I agree with Arthur - Stevan's piece was a superb summary.
Charles
Professor Charles Oppenheim
Head
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE11 3TU
Tel 01509-223065
Fax 01509-223053
e mail C.Oppenheim_at_lboro.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arthur Sale" <ahjs_at_OZEMAIL.COM.AU>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 4:51 AM
Subject: Re: Reply to Jan Velterop, and a Challenge to "OA" Publishers Who
Oppose Mandating OA via Self-Archiving
> This is worthy of a published piece, Stevan. Edited of course.
>
> I don't know how your fingers can type so much! Best wishes.
>
> Arthur
>
> PS. Will you be in Canada in June if I come a-calling? I know it is
> difficult to predict, but I am exploring a Round-The-World ticket.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
> [mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-
>> ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
>> Sent: Wednesday, 28 February 2007 1:46 PM
>> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
>> Subject: [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM] Reply to Jan Velterop,
>> and
> a
>> Challenge to "OA" Publishers Who Oppose Mandating OA via Self-Archiving
>>
>> ** Cross-Posted **
>>
>> The online age has given birth to a very profound conflict of interest
>> between what is best for (1) the research journal publishing industry,
>> on the one hand, and, on the other hand, what is best for (2) research,
>> researchers, universities, research institutions, research funders, the
>> vast research and development (R&D) industry, and the tax-paying public
>> that funds the research.
>>
>> It is no one's fault that this conflict of interest has emerged. It was
>> a consequence of the revolutionary new power and potential for research
>> that was opened up by the Web era. What is at stake can also be put in
>> very concrete terms:
>>
>> (1) hypothetical risk of future losses in publisher revenue
>> versus
>> (2) actual daily losses in research usage and impact
>>
>> The way in which this conflict of interest will need to be resolved is
>> also quite evident: The research publishing industry is a service
>> industry. It will have to adapt to what is best for research, and not
>> vice versa. And what is best for research, researchers, universities,
>> research institutions, research funders, the R&D industry and the
>> tax-paying public in the online age is: Open Access (free online
>> access).
>>
>> The research publishing industry lobby of course does not quite see it
>> this way. It is understandable that their first commitment is to their
>> own business interests, hence to what is best for their bottom lines,
>> rather than to something else, such as Open Access, and what is best for
>> research and researchers.
>>
>> But what is especially disappointing, if not deplorable, is when
>> so-called "Open Access" publishers take exactly the same stance against
>> Open Access (OA) itself (sic) that conventional publishers do.
>> Conventional publisher opposition to OA will be viewed, historically, as
>> having been a regrettable, counterproductive (and eventually
>> countermanded) but comprehensible strategy, from a purely business
>> standpoint. OA publisher opposition to OA, however, will be seen as
>> having been self-deluded if not hypocritical.
>>
>> Let me be very specific: There are two ways to provide OA: Either
>> individual authors make their own (conventionally) published journal
>> article's final draft ("postprint") freely accessible on the Web, or
>> their journals make their published drafts freely accessible on the Web.
>> The first is called "Green OA" (OA self-archiving) and the second is
>> called "Gold OA" (OA publishing).
>>
>> In other words, one of the forms of OA (OA publishing, Gold OA) is a new
>> form of publishing, whereas the other (Green OA) is not: it is just
>> conventional subscription-based publishing plus author self-help, a
>> supplement. Both forms of OA are equivalent; both maximize research
>> usage and impact. But one depends on the author and the other depends on
>> the publisher.
>>
>> Now both forms of OA represent some possible risk to publishers' revenue
>> streams:
>>
>> With Green OA, there is the risk that the authors' free online
>> versions will make subscription revenue decline, possibly
>> unsustainably.
>>
>> With Gold OA, there is the risk that either subscription revenue will
>> decline unsustainably or author/institution publication charges will
>> not generate enough revenue to cover expenses (or make a profit).
>>
>> So let us not deny the possibility that OA in either form may represent
>> some risk to publishers' revenues and to their current way of doing
>> business. The real question is whether or not that risk, and the
>> possibility of having to adapt to it by changing the way publishers do
>> business, outweighs the vast and certain benefits of OA to research,
>> researchers, universities, research institutions, research funders, the
>> R&D industry and the tax-paying public.
>>
>> This question has been addressed by the various interested parties for
>> several years now. And after much (too much) delay and debate with
>> publishers, research funders as well as research institutions have begun
>> to take OA matters into their own hands by mandating Green OA:
>>
>> http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php
>>
>> As a condition for receiving grants, fundees must self-archive in
>> their Institutional OA Repositories (or Central OA Repositories) the
>> final drafts of all resulting articles accepted for publication: The
>> European Research Council (ERC), five of eight UK Research Councils,
>> the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Wellcome Trust have
>> already mandated Green OA self-archiving. In the US both the Federal
>> Public Research Access Act (FRPAA) and a mandated upgrade of the
>> NIH Public Access Policy are likewise proposing a self-archiving
>> mandate. Similar proposals are under consideration in Canada,
>> individual European countries, and Asia.
>>
>> In parallel, Green OA mandates have been adopted by a number of
>> universities and research institutions worldwide, requiring all of
>> their institutional research output to be self-archived in their
>> Institutional OA Repositories.
>>
>> http://roar.eprints.org/
>>
>> These Green OA mandates by research funders and institutions have been
>> vigorously opposed by some (not all) portions of the publishing
>> industry: these opponents have already succeeded in delaying the
>> adoption of Green OA mandates on a number of occasions.
>>
>>
>>
> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/3990
> 3.
>> htm
>>
>> Nevertheless, the benefits of OA to research are so great that these
>> attempts to delay or derail the Green OA mandates are proving
>> unsuccessful.
>>
>> The issue I wish to address here is the stance of (some) Gold OA
>> publishers on the Green OA mandates: Most Gold OA publishers support
>> Green OA mandates. After all, a Gold OA journal is also, a fortiori, a
>> Green journal (as are about 65% of conventional journals), in that it
>> explicitly endorses OA self-archiving by its authors.
>>
>> http://romeo.eprints.org/
>>
>> But endorsing individual author self-archiving is not the same as
>> endorsing self-archiving mandates by funders and universities. So it is
>> not surprising that although most conventional journal publishers
>> endorse individual author self-archiving, many of them oppose
>> self-archiving mandates.
>>
>> So what about those Gold OA journals that oppose Green OA mandates?
>> This is an extremely telling question, as it goes straight to the heart
>> of OA, and the rationale and justification for insisting on OA.
>>
>> Gold OA journals rightly represent themselves as differing from
>> conventional journals in that they provide OA. To put it crudely, what
>> they propose to authors is: "Publish in my journal instead of a
>> conventional journal if you want your article to be Openly Accessible to
>> all users." (And, for those Gold OA journals that charge publication
>> fees: "Publish in my journal instead of a conventional journal and pay
>> my publication fee if you want your article to be Openly Accessible to
>> all users.")
>>
>> Apart from that, there is the usual competition between journals: OA
>> journals competing with non-OA journals, and journals of all kinds
>> within the same field, competing among themselves. For conventional
>> journals and for OA Gold journals supported by subscriptions, there is
>> competition for subscription fees. For all journals there is competition
>> for authors. And for Gold OA journals that charge publication fees, the
>> competition for authors is compounded by the competition for publication
>> fees.
>>
>> What about OA itself? In order to be successful over its competition, a
>> product-provider or service-provider has to provide and promote the
>> advantages of his product/service over the competition. In the
>> competition between OA and non-OA journals, the cardinal advantage of
>> the OA journal is OA itself: OA journals provide OA, maximizing research
>> usage and impact, conventional journals do not. For subscription-based
>> Gold OA journals, OA is a drawing point. For publication-fee-based Gold
>> OA journals, OA is a selling point.
>>
>> So what about Green OA mandates? For the 35% of conventional journals
>> that have not endorsed OA self-archiving by their authors, their
>> opposition to Green OA mandates is just an extension of their opposition
>> to OA: We know where they stand. "What matters is what is best for our
>> bottom line, not what is best for research."
>>
>> For the 65% of conventional journals that are "Green" in that they have
>> endorsed OA self-archiving by their authors, those of them (their
>> percentage is not yet clear) that oppose Green OA mandates are in a
>> sense in conflict with themselves: "It's ok if individual authors
>> self-archive to enjoy the advantages of OA, but it's not ok if their
>> institutions or funders mandate that they do so." (This is an awkward
>> stance, rather hard to justify, and will probably succumb to the
>> underlying premise that OA is indeed an undeniable benefit to research.)
>>
>> But then what about opposition to Green OA mandates from Gold OA
>> publishers -- publishers that are presumably 100% committed to the
>> benefits of OA for research? This is the stance that is the hardest of
>> all to justify. For the fact is that Green OA is in a sense a
>> "competitor" to Gold OA: It offers OA without constraints on the
>> author's choice of journal, and without having to pay publication fees.
>>
>> The only resolution open to a Gold OA publisher who wishes to justify
>> opposing Green OA mandates is to adopt *precisely the same argument* as
>> the one being used by the non-OA publishers that oppose Green OA
>> mandates: that it poses a potential risk to subscription revenues -- in
>> other words, again putting what is best for publishers' bottom lines
>> above what is best for research, researchers, universities, research
>> institutions, research funders, the R&D industry and the tax-paying
>> public.
>>
>> Perhaps this was bound to come to pass in any joint venture between a
>> producer who is not seeking any revenue for his product (i.e., the
>> researcher-authors, their institutions and their funders) and a vendor
>> who is seeking revenue for the value he adds to the (joint) product.
>>
>> I happen to think that this will conflict-of-interest will only sort
>> itself out if and when what used to be a product -- a peer-reviewed,
>> published journal article, online or on paper -- ceases to be a product
>> at all (or at least a publisher's product), sold to the
>> user-institution, and becomes instead a service (the 3rd-party
>> management of peer review, and the certification of its outcome),
>> provided by the publisher to the author's institution and funder.
>>
>> http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/
>>
>> I also happen to think that only Green OA mandates can drive this
>> transition from the current subscription-based cost-recovery model to
>> the publication service-fee-based model, with the distributed network of
>> institutional OA repositories making it possible for journals to offload
>> all their current access-provision and archiving burden and its costs
>> onto the repositories, distributed worldwide, thereby allowing journals
>> to cut publication costs and downsize to become providers of the
>> peer-review service alone, with its reduced cost recovered via
>> institutional publication fees paid out of the institutional
>> subscription-cancellation savings.
>>
>> http://cogprints.org/1639/01/resolution.htm#4.2
>>
>> 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/
>>
>> But this is all hypothetical: We are not there now. Right now, the cost
>> of publication is being amply paid by subscriptions. Publishers are
>> hypothesizing that OA self-archiving mandates will make that revenue
>> source unsustainable -- but no actual evidence at all is being provided
>> to show either that the hypothesis is true, or when and how quickly
>> subscriptions will become unsustainable, if the hypothesis is true. Most
>> important, publishers are giving no indications whatsoever as to why the
>> transition scenario described above will not be the (equally
>> hypothetical, but quite natural) sequel to unsustainable subscriptions.
>>
>> Instead, the only thing publishers are offering is hypothetical doomsday
>> scenarios: the destruction of peer review, of journals, and of a viable
>> industry. Then, on the pretext of the need to protect their current
>> revenue streams and their current ways of doing business from this
>> hypothetical doomsday scenario, publishers try to block OA
>> self-archiving mandates, despite OA's substantial demonstrated benefits
>> to all the other parties involved, viz, researchers, research
>> institutions and funders, R&D industries, and the tax-paying public that
>> funds the research.
>>
>> This is indeed a conflict of interest, although the future revenue
>> losses to the publishing industry are completely hypothetical, whereas
>> the current access/impact losses to research are real and already
>> demonstrated (to the satisfaction of all except the publishing
>> industry).
>>
>> I close with a reply to Jan Velterop, of Springer's "Open Choice":
>> Springer is a subscription-based, hybrid Green/Gold publisher: It sells
>> journals by subscription, it endorses author self-archiving, it offers
>> authors fee-based Gold OA as an option, and Jan opposes Green OA
>> mandates.
>>
>> This exchange begins with an attempt to justify (some) publishers'
>> (unjustifiable) insistence on the transfer of *exclusive* rights (rather
>> than just publishing rights) to the publisher; Jan suggests that
>> transferring exclusive rights is a form of "payment" by the author to
>> the publisher. Jan never says why the rights need to be exclusive. Then
>> Jan goes on to oppose mandating Green OA self-archiving, as providing OA
>> without paying for it. (No mention is made of the fact that that all
>> publishing costs are currently being paid for already -- via
>> subscriptions...)
>>
>> > On Wed, 21 Feb 2007, Velterop, Jan, Springer UK wrote:
>> >
>> > transfer of exclusive rights to a publisher is a form of
>> > 'payment'. Payment for the services of a publisher.
>>
>> Is that so? And then what are subscription revenues? A fringe benefit?
>>
>> (I would have thought that assigning a publisher the right to publish
>> and the exclusive right to collect revenues for selling an author's
>> work, without even paying any royalties to the author, was "payment"
>> enough for the value added by the publisher...)
>>
>> > The publisher subsequently uses these exclusive rights to sell
>> > subscriptions
>> > and licences in order to recoup his costs
>>
>> Why exclusive rights?
>>
>> > The advantage is seemingly for the author, who
>> > (mistakenly) has the feeling that he doesn't have to pay for the
>> > services of formal publication of his article, but who seldom realizes
>> > why he is asked to transfer exclusive rights.
>>
>> Authors are naive, but not quite as foolish as that. They know the
>> publisher needs to sell subscriptions to make ends meet. But what you
>> haven't explained is why the publisher needs *exclusive* rights in order
>> to do that.
>>
>> > The disadvantage is that payment in the form of exclusive rights
>> > limits access, because it needs a subscription/licence model to
>> > convert this form of 'payment' into money.
>>
>> Disadvantage or no disadvantage, subscriptions are currently making ends
>> meet quite successfully.
>>
>> And you still haven't said why the rights transferred need to be
>> exclusive.
>>
>> > And subscriptions/licences are by definition restrictive in
>> > terms of dissemination.
>>
>> No problem, once the author supplements the access provided
>> by subscriptions with free online access to his own self-archived draft
>> (Green OA), providing eprints to would-be users who cannot afford the
>> published version, exactly as authors had provided reprints in paper
>> days.
>>
>> > Article-fee supported open access publishing,
>> > where the transfer of exclusive rights is replaced by the transfer of
>> > money, consequently doesn't have the need for subscriptions and can
>> > therefore abolish all restrictions on dissemination.
>>
>> Yes. But where is the need for "article-fee supported open access
>> publishing" (Gold OA) at a time when (a) most journals are
>> subscription-based, (b) subscriptions are paying the costs of
>> publishing, and (c) all the author need do is self-archive (Green OA)
>> (and all the author's funder or institution need do is mandate it)?
>>
>> > Stevan Harnad c.s. will argue that none of this matters, because
>> > there is 'green', meaning that whatever 'exclusive' rights have
>> > been transferred, authors can still disseminate their articles via
>> > self-archiving in open repositories. In that model, having transferred
>> > 'exclusive' rights is meaningless, and that implies that the 'payment'
>> > that exclusive rights transfer actually is, has become worthless.
>>
>> (1) You have not yet replied about why the transferred rights need to be
>> exclusive.
>>
>> (2) Nor about what the problem is, as long as subscriptions are paying
>> for publication costs, as they are.
>>
>> (3) If you choose to invoke the hypothetical "doomsday" scenario -- that
>> mandated self-archiving will cause cancellations and drive subscriptions
>> down to unsustainable levels -- by way of response, kindly first cite
>> (3a) the evidence that self-archiving causes subscription cancellations
>> and (3b) the arguments and evidence as to why publishing will not quite
>> naturally make the adaptive transition to the Gold OA cost-recovery
>> model that you favor, if and when self-archiving mandates ever *do*
>> cause subscriptions to become unsustainable.
>>
>> > In mandates with embargos, the 'payment' may not be completely
>> > worthless (depending on the length of the embargo) but is at least
>> > severely
>> > devalued.
>>
>> You seem to be singularly fixated (for an OA advocate) on payment rather
>> than access (at a time when all payments are being made, but much access
>> and impact is being lost).
>>
>> You also seem to be more concerned about payments than access delays,
>> and you seem to be expressing some sympathy for embargoed access over
>> immediate access in your (unsupported) defense of exclusive rights as a
>> form of "payment."
>>
>> > I am a great fan of open access, but not a great fan of 'green'.
>>
>> Translation: I am a great fan of OA as long as it is paid Gold OA. (The
>> accent seems to be on the "paid" rather than on the "OA".)
>>
>> But what is missing today is not publisher payment, but OA...
>>
>> > 'Green' is a kind of appeasement by publishers (some of who, it must
>> > be said,
>> > themselves didn't [and sometimes still don't] realise the 'payment'
>> > nature
>> > of exclusive rights transfer).
>>
>> Perhaps my interpretation is more charitable: 92% of journals did not
>> endorse Green OA (65% for immediate postprint OA) merely to "appease" or
>> "placate," but because they recognized that OA is indeed a great benefit
>> to research and researchers, and that trying to oppose OA would be
>> neither creditable nor successful.
>>
>> Jan seems to prefer the less charitable idea that endorsing Green
>> self-archiving was merely a cynical sop, granted on the assumption that
>> it would not be used, and perhaps even to be taken back, "Indian-Giver"
>> Style, if too many researchers actually went ahead and self-archived:
>>
>> http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned
>>
>> (But let us not forget that Jan is not speaking here of Springer, but of
>> the competition...)
>>
>> > Appeasement is often regretted with
>> > hindsight. Instead of allowing the nature of exclusive rights transfer
>> > to be compromised, publishers should much earlier have offered authors
>> > the choice of payment either transfer of exclusive rights, or cash.
>> > The
>> > appeasement, the 'green', now acts as a hurdle to structural open
>> > access,
>> > perhaps even an impediment.
>>
>> In other words, publishers should have refused to endorse Green OA
>> self-archiving unless they were paid extra for it. Never mind that all
>> publication costs were and still are being fully paid via subscriptions.
>> No OA without extra pay (Gold).
>>
>> Because of this impetuous Green appeasement, Springer (a Green
>> publisher) is now stuck with only being able to ask payment for Gold,
>> not for Green too...
>>
>> > Harnadian orthodoxy will dismiss this. It holds that subscription
>> > journals will survive, that they will be paid for by librarians even
>> > if the content is freely disseminated in parallel via open
>> > repositories,
>> > and that it doesn't matter anyway
>>
>> Shorn of the above rhetoric, my position is much simpler:
>>
>> Mandate self-archiving now, for immediate Green OA. If and when 100%
>> Green OA ever does cause universal subscription cancellation, then use
>> the self-same windfall subscription savings to pay for Gold OA. But not
>> now, when there is next to no OA and no Green-induced subscription
>> cancellations.
>>
>> > (the guru is tentatively beginning to admit that large scale
>> > uptake of self-archiving, for instance as the
>> > result of mandates, may indeed destroy journals)
>>
>> Nothing of the sort. There is no guru, but all I say is what I have been
>> saying all along: if and when OA self-archiving makes subscriptions
>> unsustainable, journals can and will adapt by converting to Gold OA, and
>> institutions will pay the Gold OA fees out of (a portion of) their
>> windfall subscription cancellation savings. (Only a part, because
>> journals will have down-sized to peer-review service-provision alone.)
>>
>>
> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399w
> e1
>> 52.htm
>>
>> > because a new order will only come about after the complete
>> > destruction of the old order.
>>
>> No destruction: merely a natural adaptation to the optimal and
>> inevitable, made possible by the online medium.
>>
>> > After all, morphing the old order into the new, without complete
>> > destruction,
>> > entails a cost in terms of money, which "isn't there", and anyway, the
>> > cost that comes with complete destruction of the old order is
>> > preferred
>> > to spending money on any transition, in that school of thought.
>>
>> Translation, shorn of Jan's rhetoric:
>>
>> Harnad (and many others) are objecting to needlessly (and
>> wastefully) redirecting scarce research funds toward paying for
>> Gold OA *now*, when (1) 100% Green OA is reachable without it,
>> when (2) subscriptions are still covering publishing costs, and
>> when (3) it is still a speculative matter whether and when Green
>> OA will ever cause subscriptions to become unsustainable. The
>> time to redirect funds toward paying for Gold OA is when
>> the hypothesized subscription cancellations have actually
>> materialized, so the new savings can be redirected to pay for
>> the new Gold OA publishing costs.
>>
>> And the objection isn't primarily to the redirection of scarce research
>> funds to pay for needless Gold OA costs. If the research community is
>> foolish enough to want to do that, it is welcome to do so. The objection
>> is to any further delay in mandating Green OA, wasting still more time
>> instead on continued bickering about paying pre-emptive Gold publishing
>> fees. Let research funders and institutions mandate OA Green
>> self-archiving, now, thereby guaranteeing 100% OA, now, and *then* let
>> them spend their spare time and money in any way they see fit.
>>
>> > I doubt that a complete wipe-out will come. But there are quite a
>> > large number of vulnerable journals and a partial wipe-out as a result
>> > of mandated self-archiving is entirely plausible.
>>
>> If what Jan is saying here is that journals will continue to be born and
>> die, as they do now, I agree. Green self-archiving mandates don't affect
>> journals individually, they affect them all, jointly, and the effects
>> are gradual. No one funder or institution generates the contents of an
>> individual journal. So as the percentage of self-archiving rises, there
>> will be a (possibly long) uncertain period when it is unclear how much
>> of the contents of any given journal are accessible online for free.
>>
>> If and when a point is reached where journal subscriptions do become
>> unsustainable, there will be a natural mass transition to Gold OA.
>> Before that time, it is a matter of the sheerest of sheer speculation
>> whether Green OA will or will not alter either the rate or the direction
>> of spontaneous journal births and deaths.
>>
>> > Although there seems
>> > to be a myth that journals are very, even extremely, profitable, the
>> > fact is that a great many journals are not profitable or 'surplus-able'
>> > (in not-for-profit parlance). In my estimate it is the majority. Within
>> > the portfolio of larger publishers these journals are often absorbed
>> > and cross-subsidised by the journals that are profitable. Smaller
>> > (e.g. society-) publishers cannot do that. Marginal journals do not
>> > have to suffer a lot of subscription loss before they go under. Some
>> > of these, especially society ones, will be 'salvaged' by being given
>> > the
>> > opportunity to shelter under the umbrella of the portfolio of one of
>> > the larger independent publishers. Others will just perish if they
>> > lose subscriptions. They could of course convert to open access
>> > journals
>> > with article processing fees, but setting those up is no sinecure,
>> > and requires a substantial financial commitment, as the experience of
>> > PLoS and BMC has shown. Journals that are run for the love of it, by
>> > the commendable voluntary efforts of academics, are mostly very small,
>> > and are the first to be affected, unless, of course, they do not need
>> > any income because they are crypto-subsidised by the institutions with
>> > which their editors are affiliated. Such journals have always been
>> > there and there are probably more now than ever (and some are very good
>> > indeed, or so I'm told), but to imagine scaling them up to deal with
>> > the
>> > million plus articles per year published as a result of global research
>> > efforts seems far-fetched, indeed.
>>
>> Part of this speculative account had some plausibility: Yes, journals
>> are born and die. Yes some struggle to make ends meet (irrespective of
>> OA). Yes some are subsidised. None of this has anything at all to do
>> with OA.
>>
>> The causal influence of OA on this already ongoing birth/death/survival
>> process, however, is pure speculation: Some titles will die; some will
>> migrate (possibly to OA Gold publishers like Jan's former employer,
>> BioMed Central -- which, I note in passing, has signed the EC petition
>> in support of the EC OA Self-Archiving Mandate, whereas Jan's current
>> employer, Springer, did not); some will survive, with or without
>> subsidy, just as before. Nothing to do with Green OA, either in terms of
>> rate or direction.
>>
>> http://www.ec-petition.eu/
>>
>> But where on earth did Jan get to the non-sequitur of "scaling... up the
>> [border-line and subsidised journals] to deal with the million plus
>> articles per year"?
>>
>> Journals will continue to make ends meet as they did before, on
>> subscriptions or subsidies; some will die, as they always did; others
>> will migrate. Then, if and when subscriptions become unsustainable,
>> there will be a transition (and downsizing) to OA Gold, paid for out of
>> (a portion of) the very same subscription cancellation savings that
>> drove the transition, redirected toward paying for Gold OA fees.
>>
>> Jan's own speculation only sounds like an Escher impossible-figure
>> because he chooses to portray it that way. Without the imposition of
>> that arbitrary distortion, the transitional landscape looks perfectly
>> natural.
>>
>> > Open access is the inevitable future, and it is worth working on a
>> > truly robust and sustainable way to achieve it.
>>
>> OA means free online access, and that is indeed worth reaching for right
>> now, via Green OA self-archiving mandates, which are reachable right
>> now. Jan instead recommends continuing to sit and wait for a
>> hypothetical outcome, while meanwhile refraining from reaching for a
>> sure outcome: 100% OA via Green mandates. Jan urges the research
>> community instead to "work on" finding a way to pay pre-emptively for
>> Gold OA now, when Gold OA is neither needed, nor are the funds available
>> for paying for it (without poaching them from research) because the
>> funds to pay for publishing are still paying for subscriptions.
>>
>> Caveat pre-emptor.
>>
>> Stevan Harnad
>>
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
> tml
>
Received on Wed Feb 28 2007 - 12:22:01 GMT