Jeffrey Ellis here from NY. I've been a member of this forum for some
time, and enjoy reading the discussions and debates.
I wanted to share with you a project that I have been involved with
called:
http://www.JournalReview.org
JournalReview.org allows visitors to add their own annotations to any
article indexed in PubMed. In this way, we facilitate 100% OA of post
publication discussion and debate. This is an exciting alternative to a
traditional letter to the editor, because comments submitted here are:
1. Open Access
2. Indexed directly with the original citation - so that they can be read
at the same time an abstract is read when performing a literature search
3. When comments are submitted, they are shared with authors and experts
on the topic to stimulate meaningful discussion.
4. Comments are published instantly
We have many other developments in the works, and look forward to sharing
them with you in the near future.
Any and all feedback is welcome.
Kind Regards,
Jeff Ellis, MD
Founder of JournalReview.org
On 1/13/07, Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV_at_listserver.sigmaxi.org>
wrote:
There is one message totalling 391 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Cliff Lynch on Open Access
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:15:39 -0500
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK >
Subject: Cliff Lynch on Open Access
Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Thread:
"Cliff Lynch on Institutional Archives" (started Mar 2003)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#2744
At the SPARC/ARL Forum on "Improving Access to Publicly
Funded Research
Policy Issues and Practical Strategies" (Oct 20 2006)
http://www.arl.org/forum06/
Cliff Lynch presented "Improving Access to Research Results:
Six Points"
http://www.arl.org/forum06/lynch.pdf
Some of Cliff's points are welcome and valid; some a bit more
debatable:
> 1. Open Access Is Inevitable: How Best to Get There?
>
> I don't want to spend time here arguing about a precise
definition of
> open access -- suffice it to say that open access means
an increased
> elimination of barriers to the use of the scholarly
literature...
Unfortunately, it does not suffice to say that OA is just
"increased
elimination of barriers to the use of the scholarly
literature."
OA is a very specific *special case* of the "increased
elimination
of barriers to the use of the scholarly literature," and it
does not
help to dissolve that specific case into the vaguer general
category of
"reducing barriers".
OA is: free online access to peer-reviewed research journal
articles.
Neither (i) the specific problem that OA is specifically
meant to solve --
that of making research accessible to all its would-be users
online --
nor (ii) the specific means of solving that problem is
brought into
focus by blurring the objective into "reducing barriers."
The means of solving the specific problem of OA is for
researchers'
institutions and funders to mandate OA self-archiving ("Green
OA").
"Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates: What? Where? When?
Why? How?"
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html
And although there is a link between research accessibility
and
journal affordability, that link is indirect, and subtle, in
the
online age. It would be incorrect and simplistic to imagine
that
the research accessibility problem and the journal
affordability
problem (or their respective solutions) are one and the same.
They
are not.
> There's been a lot of discussion about the desirability
and potential
> implications of federal government mandates about
deposit and access
> to the reports of findings of federally funded research.
We should
> not forget that, even in disciplines where federal
agencies are
> generous funders, a substantial part of the literature
reports on
> the results of research that isn't federally funded.
That is why the discussion is about funder *and*
institutional
mandates: That covers all research output, funded and
unfunded.
(See Lynch's own Point 2.)
> In my view, when we think about the fundamental
integrity of
> the scholarly record available for open access via the
Internet,
> we would be much better served if we can make the shift
to open
> access at the level of entire journals or entire
publisher journal
> portfolios rather than article by article.
100% OA would be welcome in any way it could be provided,
whether
Green OA, by self-archiving 100% of journal articles, or Gold
OA,
by converting 100% of journals to OA publishing, and then
publishing
therein.
But most publishers are not converting to OA Gold publishing;
and
funders and institutions cannot mandate that they convert.
Moreover (as Cliff points out in two of his other, valid
points
below) there is the sticky question of the per-article
*asking
price* for OA Gold publishing, which is rather arbitrary at
this
time. Gold OA is not worth purchasing at any price -- in view
of
the fact that Green OA is available as an alternative, and
can be mandated,
and can drive the price of Gold OA to the true cost of the
essentials.
Hence there is no earthly reason to wait and hope for a
direct
transition to 100% OA via Gold OA, journal by journal. What
needs
to be OA is the *articles,* and those can and should and will
be made
100% OA via institution/funder self-archiving mandates of
exactly
the kind that are increasingly being implemented and proposed
today:
http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php
If there is to be Gold OA at all, then the road to Gold OA is
via Green
OA. But once we have mandated 100% Green OA, we already have
100% OA,
so whether or not there is eventually a transition to Gold OA
becomes
supererogatory. Rather than speculate about it now, we should
get on
with the do-able task of mandating and providing Green OA.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we15
.htm
> We know from past experience that it's very difficult
for many
> users of the scholarly record to understand what they
are navigating
> and exploiting when there's only partial coverage.
The remedy for that "partial coverage" is not to keep waiting
for
(and/or to pay the pre-emptive asking price of) journal by
journal
Gold OA, but to mandate Green OA right now, so we can reach
100%
OA at long last.
> Of course, if we can't persuade the journals and the
publishers to
> support the move to open access, we'll have to go to
less optimal
> approaches like author self-archiving and mandates by
specific
> research funding agencies (both government and private).
How much longer does Cliff propose that we to wait, trying to
persuade journals and publishers to move? (We have already
been
waiting well over a decade now.)
And what determines whether the asking price is the right
one?
> it may well be that the threat of legislation mandating
deposit
> of research results may be doing more good, in terms of
advancing
> progress and focusing discussion on the issues with a
certain sense
> of urgency, than actual legislation would. And while I'm
not opposed
> to legislative intervention here, I'd hope that any
legislation that
> is enacted is transparent and invisible to authors who
publish with
> journals that appropriately support open access.
It is gratifying to hear that Cliff is not opposed to OA
mandates,
but this sounds a bit confusing, or confused: The mandates
are to
self-archive published articles (Green) not to publish in OA
journals
(Gold). The goal is to generate OA (Green), not to pressure
publishers
into converting to Gold.
If what Cliff means is that mandates should not constrain
publishers'
choice of journals, I agree; but journals need not even be
mentioned.
Only the requirement to deposit the final peer reviewed
draft, as
soon as it is accepted for publication, needs to be
mentioned. And
if the mandates allow an embargo period at all (I don't think
they
should, or need to, but if they are nevertheless bent upon
allowing
it, as some appear to be), let the allowable embargo be
minimal (6
months at most) and during the embargo period, while the
deposit
is in Closed Access rather than Open Access, all research
access
needs can be fulfilled via the semi-automatic EMAIL EPRINT
REQUEST
button in each Institution's Repository, which provides
almost-immediate,
almost-OA on an individual basis. Such a mandate also moots
any
journal copyright policy issues that might have constrained
the
journal-choice of the author in complying with the mandate.
> 2. Universities Have a Key Stake in the Future of the
Scholarly
> Literature and Thus Should Support Faculty in
Negotiations with
> Publishers
Here Cliff is perhaps advocating mandated rights negotiation,
which
would not be a bad idea *if* it could be successfully adopted
over
author objections that it too could constrain their choice of
journal!
And successful rights negotiation is not really necessary as
a
precondition for mandated self-archiving. Immediate deposit
can be
mandated without any reference to journal policy; 70% of
journals
already endorse immediate setting of access to Open Access.
For the
remaining 30%, access can be provisionally set to Closed
Access and
the EMAIL EPRINT REQUEST button can tide over usage needs
during
any embargo period. (Embargos will soon collapse under OA
usage
pressure in any case, as self-archiving grows.)
http://www.eprints.org/news/features/request_button.php
http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php
So the best thing universities can do for OA is not just to
throw
their weight behind rights negotiations, but to mandate
immediate
deposit, complementing the funder mandates.
> My worst nightmare is that rights to the scholarly
literature become
> so fragmented
Practices should not be dictated by nightmares but by clear
reasoning,
in the light of day: Once the full-texts of all articles are
self-archived and freely accessible online, the uses Cliff
envisages (automatic harvesting, data-mining, etc.) will all
come
with the territory. No need to keep them all in the same
(Gold)
journal for that.
> Again, this connects to the theme of the overall
integrity of the
> scholarly record, and our need to be able to manage this
record
> at scale.
The scholarly record will now be distributed across a
worldwide
network of interoperable Institutional Repositories. Articles
and
data will be the principal items of interest; and the journal
they
appeared in will simply be among their metadata tags.
> 3. We Need to Talk Directly about the Support of
Scholarly Societies
Here Cliff rightly calls into question whether the other
"good
works" of Scholarly Societies should continue to be
subsidised by
authors' lost research impact. The answer, of course, is No;
and
that will become clear to all once it is discussed openly.
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#19.Learned
But, again, what is at issue is not cajoling or coercing
publishers
-- whether Scholarly-Society, commercial or otherwise -- to
convert
to Gold. (It would be helpful if they endorsed immediate
Green, but
even that is only desirable, but not necessary in advance.)
> their journals typically are viewed as offering high
quality at
> reasonable cost, and there's no reason that they
shouldn't continue
> to be highly competitive if one moves away from a
reader-pays model.
Not if one stays with the model and simply mandates
self-archiving
(with or without publisher endorsement). (And, to repeat, OA
is not
solely, or primarily about OA Gold: it is about OA. No need
to move
way from models: just to move fingers to keyboard in order to
deposit
articles.)
> 4. We Need to Think about What We Can Afford in
Scholarly Publishing
This recommendation too, is far too focussed on OA Gold and
its
speculative economics.
What "we" need to do is to forget about affordability and to
mandate
OA self-archiving. And to move our fingers to the keyboard,
to get
going on the depositing...
> One takes the operating budget or historic revenue
stream of a
> given journal and divides by the number of articles
published
> or submitted, and announces the per-published-article
cost (or
> submitted-article-cost, if one uses that model) for an
open access
> journal.
I agree that this is an extremely arbitrary way of setting
the
asking price for OA Gold publishing. The only essential
component
of that current price is the cost of implementing peer
review, which
is somewhere between $50 and $500 per article.
But I don't agree that we should be fussing about that now at
all.
It's late in the day. Time to forget about Gold Fever and get
the
fingers moving, to provide immediate OA.
> Perhaps the system needs to be redesigned to deliver a
price point per
> article that we can afford. Suppose we redesigned
journal publishing
> with the goal of $100 per article published?
Pick your price, but this is virtual design of a virtual
solution:
Pre-emptive OA Gold.
The actual solution requires no guesstimating or publishing
reform,
voluntary or coerced, nor this continued waiting and
speculation: It
just requires that researchers' institutions and funders
mandate
OA self-archiving, now.
(And who are "We"? We are the research community: We can
mandate
self-archiving. We can move our fingers to provide the OA.
But we
can't redesign journal publishing. And we don't need to.
That's not
what OA is about. OA is about providing OA. Gold is just one
possible
way to provide OA, and it's proving to be an extremely slow
and
uncertain one, spending far more time contemplating
hypothetical
economics than providing actual OA. And it can't be mandated.
Green,
in contrast, can and does provide immediate OA, and awaits
only
being mandated in order to expand to 100%. And the mandates
are on
the way. Because they come from Us, the research community,
the
providers and users of the articles that we are seeking to
make OA.
No need to "redesign" anything but our digital kinematics --
and I don't mean financial or even cybernetic digits, but the
dactyls at the beck and call of every one of us...)
But Cliff is back at the financial digits:
> Or, if articles really must cost several thousand
dollars each,
> and we are unwilling to deal with the implications or
results of
> massively reducing costs, we need to explore what can we
do to reduce
> the number of articles going into this costly system.
By now, we have long forgotten the immediate, pressing,
solvable
problem, which is OA, and we have launched into the usual
round of
passive armchair speculations about the journal affordability
problem
and publishing reform.
> similar questions can and should be asked about
monograph publishing
Yes, but let those questions and answers be kept separate
from the
problem at hand, which is OA, i.e., in the first instance,
Open
Access to the 2.5 million articles published yearly in the
world's
24,000 peer reviewed journal, every single one of which is
and
always has been an author give-away, written solely for the
sake
of usage and impact, not for the sake of earning royalty
revenue.
Not true of monographs.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/8705/01/resolution.htm#1.1
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
First things first. Let's mandate and reach 100% OA for OA's
primary
target, journal articles, and then contemplate the
generalizability of
our fabulous success to other forms of literature.
In the meantime, no one is stopping monograph authors (or
their
fingers) from making their books OA too, if they so wish, and
if
their publishers can afford to publish them anyway. But let
us not
contemplate *mandating* that sort of thing just yet!
> 5. Open Access Is Not a Threat to Peer Review: In Fact,
It Has
> Nothing to Do with Peer Review -- but It Is Also Time to
Talk about
> Peer Review
Yes, it is not a threat. Yes, it has nothing to do with it.
And no,
OA is not the context to talk about peer review. (If this is
the time,
then it should be talked about separately, elsewhere; nothing
to do with
OA.)
> The economic model underlying a journal has nothing to
do with
> its peer review policy -- or its quality. There are many
online
> journals that practice rigorous peer review. Indeed,
going beyond
> just peer review, there seems to be no correlation
between journal
> cost and quality.
These truisms are worth repeating, since so many still fail
to grasp
them.
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#7.Peer
But Cliff raises them misleadingly: OA is not the same thing
as
Gold OA. The peer-review issue is not just raised as a
question
about the quality standards of Gold OA journals. It is also
raised
by some publishers who keep proclaiming willy-nilly the
doomsday
scenario that mandating Green OA self-archiving will destroy
journals
and peer review. That is the empty alarmism that needs to be
exposed
for what it really is:
Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N.
(2005)
Journal publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful
Co-Existence
and Fruitful Collaboration.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11160/
> At the same time -- and having just emphasized the
complete disconnect
> between open access and peer review, I almost hate to
mention this
> for fear of adding to the confusion -- we are long
overdue for
> a nuanced analysis and reevaluation of peer review
practices in
> scholarly publishing as an entirely separate issue from
open access.
Don't mention it (in this context)!
It is indeed irrelevant to OA and only adds confusion to
confusion,
and delay and indecision to what has already been
near-paralysis
for far too long...
> We need to understand the extent of these costs and
their implications.
The costs of peer review alone can be vaguely estimated now,
and
have been:
http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00000907/05/Doyle.pdf
But the only way to determine the *true* costs of peer review
alone
(once all other obsolescent publishing functions have been
jettisoned
[like print] or offloaded [like online access-provision and
archiving]
onto the distributed network of OA IRs) is to mandate Green
and then let
nature take its course in the online era.
(Don't ask me why nature couldn't take its course without the
help
of mandates, when 34,000 researchers were ready to do the
keystrokes
threatening to boycott their journals if they did not provide
OA,
but it never occurred to them to go ahead and do the
keystrokes to
provide the OA themselves! I don't know the answer. It's a
paradox,
and I've dubbed it Zeno's Paralysis. But the affliction is
curable,
by mandates, freely applied to the research community's body
politick....)
Harnad, S. (2006) Opening Access by Overcoming Zeno's
Paralysis,
in Jacobs, N., Eds. Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical
and
Economic Aspects, chapter 8. Chandos.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12094/
> 6. Scholarly Publishing Is a Means to an End
> Just because the existing scholarly publishing system
has served
> the academy fairly well in the past does not mean that
it has an
> intrinsic right to continue to exist in perpetuity.
Let those who wish to reform the scholarly publishing system
to
better serve the academy so declare their intentions and
proceed
full-speed with their worthy agenda. But let those who merely
wish
to maximise online access to a very specific subset of
scholarly
publications (peer-reviewed research articles), right now,
proceed
toward their specific, distinct, immediately reachable goal
(OA)
without being hamstrung by other admirable but irrelevant
agendas.
Stevan Harnad
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/
------------------------------
End of AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM Digest - 10 Jan
2007 to 12 Jan 2007 (#2007-5)
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