On 21-Oct-09, at 1:41 PM, Patricia Galloway wrote:

> I concur with Stephen Downes that the tone of remarks made in  
> response to Jason Jackson's decision and advice really doesn't help  
> anyone. There are histories to every decision of this kind, and I  
> would suspect that perhaps those who have responded thus to  
> Jackson's advice know little about the recent history of periodical  
> publication in the field of anthropology in the US or the active  
> intervention of research libraries in this area.

I don't quite understand how the history of periodical publication in  
anthropology in particular bears upon the issue under discussion,  
which is whether in the interests of Open Access -- and I stress that  
this is about Open Access, free online access, not about journal  
prices, profits, affordability, business model -- it is good advice to  
recommend that researchers boycott journals rather than just making  
their journal articles OA by self-archiving them.

I have given the reasons why this is very wrong advice. (Of course  
what researchers decide to do individually, for personal reasons of  
their own, is entirely their own business. My remarks were about the  
efficacy of researchers boycotting journals for the sake of global  
Open Access, and hence the soundness of advice that researchers should  
do so.)

> I admire Downes' stand; in my career--only recently in an academic  
> setting--I have written more books and book chapters than journal  
> articles, but where I have published I have always attempted to  
> secure early and inexpensive paperback publication, retention of my  
> own copyright, and, more recently, have declined invitations from  
> publishers because of both copyright and cost issues. Jackson and  
> Downes make me realize that there are other avenues I can explore  
> personally.

OA's target content is, first and foremost, refereed journal articles,  
because that, and only that, consists of exception-free author give- 
away content, written exclusively for research usage and impact. I did  
not say a thing about books.

But as a means of making author give-away content freely accessible  
online to all users, refusing to publish with for-profit (or with non- 
OA) publishers is a singularly ineffective way of going about it. It's  
rather as if one tried to remedy global hunger by eating less. (As a  
personal choice, this is fine, but when it is offered publicly as  
advice to others on how to remedy global hunger, it ill-serves the  
hungry not to expose it for the wrong advice that it is.)

That said, I certainly did not wish to disparage idealistic efforts  
that individuals may choose to make for reasons of their own, whether  
or not they are practically effective, and I apologize to anyone who  
may have got that impression from what I wrote. It is the promotion of  
quixotic measures when effective ones exist (and are being  
underutilized) that I was criticizing.

Stevan Harnad


> Patricia Galloway
> School of Information
> University of Texas at Austin
>
> Stephen Downes wrote:
>> Hiya,
>>
>> In my own career, I have mostly followed the five suggestions  
>> offered by Jackson. Not completely, but nobody would confuse me  
>> with a researcher who is writing for publication in major journals.
>>
>> I made this decision deliberately, and accepted the unquestionable  
>> impact it had on my career, because I am unwilling to support an  
>> industry that makes its money by denying people access to  
>> scientific and academic literature, literature that the people have  
>> already paid for and which they ought, for many reasons, to be in  
>> full possession.
>>
>> I have also lobbied my own institutions (the National Research  
>> Council of Canada) and funders to adopt OA mandates. It's not an  
>> either-or. You can do both, My lobbying has not suffered for my  
>> decision to publish (mostly) in open access form on my own website.  
>> Only my career has.
>>
>> I understand and accept the position of some that it is faster and  
>> more economical to work with existing publishers in an effort to  
>> convince them to (eventually) allow scientific material to be  
>> posted in institutional archives. Not everyone is in the same  
>> position that I'm in, nor of the same mindset.
>>
>> But to suggest the strategy I have adopted "has not only been tried  
>> and has failed and been superseded already, but a strategy that,  
>> with some reflection, could have been seen to be wrong-headed  
>> without even having to be tried" is, as the other commenter wrote,  
>> churlish.
>>
>> My strategy has not failed. Instead, it has led me to an  
>> alternative, a remarkable, interesting and /different/ kind of  
>> career as an academic. Yes, if you're just trying to do more of the  
>> same, the alternative route may be seen as a failure. But if you  
>> are looking to engage with the full possibilities of online and  
>> open online access, then liaison with the publishers is a millstone.
>>
>> I fully accept the fact that many, or most, academics do not wish  
>> to embrace this sort of open access. I would ask that those of us  
>> who have be respected as advocating a genuine form of open access,  
>> and not proponents of a mistake.
>>
>> -- Stephen
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Stevan Harnad wrote:
>>>    [Apologies for Cross-Posting: Hyperlinked version is at:
>>> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/641-guid.html ]
>>>
>>> With every good intention, Jason Baird Jackson -- in "Getting  
>>> Yourself
>>> Out of the Business in Five Easy Steps"
>>> http://jasonbairdjackson.com/2009/10/12/getting-yourself-out-of-the-business-in-five-easy-steps/
>>> is giving the wrong advice on Open Access, recommending a strategy
>>> that has not only been tried and has failed and been superseded
>>> already, but a strategy that, with some reflection, could have been
>>> seen to be wrong-headed without even having to be tried:
>>>
>>> •	Choose not to submit scholarly journal articles or other works to
>>> publications owned by for-profit firms.
>>> •	Say no, when asked to undertake peer-review work on a book or
>>> article manuscript that has been submitted for publication by a
>>> for-profit publisher or a journal under the control of a commercial
>>> publisher.
>>> •	Do not seek or accept the editorship of a journal owned or under  
>>> the
>>> control of a commercial publisher.
>>> •	Do not take on the role of series editor for a book series being
>>> published by a for-profit publisher.
>>> •	Turn down invitations to join the editorial boards of commercially
>>> published journals or book series.
>>>
>>> In the year 2000, 34,000 biological researchers worldwide signed a
>>> boycott threat to stop publishing in and refereeing for their  
>>> journals
>>> if those journals did not provide (what we would now call) Open  
>>> Access
>>> (OA) to their articles. http://www.plos.org/about/letter.html
>>>
>>> Their boycott threat was ignored by the publishers of the  
>>> journals, of
>>> course, because it was obvious to them if not to the researchers  
>>> that
>>> the researchers had no viable alternative. And of course the
>>> researchers did not make good on their boycott threat when their
>>> journals failed to comply.
>>>
>>> The (likewise well-intentioned) activists who had launched the  
>>> boycott
>>> threat then turned to another strategy: They launched the excellent
>>> PLoS journals (now celebrating their 5th anniversary) to prove that
>>> there could be viable OA journals of the highest quality. The
>>> experiment was a great success, and many more OA journals have since
>>> spawned, some of them (such as the BMC -- now Springer --  
>>> journals) of
>>> a quality comparable to conventional journals, some not.
>>>
>>> But what also became apparent from the (now 9-year) exercise was  
>>> that
>>> providing OA by creating new journals, persuading authors to publish
>>> in them instead of in their established journals, with their
>>> track-records for quality, and finding the funds to pay for the  
>>> author
>>> publication fees that many of the OA journals had to charge (since
>>> they could no longer make ends meet with subscriptions) was a very
>>> slow and uncertain process.
>>>
>>> There are at least 25,000 peer-reviewed journals published annually
>>> today, including a core of perhaps 5000 journals that constitute the
>>> top 20% of the journals in each field, the ones that most authors  
>>> want
>>> to publish in, and most users want to access and use (and cite).
>>>
>>> There are now about 5000 OA journals too, likewise about 20%, but  
>>> most
>>> -- unlike the PLoS journals (and perhaps the BMC/Springer and  
>>> Hindawi
>>> journals) -- are far from being among the top 20% of journals. Hence
>>> most researchers in 2009 face much the same problem that the
>>> signatories of the 2000 PLoS boycott threat faced in 2000: For most
>>> researchers, it would mean a considerable sacrifice to renounce  
>>> their
>>> preferred journals and publish instead in an OA journal: either  
>>> (more
>>> often) OA journals with comparable quality standards do not exist,  
>>> or
>>> their publication charges are a deterrent.
>>>
>>> Yet ever since 2000 (and earlier) there has been no need for either
>>> threats or sacrifice by researchers in order to have OA to all of  
>>> the
>>> planet's peer-reviewed research output. For those same researchers  
>>> who
>>> were signing boycott threats that they could not carry out could
>>> instead have used those keystrokes to make their own peer-reviewed
>>> research OA, by depositing their final, peer-reviewed drafts in OA
>>> repositories as soon as they were accepted for publication, to make
>>> them freely accessible online to all would-be users webwide, rather
>>> than just to those whose institutions could afford to subscribe to  
>>> the
>>> journals in which they were published.
>>>
>>> Researchers could have made all their research OA spontaneously  
>>> since
>>> at least 1994. They could have done it OAI-compliantly  
>>> (interoperably)
>>> since at least 2000.
>>>
>>> But most researchers did not make their own research OA in 1994, nor
>>> in 2000, and even now in 2009, they seem to prefer petitioning
>>> publishers for it, rather than providing it for themselves.
>>>
>>> There is a solution (and researchers themselves have already  
>>> revealed
>>> exactly what it was when they were surveyed). That solution is not
>>> more petitions and more waiting for publishers or journals to change
>>> their policies or their economics. It is for researchers'  
>>> institutions
>>> and funders to mandate that their researchers provide OA to their  
>>> own
>>> refereed research by depositing their final, peer-reviewed drafts in
>>> OA repositories as soon as they are accepted for publication, to  
>>> make
>>> them freely accessible online to all would-be users webwide, rather
>>> than just to those whose institutions can afford to subscribe to the
>>> journals in which they were published.
>>>
>>> I would like to suggest that Jason Jackson (and other well-meaning  
>>> OA
>>> advocates) could do incomparably more for global OA by lobbying  
>>> their
>>> own institutions (and funders) to adopt OA mandates than by  
>>> launching
>>> more proposals to boycott publishers who decline to do what
>>> researchers can already do for themselves. (And meanwhile, they  
>>> should
>>> deposit their articles spontaneously, even without a mandate.)
>>>
>>> OA Week 2009 would be a good time for the worldwide research  
>>> community
>>> to come to this realization at long last, and reach for the solution
>>> that has been within its grasp all along.
>>>
>>> Stevan Harnad
>>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Stephen Downes  ~  Research Officer  ~  National Research Council  
>> Canada
>>
>> http://www.downes.ca  ~  [log in to unmask]         __\|/__ Free  
>> Learning