Open Access Archivangelism

Prior American Scientist Open Access Forum Topic Thread
(started September 16, 2005):
"Critique of Research Fortnight article on RCUK policy proposal"

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AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM

Stevan Harnad

This is a critique of the second unsigned article about the proposed RCUK self-archiving mandate that has appeared in Research Fortnight (the first appeared September 14):

"The Dangers of Open Access, RCUK Style"
Unsigned Article, Research Fortnight (RF):

RF: "Research Fortnight does not publish learned journals and has no reason to defend commercial publishers, but the publishers are right when they say that self-archiving as proposed by Research Councils UK will stop new journals being launched and cause existing journals to close."

Someone evidently has Research Fortnight's unsigned article's author's ear (and it's certainly not your humble archivangelist):

RF: "Stevan Harnad, professor of cognitive science and one of the most vocal advocates of open access, believes the UK is not maximising the benefits of its research spend. In his words: 'the UK is losing £1.5 billion annually, in the potential impact of its scientific research spending.'

"His argument, set out in a recent paper, goes like this: self-archiving increases citation impact by between 50 and 250 percent; the UK research councils spend £3.5 billion annually; so far only 15 per cent of researchers self-archive, meaning another 85% could; therefore 50% x £3.5.bn x 85% = £1.5.bn.

"This argument is so ludicrous it would be a waste of space bothering to knock it down."

In place of this risibly unnecessary knock-down counter-argument, we accordingly have this:

RF: "What is interesting, though, is that Harnad's paper has been self-archived on the University of Southampton's own e-print site and shows no signs of having been peer-reviewed or published elsewhere."

It is interesting that a transparent match-box calculation whose outcome seems to be uncongenial to some ears is discounted by our anonymous author for not having been "peer-reviewed." One wonders if, following the same logic, Research Fortnight would have discounted the following unrefereed observation:

"Prior (published) evidence has shown that placing unused batteries (cost, £1 apiece) in the refrigerator increases their hours of usage by 50%, but only 15% of users refrigerate them. We accordingly point out here the following match-box calculation: The 85% of battery-users who are not refrigerating their batteries are losing 50p's worth of potential usage, hence 50p's worth of value for their money."

Ludicrous? In need of peer review? A waste of space to bother refuting? Or dismissed only as a consequence of having listened only to the battery-makers who say that self-refrigerating "will stop new battery-makers being launched and cause existing battery-makers to close"?

RF: "This demonstrates one of the problems of a switch to open access publishing [sic]: the pollution of the corpus of scholarship by papers that have not been subject to sufficient quality control."

Is Research Fortnight having difficulty distinguishing between research content and trivial, transparent arithmetic? And does the ironic call for "peer review" come from Research Fortnight or the disgruntled battery-makers to whom they have lent their ear, monaurally? (Should the anonymous statement "the publishers are right when they say that self-archiving as proposed by Research Councils UK will stop new journals being launched and cause existing journals to close" likewise have been subjected to peer review?)

RF: "It also shows that advocates of open access have not thought through their arguments."

I leave it to the research community to decide who is not thinking arguments through, or even listening to them disinterestedly.

(The rest of the unsigned Research Fortnight article is an echolalic transcript -- uncritical and unfiltered -- of the by now very familiar arguments we have kept hearing from certain (non-research) lobbyists against OA and self-archiving, with no sign of having been thought through [let alone peer-reviewed] by Research Fortnight, or anyone else.)

My advice to Research Fortnight, if it has any wish to play the role of honest broker in this important issue for research and researchers: Audi Alteram Partem. So far, Research Fortnight has now failed deplorably in that role, twice.

Stevan Harnad

Prior AmSci Topic Thread (started September 16, 2005):
"Critique of research Fortnight article on RCUK policy proposal"

On Thu, 6 Oct 05, Sally Morris (ALPSP) wrote:

SM: "Interesting that Stevan chooses to ignore key points in my message: IOP didn't say 'the opposite' at all - they said subs hadn't been affected 'yet'; as Ken Lillywhite's message makes clear, they fully expect subs to suffer as the logical consequence of the fall in downloads - and Bob Michaelson's message shows that their fear is justified?"

Please do look again, Sally, as I did duly note the "yet":

SH: "'Yet' can quite safely and reasonably be appended to everything I have seen and heard, and it makes not a whit of difference."

And the target of "opposite" was also fully clarified:

SH: "What I should have said was that the diminished article downloads do not equal, nor do they imply, diminished subscriptions, and that IOP had said exactly the opposite: That despite replication in a repository (ArXiv) IOP had [1] found no diminished subscriptions, [2] does not consider self-archiving a threat, [3] cooperates with Arxiv, and indeed [4] will soon be hosting a mirror of Arxiv.

[1] - [4] are all true, and constitute the substance of what we are talking about: ("Is there any evidence that self-archiving causes cancellations?" Answer: No. "Is IOP opposing self-archiving ?" Answer: No.)

You, dear Sally, have instead always refocused the question from objective evidence (about actual self-archiving and actual cancellations) to subjective worries (about possible future cancellations) for which there is as yet no objective evidence at all. And you have tried (but were, I am afraid, destined to be unsuccessful) to interpret the perfectly true, but perfectly irrelevant statement that IOP has recorded lower downloads at its website, as if it were evidence of present or future cancellations. It is not:

SH: "This statement [that IOP finds diminished downloads for self-archived articles] is perfectly true but in no way implies what ALPSP cites it to imply (i.e., that diminished downloads are evidence that self-archiving causes cancellations), for that is the exact opposite of what the Institute of Physics has said (Swan & Brown 2005)."

So please do keep the two propositions in focus:

True: IOP website downloads are reduced by self-archiving
False: IOP subscriptions are reduced by self-archiving
True: IOP welcomes self-archiving and is even mirroring Arxiv at their website
False: IOP, like ALPSP, is opposing self-archiving

These are the objective facts. The rest is about subjective worries, which, with Rene Descartes, I tend to regard as incorrigible (to the worrier), hence impenetrable to doubt (by the worrier), yet eminently fallible. (I cannot doubt that I have a tooth-ache, when I have a tooth-ache, but I can doubt that the tooth-ache means there's anything wrong with my tooth, even though it feels like it: it might be referred pain from another organ, or even just neurasthenic pain.)

As to librarian anecdotes about cancellation practices: First, you will agree that they do not amount to much until/unless they translate into measurable objective effects (which both APS and IOP have said they could not detect, across 14 years of self-archiving). Apart from that, librarian anecdotes can be freely traded. Here's one of my favorites:

"Personal communication from a UK University Library Director: 'I know of no HE library where librarians make cancellation or subscription decisions. Typically they say to the department/faculty 'We have to save ?X,000" from your share of the serials budget: what do you want to cut?'. These are seen as academic --not metrics-driven -- judgements, and no librarian makes those academic judgements, as they are indefensible in Senate' [S]uch decisions are almost always wholly subjective, not objective, and have nothing to do with the existence or otherwise of repositories'."

In my next posting, I will turn to the consequences of failing to exercise the Cartesian faculty of critical analysis, one-sidedly hewing to subjective worries, while ignoring objective counter-evidence. I will do a critique of the following unsigned article that has just appeared in Research Fortnight:

"The Dangers of Open Access, RCUK Style"
Unsigned Article, Research Fortnight:

Stevan Harnad