[GOAL] Projekt DEAL is a very serious impediment to BOAI Open Access

[Peter Murray-Rust]

I was interviewed by Chemistry World (Royal Soc Chem) last week about
Projekt DEAL 's agreement with Springer.
TL;DR I read as much as I could and gave the interview and said I was
deeply unhappy about DEAL. The interview appeared, it 's now behind a
premium wall. It mangled what I said and has done AmeliCA (which I said was
a better way forward) a serious disservice. I have asked CW to correct and
apologize. I post my snippet here.
TL;DR+ I tweeted this and there has been an intense discussion (in as much
as Twitter allows this). Assuming that what I learn is corroborated here ,
I have an even worse opinion of DEAL (my comments to CW are mild); I am
appalled at both the total waste of resources but also that DEAL is
preventing evolution of BOAI Open Access and the huge missed opportunities.
[I am ready to be corrected by facts, because the DEAL site and reporting
makes it very difficult to get at the real facts.]

First what I said: (now premiumwalled)

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/mixed-reception-for-german-open-access-deal-with-springer-nature/3010886.article

>>>
[snipped]
An ‘absolute minefield’

>>Not everyone is enthusiastic, however. Peter Murray-Rust
<https://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/person/pm286>, a chemist at the University of
Cambridge who champions open access publishing, calls the new arrangement
‘hugely expensive’ and ‘administratively heavy’, and he describes it as ‘a
total fragmentation’ of scientific publishing. ‘This might work well for
German academics in negotiations with one particular publisher, but it
doesn’t necessarily translate to another type of publisher in another
country – you can see an absolute minefield of deals being set up.’

>>Further, Murray-Rust argues that by omitting *Nature,* and other flagship
scientific journals, the deal solidifies the research publishing scene to
major commercial players and rich countries, and creates a glory-based
industry rather than a knowledge dissemination mechanism. ‘These are glory
journals, or high-impact journals, and they can probably charge more,’ he
tells *Chemistry World*. ‘It is purely a marketing ploy.’

>>Meanwhile, Peter Suber <https://cyber.harvard.edu/people/psuber>, who
directs Harvard University library’s office for scholarly communication,
recalls that Elsevier in the past was unable to reach negotiation on a
similar agreement with Project Deal
<https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/german-universities-take-on-elsevier-/3007807.article>.
‘Springer Nature is showing more flexibility than Elsevier, and more
willingness than Elsevier to meet the needs and interests of universities,’
he says.

>>Many opponents of arrangements like Project DEAL note that they might be
imperfect but could serve as stepping-stones to better agreements. As an
example of a preferable OA publishing model, Murray-Rust points to a new
approach in Latin America, known as AmeliCA
<http://amelica.org/index.php/en/about/>, which was launched last year.

>>Led in part by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), ***Project DEAL***  is centred on a non-profit
publishing model and controlled by an inter-institutional academy. It
involves universities and scientific journals sharing a common
infrastructure of software, tools, hosting and training services.

*** This shocking mistake should read AmeliCA ***

PMR> my message a week ago is that the AmeliCA model should be what honours
the BOAI with its vision of free shared knowledge  "the rich with the poor
and the poor with the rich"

I am not involved in German journals policy but I believe that:

the aim of DEAL was to convert ("flip") current subscription-based
publishing (free to author, pay to read) to APC-based (free to read, pay to
author). This was an opportunity for DEAL (which is spending taxpayers
money) to demand transparency, insist on a more equitable model, and reduce
overall expenditure. As far as I can see (and I will stand corrected by
facts) it has done none, and has not even tried to do any.
Note that the Glamour mags (Nature and Nature children) are not part of the
deal which is 40,000,000 Eur for about 16,000 published articles. DEAL
published that the effective price per article was 2750 Eur. which figures


Instead, and this is conjecture, the base assumptions are:
* we need to flip journals to Gold OA. (the motivation for this is not
clear, but probably because funders are or will require it).
* Springer (and Wiley) won't do this unless their income stream is
preserved. These publishers give value for money so we simply change the
payment model. The costs are what the publishers tell us are necessary and
we give them a lump sum without breakdown.
* Authors won't flip unless all their costs are paid
* The main purpose of publishing is to allow authors to get credit for
their work.  The only authors we need to consider are those supported by
universities and research institution grantholders.

* Readers are much less important and there is no pressing need to consult
them

Twitter is a poor place to find facts and discussion , but I managed to get
the following information.
* No detailed study on publisher costs had been done (and certainly not
published)
* No significant section of civil society (i.e. not in Universities) had
been cosulted
* No readership had been consulted.

My impression before DEAL was that the scholarly poor could not read the
literature, and now they can read it, but not publish.
If that is true then:
* it deepens the divide between the rich and the poor
* it sets up universities as a write-only priesthood with no mechanism for
multiway discourse
* it misses all the opportunities that the electronic democratic era brings.

There is massive opportunity for price reduction as well run organizations
can publish for very little:

* J. Mach. Learn Res is platinum (free to author and read), So is J. Open
Source Software and many others. I am publishing this week in Beilstein J
Org Chem
* arxiv, etc is ca 8 USD
* commercial publishers like @ARPHAPlatform quote modular prices (i.e. the
customer can choose what they want and what not.  I don't want typesetting,
I don't want marketing. Their range per artcile is about 60 USD - 600 USD.
* Grossman and Brembs estimated this year that 400 USD would cover the
costs of a typical STEM paper.

So the DEAL price (not cost) per paper is SIX times the actual cost. Many
people in these discussions confuse price with cost as the costs are
non-transparent.

What DEAL does is:
* waste taxpayers money
* give established publishers a free ride - they can charge what they like
especially in glamour mags and hybrids
* create a model almost as divisive before - one that Springer will try to
market to the Global South when it actually has a better, more ethical one
* nothing for civil society and industry
* set a precedent for everyone else - the "true price" of an article at
2750 Eur.

And it builds a world where the only players are rich Northern universities
and the largest most commercial megapublishers. It is bad news for
societies unless the have the courage to break away completely. If you make
an agreement with a megapublisher you lose control of what you don, how you
do it and what the cost to the world is.

-- 
"I always retain copyright in my papers, and nothing in any contract I sign
with any publisher will override that fact. You should do the same".

Peter Murray-Rust
Reader Emeritus in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dept. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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