The DC Coalition: A Matter of Principle

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SUMMARY: The "DC Principles" Coalition is once again recycling old arguments that have already been repeatedly refuted:

(1) "Mandating self-archiving will destroy journals": There exists no evidence to date -- even in the subfields where self-archiving has been at or near 100% for years -- that author self-archiving ("Green OA") even causes cancellations; but if/when it ever does, publishing will adapt, quite naturally, first cutting costs, and then, if subscriptions become unustainable, converting to OA publishing ("Gold OA"). In other words, this doomsday scenario is a counterfactual myth, designed to stave off the obvious, demonstrated and reachable benefits of the online era for research and researchers through crude alarmist speculation, based on neither objective evidence nor rigorous reasoning.
(2) "Mandating self-archiving will force a conversion to OA publishing which will force money to be redirected from scarce research funds": No research funds need be redirected if OA publishing comes only after those self-same subscription cancellations that were hypothesized to force the conversion, for then institutions will pay for their researchers' OA publishing costs by redirecting part of their windfall subscription-cancellation savings, rather than redirecting them from scarce research funds, as they would have to do if they had to pay OA publishing charges now, when the money is still tied up in subscriptions, and subscriptions are still paying the costs of publication.
(3) "Mandating self-archiving will destroy peer review": Peers review for free. Publishers just manage the peer-review process and certify its outcome with their journal's name and reputation. That is the service that OA publishing charges will pay for, redirected from institutional subscription savings, if/when cancellation pressure ever forces a conversion to OA publishing; until and unless that happens, self-archiving mandates will simply do what they are intended to do: provide 100% OA.
(4) "Mandating self-archiving will destroy Learned Societies' other 'good works'": The research community was never consulted, and never agreed to subsidise Learned Societies' other 'good works' from researchers' own lost access and impact. Those 'good works' (publicity, meetings, scholarships, mentoring, etc.), will need to find other forms of support if/when Learned Society publishing revenue surpluses no longer cover them (at the expense of research access and impact).
(5) "Mandating self-archiving means government control of publication": Nonsense: Self-archiving means researchers' ensuring that their own research findings are accessible (online) to all their would-be users, in their own Institutional Repositories, rather than just to those users whose institution happens to be able to afford a subscription to the journal in which they happen to be published, as was the case before the online era made OA possible.
(6) "Mandated self-archiving is unnecessary because publishers already provide a lot of free access of their own accord": Self-archiving mandates are to ensure OA for all those articles to which publishers do not provide free access of their own accord.

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On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Martin Frank, Executive Director, American Physiological Society, wrote:

DC Principles: The following press release was posted to the DC Principles website.
"Nonprofit Publishers Oppose Government Mandates for Scientific Publishing"
Washington, DC (February 20, 2007) A coalition of 75 nonprofit publishers opposes any legislation that would abruptly end a publishing system that has nurtured independent scientific inquiry for generations.

And the evidence that mandating self-archiving -- as 5 of 8 UK research councils, the Wellcome Trust, Australian Research Council, NHMRC, CERN and a growing number of universities worldwide have already done, and EC, ERC, EURAB, CIHR and FRPAA are proposing to do -- "would abruptly end the publishing system"?

Or is this just the same doomsday prophecy we have heard (and heard refuted) over and over, simply being repeated louder and louder?

Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N. (2005)
Journal publishing and author self-archiving:
Peaceful Co-Existence and Fruitful Collaboration.

DC Principles: One such measure, the Federal Research Public Access Act introduced in the 109th Congress would have required all federally funded research to be deposited in an accessible database within six months of acceptance in a scientific journal. Some open access advocates are pressing for the introduction of a similar measure in the 110th Congress.

A measure that, as noted above, is already being adopted worldwide, because of its vast benefits to research, researchers, their institutions, their funders, the vast research and development industry, and the tax-paying public that funds the research (see recent petition).

Are evidence-free doomsday prophecies from one service industry supposed to be grounds for denying these benefits to research, researchers, their institutions, their funders, the vast research and development industry, and the tax-paying public that funds the research?

Or is this just the flea on the tail of the dog, endeavouring to wag the dog?

DC Principles: In essence, such legislation would impose government-mandated access policies and government-controlled repositories for federally funded research published in scientific journals, according to members of the Washington DC Principles for Free Access to Science Coalition.

The self-archiving mandates require publicly funded research to be made publicly accessible to all users. The rhetoric of "government control" is shrill nonsense, in line with the data-free doomsday prophecies.

Is this the program of disinformation that the "DC Principles" Coalition have been counselled to disseminate by the esteemed public relations consultants of their STM confreres?

DC Principles: "We as independent publishers must determine when it is appropriate to make content freely available, and we believe strongly it should not be determined by government mandate" [said Martin Frank of the American Physiological Society and coordinator of the coalition]

The public funds it, researchers and their institutions conduct, write and peer-review it, all for free, but "publishers must determine when it is appropriate to make it freely available"? In exchange for having been given it free to sell, for having peer-reviewed it for free, and for having paid dearly for subscriptions in order to access it?

That's an awfully big price the public and the research community and research progress, and research applications are all expected to pay in exchange for the 3rd-party management of their free peer review service.

How much longer does the DC Principles Coalition imagine that the research community, the tax-paying public, and the vast research applications industry will keep giving this arbitrary assertion of right-of-determination, amplified by empty prophecies of doom, the undue credence it has enjoyed to date?

DC Principles: The Coalition also reaffirmed its ongoing practice of making millions of scientific journal articles available free of charge, without an additional financial burden on the scientific community or on funding agencies. More than 1.6 million free articles are already available to the public free of charge on HighWire Press.

Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that their authors, funders and institutions likewise want to make freely available, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates?

DC Principles: "The scholarly publishing system is a delicate balance between the need to sustain journals financially and the goal of disseminating scientific knowledge as widely as possible. Publishers have voluntarily made more journal articles available free worldwide than at any time in history -- without government intervention," noted Kathleen Case of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that their authors, funders and institutions likewise want to make freely available, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates?

DC Principles: The Coalition expressed concern that a mandate timetable for free access to all federally funded research would harm journals, scientists, and ultimately the public.

The doomsday prophecy again, repeated ever more shrilly to compensate for the complete absence of evidence in its support.

DC Principles: Subscriptions to journals with a high percentage of federally funded research would decline rapidly.

If and when the demand for a product declines, it is time to cut costs. If and when publishing downsizes to just the management of the peer review service, the institutional savings from the (hypothesized) subscription-declines will be more than enough to pay for peer review, per article published, on the open-access publishing model.

DC Principles: Subscription revenues support the quality control system known as peer review and also support the educational work of scientific societies that publish journals.

Subscription revenues will continue to flow as long as there is enough demand for the product. Once the only product needed is the peer review management service, the institutional savings will be enough to pay for its costs several times over.

At no time has the research community, its institutions or its funders, or the tax-paying public that funds its funders, been asked, nor has it ever agreed, to subsidise "the educational work of scientific societies" with its own lost research access and impact.

DC Principles: Undermining subscriptions would shift the cost of publication from the publisher who receives subscription revenue to the researcher who receives grants. Such a shift will: Divert scarce dollars from research. Publishers now pay the cost of publication out of subscription revenue; if the authors have to pay, the funds will come from their research grants.

No. Publication costs are currently being paid out of subscription revenues. On the hypothesis that institutions cancel those subscriptions, it is those same subscription revenue savings that can continue to pay for (what is left of) publication costs, per paper published. Not a penny of research grants need ever be redirected. The subscription savings will be redirected.

DC Principles: Nonprofit journals without subscription revenue have to rely on grants, which further diverts funding from research.

Journals that are subsidised today can continue to be subsidised tomorrow. Journals that are subscription-based today, if/when their subscriptions are cancelled, can be paid for (what is left of) their costs, per article, from the author's institutional subscription savings.

More than enough money is in the system. No doomsday scenario. Just downsizing and redirection of windfall savings.

DC Principles: Result in only well-funded scientists being able to publish their work.

Utter nonsense. See arithmetic above.

DC Principles: Reduce the ability of journals to fund peer review. Most journals spend 40% or more of their revenue on quality control through the peer review system; without subscription income and with limitations on author fees, peer review would suffer.

When there is no more demand for anything but peer review, institutions will have saved 100%, of which they need merely redirect 40% to pay for the peer review of their own publications. (Please do the arithmetic.)

DC Principles: Harm those scientific societies that rely on income from journals to fund the professional development of scientists. Revenues from scholarly publications fund research, fellowships to junior scientists, continuing education, and mentoring programs to increase the number of women and under-represented groups in science, among many other activities.

At no time has the research community, its institutions or its funders, or the tax-paying public that funds its funders, been asked, nor has it ever agreed, to subsidise "the professional development of scientists, research, fellowships to junior scientists, continuing education, and mentoring programs" with its own lost research access and impact.

DC Principles: Members of the DC Principles Coalition have long supported responsible free access to science and have made:
-- selected important studies immediately available online, in their entirety and at no charge
-- studies available at no cost to patients who request them
-- all abstracts immediately available online at no charge
-- full text of the journal available at no charge to everyone worldwide within months of publication, depending on each publisher's business and publishing requirements
-- all journal content available free to scientists working in many low-income nations
-- articles available free of charge online through reference linking between journals
-- content available for indexing by major search engines so that readers worldwide can easily locate information

Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that their authors, funders and institutions likewise want to make freely available, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates?

DC Principles: "By establishing government repositories for federally funded research, taxpayers would be paying for systems that duplicate the online archives already maintained by independent publishers," Case noted.

With the slight difference that the contents of the OA archives will be freely accessible to all, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving mandates.

DC Principles: "The implications of the U.S. government becoming the world's largest publisher of scientific articles have not been addressed," she added.

Self-archiving mandates are for providing access to published articles, not for publishing them. In an online world, publishing means certifying papers as having met a journal's peer-review quality standards. That means the peer review service. That's all.

The implied "government monopoly" subtext is again just empty rhetoric, designed to inflame, not to inform honestly.

DC Principles: According to Frank, "As not-for-profit publishers, we believe that a free society allows for the co-existence of many publishing models, and we will continue to work closely with our publishing colleagues to set high standards for the scholarly publishing enterprise."

Amen.

Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N. (2005) Journal publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful Co-Existence and Fruitful Collaboration. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11160/

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum