RE: Funding OA, part one

["David Goodman" <David.Goodman@liu.edu>]

Dear David G,

There is an easy and cheap way: to adopt the proposal Varmus put forth in
1999 : <http://www.nih.gov/about/director/pubmedcentral/ebiomedarch.htm>

After 6 years experience, it is clear that the quality control options are
more varied than suggested there, and could include any of these

a) articles would be posted only upon the approval of an editing committee
of a "journal"--probably including the same journals and the same
committees. The quality requirements would depend on the journal, just as
now.

b) articles would be posted after a quick arXiv-like scan for
appropriateness. The would then be certified by whichever "journal"  the
author asked to do so. These would be probably include the same journals
and the same committees. The quality requirements would depend on the
journal, just as now.

c) The database would have a peer-reviewed side and a non peer-reviewed
side. Anyone could post to the non-peer-reviewed side, possibly with a
scan for appropriateness. Items would move when submitted to a "journal"
by an author and reviewed favorably, just as now.

Note that any variation or new idea for quality control could be adopted;
I present these mainly to show that the journals and their key functions
could continue.  Anyone is welcome to substitute a preferred scheme. As we
are certain to disagree on the best one, there might be more than one
route, just as PNAS has long had different tracks-- currently, as shown in
<http://www.pnas.org/misc/iforc.shtml#submission>.

Who could bring it about: any group in the publication chain with enough
courage. (See the last paragraph)

Who benefits:

funding agencies:  the cost would be lower--depending on the amount of
editing and the requirement for a copyediting step--anywhere from 5% to
75%.  We would presumably select a system that could be paid for by the
reallocation of current funds. The grant funds that now go to publication
costs and the libraries' part of overhead would be reallocated.

academic administrators:  they could continue their promotion, tenure, and
hiring systems until they had better ideas; the same high quality and low
quality journals would exist.

authors:  one easy way to publish for both good and mediocre material--
the journal editors would label them, just as now.

editors:  the functions of editors, editorial boards, and peer reviewers
continue just as now unless we want to change them

readers: everything from here on in is accessible universally.

libraries:  they would only need to pay for a few key journals that might
continue in print.  Some subscription funds might have to be reallocated,
but if there are no expensive journals to buy. the library does not need
the money to buy them. There should be some left to buy more books (see
below)

Who should be fully satisfied:

"Gold" OA Journal advocates:  this givesthem everythingthey want without
the burden of actually publishing a journal and collecting the fundsto pay
for it.

"Green" OA advocates: authors could coninue to post unpublished and
published papers in any repository they choose, and there would be no need
to dispute with publishers over the details.

Conventional journal advocates: this has all the direct benefits that come
from journal publication. Anything worth printing could still be printed,
if people were willing to pay for it. They'd have an option.

Who might not benefit:

Societies that depend on publication income: Varmus's idea was to
subsidize them directly. If they are going to use the profits for
non-publication purposes, then these purposes would need to be justified
for funding in here own sake.  That's fair enough.

Commercial journal publishers: These would continue only for those few
journals people wanted to pay for, not thought they needed to get someone
else to pay for. That's what a free market means. The staff of these
publishers who perform editorial function would still be needed, though
reorganized. The others would need to turn to publishing other things,
such as books.

Librarians: The librarians and library staff necessary for the complex
procedures of purchasing journals and arranging access would not be needed
for these functions. The part of public service librarian's work involved
in helping people navigate the maze to find their articles would not be
needed either.  The proper functions of librarians would continue, to
provide indexing and to help users match their problems to the material
which would meet their needs.  There is a large unmet need for such help--
but institutions and users would have to be convinced of that, and there
might be a better name for these information intermediates than
"librarians"  It's a role that should convey high prestige.

OA advocates (and opponents) in general:  We would no longer need lists
like this one. Those running them and those writing them would need to
find other issues--this part I don't really worry about.

How long would it take to bring this about? 

In theory, one day. We know how to run archives. We know how to edit and
review articles. Authors may need some help posting them, but there will
be many people to help.

In practice--until the academic world and its satellites come to their
senses and get out of the publishing cost spiral. I understand already.
How about you?
 
Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman@liu.edu

PS.  the author would be grateful to anyone pointing out items that have
been overlooked or wrongly stated, whether mentioned in private or on the
list.  And if people really don't like this plan, or it has some fatal
defect, there are others that could do almost as well, or coexist with it.
They require a little more in the way of formal structure, so I'll post
them in a few days.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of David Groenewegen
Sent: Thu 8/18/2005 3:20 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Funding OA
 
It seems to me that the key factor is that the demand is being skewed by
the assumptions that underlie the promotion/funding process. Up until now
funding, tenure etc has been determined by the places you have been
published because that has been the primary indicator of the quality of
your work. The value of the publication has been judged by the perceived
value of the name, editors, history and so on. This was not unreasonable
in the pre-internet world, where finding information was much tougher. But
just being published in a "good' title is not a true indication of the
value of the research.

As an example I looked at issue v50n20 of "Physical Review B" in Web of
Science. This issue was published in 1994, so it has had plenty of time to
be read and cited. The journal has an impact factor is in the top ten for
"Physics, Condensed matter" according to JCR. Of the 96 articles from that
issue indexed in WoS, 23 have been cited 3 or less times. Several have
never been cited. But on the current criteria for advancement it doesn't
matter that the articles have been ignored by the Physics community for 10
years. What matters is that "Physical Review B" published them.

In 1994 I was working in serials check-in and binding in a science
library. Physical Review B put out a huge issue every week. The shelves
were groaning under the weight of the bound issues, each so large that you
could only bind two issues into one volume or the spine would collapse.  
But they kept coming. I note that v70n20 from 2004 has 130 articles in it.
Because everyone wants to be in a "quality" journal.

It seems to me that we need to get away from the brand name of the journal
or the publisher and move towards the value of the article to other
researchers (as this is supposed to be one of the key reasons for
publication) . At the moment citation rates are the only viable way of
measuring it. How this can be done is a whole other question of course,
but it will be interesting if ISI Web Citation Index can bring about a
shift in perceptions, assuming it does what they were trying to achieve.
But as long as where you publish is a critical factor, what you publish
will be undervalued.

By the way, this should not be seen as an attack on Physical Review B, or
the authors whose articles were not cited or who choose to publish there
or on the quality of the articles. It was just an example that has stuck
in my head from my days of lugging vast numbers of issues off the shelves
and into the work area to prepare for binding.

David Groenewegen
Information Resources Management Librarian
Information Services
University of Ballarat
AUSTRALIA
email: d.groenewegen@ballarat.edu.au