[GOAL] Re: The open access movement slips into closed mode

[Richard Poynder]

I am not sure that this FOI request was about open access was it David? http://bit.ly/1midAyu.

 

However, the way I see it is that as research funders (like Max Planck and RCUK), governments and publishers increasingly come to accept the inevitability of open access so the way in which it is achieved, and the way in which the details (and costs) are negotiated, are likely to become increasingly non-transparent (much as Big Deals have always been). And to me the invite-only nature of Berlin 12 foreshadows this development.

 

I also anticipate that the OA big deals being put in place, and the various journal “flipping” arrangements being proposed, will be more to the benefit of publishers than to the research community.

 

As Keith Jeffery puts it, “We all know why the BOAI principles have been progressively de-railed. One explanation given to me at an appropriate political level was that the tax-take from commercial publishers was greater than the cost of research libraries.” http://bit.ly/1OslVFW.

 

The question is: how could the open access have avoided this? What can it do right now to mitigate the effects of these developments?

 

Richard Poynder

 

 

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of David Prosser
Sent: 30 December 2015 10:24
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal at eprints.org>
Subject: [GOAL] Re: The open access movement slips into closed mode

 

While we huff and puff about Berlin 12 and ridiculous suggestions that the entire open access movement is slipping ‘into closed mode’, Elsevier is having confidential meetings with UK Government Ministers of State.  Meetings that are apparently not covered by the Freedom of Information Act: 

 

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/302242/response/745563/attach/3/FOI%20Request%20ref%20FOI2015%2025797%20Meetings%20between%20BIS%20officials%20ministers%20and%20Elsevier%20Thompson%20Reuters.pdf

 

I know which of these cases of ‘secrecy’ I find more concerning.

 

David

 

On 21 Dec 2015, at 10:06, Richard Poynder <richard.poynder at cantab.net <mailto:richard.poynder at cantab.net> > wrote:





The 12th Berlin Conference was held in Germany on December 8th and 9th. ​The focus of the conference was on “the transformation of subscription journals to Open Access, as outlined in a recent white paper by the Max Planck Digital Library”.

 

In other words, the conference discussed ways of achieving a mass “flipping” of subscription-based journals to open access models.

 

Strangely, Berlin 12 was "by invitation only". This seems odd because holding OA meetings behind closed doors might seem to go against the principles of openness and transparency that were outlined in the 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.

 

Or is it wrong and/or naïve to think that open access implies openness and transparency in the decision making and processes involved in making open access a reality, as well as of research outputs?

 

Either way, if the strategy of flipping journals becomes the primary means of achieving open access can we not expect to see non-transparent and secret processes become the norm, with the costs and details of the transition taking place outside the purview of the wider OA movement? If that is right, would it matter?

 

Some thoughts here: http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/open-access-slips-into-closed-mode.html

 

Richard Poynder

 

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