[GOAL] FW: Don't blame Springer (this time)

[Frédéric Hélein]

Dear Christian,

(A colleague sent me this reply since I don't receive mails from this list).

>
> De : Christian Gutknecht <christian.gutknecht at bluewin.ch 
> <mailto:christian.gutknecht at bluewin.ch>>
> Répondre à : Global List <goal at eprints.org <mailto:goal at eprints.org>>
> Date : Mon, 27 Nov 2017 11:27:41 +0100
> À : Global List <goal at eprints.org <mailto:goal at eprints.org>>
> Objet : [GOAL] Don't blame Springer (this time)
>
> Hi Fréderic
>
> Yes, hybrid options can confuse authors, who have missed the whole OA 
> discussion of the last 10 years. However I would not blame Springer here.
- well I don't see any good excuse here for Springer here and such 
practices. The basic concept of hybrid OA is already by itself more than 
ambiguous
and adulterated, since the price of the subscription don't decrease with 
the growing of hybrid OA publications.
>
> For me the existance of hybrid OA, is the fault of academic libraries 
> unable to take coordinate actions
> and force publishers to a true Gold OA model. If we all would join 
> together like OA2020.org <http://OA2020.org> is proposing, we will be 
> able to solve this problem soon.
>
> First priority is to move the money away from subscription to Gold OA. 
> The current subscription money is your leverage!!
>
> If you're not couragous enough to cancel all the subscriptions 
> (despite Sci-Hub), then go for an offsetting deal or a ‚publish an 
> read' model.
- I think this is another discussion, which has to be split into two 
completely different
questions :
1) being sufficiently courageous to negotiate in a tough way in such a 
way that the
prizes of publication really decrease,
2) choosing whatever model.

One must be "courageous" for decreasing costs and investing money for 
creating new models whatever there are.
One has to be courageous for developing a voluntary green OA policy in 
the short term, as a temporary alternative to
the hybrid OA model.

But there are no reason to believe that switching to full Gold OA model 
à la OA2020 is the only solution. Certainly it promises
economies in a very short term (if it works !) and it appears to be a 
simple way to solve the question of hybrid OA publications.

But we really have no concrete reason to believe that in the long term 
such a policy will lead to solve miraculously all other problems
and why it will avoid the apparition of new problems.
How would this lead to a model allowing us to emancipate from big 
publishers ? How would this lead
to an OA model where the institutions keep the ownership of 
publications, of titles of journals, not only for
spreading but also for all forthcoming uses such as TDM, assessment, 
etc. and where the publishers are service providers ?
Once such a switching will be done, which mean of pressure will have 
libraries to control the prices ? to command
to the publisher and not the converse ? Will we be able to boycott a 
publisher which becomes
too cupid by asking to researchers to stop to publish with that 
publisher ? And, last but not least,
will we be able to develop a policy improving the quality of science, 
avoiding the dictatorship of
impact factors, whatever refined there are, and its toxic effects ?


But one has also to be creative and extremely well coordinated to 
develop and encourage
innovative solutions. This is the aim of the Jussieu Call 
<http://jussieucall.org/>. It does not promise a simple and
universal solution, it even does not provide any recipe, but it invites 
institutions, researchers,
librarians, politics to experiment and create a publication system based 
on already existing solutions
which already made their evidence and to invent new ones.

>
> I would anyone recommend to look into the Dutch agreements. Here for 
> example their Springer Agreement of 2015-2016:
> https://wisspub.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/dutch_springer_agreement_2015-2016.pdf
>
> It shows that the Dutch were able to settle for an average APC of 1400 
> EUR 
> (http://www.scienceguide.nl/201709/what-is-the-price-per-article.aspx). 
> So if your researcher has paid 2640 EUR hybrid APC she/he was probably 
> ripped off anyway.
>
> You also find here the extracted OA-Clauses from the other Agreements: 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ikGP3YmIJkTimKRSVaCn7L1JMiTnX7AXmiiyS6GPAAw/edit#
>
> If France and other countries would eventually insist on the same (or 
> even better) terms as the Dutch already have since 2015 we would very 
> soon reach a state, where there is so much hybrid OA out there, that 
> either publishers move to a gold OA model, or all the less courageous 
> countries would stop subscribing.
>
> Best regards
>
> Christian
> https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7265-1692
>
>
>
Sincerely Yours
Frédéric
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