Publishing Lobby

Sandy Thatcher, President, Association of American University Presses (AAUP) wrote:

ST: "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 [liblicense], universities don't work that way."

I make no wishes, wise or unwise. And I make no conjectures ("Hypotheses non Fingo") -- except perhaps (if forced) as counter-conjectures, to counter others' unforced conjectures.

The actual empirical evidence (neither wish nor conjecture) is that OA self-archiving (Green OA) is (1) feasible, (2) being done, (3) beneficial, and (4) being mandated. Whether and when it ever goes on to generate cancellations and transitions and redirections is all pure speculation, based on no empirical evidence one way or the other (except that it hasn't happened yet, even in fields that reached 100% Green OA years ago). But if you insist on asking a hypothetical "what if?" question just the same, I respond with an equally hypothetical "then..." answer.

The factual part is fact. If wise men have privileged access to the future, so be it. I have none. I have only the available evidence, and logic. (And logic tells me, platitudinously, that necessity is the mother of invention, and where there's a will, there's a way, especially if/when the hypothetical cancellation windfall savings that no one has yet seen should ever materialize. Till then, I'll just go with the evidence-based four -- OA self-archiving (2), OA self-archiving mandates (4), and their already demonstrated feasibility (1) and benefits (3) -- leaving the speculation to those who prefer that sort of thing.)

ST: "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."

Well, I could invoke my quarter century as founder and editor in chief of a major peer-reviewed journal as evidence that I may know what I am talking about...

But I'd rather just point out that the conjecture about journal-publication downsizing to just peer-review service-provision is part of the hypothetical conditional that I only invoke if someone insists on playing the speculation game. It is neither a wish nor a whim. I am perfectly content with 100% Green OA. Full stop.

Apart from that, I'll stick with the empirical facts -- reminder: self-archiving, self-archiving mandates, their demonstrated feasability and their demonstrated benefits -- and abstain from the hypothesizing.

ST: "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."

If PRISM is making any new points -- empirical or logical -- I would be very grateful if Sandy (or anyone) would point out to me exactly what those new points are. For all I have seen has been a repetition of the very few and very familiar old points I and others have rebutted so many, many times before...

(Sandy seems to have overlooked the linked list of 21 references I included as evidence that these points have all been voiced, and rebutted, repeatedly, in bygone days. If anyone sends me a list of new points, it would be very helpful if they first checked that list to see whether those points are indeed new, rather than dated, discredited duplicates.)

ST: "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."

First, since we are talking about wishful thinking, I know full well that the OA self-archiving advantage -- in terms of citations and downloads -- is something that the anti-OA publishers dearly wish were nonexistent, or merely a methodological artifact of some kind.

Second, I and others are quite happy to continue conducting actual empirical studies and analyses confirming the OA advantage, and demonstrating that it is not just an artifact (of either early access or self-selection bias for quality). That interesting ongoing question is at least substantive and empirical, hence new (especially when the challenges come from those -- such as Kurtz and Moed -- who have no vested interests in the outcome one way or the other). The doomsday prophecies and the hype about government control and censorship are not.

"Where There's No Access Problem There's No Open Access Advantage"

(I expect that the tobacco industry did more than its share of wishing that the health benefits of not smoking would turn out to be nonexistent or a self-selection artifact too: When money is at stake, interpretations become self-selective, if not self-serving, too!)

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

The Biosciences Federation: "supports increasing access to science research articles, and sees Open Access publishing as a workable approach for most disciplines, provided that research funders can make sufficient money available... so that the viability both of journals, and of the various activities which are made possible by journals income - conferences, meetings and other educational events as well as grants, bursaries and research funding - are not threatened... Open Access publishing would also reduce the risks of self-archiving, which could otherwise damage the viability of journals and thus threaten the substantial other contributions which learned societies make to UK science. The Federation is commissioning a study to quantify these contributions in order better to understand what the impact might be... The results of the research studies will be published early in 2008."

The Biosciences Federation's statement is familiar, old, many times rebutted stuff, and another Trojan Horse. It's of course not at all about promoting Green OA Self-Archiving, or Green OA Self-Archiving Mandates, but about continuing to try to delay or derail them. This time what is instead being self-servingly invoked (Good Cop, Bad Cop) is Gold OA Publishing -- something that cannot be mandated, and is growing far too slowly of its own accord, for many practical and logistical reasons (which is why OA's fast-track is Green OA and Green OA Mandates, rather than waiting for Gold OA).

The Biosciences Federation is simply making the bland statement that if you pay us for it, and pay us enough, and guarantee that payment, we will not oppose Gold OA! Meanwhile, we will continue to oppose Green OA and Green OA mandates, and we will commission yet another study to "investigate" the damage they are likely to do. (This time, it will look at how hypothetical lost subscriptions will affect Learned Societies' "good works," such as the funding they provide for conferences and scholarships, and -- a new one! -- the funding they provide for research!)

Well, several of these self-serving studies (in reality just delay-tactics, in an ongoing filibuster) have already been commissioned and conducted by various sectors of the publishing industry (and others are still underway).

Meanwhile, there is no such spare money to be had, to pay for or guarantee advance payment for Gold OA, and no one to guarantee it. That potential money is all tied up right now in subscriptions. McDonalds would also happily commit itself to free burgers for anyone on the planet if all those who are currently paying for burgers would commit in advance to guarantee to keep paying for them all in advance, at an agreed flat rate, in perpetuum. (That formula always trumps Supply and Demand...)

Pretending not be opposed to OA is just one of the conscious (and unconscious) stratagems to which those who perceive their revenues to be at potential risk are resorting in order to try to stave off the optimal and inevitable (for research), and instead keep everything running on their terms.

We should not be taken in by this: Research is not funded, conducted and published as a service to the publishing industry, but vice versa. We need to stop letting the publishing tail wag the research dog!

"Learned Societies: By Their Works Shall Ye Know Them"

Peter Suber has done the decisive rebuttal to this latest delay strategy by the Biosciences Foundation here, raising (in a far gentler way) all the points that are raised above -- and have been raised countless times before.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Thomas & McDonald (2007) wrote:

"This study's findings only reinforce... predictions and arguments favoring institutional mandates. As the data in this article show, a mandate is arguably the "tipping point" described by Gladwell (2000) that can make depositing behavior among scholars not just widespread, but also more of an ingrained and complete behavior"

Sandy Thatcher, President, AAUP, responded:

'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 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 further mandates proposed).

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 about 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 Sandy's 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 -- mandating Green OA self-archiving -- 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 would be an unalloyed benefit for everyone except the peer-reviewed journal publishing industry, whether or not it led to a second tipping point and a transition to Gold OA.

But 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: That "structure" will be Gold OA, funded out of (a part of) the institutional cancellation savings.

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.

(2005) Critique of ALPSP'S 1st Response to RCUK's Open Access Self-Archiving Proposal.
(2005) Rebuttal of STM Response to RCUK Self-Archiving Policy Proposal.
(2005) Applying Optimality Findings: A Critique of Graham Taylor's Critique of RCUK Policy Proposal.
(2006) Critique of EPS/RIN/RCUK/DTI "Evidence-Based Analysis of Data Concerning Scholarly Journal Publishing"
(2006) How to Counter All Opposition to the FRPAA Self-Archiving Mandate
(2006) Critique of AAP/PSP Critique of FRPAA Proposal
Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N. (2005) Open Letter to Research Councils UK: Rebuttal of ALPSP Critique
(2005) Journal publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful Co-Existence and Fruitful Collaboration
A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy
Guide for the Perplexed: Re: UK Select Committee Inquiry
Critique of PSP/AAP Critique of NIH Proposal
Critique of STM Critique of NIH Proposal
Critique of Stanford/HighWire Press Critique of NIH Proposal
Critique of APS Critique of NIH Proposal
Please Don't Copy-Cat Clone NIH-12 Non-OA Policy!
Journal Publishing and Author Self-Archiving: Peaceful Co-Existence and Fruitful Collaboration
Critique of Research Fortnight article on RCUK policy proposal
Not a Proud Day in the Annals of the Royal Society
Feedback on the Brussels EC Meeting on Open Access
The Immediate-Deposit/Optional Access (ID/OA) Mandate: Rationale and Model
Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates: What? Where? When? Why? How?

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum