Re: University of Marlyland's Open Access Deliberations

[Jean-Claude Guedon <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

On this resolution, I can well imagine what Stevan Harnad will
say and I can add that I will agree fully with him.

A resolution that calls for publishing in free online databases
makes little sense. To the extent that authors can self-archive
and, in many cases, can immediately expose the deposited article
to the world, such a request makes little sense.  Looking for a
mandate to deposit articles in a suitable repository is the right
way to go. Making sure that the repositories link up in a
synergetic way should be the librarians' first order challenge.

This does not preclude advocating for OA publications, but this
is clearly a separate (and parallel) issue.

The only silver lining in such a debate is the educational effect
that, hopefully, emerged from it. My own efforts in my own
university show how little my colleagues understand the issues.
It is not difficult to understand why. Up until tenure at least,
and even until full professorship, faculty members are driven by
the urge to publish, publish, publish. In the STM disciplines
plus some SS disciplines, this urge to publish is structured by
various forms of reference to impact factors. Tenure and
promotion committees rely on this metric to the point of
absurdity. This is not a very good starting point to provide the
distance and the critical perspective needed to contemplate the
full nature of the problem. As a result, we should not be
surprised to see issues confused. Add to this the separate
agendas of faculty members, librarians and administrators, and
you have the recipe for a first rate cacophony.

Librarians, to their credit, have been the canaries in the mine
regarding scholarly and scientific publishing. They were so
simply because they paid the bills and felt the financial pain.
However, coming at the issue from this procurement perspective
can also distort the vision. Let us remember that scholarly and
scientific publishing is meant to serve the "great conversation"
of science, not the reverse, as publishers sometimes seem to
think. Ironically, by focusing mainly on price issues, librarians
tend to be trapped into the argumentative structure of the
publishers, albeit sometimes in an adversarial mode. Between
librarians who protest against high prices and librarians who
want to help publishers set a fair pricing point (an argument I
recently heard), there are differences, of course, but both
groups work within the same paradigm whether they realize it or
not. The point for librarians is to adopt a new paradigm that
does not equate (and limit) service to the community with
procurement.

In the end, what counts is making the research process as
efficient as is possible. In the present context of a possible
pandemic, one may recall what was said about the SARS scare a few
years back: had it not been for early and totally open release of
the results that were pouring in, we would have faced a much more
dire situation. Exceptionally, research was allowed to move
forward as efficiently as it was capable of doing in this
emergency situation. The goal is to achieve the same research
efficiency in normal conditions. The means to that goal is called
"Open Access".

Jean-Claude Guedon

___

Le lundi 27 avril 2009 a 22:27 -0400, Okerson, Ann a ecrit :

> [MOD NOTE:  Surely one of the less compelling reasons for having
> authors publish in OA journals is that academic libraries, at
> least in the western world, would save money on subscription
> prices?  Even if such a thing were known to be true?  Is it time
> that we base our arguments on something other than the dated
> rhetoric of the "journals pricing crisis?"]
>
> ****
>
> Faculty sens. battle over open access
> By: Tirza Austin
> Posted: 4/24/09
>
> An unforeseen debate erupted at the University Senate meeting
> yesterday about where faculty members should be encouraged to
> publish their research.
>
> After more than half an hour of debate, the senate voted
> against a resolution that called for faculty members to publish
> their work in free online databases. Despite the potential
> savings open-access journals could bring to the university, the
> senate voted the resolution down in a 37-24 decision, due to
> perceived impositions on academic freedom.
>
> "[The cost of scholarly journals] has to be one of the most
> challenging issues we have at this university," Senate Chair
> Ken Holum said.
>
> The defeated resolution, proposed by the senate's faculty
> affairs committee, laid out four specific suggestions: for
> university President Dan Mote to advocate for open-access
> journals on a national level, to urge the libraries to educate
> faculty on the cost of journals and to encourage faculty to
> publish their research in open-access journals and deposit
> findings in open-access databases whenever possible.
>
> Because so many faculty members are published in research
> journals that require subscriptions, the university has to pay
> for access to numerous journals every year. Dan Falvey, the
> chairman of the committee that authored the resolution,
> emphasized the proposal was not a university policy and didn't
> mandate any changes, but was rather intended to spark
> discussion about other options for journal access. But, Holum
> said, the discussion it sparked was largely "gloom and doom."
>
> "Open access will kill the journals you need during your
> career," women's studies professor and university senator
> Claire Moses said. "It's as simple as that."
>
> While everyone acknowledged that the high cost of scholarly
> journals and slimming library budgets needed to be addressed,
> many felt it was too soon to instate anything resembling
> university policy.
>
> Terry Owen, a librarian who is a university senator, defended
> open-access publications, saying that because the publications
> do not require authors to assign copyright to a publisher,
> scholars can retain the rights to their own work.
>
> "The final goal is to make information more accessible and
> available," Owen said.
>
> But Moses, who has served as editorial director of the journal
> Feminist Studies since 1977, said any action promoting
> publishing only in open-access journals would harm the
> visibility of the university and its faculty members -
> especially its tenured faculty members.
>
> Senators criticized the proposal for its language, which they
> said did not accurately characterize the variations that exist
> between departments. Throughout the debate, science professors
> faced off against humanities professors - a rift caused by the
> vast differences between scientific journals and humanities
> journals.
>
> "This is a proposal that does not take into account the needs
> of different disciplines," history professor Gay Gullickson
> said. "[Open access] applies well to some disciplines and hurts
> others."
>
> Both Moses and Gullickson argued the resolution's language was
> too strong to count as a mere suggestion and would eventually
> lead to university policy.
>
> "This does not call for discussion - it urges the president to
> take action," Gullickson said.
>
> But Holum predicted this will not be the last time the senate
> discusses the issue of open-access publications. He added the
> situation facing the libraries will have to be addressed in the
> near future.
>
> Arts and humanities Dean James Harris, who also served as the
> chairman of the search committee that will help elect a new
> dean of the library system, said every candidate he has
> encountered expressed concern over the state of scholarly
> publications, noting students turn to online search engines
> like Google rather than going to a library. Harris added that
> libraries are slowly becoming virtual and the university will
> eventually have to transition with them.
>
> "This is happening," Harris said. "The train has left the
> station."
>
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