[GOAL] COVID-19 and access to knowledge

Tue Mar 31 23:11:39 BST 2020

The first point, of course, is that if the "tenured saint" is not 
available, the greedy devil is not the only behavioural alternative.

Neither is sainthood, so to speak, dependent upon tenure. Tenure was 
invented to protect free expression. It might be useful to remind 
everyone that many people looking for tenure, do so precisely for this 
reason, while knowing that, given their level of education and 
(presumably) competence, they could probably trade more money for less 
freedom.

And this is not theory. Creating an Elsevier Hub for research on the 
coronavirus is nothing more than a fig leaf for that company. Research 
is not particularly helped by opening up only what someone thinks is 
good for a particular field of research, while preserving the revenue 
stream in other areas of knowledge. Doing so is assuming that fields of 
knowledge do not overlap to some extent, and that one already knows the 
broad contours of the solutions, however unexpected they may be. Both 
claims are broadly incomplete, at best.

It would be amusing to know whether, in the Elsevier boardrooms, issues 
arose such as : "if we open access too much, we are going to lose 
significant revenue", or "there is threshold beyond which we lose both 
control and revenue", etc.

Jean-Claude Guédon

On 2020-03-31 12:35 p.m., Éric Archambault wrote:
> Peter, Stevan, and Jean-Claude,
>
> Sorry if my life's circumstances led me to become a greedy devil 
> instead of a tenured saint.
>
> That said, I don't think it's right to assume that we are working out 
> of self-interest to build the Coronavirus Research Hub - as early as 
> January individuals at Elsevier and people here in my team sought to 
> do our bit to make information discoverable. These people are like me, 
> we live outside a Manichean world and as we decided to do our part 
> with the tools at our disposal even if that didn't solve all the 
> issues in the world we live in. There are people in these 
> organizations and insulting us at the personal level doesn't help 
> creating the sense of community we all need to fight this bug. There 
> is time for theory, other for actions.
>
> Cordially
>
> Éric
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* goal-bounces at eprints.org <goal-bounces at eprints.org> on behalf 
> of Jean-Claude Guédon <jean.claude.guedon at umontreal.ca>
> *Sent:* March 31, 2020 11:17 AM
> *To:* goal at eprints.org <goal at eprints.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [GOAL] COVID-19 and access to knowledge
> I also strongly agree with Peter. As for Éric Archambault, it is 
> simply a pity to see greed trump principles.
>
> One last note: OA will succeed, despite what Stevan says. Let us shape 
> OA the right way, and certainly not in the way supported by Elsevier: 
> in their view, OA is a "charitable" gesture that is applied only in 
> extreme cases. The reality is that the Great Conversation of science 
> constantly needs it.
>
> The right way to go is OA free for authors and for readers, which 
> means that it must be subsidized. But that is all right because 
> scientific research is subsidized and scientific communication is an 
> integral part of scientific research (and it costs only 1% of the rest 
> of research).
>
> Jean-Claude Guédon
>
> Le 31/03/2020 à 08:28, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
>> I agree with Peter.
>>
>> Eric has gone over to the devil.
>>
>> This is a shameful time for token measures.
>>
>> Covid-19 is a litmus test for disclosing who are going all out for 
>> the public good and who are in it for themselves.
>>
>> OA used to be for the sake of scientific and scholarly research -- an 
>> abstraction, and it did not succeed.
>>
>> Here it’s about survival.
>>
>> Stevan Harnad
>> Editor,Animal Sentience 
>> <https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fanimalstudiesrepository.org%2Fanimsent%2F&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=u4SeHgBD0Upyemmp4Nf0%2Be9a3nOcKNimsGZ3BY2YhGA%3D&reserved=0>
>> Professor of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal 
>> <https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcrcsc.uqam.ca%2F&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=cXNp0TpmsXPsLTCN5AYm8hfmpZmgij7X2Up3%2FNnGjvo%3D&reserved=0>
>> Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science, McGill University 
>> <https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcgill.ca%2Fpsychology%2Fabout%2Ffaculty-0%2Faffiliate-and-adjunct&data=01%7C01%7C%7Cd547a0da71564c7fb48108d7d56f0886%7C4a5378f929f44d3ebe89669d03ada9d8%7C0&sdata=FirEAYdQS9zIJvZwZOu3TyqInl7b71VCYxIDnoAQ6O4%3D&reserved=0>
>> Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Southampton 
>> <http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/people/harnad>
>>
>>> On Mar 30, 2020, at 6:14 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk 
>>> <mailto:pm286 at cam.ac.uk>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 7:48 PM Éric Archambault 
>>> <eric.archambault at science-metrix.com 
>>> <mailto:eric.archambault at science-metrix.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>     Peter,
>>>>
>>>>     Two months ago, that is, on January 27, we started work at
>>>>     Elsevier to make available as much as possible of the scholarly
>>>>     literature on coronavirus research easily discoverable and
>>>>     freely accessible.
>>>>
>>>>     At 1science, we created the Coronavirus Research Hub:
>>>>
>>> Why does Elsevier not simply open all its content and let the 
>>> scientific , medical and citizen community decide what they want? 
>>> Elsevier can't guess what we want.
>>>
>>> The Royal Society has done this. Elsevier can afford to do it.
>>>>
>>>>     If we can help further, please let us know, we have been on it
>>>>     for two months and we continue to evaluate options to help the
>>>>     research community.
>>>>
>>> My colleague, a software developer, working for free on openVirus 
>>> software,  is spending most of his time working making masks in 
>>> Cambridge Makespace to ship to Addenbrooke's hospital. When he goes 
>>> to the literature to find literature on masks, their efficacy and 
>>> use and construction he finds paywall after paywall after paywall 
>>> after paywall .... Some are 1-page notes behind a 36 USD Elsevier 
>>> paywall.
>>>
>>> Do not tell us what we want. let us choose freely.
>>>
>>> Peter Murray-Rust
>>>
>>> Volunteer fighting for free scientific knowledge in a world crisis.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> "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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