OA

[Stevan Harnad]

On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 2:26 PM, David Wojick <dwojick at craigellachie.us>wrote:


> As I understand it your position is that all published articles should be
> immediately available for free. My question is why then anyone would
> subscribe to a journal? I am sure you have an answer but I have no idea
> what it is, as your proposal seems to defy the basic laws of economics.
> Immediate deposit seems to be self defeating. What have I missed?
>

Here's what you have missed:


Harnad, Stevan (2007) The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged
Transition<http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/265753/>
. In, Anna, Gacs (ed.) *The Culture of Periodicals from the Perspective of
the Electronic Age. *, L'Harmattan, 99-105.

*SUMMARY: *What the research community needs, urgently, is free online
access (Open Access, OA) to its own peer-reviewed research output.
Researchers can provide that in two ways: by publishing their articles in
OA journals (Gold OA) or by continuing to publish in non-OA journals and
self-archiving their final peer-reviewed drafts in their own OA
Institutional Repositories (Green OA). OA self-archiving, once it is
mandated by research institutions and funders, can reliably generate 100%
Green OA. Gold OA requires journals to convert to OA publishing (which is
not in the hands of the research community) and it also requires the funds
to cover the Gold OA publication costs. With 100% Green OA, the research
community's access and impact problems are already solved. If and when 100%
Green OA should cause significant cancellation pressure (no one knows
whether or when that will happen, because OA Green grows anarchically,
article by article, not journal by journal) then the cancellation pressure
will cause cost-cutting, downsizing and eventually a leveraged transition
to OA (Gold) publishing on the part of journals. As subscription revenues
shrink, institutional windfall savings from cancellations grow. If and when
journal subscriptions become unsustainable, per-article publishing costs
will be low enough, and institutional savings will be high enough to cover
them, because publishing will have downsized to just peer-review service
provision alone, offloading text-generation onto authors and
access-provision and archiving onto the global network of OA Institutional
Repositories. Green OA will have leveraged a transition to Gold OA.

Harnad, Stevan (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of
Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or
Delayed<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july10/harnad/07harnad.html>
. *D-Lib Magazine*, 16, (7/8)

*SUMMARY: *Plans by universities and research funders to pay the costs of
Open Access Publishing ("Gold OA") are premature. Funds are short; 80% of
journals (including virtually all the top journals) are still
subscription-based, tying up the potential funds to pay for Gold OA; the
asking price for Gold OA is still high; and there is concern that paying to
publish may inflate acceptance rates and lower quality standards. What is
needed now is for universities and funders to mandate OA self-archiving (of
authors' final peer-reviewed drafts, immediately upon acceptance for
publication) ("Green OA"). That will provide immediate OA; and if and when
universal Green OA should go on to make subscriptions unsustainable
(because users are satisfied with just the Green OA versions) that will in
turn induce journals to cut costs (print edition, online edition,
access-provision, archiving), downsize to just providing the service of
peer review, and convert to the Gold OA cost-recovery model; meanwhile, the
subscription cancellations will have released the funds to pay these
residual service costs. The natural way to charge for the service of peer
review then will be on a "no-fault basis," with the author's institution or
funder paying for each round of refereeing, regardless of outcome
(acceptance, revision/re-refereeing, or rejection). This will minimize cost
while protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality
standards.



> At 01:50 PM 10/23/2013, you wrote:
>
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:26 PM, David Wojick <dwojick at craigellachie.us >
> wrote:
>
>  The USA has the lead here, as far as major funder mandates are
> concerned, and they have opted for a 12 month publisher embargo form of
> green OA. I have several articles on this at
>  http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/author/dwojick/
>
> Peter does not even discuss what is actually happening on the policy front.
>
>
> On leads vs. lags and analysis vs argument, see:
>
>   Revealing Dialogue on "CHORUS" with David Wojick, OSTI Consultant<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1027-.html>
>
>
> The exchange is preceded by the following note (by me):
>
>
>  Note: David Wojick <http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/about/> works
> part time as the Senior Consultant for Innovation at OSTI<http://www.osti.gov/home/>,
> the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, in the Office of
> Science of the US Department of Energy. He has a PhD in logic and
> philosophy of science, an MA in mathematical logic, and a BS in civil
> engineering. In the exchanges below, he sounds [to me] very much like a
> publishing interest lobbyist, but judge for yourself. He also turns out to
> have a rather curious [and to me surprising] history in environmental
> matters <http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_E._Wojick>…
>
>
> The topic continued (and continues) to be discussed on the Society for
> Scholarly Publishing's blog, "The Scholarly Kitchen<http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/about/>,"
> where DW is a frequent contributor.
>
> DW: "Peter Suber is a leader of the OA movement. His article is an
> argument, not an analysis. He seems to be oblivious to what is actually
> going on…. Happy OA week."
>
> And a Happy OA week to DW too...
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
>  At 12:50 PM 10/23/2013, you wrote:
>
> Dear David,
>
> Sorry, could you tell us why you have the opinion that the author of the
> Guardian piece is oblivious to what is going on? What, in you eyes, is the
> main thing he seems not aware of?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Jeroen Bosman
> -----------------------------------------------
> Jeroen Bosman, subject librarian Geography&Geoscience
> Utrecht University Library
> email: j.bosman at uu.nl
> twitter:@geolibrarianUBU / @jeroenbosman
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics [
> <SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU> mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU<SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU>]
> On Behalf Of David Wojick
> Sent: woensdag 23 oktober 2013 18:24
> To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] OA
>
> Peter Suber is a leader of the OA movement. His article is an argument,
> not an analysis. He seems to be oblivious to what is actually going on.
>
> Happy OA week.
>
> David Wojick
>
> At 02:20 PM 10/22/2013, you wrote:
> >Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>  > <http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html>
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> >
> >I post this without comment.
> >
>  >
> <http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/oct/21/op>
> http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/oct/21/op
> >en-access-myths-peter-suber-harvard
> >
> >But I would be interested to hear listmembers responses/reactions
> >
> >BW
> >
> >Quentin Burrell
>
>
>
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