Re: DC Principles Coalition Issues Press Release

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

              ** Cross-Posted **

On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Martin Frank wrote:

> The following press release was posted to the DC Principles website at
> http://www.dcprinciples.org/press/2.htm.
>
> Nonprofit Publishers Oppose Government Mandates for Scientific
> Publishing
>
> Washington, DC (February 20, 2007) A coalition of 75 nonprofit
> publishers opposes any legislation that would abruptly end a
> publishing system that has nurtured independent scientific
> inquiry for generations.

And the *evidence* that mandating self-archiving -- as 5 of 8 
British research councils, the Wellcome Trust, Australian 
Research Council, ANHMRC, CERN and a growing number of 
universities worldwide have already done, and EC, ERC, EURAB, 
CIHR and FRPAA are proposing to do -- "would abruptly end the 
publishing system"?

Or is this just the same doomsday prophecy we have heard (and 
heard refuted) over and over, simply being repeated louder and 
louder?

     Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N. (2005)
     Journal publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful Co-Existence
     and Fruitful Collaboration.
     http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11160/

> One such measure, the Federal Research Public Access Act 
> introduced in the 109th Congress would have required all 
> federally funded research to be deposited in an accessible 
> database within six months of acceptance in a scientific 
> journal.  Some open access advocates are pressing for the 
> introduction of a similar measure in the 110th Congress.

A measure that, as noted above, is already being adopted 
worldwide, because of its vast benefits to research, researchers, 
their institutions, their funders, the vast research and 
development industry, and the tax-paying public that funds the 
research.

     http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php

Are evidence-free doomsday prophecies from one service industry 
supposed to be grounds for denying these benefits to research, 
researchers, their institutions, their funders, the vast research 
and development industry, and the tax-paying public that funds 
the research?

     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/key-perspectives.pdf

Or is this just the flea on the tail of the dog, endeavouring to 
wag the dog?

> In essence, such legislation would impose government-mandated 
> access policies and government-controlled repositories for 
> federally funded research published in scientific journals, 
> according to members of the Washington DC Principles for Free 
> Access to Science Coalition.

The self-archiving mandates require publicly funded research to 
be made publicly accessible to all users. The rhetoric of 
"government control" is shrill nonsense, in line with the 
data-free doomsday prophecies.

Is this the program of disinformation that the "DC Principles" 
Coalition have been counselled to disseminate by the esteemed 
public relations consultants of their STM confreres?

     http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070122/full/445347a.html

> "We as independent publishers must determine when it is 
> appropriate to make content freely available, and we believe 
> strongly it should not be determined by government mandate" 
> [said Martin Frank of the American Physiological Society and 
> coordinator of the coalition]

The public funds it, researchers and their institutions conduct, 
write and peer-review it, all for free, but "publishers must 
determine when it is appropriate to make it freely available"? In 
exchange for having been given it free to sell, for having 
peer-reviewed it for free, and for having paid dearly for 
subscriptions in order to access it?

That's an awfully big price the public and the research community 
and research progress, and research applications are all expected 
to pay in exchange for the 3rd-party management of their free 
peer review service.

How much longer does the DC Principles Coalition imagine that the 
research community, the tax-paying public, and the vast research 
applications industry will keep giving this hollow assertion of 
right-of-determination, amplified by empty prophecies of doom, 
the undue credence it has enjoyed to date?

> The Coalition also reaffirmed its ongoing practice of making 
> millions of scientific journal articles available free of 
> charge, without an additional financial burden on the 
> scientific community or on funding agencies. More than 1.6 
> million free articles are already available to the public free 
> of charge on HighWire Press.

Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that 
their authors, funders and institutions likewise want to make 
freely available, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving 
mandates?

> "The scholarly publishing system is a delicate balance between 
> the need to sustain journals financially and the goal of 
> disseminating scientific knowledge as widely as possible. 
> Publishers have voluntarily made more journal articles 
> available free worldwide than at any time in history -- without 
> government intervention," noted Kathleen Case of the American 
> Association for Cancer Research.

Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that 
their authors, funders and institutions likewise want to make 
freely available, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving 
mandates?

> The Coalition expressed concern that a mandate timetable for 
> free access to all federally funded research would harm 
> journals, scientists, and ultimately the public.

The doomsday prophecy again, repeated ever more shrilly to 
compensate for the complete absence of evidence in its support.

> Subscriptions to journals with a high percentage of federally 
> funded research would decline rapidly.

If and when the demand for a product declines, it is time to cut 
costs. If and when publishing downsizes to just the management of 
the peer review service, the institutional savings from the 
(hypothesized) subscription-declines will be more than enough to 
pay for peer review, per article published, on the open-access 
publishing model.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm

> Subscription revenues support the quality control system known 
> as peer review and also support the educational work of 
> scientific societies that publish journals.

Subscriptions revenues will continue to flow as long as there is 
enough demand for the product. Once the only product needed is 
the peer review management service, the institutional savings 
will be enough to pay for its costs several times over.

At no time has the research community, its institutions or its 
funders, or the tax-paying public that funds its funders, been 
asked, nor has it ever agreed, to subsidise "the educational work 
of scientific societies" with its own lost research access and 
impact.

> Undermining subscriptions would shift the cost of publication 
> from the publisher who receives subscription revenue to the 
> researcher who receives grants.  Such a shift will:
>
> * Divert scarce dollars from research.  Publishers now pay the 
> cost of publication out of subscription revenue; if the authors 
> have to pay, the funds will come from their research grants.

No. Publication costs are currently being paid out of 
subscription revenues. On the hypothesis that institutions cancel 
those subscriptions, it is those same subscription revenue 
savings that can continue to pay for (what is left of) 
publication costs, per paper published. Not a penny of research 
grants need ever be redirected. The subscription savings will be 
redirected.

> Nonprofit journals without subscription revenue have to rely on 
> grants, which further diverts funding from research.

Journals that are subsidised today can continue to be subsidised 
tomorrow. Journals that are subscription-based today, if/when 
their subscriptions are cancelled, can be paid for (what is left 
of) their costs, per article, from the author's institutional 
subscription savings.

More than enough money is in the system. No doomsday scenario. 
Just downsizing and redirection of windfall savings.

> * Result in only well-funded scientists being able to publish 
> their work.

Utter nonsense. See arithmetic above.

> * Reduce the ability of journals to fund peer review.  Most 
> journals spend 40% or more of their revenue on quality control 
> through the peer review system; without subscription income and 
> with limitations on author fees, peer review would suffer.

When there is no more demand for anything but peer review, 
institutions will have saved 100%, of which they need merely 
redirect 40% to pay for the peer review of their own 
publications. (Please do the arithmetic.)

> * Harm those scientific societies that rely on income from 
> journals to fund the professional development of scientists. 
> Revenues from scholarly publications fund research, fellowships 
> to junior scientists, continuing education, and mentoring 
> programs to increase the number of women and under-represented 
> groups in science, among many other activities.

At no time has the research community, its institutions or its 
funders, or the tax-paying public that funds its funders, been 
asked, nor has it ever agreed, to subsidise "the professional 
development of scientists, research, fellowships to junior 
scientists, continuing education, and mentoring programs" with 
its own lost research access and impact.

> Members of the DC Principles Coalition have long supported 
> responsible free access to science and have made:
>
> * selected important studies immediately available online, in 
> their entirety and at no charge
>
> * studies available at no cost to patients who request them
>
> * all abstracts immediately available online at no charge
>
> * full text of the journal available at no charge to everyone 
> worldwide within months of publication, depending on each 
> publisher's business and publishing requirements
>
> * all journal content available free to scientists working in 
> many low-income nations
>
> * articles available free of charge online through reference 
> linking between journals
>
> * content available for indexing by major search engines so 
> that readers worldwide can easily locate information

Commendable. Now what about all the rest of the articles that 
their authors, funders and institutions likewise want to make 
freely available, as per the proposed and adopted self-archiving 
mandates?

> "By establishing government repositories for federally funded 
> research, taxpayers would be paying for systems that duplicate 
> the online archives already maintained by independent 
> publishers," Case noted.

With the slight difference that the contents of the OA archives 
will be freely accessible to all, as per the proposed and adopted 
self-archiving mandates.

> "The implications of the U.S. government becoming the world's 
> largest publisher of scientific articles have not been 
> addressed," she added.

Self-archiving mandates are for providing access to published 
articles, not for publishing them. In an online world, publishing 
means certifying papers as having met a journal's peer-review 
quality standards. That means the peer review service. That's 
all.

The implied "government monopoly" subtext is again just empty 
rhetoric, designed to inflame, not to inform honestly.

> According to Frank, "As not-for-profit publishers, we believe 
> that a free society allows for the co-existence of many 
> publishing models, and we will continue to work closely with 
> our publishing colleagues to set high standards for the 
> scholarly publishing enterprise."

Amen.

     Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N. (2005)
     Journal publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful Co-Existence
     and Fruitful Collaboration.
     http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11160/

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