---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:05:08 +0100 (BST)
From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
To: AmSci Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: CURES trump publisher revenue risks, SPPP-READS do not

[Identity deleted] wrote:

> Your arguments are totally logical. However, a factor you are not
> taking into account: if researchers are focused on their research-
> impact - politicians are focused on their own image and reelection
> potential. It is the politicians who need to vote in FRPAA.

And it is the publisher lobby that will be pressuring them not to.

SPPP (Student/Practitioner/Patient/Public) access is a good intro,
to get the politicians' and voters' attention, but then you need a
follow-through that can hold up against the publisher lobby -- and
SPPP-access has no follow-through when publishers inevitably say,
as they will (are already):

    "You want to mandate that our business revenue should be put at
    risk for the sake of SPPP-access, yet there is no evidence that the
    SPPP reads (or has the slightest wish to read) most of the highly
    specialized research that we publish! Why not just make a side-deal
    that we make publicly accessible that tiny fraction of (mostly
    clinical-medical) research that is likely to be of SPPP interest,
    and leave the rest of it -- which is the overwhelming majority of
    it -- alone, rather than putting *all* of our revenues at risk for
    no objective reason?

(And denigrate logic all you like, in the end, the pro-mandate argument
has to make sense, otherwise the publisher lobby wins and the OA
self-archiving mandate loses.)

The requisite follow-through is CURES, not SPPP-access. Students,
practitioners, patients and the public do not produce CURES,
*researchers* do. And the reason researcher usage and impact is so
important is not because it produces money and prizes for researchers,
but because it generates CURES. In fact, that is what research is funded
for, not to produce reading matter for the SPPP.

("CURES" is of course over-simplified too, and medically biassed,
but it will do, as long as it is put in scare-quotes or CAPs: more
generally, it means applications or research, including technology;
even more generally, it means pure research progress itself, which might
eventually lead to applications; and when it comes to social science
and especially humanities which rarely has any applications at all, it
means the production of specialized scholarship, which we presumably
fund because we think it is a social benefit to promote scholarship,
not because the general public or even students actually need or wish
to read the peer-reviewed journal articles reporting the research the
public funds, written by specialists for specialists, but because it
wants to promote scholarly progress, which may eventually trickle down
into education.)

> Is there evidence that FRPAA will result in the kind of citations
> that politicians care about - photo ops and positive pieces in the
> news, funding support and votes so that they can be re-elected?

CURES produce photo-ops, and for researchers to produce CURES,
*researchers* (not SPPP) need to have access to the ongoing research,
in order to use it and build on it.

Moreover, the politicians are not just responsive to votes, as you
know, but also to money and lobbying, especially from big business,
and to what fosters or threatens business revenue flows. Yes, "public
access to publicly funded research" sounds like a good vote-getter on
the surface, even if it doesn't apply to much of research the public
actually wants to access. But the publishing lobby is another matter,
and they are the ones to contend with now.

It's not the vote-getting power of the OA principle that has been
blocking the RCUK policy for two years and that has watered down the
NIH public access policy to near-nothingness: it's the publisher lobby;
and this time FRPAA has to come forearmed: If it tries to coast on the
public-access-to-publicly-funded-research slogan alone, or primarily, it
will be defeated, no matter how sexy it may sound as a vote-getter. (And,
by the way, most individual citizens don't read research and couldn't
care less about this issue, one way or the other.)

Publishers will float doomsday scenarios about ruinous risks to their
ability to make ends meet if self-archiving is mandated (not based on
any evidence, but sounding ominous just the same). These doomsday
scenarios need a more convincing answer than that "we are doing it so
the public can read the research it funds" -- because then then
publishers will simply adduce the abundant evidence that the public is
not reading most of the research they publish, and would not and could
not have the slightest interest in reading it. So the revenue-risk is
completely unjustified.

Not so if the rationale is CURES rather than SPPP READS, for research
progress and the possibility of cures is the very reason we fund
research in the first place. CURES -- but not READS -- offsets
publishers' hypothetical doomsday scenario very effectively.

> To put it another way: is there research showing that politicians
> care about researcher-impact at all, never mind enough to stand up to
> the publisher anti-OA lobbying?

They care about CURES, and "cures" is the simple (simplistic)
encapsulation of research uptake, usage, application, productivity
and progress. That's something that comes from *researchers* using and
applying research, not from the public, reading it. And CURES is why
the public is funding research, not for its own READing delectation.

So the right public issue politicians need to focus on is CURES, not
SPPP-access; and CURES means research usage and impact, which comes from
researcher-use, not from SPPP-reading.

> Arguments focussed on students, patients, and the public are much
> more likely to persuade politicians than arguments based exclusively
> on benefits for researchers. The two streams of arguments complement
> each other. It is not necessary, or desirable, to limit pro-OA
> arguments.

It is not about benefits to researchers! It is about CURES. Researcher
access means more progress and momentum toward CURES.

Moreover, it is now no longer just about persuading politicians but
about resisting the publisher lobby, which is trying to *dissuade*
politicians. Answers to their objections are needed; and SPPP-access is not
the answer, CURES is; and that means researcher-access, not SPPP-access
(although, let us not forget, SPPP-access will come too, with the
OA territory!).

> The politician who cares about patients but thinks the researcher-
> arguments are abstract, will support a patient-based OA argument. It
> is unlikely that a person with this viewpoint would support a
> research-only focused argument.

The focus is on CURES, not on abstract researcher-arguments: Everyone
knows that CURES come from researchers, not from students,
practitioners, patients or the general public. I think that is a
concrete matter that politicians and voters are quite capable of
understanding. And it has the virtue of trumping the publishers'
arguments about hypothetical revenue risks: progress toward actual CURES
( monitored in the form of research impact) trumps hypothetical
revenue risks; SPPP-READS do not.

Stevan Harnad

>> Date: June 12, 2006 8:37:53 AM PDT (CA)
>> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM AT LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
>> Subject: Student/Practitioner/Patient/Public (SPPP) Access Comes
>> With the OA Territory
>>
>> Below is a reply to an anonymized query on often-confused issue
>> concerning Open
>> Access (OA), the rationale for providing OA, and the rationale for
>> mandating the
>> provision of OA (by mandating self-archiving, and the RCUK in the
>> UK, the FRPAA
>> in the US and the European Commission (EC) are each proposing to do)::
>>
>> (1) OA is about Open Access to research: about 2.5 million articles
>> per year,
>> published in about 24,000 peer-reviewed research journals and congress
>> proceedings in all disciplines, from maths, physics and engineering
>> to biology
>> and medical sciences, to the social sciences and the humanities.
>>
>> (2) The only ones who can provide access to these 2.5 million annual
>> researchers articles is their authors, the researchers: either by
>> publishing them in an OA journal, or by publishing them in a
>> conventional
>> journal and self-archiving them.
>>
>> (3) Author surveys have shown that although only about 15% of authors
>> self-archive spontaneously, 95% will comply if mandated to do so by
>> their
>> research funders and/or their institutions. The half-dozen self-
>> archiving
>> mandates that have already been adopted (including the Wellcome
>> Trust, CERN, and
>> several universities) have confirmed this high compliance rate.
>>
>> (4) The FRPAA, RCUK and EU mandate proposals are facing stout
>> opposition from
>> the publisher lobby, even though 94% of journals have already given
>> their green
>> light for immediate author self-archiving.
>>
>> (5) The two main bases for the publishers' objections are that OA is
>> unnecessary and that mandating self-archiving would put their
>> subscription
>> revenues at risk.
>>
>> (6) There is to date no evidence at all that self-archiving reduces
>> publisher subscription revenues, but even if it were ever to do so,
>> the question is whether the benefits (to research, researchers, and
>> the
>> public that funds them) outweigh the risks (to publishers).
>>
>> (7) The chief evidence that the benefits (to research, researchers,
>> and
>> the public that funds them) outweigh the risks (to publishers) is that
>> OA substantially accelerates and increases research usage and impact,
>> hence research progress and productivity (as measured by download and
>> citation counts): This is the primary justification for mandating the
>> provision of OA, through self-archiving.
>>
>> (8) A side-benefit is that OA increases access and usage for
>> practitioners, patients and the general public too -- in those
>> fields in
>> which there is practitioner, patient, and public (PPP) interest in the
>> research articles. (It has to be noted that there is as yet no
>> systematic quantitative measure of this PPP interest and PPP interest
>> is almost limited to only a small fraction of the annual 2.5 million
>> articles across all research fields.)
>>
>> (9) Hence the primary rationale for mandating OA self-archiving has to
>> be the objectively measurable and demonstrated benefits it provides
>> for
>> research, researchers, and the public that funds them, in terms of
>> usage and citations, rather than PPP interest.
>>
>> (10) OA of course also provides for PPP use, but the important
>> strategic
>> point to understand is that PPP needs, being limited to only a
>> fraction of the OA fields and difficult as yet to measure and
>> document,
>> cannot be adduced as the primary reason for putting publisher
>> subscription revenues at potential risk -- otherwise there is a strong
>> risk that the proposals to mandate self-archiving will be defeated by
>> the publisher lobby.
>>
>> Here is my detailed reply to a well-meaning (anonymous) query
>> concerning
>> PPP interests:
>>
>> I think you are not quite understanding the OA problem, hence its
>> solution: The *objective* is to provide free online access (OA) for
>> *all*
>> would-be users (whether researchers or practitioners, practitioners
>> and
>> public [PPP]).
>>
>> The *problem*, however, is that the *providers* of the the
>> research, namely
>> the researchers who wrote the research articles, are not yet providing
>> OA to their articles spontaneously.
>>
>> The *solution* is to mandate that they must provide OA -- by
>> self-archiving them free online in institutional or central
>> repositories.
>>
>> In order to get that solution (mandate) adopted, it is necessary to
>> persuade those who are in a position to mandate self-archiving --
>> namely
>> the researchers' own funders and institutions -- to mandate it. In
>> order
>> to persuade them to mandate it, it is necessary to persuade them that
>> there is a need to mandate OA -- especially because the publishers
>> are trying to prevent self-archiving mandates, or, failing that, to
>> embargo them, because they fear they could reduce their subscription
>> revenues (even though there is no evidence of this, even after 15
>> years of self-archiving, some of it at or near 100% for years now in
>> some subfields).
>>
>> Now comes the critical point: To persuade researchers and their
>> funders and employers that there is indeed a strong need to mandate
>> self-archiving despite the publishers' objections that there is no
>> need
>> for OA and that it might put their subscription revenues at risk, you
>> have to make it clear exactly what the need for OA is, and how and why
>> it is to researchers' advantage to self-archive their research:
>>
>> The chief need for OA is on the part of those who would use and apply
>> the research, and the objective measure of that need is download and
>> citation counts: It has been demonstrated that self-archiving
>> accelerates
>> and increases downloads and citations substantially. Citation
>> counts mean
>> salary and funding for researchers, and overheads for their
>> institutions,
>> and both citations and downloads mean a return on the funder's
>> investment
>> of tax-payer money in funding the research, in terms of research
>> productivity, applications and progress ("cures"), in all fields.
>>
>> So the way to solve the problem of how to persuade researchers to
>> provide
>> OA is to persuade funders and institutions to mandate self-
>> archiving. And
>> the way to persuade them to mandate self-archiving is to persuade
>> them that it is to the advantage of research and researchers (and
>> their
>> institutions and funders and the tax-payers that fund the funders)
>> because
>> it both accelerates and increases research citations and downloads
>> (i.e.,
>> research impact and progress).
>>
>> Downloads are as yet not being systematically measured and compiled
>> (though they will be eventually), but citations are already being
>> systematically measured and compiled -- and, moreover, they are
>> correlated with downloads.
>>
>> So the simple, straightforward argument for mandating self-archiving,
>> the one that is immune to publishers' objections that OA is
>> unneeded or
>> that it might ruin their business, is that self-archiving is
>> optimal for
>> research itself, because it increases citations.
>>
>> If we could add downloads to the argument, and downloads in
>> particular by
>> practitioners, patients and public (PPP), we would, but there are
>> no such
>> download counts yet, so we cannot add them directly and empirically to
>> the usage/impact argument. It is not necessary, however, because free
>> access for researchers also means free access for everyone, including
>> PPP. So there is no need to adduce evidence that there is substantial
>> PPP demand and need (especially because in most specialized fields
>> there
>> is unlikely to be!).
>>
>> We cannot, however, say that the primary reason we need OA is because
>> of PPP needs, because (1) we have no data on PPP use yet and (2) PPP
>> use applies to only a small fraction of the research literature -- 2.5
>> million articles a year, across all fields, in 24,000 journals. Hence
>> it is *not* a valid argument for OA self-archiving in general, and, if
>> put up front as the main reason for seeking OA mandates, would lead to
>> debate, delay and defeat after years of haggling, with publisher
>> offers
>> of "special deals," with the publisher making a select subset of their
>> articles OA when they might have some PPP interest.
>>
>> That would be the PPP tail wagging the entire OA research dog: PPP
>> needs are only a tiny (though important) subset of OA needs. And,
>> more important, direct PPP access is definitely not the main way the
>> public benefits from OA! Focussing primarily on PPP access is the
>> *wrong
>> strategy* for persuading researchers, their institutions and their
>> funders
>> of the need to mandate OA, even though PPP access does undeniably have
>> superficial appeal with voters and politicians; in the end, on its
>> own,
>> or in the lead as the primary rationale for Open Access, PPP access
>> would lead to debate, delay and defeat for a self-archiving mandate.
>>
>> But using PPP access needs as the primary rationale for OA needs is
>> not necessary. The solution is to put the irrefutable direct needs
>> of researchers for research access (for the sake of the *research*
>> and application benefits -- "cures" -- it will provide for patients,
>> practitioners, cures, the public) first, and note that OA will *also*
>> provide PPP access as a side-benefit wherever wanted or needed.
>>
>> It is ever so important not to weaken the case for OA -- the case that
>> must be put to the researchers and their institutions and funders,
>> across all fields -- by giving primacy to access by patients and
>> practitioners. They will get access anyway. But they are not the
>> research
>> providers: Researchers are; and most of them don't do clinically
>> relevant
>> research; and even those who do are rewarded for their research
>> impact,
>> and not yet for their practical impact. (They will be rewarded for the
>> latter *after* OA prevails, but not before, so that cannot be used to
>> induce them or their institutions and funders to self-archive:
>> research
>> impact can, and it gives everyone else access as too.)
>>
>> I hope you understand these issues of logic and practicality better
>> now:
>> Only a small fraction of research is PPP-relevant, so the need for PPP
>> access *cannot* be made the principle argument for OA or OA will lose.
>>
>> Now some comments:
>>
>> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, [identity deleted] wrote:
>>
>>> I don't think that folks understand this distinction well. You and
>>> I do but
>>> researchers=lab to the more social sciences. We have a large
>>> health science
>>> program here and our faculty have "divisions" (i.e. research
>>> faculty versus
>>> clinical faculty). It is from these clinical faculty I have
>>> extended my
>>> appreciation of the problems in the field. When I read your 8-
>>> point agenda I
>>> believe that the clinical faculty would feel that they were not being
>>> embraced in it.
>>
>> If the clinical faculty *publish* research (i.e., if they are OA
>> *providers*), they are embraced by it. If they merely *use*
>> research, they
>> are irrelevant to a mandate that addresses research providers.
>> However,
>> since OA means OA for everyone, clinicians (indeed, all of PPP) are
>> embraced by its *outcome*, which is OA to the research they need.
>>
>> Please distinguish what concerns research *providers* from what
>> concerns
>> research *users*. The OA problem is that of getting the providers
>> to provide the OA (and the solution is to mandate providing it). And
>> the users are the beneficiaries (whether researchers, practitioners,
>> patients, or public). Please do not conflate the problem of getting
>> access
>> (the user problem) with the problem of getting providers to provide OA
>> (the mandate problem). The solution to the mandate problem is also the
>> provider solution to the user access problem.
>>
>>> As we try to go about courting our disciplines I think that the
>>> language is
>>> important when we cross over to the professional/social sciences.
>>> There are
>>> few, if any, practitioners of particle physics. But there are lots
>>> of nurses,
>>> social workers, educators, and so on who could use the research
>>> but they are
>>> challenged to get it....
>>> the situation is really grim... once students leave the school and
>>> move to
>>> "disconnected" areas of which there are many).
>>
>> You are mixing up the user problem and the provider problem here: The
>> point is that providers have to be mandated to provide OA. You are
>> also
>> mixing up the (minority) practitioner-relevant OA fields with the vast
>> majority of practitioner-irrelevant OA fields. OA and OA mandates need
>> to cover them *all*, and the research impact argument is the decisive
>> and universal one, not the practitioner argument, which is a minority
>> special case, and could be strategically manipulated by publishers
>> with
>> special side-deals.
>>
>> By the way, students could be added to PPP too, making it SPPP, and
>> the
>> same argument applies to them: OA gives them access with territory,
>> and
>> eventually their usage will be measured and credited too, through
>> download counts. Moreover, to the extent that students are or become
>> researchers, their usage also translates into citations and more
>> research (and "cures").
>>
>>> I think that all that needs to be added is something along
>>> the lines of "research-practitioners benefit [from OA] too" and this
>>> is particular important to "isolated", "international" and "less-
>>> resourced"
>>> communities.
>>
>> Happy to add SPPP needs to research needs in the overall rationale for
>> OA wherever possible (though I think it is already covered
>> by "all would-be users"). Eventually, Connotea-style tagging will
>> help quantify SPPP need and its benefits, the way it is already
>> quantified by research citations...
>>
>> https://secure.ecs.soton.ac.uk/notices/publicnotices.php?notice=920
>> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5209.html
>> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/5237.html
>>
>> Stevan Harnad
>
>