<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 5:24 AM, David Prosser <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:david.prosser@rluk.ac.uk" target="_blank">david.prosser@rluk.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br><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 style="word-wrap:break-word">
While we huff and puff about Berlin 12 and ridiculous suggestions that the entire open access movement is slipping ‘into closed mode’, Elsevier is having confidential meetings with UK Government Ministers of State. Meetings that are apparently not covered
by the Freedom of Information Act:
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/302242/response/745563/attach/3/FOI%20Request%20ref%20FOI2015%2025797%20Meetings%20between%20BIS%20officials%20ministers%20and%20Elsevier%20Thompson%20Reuters.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/302242/response/745563/attach/3/FOI%20Request%20ref%20FOI2015%2025797%20Meetings%20between%20BIS%20officials%20ministers%20and%20Elsevier%20Thompson%20Reuters.pdf</a><br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I know which of these cases of ‘secrecy’ I find more concerning. -- David</div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Spot-on, David. </div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Elsevier's "confidential" <a href="https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=GJhyVJa4I8qC8QfFsIHIDg&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:openaccess.eprints.org+(lobby+OR+lobbying)" target="_blank">lobbying and deal-making</a> -- especially with the UK's gullible government that led to the infamous <a href="https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=GJhyVJa4I8qC8QfFsIHIDg&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:openaccess.eprints.org+finch" target="_blank">Finch fiasco</a> (not yet over, but damage-limited now by the <a href="https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=GJhyVJa4I8qC8QfFsIHIDg&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:openaccess.eprints.org+((HEFCE+OR+REF2020)+%22immediate+deposit%22)" target="_blank">HEFCE/REF2020 immediate-deposit mandate</a>) -- is where the real action (and damage) is.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">The endless, empty Berlin/Max-Planck performance series is of no interest or consequence.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">The silly sniping at EOS by PM-R & RA are just light entertainment at a time when there is no substantive OA news to report.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><b><i>Ceterum censeo</i></b>,<i> if effective immediate-deposit mandates are adopted by all funders and institutions, the Elsevier lobbying will be completely unavailing and ineffectual. </i></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">Of course Elsevier knows this, and hence the thrust of their "confidential" lobbying is transparent to anyone who has been paying attention:</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">(1) Show "confidential" financial data that make it look as if OA can be had at no extra cost over current expenditures, </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">(2) in the form of paid Gold OA, </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">(3) if funders and institutions simply "<a href="https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=GJhyVJa4I8qC8QfFsIHIDg&gws_rd=ssl#q=host:openaccess.eprints.org+(%22leave+it+to+us%22+OR+trojan+OR+CHORUS+OR+%22Let+us%22)">leave it to us</a>" [publishers] to manage a "gradual transition" (certainly not a "flip." which publishers know full well would be highly unstable and impermanent, and would quickly transform into a "flop" because of institutional, funder and national defections)</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><b>(4) and, most important, desist from mandating immediate Green OA, which would -- they never cease to bray -- <u>destroy the entireêer-reviewed research journal publication system</u>.</b></div></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">That's about it. It's all bogus, and easily shown to be bogus, but as long as the publishing lobby can make its pitch behind closed doors, with no one to provide the evidence that it's bogus, they can keep retarding progress.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">But I can't say it enough:</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">If all funders and institutions just go ahead and mandate immediate-deposit (not even necessarily immediate-OA, thanks to the Button) <i>then there is absolutely nothing publishers and the publishing lobby can do to stop all the dominoes from falling</i> -- all the way from universal OA to the phasing out of everything except peer review to the conversion to Fair Gold with all the re-use rights the open data people are seeking.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">And that's not "destroying the entire peer-reviewed research journal publication system" but updating it to what is possible today, but prevented by the publishers' strangle-hold on the obsolete status quo.</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;font-size:medium">Harnad, S (2014) </span><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/04/28/inflated-subscriptions-unsustainable-harnad/" style="font-family:-webkit-standard">The only way to make inflated journal subscriptions unsustainable: Mandate Green Open Access</a><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard;font-size:medium">. </span><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard">LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog </i><i style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:-webkit-standard">4/28 </i></div></div></blockquote><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br><div> SH</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 style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>
<div><br>
<br>
<div>
<div>On 21 Dec 2015, at 10:06, Richard Poynder <<a href="mailto:richard.poynder@cantab.net" target="_blank">richard.poynder@cantab.net</a>> wrote:</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div lang="EN-GB" link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
The 12th Berlin Conference was held in Germany on December 8th and 9th. The focus of the conference was on “the transformation of subscription journals to Open Access, as outlined in a recent white paper by the Max Planck Digital Library”.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
<u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
In other words, the conference discussed ways of achieving a mass “flipping” of subscription-based journals to open access models.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
<u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
Strangely, Berlin 12 was "by invitation only". This seems odd because holding OA meetings behind closed doors might seem to go against the principles of openness and transparency that were outlined in the 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge
in the Sciences and Humanities.<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
<u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
Or is it wrong and/or naïve to think that open access implies openness and transparency in the decision making and processes involved in making open access a reality, as well as of research outputs?<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
<u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
Either way, if the strategy of flipping journals becomes the primary means of achieving open access can we not expect to see non-transparent and secret processes become the norm, with the costs and details of the transition taking place outside the purview
of the wider OA movement? If that is right, would it matter?<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
<u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
Some thoughts here: <a href="http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/open-access-slips-into-closed-mode.html" target="_blank">
http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/open-access-slips-into-closed-mode.html</a><u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
<u></u> <u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;line-height:normal">
Richard Poynder<u></u><u></u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p>
</div>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
GOAL mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:GOAL@eprints.org" target="_blank">GOAL@eprints.org</a><br>
<a href="http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal" target="_blank">http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
GOAL mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:GOAL@eprints.org">GOAL@eprints.org</a><br>
<a href="http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div></div>