You make it all sound so simple, Stevan, but there is
nothing
simple about a transition from Green OA to Gold OA,
including the
redirection of savings from journal subscriptions to funding
Gold
OA journals, because as many wise people like Jim O'Donnell
have
pointed out on this list, universities don't work that way.
Wishing it were so does not make it so. And by talking about
peer
review only, you oversimplify what is involved in journal
publishing, which requires skills that go beyond simply
conducting peer review and that are not most economically
carried
out by faculty, who are not trained for such tasks and whose
dedication of time to them detracts from the exercise of
their
main talents as researchers. You are also wrong in
interpreting
PRISM as just another repetition of the same old tired
anti-OA
rhetoric. As a member of the publishing community whose
press is
a member of the PSP (but not an endorser of PRISM), I can
tell
you that this is not just more of the same. Whether we are
getting close to a "tipping point" is of course a
matter of
conjecture, but then so is the overall benefit from Green
OA,
which you always state as though it were an established fact
rather than a hypothesis with some evidence in support of it
yet
hardly overwhelming evidence at this point in time.
Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press
>On Wed, 19 Sep 2007, Sandy Thatcher wrote:
>
>>Ah, yes, and if you'll remember our prior discussion
about open
>>access, Stevan, I warned that just this
"success" might be the
>>"tipping point" to drive a host of
commercial and society
>>publishers out of the business of journal
publishing. One "tipping
>>point" causes another? Witness, as partial
proof, the reaction of
>>STM publishers represented by the PRISM initiative.
I read that as
>>a warning that, if the government forces a change in
their business
>>model, they may just walk away from the business. I
assume you
>>wouldn't consider that a bad thing at all, but my
question would be
>>what kind of structure will take its place and what
expectations
>>will universities have of their presses to pick up
the slack?
>
>What is remarkable, Sandy, is how actual empirical facts
(very few)
>are being freely admixed, willy-nilly, with fact-free
speculations
>for which there is, and continues to be zero empirical
evidence,
>and, in many cases, decisive and familiar
counterevidence, both
>empirical and logical.
>
>Nothing has changed since our prior discussions except
that there
>have (happily) been some more Green OA mandates (total
adopted: 32,
>plus 8 more further proposed mandates).
>http:
//www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
>
>There has been no "tipping point." Just *talk*
about tipping points,
>and that talk about tipping points has been going on for
years.
>
>There has been no one driven out of business, nor any
empirical
>evidence of a trend toward being driven out of business.
Just *talk*
>of being driven out of business, and that talk about
being driven
>out of business has been going on for years.
>
>And as to the "partial proof" in the form of
the STM/PRISM
>"reaction" -- that very same reaction (with
the very same false,
>alarmist arguments) has been voiced, verbatim, by the
very same
>publisher groups (STM, AAP, ALPSP), over and over, for
over a decade
>now. And they have been debunked just as often (see long
list of
>links below). But that certainly hasn't been enough to
make the
>publishers' anti-OA lobby cease and desist. Do you
consider the
>relentless repetition, at louder and louder volume, of
exactly the
>same specious and evidence-free claims, to be
"proof" of anything,
>partial or otherwise?
>
>And the phrase "the government forces a change in
their business
>model" is just as false a description of what is
actually going on
>when it is spoken in your own well-meaning words as when
it is
>voiced by PRISM and Eric Dezenhall: The government is
*not* forcing
>a change in a business model. The funders of
tax-payer-funded
>research -- and, increasingly, universities, who are not
"the
>government" at all! -- are insisting that the
researchers they fund
>and employ make their peer-reviewed research freely
available to all
>would-be users online, in line with the purpose of
conducting and
>funding and publishing research in the first place.
>
>This quite natural (and overdue) adaptation to the
online age on the
>part of the research community -- Green OA -- may or may
not lead to
>a transition to Gold OA publishing: no one knows
whether, or when it
>will. But what is already known is that OA itself,
whether Green or
>Gold, is enormously beneficial to research, researchers,
their
>institutions and funders, the vast R&D industry, and
the tax-paying
>public that funds research and for whose benefit it is
funded,
>conducted and published. (OA is also a secondary benefit
to
>education and the developing world.)
>
>So the "tipping point" for Green OA itself is
an unalloyed benefit
>for everyone but the peer-reviewed journal publishing
industry,
>whether or not it leads to a second tipping point and a
transition
>to Gold OA.
>
>Reality today, to repeat, is a growth in Green OA
mandates, not a
>tipping point (let alone two), not a subscription
decline, not
>publishers going out of business, not government
pressure toward
>another publishing model.
>
>You ask "what kind of structure will take its place
and what
>expectations will universities have of their presses to
pick up the
>slack?" I presume you are referring to the multiple
hypothetical
>conditional: *if* Green OA mandates reach the tipping
point that
>generates 100% Green OA, and *if* that in turn generates
journal
>cancellations that reach the tipping point that
generates a
>transition to Gold OA? The answer (which I have provided
many times
>before) is simple: The "structure" will be
Gold OA, funded out of (a
>part of) the institutional cancellation savings.
>http://www.publications.parl
iament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
>
>And this is not about publishing in general, commercial,
society,
>university, or otherwise. It is only about peer-reviewed
journal
>publishing, and their hypothetical transition to Gold OA
under
>cancellation pressure from mandated Green OA.
>
>Stevan Harnad
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