On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Martin Frank wrote:
> The following press release was posted to the DC Principles website at
> http://www.dcprinciples.org/press/2.htm.
>
> Nonprofit Publishers Oppose Government Mandates for Scientific
> Publishing
>
> Washington, DC (February 20, 2007) A coalition of 75 nonprofit
> publishers opposes any legislation that would abruptly end a
> publishing system that has nurtured independent scientific
> inquiry for generations.
And the *evidence* that mandating self-archiving -- as 5 of 8 British
research councils, the Wellcome Trust, Australian Research Council,
ANHMRC, CERN and a growing number of universities worldwide have already
done, and EC, ERC, EURAB, CIHR and FRPAA are proposing to do -- "would
abruptly end the publishing system"?
Or is this just the same doomsday prophecy we have heard (and heard refuted)
over and over, simply being repeated louder and louder?
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/
> One such measure, the Federal Research
> Public Access Act introduced in the 109th Congress would have
> required all federally funded research to be deposited in an
> accessible database within six months of acceptance in a
> scientific journal. Some open access advocates are pressing for
> the introduction of a similar measure in the 110th Congress.
A measure that, as noted above, is already being adopted worldwide,
because of its vast benefits to research, researchers, their institutions, their
funders, the vast research and development industry, and the tax-paying public
that funds the research.
http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php
Are evidence-free doomsday prophecies from one service industry supposed
to be grounds for denying these benefits to research, researchers, their
institutions, their funders, the vast research and development industry,
and the tax-paying public that funds the research?
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/key-perspectives.pdf
Or is this just the flea on the tail of the dog, endeavouring to wag the dog?
> In essence, such legislation would impose government-mandated
> access policies and government-controlled repositories for
> federally funded research published in scientific journals,
> according to members of the Washington DC Principles for Free
> Access to Science Coalition.
The self-archiving mandates require publicly funded research to be made publicly
accessible to all users. The rhetoric of "government control" is shrill nonsense,
in line with the data-free doomsday prophecies.
Is this the program of disinformation that the "DC Principles" Coalition
have been counselled to disseminate by the esteemed public relations
consultants of their STM confreres?
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070122/full/445347a.html
> "We as independent publishers must determine when it is appropriate
> to make content freely available, and we believe strongly it should not
> be determined by government mandate" [said Martin Frank of the American
> Physiological Society and coordinator of the coalition]
The public funds it, researchers and their institutions conduct, write
and peer-review it, all for free, but "publishers must determine
when it is appropriate to make it freely available"? In exchange for
having been given it free to sell, for having peer-reviewed it for free,
and for having paid dearly for subscriptions in order to access it?
That's an awfully big price the public and the research community and
research progress, and research applications are all expected to pay in
exchange for the 3rd-party management of their free peer review service.
How much longer does the DC Principles Coalition imagine that the research
community, the tax-paying public, and the vast research applications
industry will keep giving this hollow assertion of right-of-determination,
amplified by empty prophecies of doom, the undue credence it has enjoyed
to date?
> The Coalition also reaffirmed its ongoing practice of making
> millions of scientific journal articles available free of charge,
> without an additional financial burden on the scientific
> community or on funding agencies. More than 1.6 million free
> articles are already available to the public free of charge on
> HighWire Press.
Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that their authors,
funders and institutions likewise want to make freely available, as per the
proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates?
> "The scholarly publishing system is a delicate balance between
> the need to sustain journals financially and the goal of
> disseminating scientific knowledge as widely as possible.
> Publishers have voluntarily made more journal articles available
> free worldwide than at any time in history -- without government
> intervention," noted Kathleen Case of the American Association
> for Cancer Research.
Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that their authors,
funders and institutions likewise want to make freely available, as per the
proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates?
> The Coalition expressed concern that a mandate timetable for free
> access to all federally funded research would harm journals,
> scientists, and ultimately the public.
The doomsday prophecy again, repeated ever more shrilly to compensate for the
complete absence of evidence in its support.
> Subscriptions to journals with a high percentage of federally funded
> research would decline rapidly.
If and when the demand for a product declines, it is time to cut
costs. If and when publishing downsizes to just the management of the
peer review service, the institutional savings from the (hypothesized)
subscription-declines will be more than enough to pay for peer review,
per article published, on the open-access publishing model.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
> Subscription revenues support the quality control system
> known as peer review and also support the educational work of
> scientific societies that publish journals.
Subscriptions revenues will continue to flow as long as there is enough demand
for the product. Once the only product needed is the peer review management
service, the institutional savings will be enough to pay for its costs several
times over.
At no time has the research community, its institutions or its funders, or the
tax-paying public that funds its funders, been asked, nor has it ever agreed, to
subsidise "the educational work of scientific societies" with its own lost research
access and impact.
> Undermining subscriptions would shift the cost of publication
> from the publisher who receives subscription revenue to the
> researcher who receives grants. Such a shift will:
>
> * Divert scarce dollars from research. Publishers now pay the
> cost of publication out of subscription revenue; if the authors
> have to pay, the funds will come from their research grants.
No. Publication costs are currently being paid out of subscription revenues. On
the hypothesis that institutions cancel those subscriptions, it is those same
subscription revenue savings that can continue to pay for (what is left of)
publication costs, per paper published. Not a penny of research grants need ever
be redirected. The subscription savings will be redirected.
> Nonprofit journals without subscription revenue have to rely on
> grants, which further diverts funding from research.
Journals that are subsidised today can continue to be subsidised tomorrow.
Journals that are subscription-based today, if/when their subscriptions are
cancelled, can be paid for (what is left of) their costs, per article, from
the author's institutional subscription savings.
More than enough money is in the system. No doomsday scenario. Just downsizing
and redirection of windfall savings.
> * Result in only well-funded scientists being able to publish
> their work.
Utter nonsense. See arithmetic above.
> * Reduce the ability of journals to fund peer review. Most
> journals spend 40% or more of their revenue on quality control
> through the peer review system; without subscription income and
> with limitations on author fees, peer review would suffer.
When there is no more demand for anything but peer review, institutions will have
saved 100%, of which they need merely redirect 40% to pay for the peer review of
their own publications. (Please do the arithmetic.)
> * Harm those scientific societies that rely on income from
> journals to fund the professional development of scientists.
> Revenues from scholarly publications fund research, fellowships
> to junior scientists, continuing education, and mentoring
> programs to increase the number of women and under-represented
> groups in science, among many other activities.
At no time has the research community, its institutions or its funders,
or the tax-paying public that funds its funders, been asked, nor has it
ever agreed, to subsidise "the professional development of scientists,
research, fellowships to junior scientists, continuing education, and
mentoring programs" with its own lost research access and impact.
> Members of the DC Principles Coalition have long supported
> responsible free access to science and have made:
>
> * selected important studies immediately available online, in
> their entirety and at no charge
>
> * studies available at no cost to patients who request them
>
> * all abstracts immediately available online at no charge
>
> * full text of the journal available at no charge to everyone
> worldwide within months of publication, depending on each
> publisher's business and publishing requirements
>
> * all journal content available free to scientists working in
> many low-income nations
>
> * articles available free of charge online through reference
> linking between journals
>
> * content available for indexing by major search engines so that
> readers worldwide can easily locate information
Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that their authors,
funders and institutions likewise want to make freely available, as per the
proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates?
> "By establishing government repositories for federally funded
> research, taxpayers would be paying for systems that duplicate
> the online archives already maintained by independent
> publishers," Case noted.
With the slight difference that the contents of the OA archives will be freely
accessible to all, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates.
> "The implications of the U.S. government
> becoming the world's largest publisher of scientific articles
> have not been addressed," she added.
Self-archiving mandates are for providing access to published articles, not for
publishing them. In an online world, publishing means certifying papers as having
met a journal's peer-review quality standards. That means the peer review
service. That's all.
The implied "government monopoly" subtext is again just empty rhetoric, designed
to inflame, not to inform honestly.
> According to Frank, "As not-for-profit publishers, we believe
> that a free society allows for the co-existence of many
> publishing models, and we will continue to work closely with our
> publishing colleagues to set high standards for the scholarly
> publishing enterprise."
Amen.
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/
Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
Chaire de recherche du Canada Professor of Cognitive Science
Ctr. de neuroscience de la cognition Dpt. Electronics & Computer Science
Université du Québec à Montréal University of Southampton
Montréal, Québec Highfield, Southampton
Canada H3C 3P8 SO17 1BJ United Kingdom
http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/ http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Received on Wed Feb 21 2007 - 03:04:39 GMT