so that's the first two questions taken care of.

That leaves us with the last one: "Are APC funds available from research
funder?", with two options - either pay for Gold, or archive for free with
[up to] 12-24 month embargo.

If, as contended, publishers were introducing / lengthening embargoes to
force authors to pick Gold, then the embargoes would have to make a
material difference to the choice made at this point.

Both Springer and Emerald embargoes are in line with the RCUK allowable
limits for publicly funded research [published in hybrid journals]. So
their adoption has no material effect on the choice made to go Green or
Gold.

Clearly, they can't have been introduced to force authors into choosing
Gold. So if not that, what? The obvious reason is not to force authors into
choosing Gold, but in anticipation of a large number of articles now being
made publicly available via Green.

(Conversely, if a publisher really wanted authors to go Gold, then they
have much easier and more effective means than embargoing Green. Namely,
default routing via author-pays [aka Wellcome workflow], or simply
converting to just being a Gold only journal).

It's no surprise that a commercial publisher will seek to ensure that they
have revenue to pay for their costs. Embargoes / deposit restrictions will
likely be used to limit the risk of Green mandates, and if the mandates are
considered too risky, they are under no obligation to provide a compatible
deposit policy.

So the likelihood of getting to a point of cancellation before journals
have converted to being entirely Gold is very low indeed. And even if it
did - if we got to a point where there was a sudden mass-cancellation of
journal subscriptions, would publishers [be forced to] downsize?

No. They'll just convert their existing publications to APCs, with the all
(/most) of the services retained. Because authors will continue to use them.

The only incentive for publishers to downsize the services they provide is
if they can increase their profits by doing so.

I can keep on repeating this as often it takes, until people begin to
> understand
> why it is premature and profligate to pay pre-emptively for pre-Green
> Gold. --
> I've done it with other things before (such as the need for Green
> OA, Green OA
> mandates, Immediate Deposit, the Button, and the link to research
> evaluation)...
>

You can repeat it as often as you like, but it won't change the fact that

a) you can only mandate authors, not publishers
b) authors can't afford to not publish
c) businesses need to make a profit

With that in mind, the best that you can hope for by mandating Green is a
swift transition to Gold when it occurs. At the worst, Green mandates
without guarantees from publishers could either be unfulfilled, or end up
very costly for institutions, researchers and/or research.

Either way, as embargoes are more likely to be introduced / extended with
more Green mandates, you are only delaying the one thing that you claim is
more important to you than anything else - immediate, unembargoed open
access.

G
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