Dear All,
There have been concerns expressed recently that the growing interest
in "author pays" Open Access might be viewed by some as an
opportunity to engage in "get-rich-quick" schemes. One fear is that
opportunists might trawl institutional repositories for papers and
then email the authors offering to publish them as chapters in "Open
Access" books, for which the author is asked to pay a fee, but for
which he or she gets very little in return.
Indeed, it is an issue that has been raised in this Forum, and has
led to fears that the practice could dissuade researchers from
self-archiving their papers.
The central issue, it would seem, is whether a publisher engaging in
this activity plans to edit the papers and then publish them in a
high-quality collection that is available both online (OA) and in
print (for a fee), and at a reasonable charge to the author, or
whether the publisher is asking authors to hand over money for an end
product that might turn out to be little more than a poor-quality
product consisting of miscellaneous papers thrown together in a
haphazard, ad hoc manner.
In other words, do such publishers intend to produce a valuable
collection of papers on targeted topics written by the most
appropriate authors (and on an OA basis), or are they asking
contributors to hand over money for what might prove to be little
more than a variation on vanity publishing?
If the aim is the former then we should perhaps conclude that it is a
welcome extension of OA to book publishing. If the latter, then the
concerns that are being expressed by those being contacted by these
publishers may be justified.
One publisher who has been contacting academics and inviting them to
publish their papers in Open Access books is Vienna-based I-Tech
Education and Publishing. So I contacted the company and put the
above concerns to the CEO Dr. Vedran Kordic. Below is his response,
which was also copied to Stevan Harnad with a request that he
comment.
I think Dr. Kordic's reply also raises some interesting questions
about the challenges faced by small publishers seeking to embrace
Open Access, and/or extend the model into book publishing.
Regards,
Richard Poynder
www.richardpoynder.co.uk
http://poynder.blogspot.com
>>
Dear Professor Harnad,
Dear Mr Poynder,
Mr Richard Poynder contacted us regarding the possible scam calls for
the book chapters on "author pays" basis. He mentioned the link
http://listserver.sigmaxi.org/sc/wa.exe?A2=ind07&L=american-scientist-open-a
ccess-forum&D=1&O=D&F=l&S=&P=102280
discussing this matter.
Open access database:
www.i-techonline.com or direct link to open access books
www.books.i-techonline.com This database consists of 2 Journals,
International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems (now in the 5th
year) and Journal of Humanoids (first number will be launched in
March 2008), and, at the moment, 15 books covering fields of
artificial intelligence, manufacturing & automation and robotics.
Till end of the year there will be another 5 new books covering
Soccer Robotics, Multiprocessor Scheduling, Swarm Intelligence, Petri
Nets and Reinforcement Learning.
To state in numbers there is more than 1500 authors published to date
in the open access mode by us. There is no one of them thinking that
this is a kind of online cheat or that we are working on pay-publish
mode (see Quality of published material).
Database content:
This database is specialised on topics: artificial intelligence,
manufacturing & automation and robotics. I and my colleagues working
on ths project made a PhD on these topics, thus we are aware that
there is not much free accessible high quality up to date material on
the web. We had a chance to use a library of Vienna Technical
University, subscribed on almost all first class journals (although
they cannot allow to subscribe to all of them). My colleagues from
other countries do not have luck to have such advanced source of up
to date materials.
Quality of published material:
Published material can be downloaded thus the quality of published
material is our primary concern (high transparency). Quality of
materials given is the only way to become popular, to be "used" on
regular basis. Otherwise stated we cannot allow poor designed
material to be published.
To ensure higher quality from the beginning (authors are first asked
to submit chapter proposals, upon editor of the book decide whom to
call to submit full chapter) we search for possible authors based on
their quality of research, publishing history & quality of previously
published material (ISI record for example). Thus our calls for
contributions for books are closed one, only invited authors can
propose a chapter for the book.
Encountered problems by getting well known authors:
They tend to ask money for publishing instead to pay for it. This is
certainly a problem which we can partially avoid by calling them to
publish free of charge.
Content of books:
All our topics are very narrow, for example we are preparing the book
on Recurrent Neural Networks. This narrow specialisation ensures high
concentration on the topic, seen only by high quality journal special
issues. And I know from my own experience how difficult is to get
such editions and how useful they can be.
Online content / time delay
Upon the book is published the same content can be downloaded from
the web page, as a whole book or separately each chapter/paper in
PDF. PDF format is nowadays a standard, ensuring wide compatibility
with different operating systems/browsers. There is a time delay of
max. few days between publishing of hard copy and online edition
caused by our limited capacity/our other duties.
Open access model:
The authors willing to contribute have to pay a publishing fee in
amount of 380 Euro. This is the lowest fee ensuring high quality
book. This money is used to cover all steps in the production which
cannot be done solely by our work, such as book editor work (although
we have well known editors willing to work free of charge too),
review process, preparation for the press, cover design, press of the
book, package & postage of the book. Each author gets one exemplar of
the book. All our books are hard copy pressed on premium quality
paper. Also authors from low-income countries get discounted fee or
the fee is waived (for example authors from India, we have also
authors from Bangladesh, there is 380 Euro a little fortune).
Book production Process:
Selected authors are called to submit their proposals for the book
chapter. Based on the material book editor decides which authors will
be called to submit full chapters. Upon editor check the quality of
material submitted and, if necessary rejects poor designed chapters
and or propose modifications. Thus editor expertise in the field is
directly correlated to the quality of the future book. This is the
reason why we spend a lot of time selecting possible editors.
Accepted material is then prepared for the press. There is 2 proof
readings cycles, if necessary more then 2. Upon authors get a green
light the book is pressed. Each author gets one exemplar of the book
(included in publishing fee).
Average time between first call for chapters and press of the book is
8 months.
Copyright:
There is no "classical" copyright. We are asking authors to give us
permission to press their material in our publications and to ensure
that the submitted material is their intellectual property not
copyrighted by other publishers and that they are solely responsible
for the content not the editor of the book or publisher.
Do we sell books?
Authors of the chapters can buy additional copies of the book for 50
Euro. This seems to be high but these books are pressed in low
batches and postage is included in the price. We offered paperback
edition for only 18 Euro (postage incl.) too, but till now we do not
have even one willing to order this edition, thus we do not produce
it any more.
Why 380 Euro?
This is the lowest amount ensuring production of high quality book.
We had books with more than 30 chapters, but narrow specialisation on
topics lower the number of published chapters to average 22. We have
editions with only 12 chapters too (now in final state before the
publishing, to be pressed / online end of January).
Transparency of the fact that there is a publishing fee to be paid:
In the call for chapters there is a part directly stated that the fee
is 380 Euro per chapter. We ask our authors not to exceed 26 pages
written according to the instructions for authors but we had chapters
as long as 64 pages. Also at online version of the call there is a
part discussing the payment. There is no hidden parts or "small
letters". Also each author can withdraw their chapter till 2nd proof
reading cycle (the last one before the press of the book).
I am aware that there is a number of "problematic" calls out there
and that we do not have a name (such as PLOS have) but we are working
on. Hopefully our results speak for us.
Discussions such this one on AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM can
have very negative response and put us in negative light. Thus I will
be happy if you can check what we are doing (www.i-techonline.com)
and give your answer/report on the forum. I do not know who started
this campaign but I can bet that he/she/they do not publish by us.
Dear Professor Harnad your work on open access is well known and your
statement will help us to end this discussion. Also your comments on
our work are more than welcome.
I would like to thank to Mr Poynder who pointed us to this
discussion.
We were not aware that such discussions even exist.
I will appreciate if you can give me other online sources discussing
our work. I hope we have a right to respond.
For any further question please contact me or Dr. Aleksandar Lazinica
asap.
Rg,
Vedran Kordic
Received on Fri Dec 07 2007 - 01:44:22 GMT