Re: STM responds to U. S. Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report

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

By all means embargo Open Access to the version-of-record for as 
long as you see fit: But mandate immediate Open Access to the 
author's refereed final draft.  SH

On 15-Jan-10, at 9:31 PM, Janice Kuta, STM wrote:

> The following should be of interest.
>
> Press Release: 15 January 2010
>
> STM responds to U. S. Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report and
> Recommendations
>
> STM applauds the efforts of the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable
> (set up last year by the US House of Representatives Committee on
> Science and Technology in collaboration with the White House
> Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP]) in seeking to
> establish broad stakeholder agreement and for involving leading
> researchers and incorporating their research in the Roundtable
> deliberations.
>
> STM supports the general principles that the Roundtable has
> generated: the critical need for peer review, the importance of
> sustainable business models, the goal of widening access, and the
> move to improved utility and interoperability. We also strongly
> support the recommendation that OSTP establish a public advisory
> committee on which interested parties, including STM publishers
> are represented.
>
> STM takes issue, however, with some of the other recommendations
> and goals expressed in the Report. Firstly, while STM supports US
> agencies in the development of public access policies to the
> results of research funded by those agencies, we do not agree
> that the scholarly articles arising from publisher investment and
> value add fall under this category. Government research grants
> currently cover the cost of the research only. Government
> research grants do not cover the costs of publication.
>
> Secondly, while welcoming the consultation and collaboration that
> has occurred with our industry, STM believes the goal of US
> agencies in establishing a "global publishing system" is
> redundant and wasteful and ignores the essentially international
> nature of STM publishing, which has, without any government
> assistance anywhere in the world, enabled more access to more
> people than at any time in history.
>
> Thirdly, if there is to be no compensation for the use of journal
> mediated content, STM supports the need for embargo periods.
> There is, however, no evidence whatsoever to support the
> recommendation that embargo periods of 0 to 12 months could be
> adopted for =93many sciences=94 without problem. STM is leading a
> three year experiment part-funded by the European Commission (the
> PEER Project) to find out the effects of various embargo periods
> on journals. We strongly encourage such an evidence-based policy
> investigation in the US as well.
>
> Finally, while STM supports the recommendation that the final
> published article should be given primacy (the so called VoR or
> Version of Record) over the proliferation of other imperfect
> earlier versions, it is through this final version =96 and the
> creation and maintenance of their authoritative journals =96 that
> STM publishers provide significant added value; to make final
> published articles (VoRs) free immediately upon publication must
> involve some mechanism of financial compensation.
>
> Commenting on the Report, the Chief Executive Officer of STM,
> Michael Mabe said:
>
> "STM member companies publish the largest number of open access
> articles in the world. They have taken the lead in discussions
> with Funding Agencies regarding their access policies and many
> have made their final published articles available immediately
> under various business models, including open access. The
> Roundtable Report represents a good-faith effort to maximise the
> public good in a sustainable way but still needs more work to
> attain this lofty goal."
>
> ******