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Budapest Open Access Initiative: BOAI Forum Archive [BOAI] [Forum Home] [index] [prev] [next] [options] [help]boaiforum messages[BOAI] Re: On Trying to Hold Green OA and Fair-Gold OA Hostage to Subscriptions and Fools-GoldFrom: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum AT gmail.com>
--047d7b343f08468d9d04e037d64e Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 8:29 PM, Graham Triggs <grahamtriggs AT ↵ gmail.com>wrot= e: > research does require scholarly communication, and to that extent researc= h > - and research funders - should be concerned that however it is (or shoul= d > be) arranged, that there is a sustainable model for it. That includes > ensuring continued, sustainable communication during any transition phase= . > If you insist on speculating, here's a transition scenario<http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#4.2> : 1. Green OA universally mandated by institutions and funders. 2. Universal Green OA. 3. Institutional cancellation pressure. 4. Publishers cut costs, downsize, phase out obsolete products and services like print and PDF, offload access provision and archiving on OA IRs, convert to Fair-Gold OA. 5. Journal titles from publishers not willing to continue on this lower Fair-Gold scale migrate to Fair-Gold publishers who are willing. Harnad, Stevan (2013) The Postgutenberg Open Access Journal (revised). In, Cope, B and Phillips, A (eds.) The Future of the Academic Journal (2nd edition). 2nd edition of book Chandos. http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/353991/ Even for the full set of services currently provided, there isn't > justification that the subscription model must be sustained. > Yes, but that's the *institution*'s sustainability (budgetary) problem -- not the same as the publisher's subscription sustainability problem. Universal Green will fix that... > But I wouldn't be so quick to write-off "no longer necessary" ↵ activities > by publishers. As it currently stands, the publisher's copy is a verifiab= le > record of peer-review taking place. It's also the version assigned > pagination information which is still used by convention for citations > (even in the presence of persistent identifiers). It's also the means by > which the publication is tracked in PubMed, WoS, Scopus, etc. > a. The VoR will remain the publisher-tagged version, now (paid by subscriptions) as well as post-Green (paid by Fair-Gold). b. Pagination (forgive me, is an utterly, utterly trivial non-problem<http://www.google.ca/search?hl=3Den&lr=3D&q=3Dharnad%20OR%20Har= nad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=3DUTF-8= &tbm=3Dblg&tbs=3Dqdr:m&num=3D100&c2coff=3D1&safe=3Dactive#q=3Dpagination+bl= ogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&lr=3D&c2coff=3D1&safe=3Dactive&hl=3Den= &tbm=3Dblg&tbas=3D0&source=3Dlnt&sa=3DX&ei=3DNJPNUY8I0cTgA-fRgYgM&ved=3D0CB= sQpwUoAA&bav=3Don.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=3Dbv.48572450,d.dmg&fp=3Dbf1350727b49= ae6f&biw=3D1168&bih=3D790> ) c. Double-ditto for indexing. > This is not double payment. It's just payment. If the Gold OA publishers > did not exist, then there would be more closed access / subscription > journals than there are now, and you would be paying more / higher > subscription fees. > That's a guess. The must-have journals, the core of the serials crisis, are not a whit cheaper, today, nor less must-have, just because there are also Fools-Gold journals available to authors who would rather (or are pushed by their Finchy funders's preferences to) pay extra money for OA instead of just providing it for free, as Green OA. Institutions' serials needs and expenditures on subscriptions have not gone down as a result of Fools Gold. The Fools Gold payments are over and above the subscription payments. You can't assess the potential for double-dipping based on the amount of > Gold OA articles that are published. In fact, it's probably not helpful t= o > even think consider double-dipping at all. > Double-dipping refers only to hybrid Fools-Gold (subscriptions + Fools-Gold). I doubt there's much uptake yet, but it's certainly not true that it's not worth "considering": It's worth very closely ↵ monitoring. > For a hybrid journal, there is a simpler point of comparison - APC vs > average subscription revenue for closed access articles. Regardless of > where the journal is positioned in the market, you would expect these > should be roughly equivalent, or slightly favouring the APC. > I think you are very mistaken! The hybrid-Gold publisher sets the price per article for their hybrid-Gold APC articles, and you can be sure they set APCs to ensure that their total revenue does not *shrink*. Unless they keep adjusting either the subscription price or the APC to keep the Fools Gold APC from *increasing*their revenue, they are double-dipping (since the APCs are over and above the subscription income, which is uncancelled and uncancellable -- until we have universal Green OA). If, with 100% Gold OA, there was a viable opportunity to downsize > publishing services, then somebody would surely do it - just as Gold OA > publishers exist today because there was a viable opportunity to establis= h > a new business model. Green OA is not the only route to that outcome. > If there were 100% Gold OA -- whether Fools Gold or Fair Gold -- I would not be bothering with any of this, because my goal, as a researcher, is to solve the research accessibility problem (which OA solves), not to solve the journal affordability problem (which Green OA would solve). But we do not have 100% Gold OA today. We just have about 10-20% Fools-Gold OA, over-priced, double-paid, and -- if hybrid -- also double-dipped. And we need 100% OA. And the way to get that is to mandate Green OA. Let researchers, their institutions and their funders take care of OA, by mandating Green OA, and the publishers' practices and business models will take care of themselves, adapting to the new PostGutenberg niche for peer-reviewed journal publishing in the online era. > 100% immediate, post peer-review Green OA might make the revenue and > therefore costs of publishers unsustainable. But if that happens, will th= ey > still have an incentive to incur the costs of downsizing? Or could they > just shutter all of their (scholarly communication) activities? > *Vide supra*: Some titles will downsize and convert. Others will migrate to Fair-Gold publishers. Some titles will die (it happens all the time). I think we should stop speculating about future business models and first do the obvious, optimal and inevitable: mandate universal Green. Then go back to speculating, if you like. > Or we could find out that despite all expectations, nothing much happens > to nothing much happens to subscription costs (because primary links are > still to the publisher's site, etc.) - in which case, nothing much change= s. > It is definitely a possibility (though I think an unlikely one) that universal mandatory Green OA will only solve the research accessibility problem, but not the journal affordability problem: So what? Researchers (and the tax-paying public) will have 100% OA. And if institutions continue to sustain subscriptions, that will become a matter of choice, thanks to Green OA, and no longer the life-or-death matter it is now, with the research not accessible to users any other way. (Think about it.) Whilst some outcomes may appear to be more likely than others, nothing is > actually certain. > Agreed. The only certainties are (1) mathematical proof (and there's none of that here) or (2) empirical facts that have already happened. So let's stop speculating and make universal Green OA happen. It's fully accessible, and already long overdue... Stevan Harnad PS My pejorative term "Fools-Gold" obviously only refers to ↵ paid-Gold, not to that vast-majority of Gold OA journals that do not charge APCs at all, but subsist instead on subscriptions or subsidy. Alas those free-Gold journals are not among the must-have journals that this is all about. (Keep that in mind too.) --047d7b343f08468d9d04e037d64e Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 8:29 PM, Graham Triggs <span ↵ dir=3D"ltr"><<a hre= f=3D"mailto:grahamtriggs AT gmail.com" ↵ target=3D"_blank">grahamtriggs AT gmail.co= m</a>></span> wrote:<br><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_quote"><div>=A0</div><blockq= uote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 ↵ .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc = solid;padding-left:1ex"> <div dir=3D"ltr"><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_extra"><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_quote"><div= >research does require scholarly communication, and to that extent research= - and research funders - should be concerned that however it is (or should= be) arranged, that there is a sustainable model for it. That includes ensu= ring continued, sustainable communication during any transition phase.</div= > </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If you insist on specula= ting, here's a=A0<a ↵ href=3D"http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Tp/reso= lution.htm#4.2">transition ↵ scenario</a>:=A0</div><div><br></div><div>1. Gre= en OA universally mandated by institutions and funders.</div> <div><br></div><div>2. Universal Green ↵ OA.</div><div><br></div><div>3. Inst= itutional cancellation ↵ pressure.</div><div><br></div><div>4. Publishers ↵ cut= costs, downsize, phase out obsolete products and services like print and P= DF, offload access provision and archiving on OA IRs, convert to Fair-Gold = OA.</div> <div><br></div><div>5. Journal titles from publishers ↵ not willing to contin= ue on this lower Fair-Gold scale migrate to Fair-Gold publishers who are wi= lling.</div><div><br></div><div><span ↵ style=3D"font-family:Times;font-size:= medium">Harnad, Stevan (2013) The Postgutenberg Open Access Journal ↵ (revise= d). In, Cope, B and Phillips, A (eds.) The Future of the Academic Journal (= 2nd edition). 2nd edition of book=A0 Chandos.=A0</span><span ↵ style=3D"font-= family:Times;font-size:medium"><a ↵ href=3D"http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/353991= /">http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/353991/</a></span>=A0</div> <div><br></div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" ↵ style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex= ;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div ↵ dir=3D"ltr"><div class= =3D"gmail_extra"><div class=3D"gmail_quote"> <div>Even for the full set of services currently provided, there ↵ isn't = justification that the subscription model must be ↵ sustained.=A0</div></div>= </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes, but that's the <i>ins= titution</i>'s sustainability (budgetary) problem -- not the same ↵ as th= e publisher's subscription sustainability problem.=A0</div> <div><br></div><div>Universal Green will fix ↵ that...</div><div>=A0</div><bl= ockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 ↵ .8ex;border-left:1px #= ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_extra"><di= v class=3D"gmail_quote"> <div>But I wouldn't be so quick to write-off "no longer ↵ necessary&= quot; activities by publishers. As it currently stands, the ↵ publisher's= copy is a verifiable record of peer-review taking place. It's also ↵ the= version assigned pagination information which is still used by convention = for citations (even in the presence of persistent identifiers). It's ↵ al= so the means by which the publication is tracked in PubMed, WoS, Scopus, et= c.</div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>a. The VoR will remain t= he publisher-tagged version, now (paid by subscriptions) as well as post-Gr= een (paid by ↵ Fair-Gold).</div><div><br></div><div>b. ↵ Pagination (forgive me= , is an utterly, utterly trivial <a ↵ href=3D"http://www.google.ca/search?hl= =3Den&lr=3D&q=3Dharnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:= http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=3DUTF-8&tbm=3Dblg&tbs=3Dqdr:m= &num=3D100&c2coff=3D1&safe=3Dactive#q=3Dpagination+blogurl:http= ://openaccess.eprints.org/&lr=3D&c2coff=3D1&safe=3Dactive&h= l=3Den&tbm=3Dblg&tbas=3D0&source=3Dlnt&sa=3DX&ei=3DNJPN= UY8I0cTgA-fRgYgM&ved=3D0CBsQpwUoAA&bav=3Don.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm= =3Dbv.48572450,d.dmg&fp=3Dbf1350727b49ae6f&biw=3D1168&bih=3D790= ">non-problem</a>)</div> <div><br></div><div>c. Double-ditto for ↵ indexing.</div><div>=A0</div><block= quote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 ↵ .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc= solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_extra"><div c= lass=3D"gmail_quote"> <div>This is not double payment. It's just payment. If the Gold ↵ OA publ= ishers did not exist, then there would be more closed access / subscription= journals than there are now, and you would be paying more / higher subscri= ption fees.</div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's a guess.=A0</= div><div><br></div><div>The must-have journals, the ↵ core of the serials cri= sis, are not a whit cheaper, today, nor less must-have, just because there = are also Fools-Gold journals available to authors who would rather (or are = pushed by their Finchy funders's preferences to) pay extra money for ↵ OA= instead of just providing it for free, as Green OA.</div> <div><br></div><div>Institutions' serials needs ↵ and expenditures on sub= scriptions have not gone down as a result of Fools Gold. The Fools Gold pay= ments are over and above the subscription ↵ payments.</div><div><br></div> <blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 ↵ .8ex;border-left:1p= x #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_extra">= <div class=3D"gmail_quote"> <div>You can't assess the potential for double-dipping based on ↵ the amo= unt of Gold OA articles that are published. In fact, it's probably not ↵ = helpful to even think consider double-dipping at ↵ all.</div></div></div> </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Double-dipping refers only to hybrid= Fools-Gold (subscriptions + Fools-Gold). I doubt there's much uptake ↵ y= et, but it's certainly not true that it's not worth ↵ "consideri= ng": It's worth very closely monitoring.</div> <div>=A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" ↵ style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;= border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div ↵ dir=3D"ltr"><div class=3D= "gmail_extra"><div class=3D"gmail_quote"> <div>For a hybrid journal, there is a simpler point of comparison - APC ↵ vs = average subscription revenue for closed access articles. Regardless of wher= e the journal is positioned in the market, you would expect these should be= roughly equivalent, or slightly favouring the APC.</div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I think you are very mis= taken!</div><div><br></div><div>The hybrid-Gold ↵ publisher sets the price pe= r article for their hybrid-Gold APC articles, and you can be sure they set = APCs to ensure that their total revenue does not <i>shrink</i>. ↵ Unless they= keep adjusting either the subscription price or the APC to keep the Fools = Gold APC from <i>increasing</i> their revenue, they are ↵ double-dipping (sin= ce the APCs are over and above the subscription income, which is uncancelle= d and uncancellable -- until we have universal Green OA).</div> <div><br></div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" ↵ style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex= ;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div ↵ dir=3D"ltr"><div class= =3D"gmail_extra"><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_quote"><div>If, with 100% Gold OA, the= re was a viable opportunity to downsize publishing services, then somebody = would surely do it - just as Gold OA publishers exist today because there w= as a viable opportunity to establish a new business model. Green OA is not = the only route to that outcome.</div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>If there were 100% Gold = OA -- whether Fools Gold or Fair Gold -- I would not be bothering with any = of this, because my goal, as a researcher, is to solve the research accessi= bility problem (which OA solves), not to solve the journal affordability pr= oblem (which Green OA would solve).</div> <div><br></div><div>But we do not have 100% Gold OA ↵ today. We just have abo= ut 10-20% Fools-Gold OA, over-priced, double-paid, and -- if hybrid -- also= double-dipped.</div><div><br></div><div>And we ↵ need 100% OA.</div><div> <br></div><div>And the way to get that is to mandate Green ↵ OA.</div><div><b= r></div><div>Let researchers, their institutions and their ↵ funders take car= e of OA, by mandating Green OA, and the publishers' practices and ↵ busin= ess models will take care of themselves, adapting to the new PostGutenberg = niche for peer-reviewed journal publishing in the online era.</div> <div>=A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" ↵ style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;= border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div ↵ dir=3D"ltr"><div class=3D= "gmail_extra"><div class=3D"gmail_quote"> <div>100% immediate, post peer-review Green OA might make the revenue and ↵ t= herefore costs of publishers unsustainable. But if that happens, will they = still have an incentive to incur the costs of downsizing? Or could they jus= t shutter all of their (scholarly communication) activities?</div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><i>Vide supra</i>: Some = titles will downsize and convert. Others will migrate to Fair-Gold publishe= rs. Some titles will die (it happens all the ↵ time).=A0</div><div><br></div> <div>I think we should stop speculating about future business models and ↵ fi= rst do the obvious, optimal and inevitable: mandate universal ↵ Green.</div><= div><br></div><div>Then go back to speculating, if you ↵ like.</div><div> =A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" ↵ style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;borde= r-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div ↵ dir=3D"ltr"><div class=3D"gmai= l_extra"><div class=3D"gmail_quote"> <div>Or we could find out that despite all expectations, nothing much ↵ happe= ns to nothing much happens to subscription costs (because primary links are= still to the publisher's site, etc.) - in which case, nothing much ↵ cha= nges.</div> </div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>It is definitely a possi= bility (though I think an unlikely one) that universal mandatory Green OA w= ill only solve the research accessibility problem, but not the journal affo= rdability problem:</div> <div><br></div><div>So ↵ what?=A0</div><div><br></div><div>Researchers ↵ (and t= he tax-paying public) will have 100% ↵ OA.</div><div><br></div><div>And if in= stitutions continue to sustain subscriptions, that will become a matter of = choice, thanks to Green OA, and no longer the life-or-death matter it is no= w, with the research not accessible to users any other way.</div> <div><br></div><div>(Think about ↵ it.)</div><div><br></div><blockquote class= =3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc ↵ solid;padd= ing-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr"><div ↵ class=3D"gmail_extra"><div class=3D"gma= il_quote"> <div>Whilst some outcomes may appear to be more likely than others, ↵ nothing= is actually ↵ certain.=A0</div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div= ><div>Agreed. The only certainties are =A0(1) mathematical proof (and ↵ there= 's none of that here) or (2) empirical facts that have already ↵ happened= .</div> <div><br></div><div>So let's stop speculating ↵ and make universal Green = OA happen. It's fully accessible, and already long ↵ overdue...=A0</div><= /div><br><div>Stevan ↵ Harnad</div><div><br></div><div>PS My pejorative ↵ term = "Fools-Gold" obviously only refers to paid-Gold, not to that ↵ vast= -majority of Gold OA journals that do not charge APCs at all, but subsist i= nstead on subscriptions or subsidy. Alas those free-Gold journals are not a= mong the must-have journals that this is all about. (Keep that in mind too.= )</div> --047d7b343f08468d9d04e037d64e-- -- To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/boai-forum [BOAI] [Forum Home] [index] [prev] [next] [options] [help]
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