Re: Royal Society Offers Open Choice

From: Jan Velterop <openaccess_at_BTINTERNET.COM>
Date: Sun, 25 Jun 2006 09:32:00 +0100

I'm glad Stevan agrees with me on so many points. The only thing that
seems to separate us is the judgement that an unfunded self-archiving
mandate carries an appreciable risk of destroying the valuable system
of formal peer-reviewed journals to communicate and preserve
scientific findings. Stevan thinks there is no such risk. I think
there is, and that it is a wholly unnecessary risk. My motive is to
come to a solid, stable, economically sustainable, and reliable
method to ensure open access to the formal research journal literature.

I'm also glad that Stevan is a psychologist and not an engineer. The
'empirical' evidence on which he bases his no-risk hypothesis is
comparable to the evidence that a layer of 10 centimeters of snow
doesn't cause a roof to collapse and that there has been at least 10
years with no more than 10 centimeters of snow on any given day. He
would construct a roof that can deal with 10 centimeters of snow,
only to see it collapse when that one night comes when there is
snowfall of 25 centimeters. He would say "no problem, we'll just
rebuild the hall".

I'm also glad that he is not in charge of fire prevention. His
empirical evidence from establishing that an unsupervised toddler who
lit a whole box of matches and yet somehow didn't burn the house down
would lead him to happily hand out matches to all toddlers, since
lighting matches is a valuable learning experience for them and there
is no proof whatsoever that any houses might be burnt down. And if
they do he would simply say "no problem, we'll just rebuild them".

Stevan asks: "Can we agree to focus on money only if and when there
is objective evidence that immediate OA, through immediate self-
archiving mandates, is actually starting to make someone lose money?"

No. I'm afraid I cannot agree. First of all, I'm not focussing on
money. I'm focussing on a solid, stable, economically sustainable,
and reliable method to ensure open access to the formal research
journal literature, which I do not accept that Stevan's desired
mandates in their current formulation would bring. Secondly, would we
allow the engineer to wait for objective evidence, i.e. the collapse
of a roof, before using higher specifications with ample safety
margins? Is it necessary to wait for such objective evidence? Would
we wait for the objective evidence of a house burning down before
making sure that matches cannot be reached by toddlers?

Jan Velterop


On 25 Jun 2006, at 04:35, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> On Sat, 24 Jun 2006, Velterop, Jan Springer UK wrote:
>
>> Stevan Harnad on Saturday 6/24/2006 on the AMSCI Forum list:
>>
>>> "... if mandated SA does generate substantial institutional
>>> subscription
>>> cancellations, then those very same substantial institutional
>>> subscriptions cancellations will generate the institutional windfall
>>> savings out of which PA costs (again determined by the market and
>>> not
>>> by a-priori fiat) could be paid without taking any money away from
>>> research funding."
>>
>> I'm afraid Stevan fails to appreciate three things here:
>>
>> 1. Access to scientific literature and the formal publishing of
>> articles are not optional, but essential parts of doing research,
>> so the
>> cost of access and publishing is an essential cost of doing
>> research, and
>> in that regard entirely comparable with the cost of laboratory
>> equipment,
>> reagents, et cetera;
>
> I agree completely. I am advocating immediate OA, through immediate
> self-archiving mandates. What is your point?
>
>> 2. If the cost of essentials is seen as 'taking money away from
>> research funding, then money is already being 'taken away' from
>> research
>> funding because subscriptions are largely paid out of the overhead
>> that
>> institutions take out of research grants (often more than 50%);
>
> I agree completely. I am advocating immediate OA, through immediate
> self-archiving mandates. What is your point?
>
>> 3. Shifting payment patterns from subscriptions to open access
>> via institutional self-archiving mandates (the 'windfall' argument)
>> is unnecessarily disruptive and as such only delays open access as
>> it inevitably causes entirely predicatable and understandable doubt
>> as to the real intentions and ulterior motives of the OA 'movement'
>> (which often seems more about money than about access), and
>> consequent
>> defensive attitudes amongst publishers and scholarly societies,
>> and even
>> amongst researchers themselves.
>
> Advocating immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates is
> unnecessarily disruptive and only delays open access?
>
> And whose real intention and ulterior motive is money rather than
> access? Those who support or those who oppose immediate OA, through
> immediate self-archiving mandates?
>
>> Advocating open access should not be conflated with advocating
>> cost-evasion (the ultimate free-ridership). Access and costs are two
>> independent variables. Lower costs do not necessarily bring open
>> access;
>> and open access does not necessarily bring lower costs. But we would
>> be able to make a great deal more progress on an equal-revenue basis,
>> were that advocated more widely. The amount of money now being spent,
>> Academia-wide, on subscriptions, could, almost by definition for the
>> vast majority of journals, also fund full open access. That's what we
>> should be focussing on.
>
> Isn't that precisely what I said in your opening quotation from me,
> with
> which you were disagreeing? viz:
>
>>> "... if mandated SA does generate substantial institutional
>>> subscription cancellations, then those very same substantial
>>> institutional subscriptions cancellations will generate the
>>> institutional windfall savings out of which PA costs (again
>>> determined by the market and not by a-priori fiat) could be
>>> paid
>>> without taking any money away from research funding."
>
> I keep focussing on immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving
> mandates, and you keep fousssing on money.
>
> Can we agree to focus on money only if and when there is objective
> evidence that immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates,
> is actually starting to make someone lose money? Until then, it would
> seem, focussing on money instead of access is unnecessarily disruptive
> and only delays open access.
>
> Stevan Harnad
Received on Sun Jun 25 2006 - 11:59:44 BST