<div dir="ltr">On 5 October 2013 23:31, Stevan Harnad <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:amsciforum@gmail.com" target="_blank">amsciforum@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra">On Sat, Oct 5, 2013 at 4:31 PM, Graham Triggs <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:grahamtriggs@gmail.com" target="_blank">grahamtriggs@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>In an author-pays model, the author is paying in part for the peer-review, editing, </div>
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<div class="gmail_quote"><div>production, distribution - which are all replicable and comparable services between </div>
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<div class="gmail_quote"><div>publishers, and in part the reputation of the journal they are being published in</div>
</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's with pre-Green Fool's Gold.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Well, it was a response to what author-pays and subscription based options exist today. What opportunities the market may develop in the future aren't really practical to comment on.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>But with post-Green Fair Gold, the production and distribution and their costs are gone</div>
<div>-- offloaded onto the global network of Green OA IRs. And the peer review costs are paid</div><div>for as a service (most sensibly, a no-fault service for the review, regardless of outcome).</div></div></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>There would of course be no implications to the quality of production, discoverability or usability of the research. It's as if you are saying simply making a PDF is good enough, when PDFs are not all created equal, and aren't always as portable as they should be.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>And the reason you choose to be reviewed first by this journal is because of its</div><div>track-record for quality (as reflected in its title). No extra charge.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>
Maintaining a track record will inevitably involve higher (per-paper) costs than having a low standard - even if you were only paying for peer-review, on a per round basis.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>
The editorial function of evaluating the submission, picking referees, and adjudicating</div><div>the referee reports and revision is part of the peer review service. (There's not much</div><div>else going on by way of editing and copy-editing any more anyway, with journals, </div>
<div>hence nothing worth paying for.)</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Ah. Right. If you say so. <a href="https://scholasticahq.com/innovations-in-scholarly-publishing/announcement/one-of-the-biggest-bottlenecks-in-open-access-publishing-is-typesetting-it-shouldn-t-be">https://scholasticahq.com/innovations-in-scholarly-publishing/announcement/one-of-the-biggest-bottlenecks-in-open-access-publishing-is-typesetting-it-shouldn-t-be</a></div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>Pre-Green Fool's Gold, with all that other stuff bundled in, can cost from $1000-$5000+</div><div>per accepted articles.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div>My guess is that post-Green Fair Gold should cost around $200 per round of no-fault</div><div>refereeing (because the costs of rejected or multiply revised and re-refereed papers</div>
<div>
will not have to be borne by the accepted papers only).</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Based on what? Is that the cost, or the price? What margins are you allowing for? How many rounds are there going to be (on average)?</div>
<div><br></div><div>And you've still not factored in the costs of running the IRs, of them being able to provide for all the accesses on top of what they do right now, or any provision for quality control, typesetting, etc. that somebody really ought to be doing if you want this to be useful.</div>
<div><br></div><div>And that's without any provision for being able to innovate in the delivery services provided - making things accessible from mobile devices, or possibly even in just making them accessible at all (nobody wants to fall foul of disability discrimination laws).</div>
<div>. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>If it's hybrid Fool's Gold, then their payments <br></div></div></div></div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>may even be double-dipped.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The only evidence I've seen - e.g. Wellcome Trust's presentation - indicates the contrary.</div><div><br></div><div>And besides - if you are paying an APC for an article to be made open access, then you have entered into a contract with the publisher whereby they have to make it available openly, in accordance with the terms in that contract. They are only double-dipping if they are making it closed access and charging for it - in which case they are in breach of contract.</div>
<div><br></div><div>What do you normally do when vendors are in breach of contract?</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>The much lower cost of post-Green Fair Gold (for peer review) will be single-paid<br></div><div>out of a fraction of the institutional windfall subscription cancellation savings.</div>
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And it will all be fair, affordable, scaleable and sustainable.</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>When you really look at the total of what will need to be provided - even if you aren't paying a publisher for all of those services - then I don't believe the true costs will be "a fraction" (not globally anyway - there may be some small institutions that could benefit).</div>
<div><br></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">But lets see how we get to those subscription cancellations. In order to do that, we have to look at publisher incentives. As you submitted to the BIS report:</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/99we07.htm" target="_blank">http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/99we07.htm</a><br>
</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">"<span style="line-height:16.625px;font-size:13px">The UK’s new policy of funding Gold OA pre-emptively ... </span><span style="line-height:16.625px;font-size:13px">encouraging publishers to adopt or lengthen Green OA embargoes in order to makes sure UK authors must choose the paid Gold option."</span></font></div>
<div><span style="line-height:16.625px;font-size:13px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="line-height:16.625px;font-size:13px">Or, as stated here: </span><a href="http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html" target="_blank">http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html</a></font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">"You would offer to “allow” your authors to pay you for hybrid Gold OA ... you would ratchet up the Green OA embargo length ... to make sure your authors pay you for hybrid Gold rather than picking the cost-free option"</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">or even <a href="http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/open-access-emeralds-green-starts-to.html" target="_blank">http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/open-access-emeralds-green-starts-to.html</a></font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">"publishers like Emerald are also trying to hedge their bets and clinch the deal by adopting or extending Green OA embargoes to try to force authors to pick and pay for the hybrid Gold option instead of picking cost-free Green"</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Well, let's examine the RCUK policy. The decision tree is here:</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/9907.htm#a7" target="_blank">http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/9907.htm#a7</a><br>
</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Let's assume we're dealing with publicly funded research, and the publishers in question (Springer, Emerald) already offered a Gold option on their journals - so that's the first two questions taken care of.</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">That leaves us with the last one: "Are APC funds available from research funder?", with two options - either pay for Gold, or archive for free with [up to] 12-24 month embargo.</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">If, as contended, publishers were introducing / lengthening embargoes to force authors to pick Gold, then the embargoes would have to make a material difference to the choice made at this point.</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Both Springer and Emerald embargoes are in line with the RCUK allowable limits for publicly funded research [published in hybrid journals]. So their adoption has no material effect on the choice made to go Green or Gold.</font></div>
<div><br></div><div>Clearly, they can't have been introduced to force authors into choosing Gold. So if not that, what? The obvious reason is not to force authors into choosing Gold, but in anticipation of a large number of articles now being made publicly available via Green.</div>
<div><br></div><div>(Conversely, if a publisher really wanted authors to go Gold, then they have much easier and more effective means than embargoing Green. Namely, default routing via author-pays [aka Wellcome workflow], or simply converting to just being a Gold only journal).</div>
<div><br></div><div>It's no surprise that a commercial publisher will seek to ensure that they have revenue to pay for their costs. Embargoes / deposit restrictions will likely be used to limit the risk of Green mandates, and if the mandates are considered too risky, they are under no obligation to provide a compatible deposit policy.</div>
<div><br></div><div>So the likelihood of getting to a point of cancellation before journals have converted to being entirely Gold is very low indeed. And even if it did - if we got to a point where there was a sudden mass-cancellation of journal subscriptions, would publishers [be forced to] downsize?</div>
<div><br></div><div>No. They'll just convert their existing publications to APCs, with the all (/most) of the services retained. Because authors will continue to use them.</div><div><br></div><div>The only incentive for publishers to downsize the services they provide is if they can increase their profits by doing so.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div>I can keep on repeating this as often it takes, until people begin to understand</div><div>why it is premature and profligate to pay pre-emptively for pre-Green Gold. -- </div>
<div>I've done it with other things before (such as the need for Green OA, Green OA </div><div>mandates, Immediate Deposit, the Button, and the link to research evaluation)...</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div>
<br></div><div>You can repeat it as often as you like, but it won't change the fact that</div><div><br></div><div>a) you can only mandate authors, not publishers</div><div>b) authors can't afford to not publish</div>
<div>c) businesses need to make a profit</div><div><br></div><div>With that in mind, the best that you can hope for by mandating Green is a swift transition to Gold when it occurs. At the worst, Green mandates without guarantees from publishers could either be unfulfilled, or end up very costly for institutions, researchers and/or research.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Either way, as embargoes are more likely to be introduced / extended with more Green mandates, you are only delaying the one thing that you claim is more important to you than anything else - immediate, unembargoed open access.</div>
<div><br></div><div>G</div></div></div></div>