Open Access Archivangelism - Comments

Stevan Harnad: Paid-Gold OA, Free-Gold OA & Journal Quality Standards

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:39:04 +0100

Björn Brembs wrote: "I'd be very hesitant to equate downloads/citations with quality. Large-scale studies over the last ten, twenty years have shown no, or, in some cases even an inverse relationship with other quality measures and citation-based journal ranks:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.3748
In no case was there a positive relationship. In other words, citations don't seem to be indicative of quality, only of 'perceived importance' which seems to be, if at all, an inverse predictor of quality.

"The most consequential conclusion from this data is to assume that there is no quality relationship between journals and their articles, until there is solid data indicating such a relationship."

REPLY: The review you cite concerns journal rank (journal impact factor, journal average citation count). I was referring to individual article (or author) download and citation counts.

It would be very surprising if the articles researchers choose to download, cite and use had no relation to their importance or quality.

I would agree, though, with a call to validate download and citation counts against other measures of quality and importance.

Harnad, S. (2008) Validating Research Performance Metrics Against Peer Rankings. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics 8 (11) doi:10.3354/esep00088 The Use And Misuse Of Bibliometric Indices In Evaluating Scholarly Performance http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/15619/

Harnad, S. (2009) Open Access Scientometrics and the UK Research Assessment Exercise. Scientometrics 79 (1) Also in Proceedings of 11th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics 11(1), pp. 27-33, Madrid, Spain. Torres-Salinas, D. and Moed, H. F., Eds. (2007) http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/17142/

Stevan Harnad: How Elsevier Can Improve Its Public Image

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 04:13:23 +0100

1. Yes, this is an example of Elsevier's double-talk, as described.

2. Yes, this is one of the perverse effects of the Finch/RCUK policy, as predicted.

3. The right author strategy is to deposit and make immediately OA, ignoring the double-talk.

Elisa Mason: How Elsevier Can Improve Its Public Image

nospam@example.com (Elisa Mason) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:47:36 +0000

I was looking for information on the self-archiving policy for Social Science & Medicine, an Elsevier journal. On their "Green Open Access" page (http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/green-open-access), I found this note: "Accepted author manuscripts (AAM): Immediate posting and dissemination of AAMs is allowed to personal websites, to institutional repositories, or to arXiv. However, if your institution has an open access policy or mandate that requires you to post, Elsevier requires an agreement to be in place which respects the journal-specific embargo periods. Click here for a list of journal specific embargo periods (PDF) and see our funding body agreements for more details."
The page for "Funding Body Agreements" has a sub-section for RCUK (see http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/funding-body-agreements/research-councils-uk) which notes "From the 1st April 2013, authors publishing in Elsevier open access journals will be compliant with the new Research Councils UK (RCUK) open access policy or, if funding is not available to publish open access, can comply by self-archiving their accepted author manuscripts after journal-specific embargo periods." And the embargo periods range from 12-48 months (36 for Social Science & Medicine)! (See the list at http://cdn.elsevier.com/assets/pdf_file/0018/121293/external-embargo-list.pdf). So aren't authors (esp. in SS&H) effectively being pushed towards Elsevier's Gold options given RCUK's preferred timeframes for Green OA?

Stevan Harnad: Institutional Repository "Business Model" for Open Access Publishing?

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:43:11 +0000

Institutions don't pay for a subscription in phase VII. They just pay for Post-Green Gold OA for their own individual outgoing articles -- which means for just the service of peer review.

The cost of this Post-Green Gold OA, for all of an institution's annual journal article output, will be much less than the cost of their (former) annual incoming subscriptions, even for the most prolific institutions.

Please see Houghton & Swan's cost/benefit analyses:

Houghton, John W. & Swan, Alma (2013) Planting the green seeds for a golden harvest: Comments and clarifications on Going for Gold D-Lib Magazine 19(1/2)
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january13/houghton/01houghton.html

David Stern: Institutional Repository "Business Model" for Open Access Publishing?

nospam@example.com (David Stern) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:14:17 +0000

Why would most organizations pay for a subscription in phase VII? Only those authors/organizations producing articles would really choose to subsidize the peer review aspects, and there are so few major producers that they could not cover the full peer review costs ... even if the costs are reduced through dropping unnecessary add-ons that exist only due to paper distribution. The long tail drop-off would doom the subscription model, and the few heavy producers will not be able to, or want to, subsidize all the reader desires for peer review. Why shouldn't the readers (or their taxes) cover some of the costs since they receive real value from the publications? Perhaps author fees could be replaced with national subsidies for peer review operations ... housed at universities for reduced costs compared to commercial operations.

Stevan Harnad: Fred Friend on Martin Hall on UK Finch Report on OA

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:56:08 +0000

1. You have profoundly misunderstood what "Green OA" means: It is the self-archiving of already-published, hence already-peer-reviewed articles. There's no reason whatsoever for repositories to do peer review! That's what journals' referees and editors do.

2. The publication (and peer review) is already paid for by subscriptions. So there's no need for any extra funds to provide OA: Just provide Green OA by self-archiving your (published) articles.

3. The UK used to be the world wide leader in OA: It provided the first Green OA repository software, the first Green OA mandates, and the first economic model for Gold OA. But now, under the joint influence of the publishing lobby and Gold fever, the UK has lost its worldwide leadership (unless it fixes the RCUK mandate to make immediate deposit mandatory for all articles, whether subscription or Gold).

Stevan Harnad: Is It True That It's Illegal To Mandate Green OA Self-Archiving in Germany?

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:37:38 +0000

Lambert:

1. Yes, you have to mandate self-archiving -- only 20% of authors do it unmandated.

2. Even fewer publish in Gold OA journals unmandated, because there are few suitable Gold OA journals and many cost extra money to publish in.

3. Researchers' funders and institutions can mandate self-archiving of their publications, just as they mandate publishing of their research ("publish or perish").

4. Researchers' funders and employers cannot mandate that publishers convert to Gold OA; nor can they afford to pay for Gold OA while they are paying in full for subscriptions; nor can they cancel subscriptions unless the articles are accessible to their users in some other way.

5. That other way is Green OA; and that's why Green OA has to be mandated first, rather than to keep waiting passively for Gold OA, and double-pay for it while subscriptions still prevail.

Harnad, S. (2007) The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition. In: Anna Gacs. The Culture of Periodicals from the Perspective of the Electronic Age. L'Harmattan. 99-106. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/13309/

Harnad, S. (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib Magazine 16 (7/8). http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/21348/

Stevan Harnad: Is It True That It's Illegal To Mandate Green OA Self-Archiving in Germany?

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 00:26:01 +0000

Joachim:

1. Unmandated Green OA is about 20% globally, and has hardly budged for 20 years; so, no, you can't be against Green OA mandates if you are for Green OA.

2. Green OA mandates leave authors free to choose where and when to publish their papers: they simply require authors to make their papers -- whenever and wherever they have chosed to publish them -- OA, by self-archiving them.

3. Yes, if the funders or employers of researchers can mandate that they "publish or perish," they can mandate that they "self-archive [their publications] to flourish."

4. Yes, Joachim, you (and the rest of that global baseline of 20%) don't need a mandate to provide Green OA; but the remaining 80% do. And 100% or researchers require access to 100% of research.

Harnad, S. (2006) Publish or Perish -- Self-Archive to Flourish: The Green Route to Open Access. ERCIM News 64. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11715/

Harnad, S (2012) The Optimal and Inevitable outcome for Research in the Online Age. CILIP Update September 2012 http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/342580/

Lambert Heller: Is It True That It's Illegal To Mandate Green OA Self-Archiving in Germany?

nospam@example.com (Lambert Heller) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:17:01 +0000

So you seem to have (at least) to enforce green road-style "self archiving" to make it happen in large scale. Then why not strengthen OA by pushing golden road-style journals - where you don't have to put any pressure on authors, and no additional measures need to be taken (since everything is already in the open)?

Joachim Schopfel: Is It True That It's Illegal To Mandate Green OA Self-Archiving in Germany?

nospam@example.com (Joachim Schopfel) — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:31:41 +0000

Stevan, I think you can be advocate of green OA self-archiving and opposed to mandate, can't you? I think the debate on academic freedom is not a debate on OA but on degrees of freedom and individual choice of where and how you decide to publish your papers. Should this decision depend on government, institution or a funding body? I published nearly all of my papers through green OA (HAL) without any mandate, I dont' need mandate and I don't like this kind of coercitive measures. Joachim.

Clayton Bingham: Fred Friend on Martin Hall on UK Finch Report on OA

nospam@example.com (Clayton Bingham) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 01:58:22 +0000

At least from an American perspective...I doubt the relationship between U.S. and U.K. researchers will be strained but I would not be surprised by an increased amount of pressure on U.S. legislators to "catch up". This is characterized by a growing frustration with a desire to publish OA but a lack of funds allocated to pay for the practice. A lot of U.S. researchers are requesting those OA fee waivers despite the fact that U.S. budgets are the most likely to be able to pay for them.

I support the idea that the Finch report is not necessarily biased against green OA...In my mind, the primary reason to de-emphasize green OA in preference (though the Finch report may or may not be doing that) for Gold OA is the lack of peer-review infrastructure provided by repositories.

However, the funding structure the U.K. has released recently seems to imply that 75% of volume will be supported in a Gold OA format with the remaining manuscripts being relegated to repositories. This "relegation" may not mean a dead paper...but simply that the paper requires more refining prior to Gold OA publication.

It is a gamble but cultural momentum is on the side of the U.K.

Chris Maloney: Disambiguating RCUK's Open Access Policy Statement

nospam@example.com (Chris Maloney) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 22:05:13 +0100

I think they'd also need to change "2. ... the journal must allow deposit ...." to "2. ... The journal allows deposit ...."

Once you've removed the first clause, the "must" has to go, otherwise it is saying that an RCUK journal has to have GREEN, whether or not it has GOLD.

Stevan Harnad: Overselling the Importance and Urgency of CC-BY/CC-BY-NC for Peer-Reviewed Scholarly and Scientific Research

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 00:35:48 +0100

PRIORITIES AND PRAGMATICS

1. I said data-mining locally; and I didn't say re-publishing

2. I said CC-BY was suicide for a subscription publisher.

3. Article text data-mining is useful, and in a few specialty fields (like genomics and crystallography) very important and urgent. But in most fields it is not, whereas free online access for all users (not just subscribers) is important and urgent in all fields. It is also immediately reachable (via Gratis Green OA mandates) whereas Libre OA is not.

Dan S: Overselling the Importance and Urgency of CC-BY/CC-BY-NC for Peer-Reviewed Scholarly and Scientific Research

nospam@example.com (Dan S) — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:47:15 +0100

You claim that the right to data-mining is "green" OA not gold. I disagree: data-mining is aggregation, reuse of the content & metadata, exactly the kind of "remixing" that libre licenses are designed to permit. I don't think a standard interpretation of "green OA" would allow me to download parts of various documents and re-publish my aggregated summary (whether textual or numerical).

Let's agree that it's fuzzy, since data-mining was not the core concern when people invented the gold/green labels. But it seems to me that you're expanding the green idea slightly, to include everything that is a recent hot topic. If you think data-mining is important, then you presumably think that publishing the results of data-mining is important. That should lead you to the conclusion that libre licenses have an important role, right now, for many researchers.

(Also: the assertion that requiring CC-BY is "suicide" will be news to PLoS!)

Stevan Harnad: Questions for Mark Thorley, Convenor of RCUK Research Outputs Network

nospam@example.com (Stevan Harnad) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 21:22:32 +0100

Clayton Bingham -- http://litroost.com -- wrote: "I wonder if CC-BY wouldn't increase the consumption of research by non-researchers because of the increased access. I can imagine increased participance in post publication review helping to create the right kind of supplemental material to make research accessible to laymen as well."

To "increase the consumption of research by non-researchers [and researchers!] because of the increased access" all that's needed is to mandate cost-free Green Gratis OA. To pay publishers extra for CC-BY Gold OA is a scarcely credible squandering of scarce research funds and authors' freedom to publish in the journal of their choice.

Stevan Harnad