Disseminating research via the web is appealing, but it lacks  
journals' peer-review quality filter," says Philip Altbach in: Hidden  
cost of open access Times Higher Education Supplement 5 June 2008

  Professor Altbach's essay in the Times Higher Education Supplement is  
based on a breath-takingly fundamental misunderstanding of both Open  
Access (OA) and OA mandates like Harvard's: The content that is the  
target of the OA movement is peer-reviewed journal articles, not  
unrefereed manuscripts.

  It is the author's peer-reviewed final drafts of their journal  
articles that Harvard and 43 other institutions and research funders  
worldwide have required to be deposited in their institutional  
repositories. This is a natural online-era extension of institutions'  
publish or perish policy, adopted in order to maximise the usage and  
impact of their peer-reviewed research output.

  The journal's (and author's) name and track record continue to be the  
indicators of quality, as they always were. The peers (researchers  
themselves) continue to review journal submissions (for free) as they  
always did.

  The only thing that changes with OA is that all would-be users webwide  
-- rather than only those whose institutions can afford to subscribe to  
the journal in which it was published -- can access, use, apply, build  
upon and cite each published, peer-reviewed research finding, thereby  
maximising its "impact factor." (This also makes usage and citation  
metrics OA, putting impact analysis into the hands of the research  
community itself rather than just for-profit companies.)

  And if and when mandated OA should ever make subscriptions  
unsustainable as the means of covering the costs of peer review,  
journals will simply charge institutions directly for the  
peer-reviewing of their research output, by the articles, instead of  
charging them indirectly for access to the research output of other  
institutions, by the journal, as most do now. The institutional  
windfall subscription savings will be more than enough to pay the peer  
review costs several times over.

  What is needed is more careful thought and understanding of what OA  
actually is, what it is for, and how it works, rather than uninformed  
non sequiturs such as those in the essay in question.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
On 08-06-10, at 13:32, Hubbard Bill wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> There is an article on Open Access in the Times Higher of June 5th by
> Philip Altbach ("Hidden cost of open access") which might well form
> opinion amongst its UK academic readership within our institutions.
> http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp? 
> sectioncode=26&storycode
> =402257&c=1
>
> Unfortunately, this article is is entirely based on the false idea that
> there is no peer-review for open access material: and also by
> implication seems to be saying that there can never be any quality
> control of web-based material.
>
> ". . . [Open Access]. . . But there are several problems with it. Chief
> among
> them is that peer review is eliminated - all knowledge becomes equal.
> There is no quality control on the internet, and a Wikipedia article  
> has
> the same value as an essay by a distinguished researcher."
>
> There seems to be conflation between open access
> as part of scholarly communication and simply mounting a webpage.  To
> confuse these two things is very misleading because, as as we know, the
> idea that open access material is not peer-reviewed is plain wrong.  
> Open
> access academic literature in journals or repositories can be
> peer-reviewed as normal.  The quality of material made available on the
> internet has just the same problems and solutions as quality control in
> other media: what provenance has the material got? What quality
> processes has it undergone?
>
> This lack of awareness unfortunately undermines the whole article, but
> Altbach does make one other independent error when he says that using
> the internet for dissemination means that less-well known institutions
> would likely gain less attention than Harvard. In fact, as evidenced by
> the commercial world, the internet offers opportunities for smaller
> institutions to play on a more level playing field. For researchers at
> any institution, the internet offers a dissemination medium where the
> quality of the research is what can gain attention rather than the past
> reputation of the institution.
>
> Altbach is right in emphasising the importance of peer-review, but then
> I am not aware of anyone who seriously as says otherwise. Obviously,
> material from a smaller institution needs close peer-review for
> acceptance of its quality, but the same is true of material from  
> Harvard
> or Oxford or anywhere else.
>
> It is a pity that such an article has appeared in the Times Higher, as
> the circulation that it will receive probably means that we will have  
> to
> once more reassure academics within our own institutions that open
> access does not mean the death of peer-review.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bill
>
>
>
> --
>
> Bill Hubbard
> SHERPA Manager
>
> SHERPA - www.sherpa.ac.uk
> RSP - www.rsp.ac.uk
> RoMEO - www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo
> JULIET - www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet
> OpenDOAR - www.opendoar.org
>
> SHERPA
> Greenfield Medical Library
> University of Nottingham
> Queens Medical Centre
> Nottingham
> NG7 2UH
> UK
>
> Tel  +44(0)  115  846 7657
> Fax  +44(0)  115  846 8244
>
> This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an  
> attachment
> may still contain software viruses, which could damage your computer  
> system:
> you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with  
> the
> University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK  
> legislation.