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"Defamatory" means attacking the reputation of something or someone. Mr. Beall's phrasing intimated that a bad choice made by DOAJ in one case was symptomatic of the whole enterprise: I was not surprised... etc.). I believe that Francis Bacon would have objected to such a cavalier use of induction to attack a worthy project. That is why I used the term "defamatory", and I believe, even though English is not my first language, that it is an appropriate use of the adjective.<BR>
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DOAJ, in the past, has not been either clueless or reluctant to act in the case of questionable journals. DOAJ has simply lacked the resources to do its job better. We, the members of the community of people concerned about the quality of OA journals might consider giving a hand to that organization, rather than criticize it out of hand. I return to the example of Wikipedia that I used yesterday in a different message: do not attack the device; correct the content!<BR>
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Jeffrey Beall's list has been and remains very useful. I even tried to help him a tiny little bit, once, to identify the nature of a questionable journal. What I do not like about Jeffrey Beall's attitude is how he uses the rogue, predatory or questionable journals as a way to tarnish the entire OA goal. For him, as it appears to me, the presence of rogue journals is enough to characterize open access as noxious. Actually, this kind of obsession is beside his (important) point, and it probably weakens his effectiveness by setting the problem of questionable journals in a questionable framework.<BR>
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The issue of rogue, predatory and/or questionable journals is tied to APC's. By organizing a business model on the basis of upstream financing by the authors or proxies, one removes the risks associated with publishing, and then looking for subscribers. Unwittingly, the APC business model opened the door to these questionable practises. This is an excellent example of an unintended consequence.<BR>
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This said, the OA movement is both green and gold, and APC-Gold is only a fraction of the whole Gold set. OA is much broader than just APC-Gold.<BR>
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Ideally, on the Gold side of things, OA journals should be gratis for authors and free (e.g. CC-by) on the readers' side. This raises the issue of how to pay for such a set-up. The solution relies on thinking out of the commercial box as a transactional model. Research itself costs billions and billions of dollars and is totally unsustainable in commercial terms. That is why governments support it, and have done so just about forever, even before the so-called "Scientific Revolution". In the US, NIH alone spends around 16-8 billion dollars per year, while the cost of all scientific journals for the whole world is around 10-12 billion dollars. My personal thesis about this is simple:<BR>
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1. The publishing phase of scientific research is an integral part of scientific research, not a separate phase;<BR>
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2. The cost of scientific publishing should be wrapped into the cost of supporting research;<BR>
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3. The cost of publishing scientific research is no more than about 2% of the cost of research (and this 2% includes the profits made by the large publishing multinationals we all know);<BR>
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4. The issue now becomes how to allocate this 2% while ensuring editorial autonomy and freedom. The answer lies in consortia of university presses and libraries, set up on an international basis to provide robustness to the whole system and put it out of reach of any single government, should it turn rogue in this regard. The Scielo model, despite some issues affecting part of its operations, provides an interesting starting point to think about the way to organize this allocation of resources. The modalities of this allocation could include a degree of competition between consortia, but this competition would be part of the Great Conversation of science: at last, the system of communication that researchers (and others) need would be under the control of research institutions.<BR>
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The devil, of course, is in the proverbial details, but having a clear vision and a clear road map may be helpful. This is my take on this level of our collective thinking.<BR>
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Jean-Claude Guédon
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Université de Montréal
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Le jeudi 14 mai 2015 à 21:12 +0000, Dana Roth a écrit :
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">I fail to see how identifying a presumed defect (i.e., DOAJ's listing of a questionable journal) is defamatory.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Since DOAJ, in the past, was essentially clueless (or reluctant to act) about questionable journals, isn't Jeffery Beal is doing the community a very important service by alerting us to what might be an unresolved problem?</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Dana L. Roth</FONT>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540</FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"><A HREF="mailto:dzrlib@library.caltech.edu">dzrlib@library.caltech.edu</A></FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"><A HREF="http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm">http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm</A></FONT><BR>
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<B><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="#000000">From:</FONT></FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="2"> goal-bounces@eprints.org [goal-bounces@eprints.org] on behalf of Jean-Claude Guédon [jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca]</FONT></FONT><BR>
<B><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Sent:</FONT></FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="2"> Thursday, May 14, 2015 9:14 AM</FONT></FONT><BR>
<B><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="#000000">To:</FONT></FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="2"> goal@eprints.org</FONT></FONT><BR>
<B><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT COLOR="#000000">Subject:</FONT></FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="2"> [GOAL] Re: Has the OA movement over-reacted to challenges on peer review?</FONT></FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Surprisingly, Dr. Schwartz has not yet noticed that a rather open and vigorous debate about OA has been going on for the better part of two decades, including debates among OA supporters. Mr. Beall is absolutely welcomed in this debate, so long as he debates (as opposed to taking potshots, for example).</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Furthermore, what I was doing was not intervening in an OA debate; it was simply reacting to Mr. Beall's defamatory comment about DOAJ (I am not too surprised... etc.).</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">DOAJ is an open, transparent, organization that tries to put some good information about OA journals. It has limited resources and it relies on a number of volunteers; in short, it does its best in a very honest fashion. It is not perfect, but few things are perfect in this vale of tears...</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Those who see mistakes in the DOAJ list should do as those who see mistakes in Wikipedia: rather than criticize the device, help correct the content.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">As for the alleged bullying dimension of my statement, I could not even begin to comment. I do not have the psychiatric credentials of Dr. Schwartz, and would not know how to handle categories that seem to change significantly every decade or so. Let me be clear, however, on one crucial point: bullying (as I understand this term - i.e. a strong individual imposing his/her will on another individual ) was not among my intentions. I was simply rising to the defence of an organization that was inappropriately attacked. It may just be that one's "vigour" is felt by the other as "bullying", but then what about a "vigorous ... debate"?</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">In conclusion, thank you for the "powerful partisan" characterization: this is an evaluation I would never have dared make about myself. </FONT><IMG SRC="cid:1431619626.18787.39.camel@pc" ALIGN="middle" ALT=":-)" BORDER="0"><BR>
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Jean-Claude Guédon
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Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Le jeudi 14 mai 2015 à 09:14 -0500, Michael Schwartz a écrit : </FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Jean-Claude Guédon's comment on Jeffrey Beall's Blog is "totally mean spirited....small." </FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">The many ongoing changes, consolidations, and innovations associated with open access require vigorous, open, and respectful debate. Presently in today's OA, we see the good...the bad...and the ugly. There is no "slam dunk" here. And, sadly, there is precious little debate. I wonder why... </FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Critics such as Jeffrey Beall should be welcomed, not shamed. Gratuitous insulting comments about their character are inappropriate, to say the least. And the more powerful and influential the bully the more inappropriate.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">As long as powerful partisan's hammer away from their bully pulpit - without reproach, a really vigorous and open debate - which MUST occur for all sorts of reasons - cannot and will not happen. How sad....</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Michael Schwartz </FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Michael Schwartz, MD </FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Clinical Professor of Psychiatry </FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine </FONT><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Founding Editor, Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Sent from my iPhone </FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">On May 14, 2015, at 8:12 AM, Jean-Claude Guédon <<A HREF="mailto:jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca">jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca</A>> wrote:</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">In his blog, Jeffrey Beall writes:</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">"I am not too surprised to find a journal that advertises fake impact factors and does a four-day peer review included in DOAJ:.."</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">This is totally mean spirited. This is small.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">DOAJ relies on all of us, and in fact regularly asks for people to review the quality of journals. If Mr. Beall devoted a small fraction of his admirable energy to helping DOAJ weed out bad journals, rather than bask in total negativism, we would all be better off.</FONT><BR>
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<FONT COLOR="#000000">Jean-Claude Guédon</FONT><BR>
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