[GOAL] [SCHOLCOMM] OA Overview January 2017

[Jean-Claude Guédon]

Since Stevan Harnad abandons his other "tillings", allow me to comment
in my turn.
> 
> 
> 

> 

> 
> >  On 6 Jan 2017, at 13:22, Stevan
> > Harnad <amsciforum at GMAIL.COM>
> > >
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > (1) The old librarians' "double-payment" argument
> > > against subscription publishing (the institution pays once to fund the
> > > research, then a second time to "buy back" the publication) is
> > > false (and silly, actually) in the letter (though on the right track
> > > in spirit).
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (2) No, the institution that pays for the research output
> > > is not paying a second time to buy it back. Institutional journal
> > > subscriptions are not for buying back their own research output. They
> > > already have their own research output. They are
> > > buying in the research output
> > >  the research output
> > > of other institutions, and of other countries, with
> > >  institutions, and of other countries, with
> > > their journal subscriptions. So no double-payment there, even if you
> > > reckon it at the funder- or the tax-payer-level instead of the level
> > > of the institution that pays for the subscription.
Stevan Harnad has always denied this "double payment". But his argument
is wrong. Institutions do support research and institutions do buy
journals where articles from their own faculty appear. If they did not
buy these journals, people in one department might not have access to
papers published by colleagues in another department. Of course, if
everyone deposited their articles within the institution, Harnad would
be right, but this is not the case, at least not yet. In actual fact,
institutions do not have their own research output; individual
researchers do. And they are buying in all that  Stevan Harnad
indicates PLUS the articles from their own faculty that have not been
deposited.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (3) The problem was never double-payment (for subscriptions): It was
> > > (a) (huge) overpayment for institutional access and (b) completely
> > > intolerable and counterproductive access-denial for researchers at
> > > institutions that couldn't or wouldn't pay for subscriptions to
> > > any given journal (and there are tens of thousands of research
> > > journals): The users that are the double losers there are
> > > (i) all researchers at all the
> > >  the
> > > institutions that produce all research output (who
> > >  research output (who
> > > lose all those of their would-be users who are at
> > >  those of their would-be users who are at
> > > non-subscribing institutions for any given journal) and
> > > (ii) all researchers at all the
> > >  the
> > > non-subscribing institutions for any given journal, who lose access to
> > > all non-subscribed research.
a) and b) are right, but double-payment is also present.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > Now take a few minutes to think through the somewhat more complicated
> > > but much more accurate and informative version (3) of the
> > > double-payment fallacy in (1).
> > > 

> > > 
> > > The solution is very clear, and has been clear for close to 30 years
> > > now (but not reached - nor even grasped by most):
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (4) Peer-reviewed research should be freely accessible to all
its users. It is give-away research. The authors gets no money for
> > > . It is give-away research. The authors gets no money for
> > > it: they (and their institutions and funder and tax-payer) only seek
> > > readers, users and impact.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (5) The only non-obsolete service that peer-reviewed journals still
> > > perform in the online era is peer review itself (and
> > >  (and
> > > they don't even do most of that: researchers do all the refereeing
> > > for free, but a competent editor has to understand the submissions,
> > > pick the right referees, umpire their reports, and make sure that the
> > > necessary revisions are done by the author). Journals today earn from
> > > $1500 to $5000 or more per article they publish, combining all their
> > > subscription revenue, per article. Yet the true cost of peer review
> > > per article is a small fraction of that: My estimate is that it's
> > > from $50 to $200 per round of refereeing. (Notice that it's not per
> > > accepted paper: There's no need to bundle the price of refereeing
> > > all rejected, or many times re-refereed papers into the price of the
> > > winning losers who get accepted!
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (6) So the refereeing service needs to be paid for at its true, fair
> > > price, per paper, regardless of whether the outcome is accept, revise
> > > + re-referee, or reject: a service fee for each round of
> > > refereeing.
I agree.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (7) Now comes open access publishing ("Gold OA") - which is not
> > > - repeat not - what I have just described in
> > >  - what I have just described in
> > > (6)!
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (8) Gold OA today is "Fool's Gold OA," and it includes two
> > > subtler kinds of double payment than the simplistic notion in (1). It
> > > has to be calculated at the level of the double-payer, the
> > > institution: Institutions must, first, pay (A) for the subscription
> > > journals that they need and can afford: the ones whose contents are
> > > otherwise not accessible to their users but need to be. Then, second,
> > > they must pay (B) the FGold OA publication costs for each paper that
> > > their researchers publish in a non-subscription journal. That's
> > > already a double-payment: Subscription costs plus FGold OA costs. The
> > > S costs are for incoming S-research from all other institutions and
> > > the FG costs are for their own outgoing FG research output. And the FG
> > > costs are not $50-$200 per paper for peer review, but $1000 or much
> > > more for FG "publication costs" (now ask yourself what are the
> > > expenses of which those are payment!).
Gold today is Gold. What Stevan Harnad calls Fool's Gold is APC-Gold.
What he says about APC-Gold, I agree with.  However, there are
alternative ways to design and support scientific forms of publication,
including adding publication functions (e.g. peer review) to
depositories.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (9) And there is another "double" here in some cases, because
> > > sometimes the S-journal and the FG-journal are the same
journal: The "hybrid" subscription/ FG publishers: These
> > > : The "hybrid" subscription/ FG publishers: These
> > > publishers offer FG as an option that the author can choose to pay
> > > for. That is double-dipping. And even if the hybrid journal promises
> > > to lower the subscription price per article in proportion to how many
> > > articles pay for FG, that just means that the foolish institution that
> > > is paying for the FG is subsidizing, with its huge payment per
> > > article, the subscription costs of all the other subscribing
> > > institutions.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (10) So FG is not only outrageously over-priced, but it means
> > > double-payment for institutions, the possibility of double-dipping by
> > > publishers, and, at best, paying institutions subsidizing the S
> > > institutions with their FG double payments.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (11) So FG does not work: Publishers cannot and will not cut costs and
> > > downsize to just providing peer review at a fair price ("Fair
> > > Gold") while there are still fat subscription revenues as well as fat
> > > FG payments to be had.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (12) Yet there is another way that OA can be provided, instead of via
> > > Fools Gold OA and that is via Green
OA self-archiving, by their own authors, of all refereed,
> > >  self-archiving, by their own authors, of all refereed,
> > > accepted, published papers, in their own institution's Green OA Institutional Repositories.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (13) Not only does Green OA provide OA itself, but once it reaches
> > > close to 100%, it allows all institutions to cancel their subscription
> > > journals, making subscriptions no longer sustainable, thereby forcing
> > > publishers to cut costs by unbundling peer review and its true costs
> > > from all the obsolete costs of printing paper, producing PDF,
> > > distributing the journal, archiving the journal, etc. That's all
> > > done by the global network of Green OA Institutional repositories,
> > > leaving only the peer review as the last remaining essential service
> > > of peer-reviewed journal publishers. That's affordable, sustainable,
> > > Green-OA-based "Fair Gold" OA.
There is the rub. 100% remains a distant goal in most cases. 
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (14) 100% Green OA could have been had over 20 years ago, if
> > > researchers had just provided it. Some did, but far too few. Most were
> > > too lazy, too dim-witted or too timid to do it. Then their
> > > institutions and funders tried to mandate OA -- so
> > >  -- so
> > > publishers decided to embargo Green OA for at least a year from
> > > publication, offering Fool's Gold OA instead.
Stevan Harnad is factually right here: researchers have not done their
part. However, Stevan Harnad is psychologically and diplomatically
wrong: rather than berating researchers who are submitted to an
intense, largely artificial, competition, it would be better to examine
strategies that can help place researchers in a position where they
understand what is going on. Telling researchers they are lazy, timid
or - God forbid - too dim-witted for their own good has not worked and
will never work. Helping researchers understand better how their
communication system does, or rather does not, work would be far more
effective. For example, for the present, impact is (see above, point 4)
is generally defined as publishing in high impact factor journals, and
this creates distortions and pressures on researchers that will not be
helped by telling them, on top of everything else, that they are dim-
witted. Administrations buy into this myth because they too are
submitted to a competitive regime thanks to various world rankings of
universities. As these rankings apparently affect the recruitment of
post-docs in labs, and as these post-docs form the work-force of the
labs... the impact wheel continues to turn. Yet, most researchers would
be far happier with a system that underscores quality and reliability
in research outputs. This does not exclude controversies which are an
essential part of the scientific process, but controversies are
different from competition. In conclusion, researchers should be
encouraged to revisit and revise the nature of their symbolic capital,
and institutional administrators should stop and think about ways to
help this revision come about. The first step is to discredit the
impact factor.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (15) And that's about where we are now: Weak Green OA mandates
> > > providing some Green OA but not enough. Some FG OA, doubly compromised
> > > now by the fact that authors have been taking it up as a kind of
> > > pay-to-publish opportunity, with weak peer review (or none at all, in
> > > the case of the many scam FG journalswho are
> > > who are
> > > rushing to cash in on the Fool's Gold Rush). Meanwhile OA activists
> > > are foolishly clamouring ore-emptively for "open data," "CC-BY
> > > licenses" and "open science" when they don't even have OA yet,
> > > subscriptions are doing fine, and FG is outrageously over-priced and
> > > double-paid, hence unaffordable.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > (16) There are simple solutions for all this, but they require
> > > sensible, concerted action on the part of the research community:
> > > Green OA mandates need strengthening, monitoring and carrot/stick
> > > enforcement; there is a simple way around publishers' Green OA
> > > embargos (the "Copy Request" Button , and a few institutions and funders are sensibly
> > >  are sensibly
> > > using the eligibility rules for research evaluation as the
> > > carrot/stick to ensure compliance with the mandate. 
I entirely agree with this, but, at the risk of repeating myself as
well, more is needed, and it has to do with the reforming of the means
to evaluate the importance, quality and reliability of research
outputs.
> > > 

> > > 
> > > But I've tired of repeating myself and tired of waiting. It can all
> > > be said in these 16 points, and has been said, countless times. But
> > > it's one thing to lead a bunch of researchers to the waters of Green
> > > OA self-archiving; it's quite another to get them to stoop to
> > > drink. 
> > > 

> > > 
> > > So let their librarians keep whinging incoherently about
> > > "double-payment" for yet another decade of lost research access and
> > > impact.
Another important point is not to berate librarians either. While it is
clear that librarians have specific objectives in mind, and work within
difficult institutional constraints - between administration and
faculty - and while it is true that some of these objectives are of
little interest to researchers, this is not a good reason for
dismissing them in yet another example of disrespectful behaviour.
Perhaps we could move faster if librarians and researchers spoke more
often, more intensely, and coordinated better.
Jean-Claude Guédon
> > > 

> > > 
> > > Harnad, S. (1995) Universal FTP Archives for Esoteric Science and
> > > Scholarship: A Subversive Proposal. In: Ann Okerson & James
> > > O'Donnell (Eds.) Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads; A
Subversive Proposal for Electronic Publishing. Washington, DC.,
> > > . Washington, DC.,
> > > Association of Research Libraries, June 1995. http://www.arl.org/scomm/subversive/toc.html
> > > 

> > > 
______ . (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of
> > >  . (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of
> > > Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib
Magazine 16 (7/8). http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21348/
> > > 

> > > 
______ (2014) The only way to make inflated journal
> > >  (2014) The only way to make inflated journal
> > > subscriptions unsustainable: Mandate Green Open Access. LSE
Impact of Social Sciences Blog 4/28 http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/28/inflated-subscriptions-unsustainable-harnad/
> > > 

> > > 
______ (2015) Open Access: What, Where, When, How and Why.
> > >  (2015) Open Access: What, Where, When, How and Why.
> > > In: Ethics, Science, Technology, and Engineering: An
International Resource eds. J. Britt Holbrook & Carl
> > >  eds. J. Britt Holbrook & Carl
> > > Mitcham, (2nd edition of Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and
> > > Ethics, Farmington Hills MI: MacMillan Reference) http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/361704/
> > > 

> > > 
______ (2015) Optimizing Open Access Policy. The
Serials Librarian, 69(2), 133-141 http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/381526/ 
> > > 

> > > 
______ (2016)  Open Access Archivangelist:
The Last Interview? CEON Otwarta Nauka (Open Science), Summer
> > > ? CEON Otwarta Nauka (Open Science), Summer
> > > Issue http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/398024/
> > > 

> > > 
> > > Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2014)
> > > Open Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing" Button.
> > > In: Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture
Online (Rosemary J. Coombe & Darren Wershler, Eds.) http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18511/
> > > 

> > > 
> > > Swan, A; Gargouri, Y; Hunt, Megan; & Harnad, S (2015) Open Access
> > > Policy: Numbers, Analysis, Effectiveness. Pasteur4OA Workpackage 3
> > > Report. http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/375854/
> > > 

> > > 
> > > Vincent-Lamarre, Philippe, Boivin, Jade, Gargouri, Yassine,
> > > Larivière, Vincent and Harnad, Stevan (2016) Estimating Open
Access Mandate Effectiveness: The MELIBEA Score. Journal of
> > >  Journal of
> > > the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) 67(11)
> > > 2815-2828 http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/370203/
> > > 

> > 

> 
> 
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> Sanford G. Thatcher
> 
> Frisco, TX  75034-5514
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> https://scholarsphere.psu.edu
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> 
>  
> 
> "If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying."-John
> Ruskin (1865)
> 

> 
> "The reason why so few good books are written is that so few
> people who can write know anything."-Walter Bagehot (1853)
> 

> 
> "Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance
> with the limitations and incapacities of the human
> misunderstanding."-Ambrose Bierce (1906)
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