On the Green, the Gold and the Gatekeeper, and Green-Gold "cooperation'

We can reorganise this lineage to see it more clearly: (Non-OA) Publisher - Green OA - Gold OA

If I were to format this email, it would have an upside-down V under Green OA. That's because Green OA is a pivot between subscription (Non-OA) and OA publishing. This is because Green OA seeks to maximise OA to published content, and currently most of that content is in non-OA publications. The critical and fundamental tenet of Green OA for authors - yet largely ignored, misunderstood or misrepresented - is publish where you want AND make OA.

To gauge the size and bias of the pivot, Bjork et al report 20.4% of published content is OA (8.5% gold and 11.9% green) http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0011273
That leaves about 80% on the non-OA side of the pivot, of which 95% is already eligible to be Green OA. Clearly the pivot is still heavily weighted to the non-OA publisher side.

On the other side of the pivot, what is the basis of cooperation between green and gold? This is clouded because the gold side includes hybrid OA publishers, and gold-only publishers which in turn includes a few high-profile commercial publishers and many DIY journals. The hybrid publishers would switch to gold tomorrow, bypassing green, if it were economically attractive, i.e. as profitable as non-OA is now (see below). What cooperation are the other gold publishers offering green? On the one hand it seems to be: get gold-get green, or get gold don't need green, or gold is better than green anyway. Cooperation? On the other hand competition with non-OA-but-green publishers leads gold publishers to make the case for we're more OA than you - hence the gratis vs libre OA distinction. Cooperation? This is why the pivot is below Green OA, and not between OA and non-OA.

Let's consider how a switch to gold OA might happen and the consequent prospects:

1 Hybrid to gold
2 New gold journals (which would need to absorb the remaining 91.5% of non-OA published content, or a mix of 1 and 2)
3 The green pivot (green OA is the target; the subsequent impact on gold OA is speculation)

Now take a recent blog by Stuart Shieber speculating on hyperinflation of publication fees of OA journals
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2010/07/31/will-open-access-publication-fees-grow-out-of-control/

At what point do libraries that berate publishers for the 'serials crisis', essentially due to journal price inflation, believe that the same would not happen if the same publishers were to switch straight to gold OA?

The real clincher is this: apart from 3, the switch to gold OA must entail a limitation on where authors can publish, either due to cost or contraction of the available journals. To defend against hyperinflation Shieber refers to institutions already 'capping' publication fees, thus precipitating an author revolt were they pressed to switch to gold OA on a larger scale than now, which is implicit if we are to have substantially more OA and the choice is gold. The choice presented by gold OA is hyperinflation, or replace the library serials crisis with an author crisis. Libraries would be wise not to risk the latter and export the problem to the rest of the campus, especially when there is a proven alternative OA strategy for which the infrastructure (IRs) is mostly in place.

So the concern here is not with the publishers, green or gold, who will choose their own routes, but with those who are not, who want OA, who want green and gold to cooperate but can't see the chronology.

Expecting cooperation between green and gold is wishful - the goal is the same, the strategies quite different - but it would be a start if there was a recognised chronology. Unless you are a gold OA publisher, to maximise OA whilst not limiting the publication opportunities of authors, simply green is a pre-condition. 

Steve Hitchcock
IAM Group, Building 32
School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: [log in to unmask]
Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevehit
Connotea: http://www.connotea.org/user/stevehit
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698    Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865


On 1 Aug 2010, at 12:48, leo waaijers wrote:

> Dear Stevan,
> 
> Your reply is demonstrating my point. 
> 
> I am not so sure that the jisc-repositories list is indifferent to this discussion as your rigidity is more than a 'futility'. It has far reaching strategical consequences. Currently, we see a three party game between the Green, the Gold and the Gatekeeper. My plea is a co-operation between the Green and the Gold. Your rigidity is an obstacle to that. You may not be powerful, but you are highly influential. It is the Green-Gold dichotomy that enables the Gatekeeper to simply do nothing and maintain the status quo. 
> 
> From here I will leave this subject to the list. If my contributions have been annoying, I apologize for that.
> 
> Best wishes,
> Leo.
> 
> 
> Stevan Harnad wrote:
>> On 2010-07-31, at 11:56 AM, leo waaijers wrote:
>> 
>>> Yes, I think that a public discussion of your rigidity may advance things. Not your rigidity as a personal psychological feature, but as an operational or tactical factor. My point is, your rigidity is not a success factor. 
>>> 
>>> Sometimes I am dreaming of an agreement between Green and Gold in the form of a mutually accepted simple overview of pro's and con's of both options. We then could stop the relentless internal debates in the OA movement and use the released energy to approach funders together and tell them that if they take OA seriously, and I am convinced most of them do, they can make a contingency based choice. 
>>> 
>>> I always have the feeling that your rigidity prevents such a development. Am I right?
>> 
>> Dear Leo, I think you are wrong. 
>> 
>> The "agreement between Green and Gold in the form of a mutually accepted simple overview of pro's and con's of both options" of which you are dreaming is in fact precisely what prevails today; it is indeed the result of "contingency based choice" -- and it is not advancing things, nor generating much success, anywhere near quickly enough. Universal OA is still far away: almost as far as it was a decade ago (though the repositories and the few green OA mandates and gold OA journals have brought us a little closer). 
>> 
>> It is this simplistic, unreflective status quo that I am trying (unsuccessfully) to challenge and disrupt. It is so far too rigid for reasoning or evidence to penetrate it. But although it may be "an operational or tactical" futility, I have not yet given up. (in that sense you are right that I have been "relentless.")
>> 
>> My main point is so simple that it can be summarised in a single sentence: "Institutions and funders should mandate green OA and they should on no account promote or fund gold OA until and unless they have first mandated green OA." (That's it; all the rest is in the reasons and the evidence on which that stern-sounding injunction is based.)
>> 
>> But I am interested in knowing (preferably offline, because I doubt the jisc-repositories list shares my curiosity) the basis on which you imagine that my "rigidity prevents... contingency based choice": 
>> 
>> Do you imagine that I have any power or authority whatsoever to prevent people from making their own choices? (For I assure you that if I did, they would not be making the unfortunate choices they are making today -- and I bet you that progress toward universal OA would be incomparably faster!)
>> 
>> But I continue to think that an on-list discussion of my rigidity is a waste of list-member's time, whereas a (multilateral) discussion of my reasoning would be a refreshing tactical and operational change.
>> 
>> (The usual pattern is that I post detailed, substantive critiques, and no one responds -- or responds just to tell me that I am being rigid and should "stop the relentless internal debates in the OA movement"...)
>> 
>> Best wishes, Stevan
>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> LW: But shouldn't you accept then that different repository managers may have various 'mandates'? You seem so rigid in this. 
>>>> 
>>>> SH: Yes, I am rigid as rigid can be on what makes sense and what does not. But why does this trouble you? I have absolutely no power. It is not I who set repository managers' or repository managers' mandates: All I do is try (mostly in vain!) to help them make more sense out of what they are trying to do.
>>>> 
>>>> But for this sort of nonsubstantive discussion, I really don't think this list is quite the place. 
>>>> 
>>>> My prior postings were trying to point out the profound problems with the Chair of the UK Council of Research Repositories arguments for taking a "gold only route." I have no idea whatsoever whether anyone has taken any notice of the substantive points I raised. Not one of them has been taken up in the subsequent postings (except by Steve Hitchcock, but we already see eye to eye). 
>>>> 
>>>> I really don't think, however, that a public discussion of my rigidity is going to advance things, do you?
>>>> 
>>>>>>>> SH: And my mandate, Charles (if you will permit me!) is to continue describing, as clearly and as concretely as I can, what it is that I take to be the mandate of repositories, repository managers, and repository managers -- and why.
>>>>>>>>       
>>>>>>> LW: Is this a self-imposed mandate Stevan? If so, are we all entitled to define our own mandates?
>>>>>>>    
>>>>>> SH: Yes, self-imposed, Leo. 
>>>>>> And, yes, we're all entitled to impose mandates on ourselves. 
>>>>>> (Some, unfond of extended metaphors, might prefer to call it their "mission." Mine's been open access archivangelism 'lo these nigh on 20 years...)
>> 
>>