Re: Open access business models

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

> From: David Prosser <david.prosser@bodley.ox.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: Open access business models
> 
> I'm afraid that I don't understand Stevan's argument.  If an author wants
> to take advantage of the open access option in a journal should we
> dissuade them?  

Not at all. But since authors do not yet know or understand the options
available to them, we should be completely clear on what they are. You may
choose to pay a journal to self-archive your article for you if there is
such a journal and you wish to do it. But you may always self-archive it
for yourself, without paying anyone anything. If the reasons for providing
open access to your articles are valid ones (and all OA approaches assume
they are) then there is every bit as much reason for providing OA via
self-archiving as by any other means -- *and* incomparably more
possibility to do so (without waiting for OA journals or journals that you
can pay to self-archive for you).

Understand the options, and then make your choice.

> If a journal wants to offer this option should we tell
> them 'no, this is not the correct way to open access'?  

Not at all. Such journals are very welcome (as long as they are also
"green" -- i.e., endorse self-archiving by the author himself, if he
prefers not to pay). Recommending that journals sell self-archiving
services *instead* of being green, however, is definitely a very unwelcome
option, and OA would definitely not be helped if we were to promote such
an exclusive option. (Note that Thomas Walker, the originator of the paid
self-archiving option, has consistently also supported that the journals
providing the option should also be green.)

> Stevan has often made the point that authors are not self-archiving, 
> despite the fact that they can easily do so. 

No, my point has never been that authors are not self-archiving. My point
has always been that *far too few* authors are self-archiving. It is,
however, a serious misunderstanding of that point if if it is taken to
imply that more authors are providing OA in some other way! As I also
always indicate in the same breath (though it keeps being overlooked), at
least three times as many articles are being made OA annually through
author self-archiving than by any other means, and self-archiving is also
growing faster. The OA advocate's justifiable impatience with that rate of
growth should not be misconstrued as implying that there is no growth, or
that other forms of growth are greater or even comparable.

It is precisely the potential power of self-archiving to provide immediate
and 100% OA that makes it so important not to eclipse it by recommending
only lower-probability and lower-feasibility strategies such as OA journal
publishing and paid self-archiving. A more useful approach is to present
all the OA options, clearly and completely, and then encouraging authors
to pick the option they prefer.

> If they are willing to have the journal do it for them then let's 
> celebrate the fact that their papers are now open access
> rather than berate the authors for being 'illogical'.

If there were appreciable growth in OA via this route, I would be
celebrating it! But in fact journal-paid self-archiving is the *smallest*
of the three sources of OA today! So there is nothing to celebrate -- only
the promotion of a more constrained model without mention of the obvious
unconstrained alternative -- to regret.

> It is not an 'either/or' situation.  Those authors who want to pay for
> open access through the journal can do so.  Those who want to self-archive
> themselves can do so.

That does sound like an either/or situation (except that the paid
self-archiving "model" is promoted without even mentioning the unpaid
option!).

>  (And there may be some who want to do both - why not let them!)  

Who's stopping them? (Unless they don't even consider the unpaid option,
because all they here of is the paid option!)

But I don't really see why an author who has paid to self-archive an
article would also want to self-archive it himself. Self-archiving is for
access, not for preservation of redundancy. One OAI-compliant OA draft is
sufficient for all the OAI harvesters to pick it up!

As for the reverse -- self-archiving it *and* then also paying the journal
to self-archive it -- well, that's more than redundant, it seems rather
profligate (in a day when no one has more available cash than he knows
what to do with!).

> I can't see any way in which offering the option of open
> access publication in journals slows the move to self-archiving.  Let's
> offer as many routes as possible!

Self-archiving will be accelerated by making it -- and its feasibility and
benefits -- known as far and wide as possible. A "model" promoting only
the paid self-archiving option is not making self-archiving and its
feasibility and benefits known as far and wide as possible.

I now religiously promote the unified open-access strategy on every
occasion: Pay a journal to provide OA for your article if/when such a
suitable journal (and the funds to pay it) exist; otherwise, self-archive.
It would be very helpful (for OA) if the advocates of the other options
were always to present this unified face as well.

Stevan Harnad