Stevan Harnad's misconception 7

From: Velterop, Jan, Springer UK <Jan.Velterop_at_SPRINGER.COM>
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 18:04:10 +0100

Misconception: The notion that OA publishing takes away from scarce
research funds.

I'm tempted to start believing in one of the religions of the physics
domain, parallel universes. Stevan seems to live in the universe where
OA publishing - 'gold' - costs money and subscriptions don't.

In the universe where I live, formal publishing in peer-reviewed
journals costs money. In rare cases, and very small journals, this cost
may be hidden. But there are costs nonetheless. The costs are not all
that different for OA journals or subscription journals. In that
universe, research budget allocations and research grants typically
include earmarked overhead charges. These overhead charges are taken by
the research institution to pay for all manner of infrastructural costs,
including the library budget. From which subscriptions are paid.

Formal publication is part and parcel of research, and thus the cost of
publication is part and parcel of the cost of research. Any kind of
formal publishing 'eats away' a portion of scarce research funds. But
unpublished research is pretty much regarded as research not done, so
money on publication is generally well-spent.

Compare:
-OA publishing, with an aggregate cost to the scientific establishment
of X per article published (total per article: X);
-OA via self-archiving of non-OA articles, with an aggregate cost to the
scientific establishment of all the subscriptions taken (necessary in a
self-archiving model), amounting to X per article published, plus the
aggregate cost of thousands of institutional repositories and the
staffing to keep them going, amounting to Y per article (total per
article: X+Y).

Which is the greatest drain on scarce research funds?

Jan Velterop

> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPARC Open Access Forum [mailto:SPARC-OAForum_at_arl.org]
> On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
> Sent: 28 February 2007 04:09
> To: SPARC Open Access Forum
> Subject: [SOAF] Reply to Jan Velterop, and a Challenge to
> "OA" Publishers Who Oppose Mandating OA via Self-Archiving
>
> ** Cross-Posted **
>
[cut]
>
>
> 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.
>
[cut]

> 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
Received on Wed Feb 28 2007 - 19:15:48 GMT