Critique of EPS/RIN/RCUK/DTI "Evidence-Based Analysis of Data Concerning Scholarly Journal Publishing"

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

Overview only. Fill hyperlinked version available at:
     http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/142-guid.html
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OVERVIEW: A Report on UK Scholarly Journals was commissioned by RIN,
RCUK and DTI, and conducted by ELS, but its questions, answers and
interpretations are clearly far more concerned with the interests of
the publishing lobby than with those of the research community.
     http://www.rin.ac.uk/data-scholarly-journals
     http://www.rin.ac.uk/
     http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/
     http://www.dti.gov.uk/
     http://www.epsltd.com
     http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/20-guid.html

The Report's two relevant overall findings are correct and stated very
fairly in their summary form:

>    [1] "Overall, [self-archiving] of articles in open access
>    repositories seems to be associated with both a larger number
>    of citations, and earlier citations for the items deposited...
>    http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html The reasons for
>    this [association] have not been clearly established - there
>    are many factors that influence citation rates...  Consistent
>    longitudinal data over a period of years... would fill this gap."

>    [2] "There is no evidence as yet to demonstrate any relationship
>    (or lack of relationship) http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10999/
>    between subscription cancellations and repositories...  Proving or
>    disproving a [causal] link between availability in self-archived
>    repositories and cancellations will be difficult without long
>    and rigorous research."

The obvious empirical and practical conclusion to draw from the
findings -- that (1) all the self-archiving evidence to date
is positive for research and that (2) none of the self-archiving
evidence to date is negative for publishing -- would have been that
the research community should now apply and extend these findings -- by
applying and extending self-archiving (through self-archiving mandates
http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php) to all UK research output,
along with consistent, rigorous longtitudinal studies over a period of
years, to test (1) whether the positive effect on citations continues to
be present (and  why) and (2) whether the negative effect on subscriptions
continues to be absent.

But instead, the two overall findings are hedged with volumes of special
pleading, based mostly on wishful thinking, to the effect that (1') the
observed relationship between self-archiving and citations may not be
causal, and that (2') there may exist an as-yet-unobserved causal
relationship between self-archiving and cancellations after all.

Even that would be alright, if this Report's conclusions were coupled
with a clear endorsement of the proposed self-archiving mandates, so
that the competing hypotheses can be put to a rigorous long-term test.
But the only test the commissioners of this Report seem to be interested
in conducting is "Open Option" publishing, i.e., authors paying
publishers to make their article OA for them, instead of self-archiving
it for themselves. This would certainly be a nice way to hold author
self-archiving and institution/funder self-archiving mandates at bay for
a few years more, while at the same time protecting publishers from
undemonstrated risk of revenue loss. But it would also leave global
unmandated self-archiving to continue to languish at the current
spontaneous 15% rate that the self-archiving mandates had been meant to
drive up to 100%. And it would leave research unprotected from its
demonstrated risk of impact loss. The option of having to pay to provide
OA is certainly not likely to enhance the unmandated rate of uptake by
authors (though I'm sure publishers would have no quarrel with funder
mandates to provide OA coupled with the funds to pay publishers' asking
price for paid OA, as provided by the Wellcome Trust).
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_wtd018855.html#P66_6964

The longterm test will nevertheless be conducted, because four out of
eight UK Research Councils have already mandated self-archiving.
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/index.asp

Their citation rates and their cancellation rates can then
be compared with those for the four that have not mandated
self-archiving (and whose authors hence do it spontaneously
by "self-selection"). Alas this will be mostly comparing
apples and oranges (e.g.  http://www.mrc.ac.uk/open_access MRC vs
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/about/policy/ahrc_guidance_on_access_to_research_outputs.asp AHRC), and it will needlessly be depriving the oranges of
several more years of potential growth enhancement.

My guess is that all the other councils -- except possibly the paradoxical
EPSRC http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/AboutEPSRC/ROAccess.htm (which evidently
thinks, with the publishing lobby, that there's still some sort of
pertinent pretesting to be done for a few more years here) -- will come
to their senses long before that, unpersuaded by Reports like this one.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html