Open Access News

Update. Jerome McDonough, Digital Library Development Team Leader at NYU, sent me an email in response to my posting above and gave me permission to forward it to SOAF. Thanks, Jerome.

Suppose, for example, that we published an NIH-sponsored study showing that a given drug has benefit for a specific condition but that there are significant side effects to the treatment. Under the proposed rule, a commercial entity could republish the work, highlighting the benefits but ignoring the disadvantages, and attribute the work to the Journal. Since the Journal would not hold copyright, we could not seek recourse in the courts to halt this misuse of scientific data and potential danger to the public.

• Simon Cotterill and five co-authors, "ePortfolios in the Netherlands and the UK" (pp. 4-10)
• David Nicol, "Digital Repositories" (pp. 11-18)

The supporters of an "open access" model contend that publication is the final step of the research process and, thus, should be supported by research grants provided by the Federal government or other funding agencies/organizations. Unfortunately, grants provided by the National Institutes of Health, the primary supporter of biomedical research, are often awarded in $25,000 modules that allow for some flexibility in how to use the monies, but not enough to allow the research investigator to make realistic choices. Should funds be used to support the supplies and personnel to do the research or the cost of publication? [PS: OK, then just skip the OA journal fees and deposit the article in an OA archive.]...

In the US, the supporters of PLoS are attempting to influence funding agencies to adopt policies and to earmark funds in order to advance open access....Can we realistically expect the NIH and the federal government to cover the full cost of publication at a time of budgetary constraint? [PS: If this refers to the new NIH OA plan, then it misses the target. The proposal is not to pay the costs of journal publication, but to pay the costs of OA archiving in PubMed Central.]...

The term "open access" is actually something of a misnomer when it comes to describing online journal publishing. While readers enjoy free access to these publications, authors are required to pay $1,500 (in the case of PLoS Biology) to have their work published. [PS: Surprise! No serious OA advocate has ever said that OA literature is free to produce, only that there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating an access barrier.]...

We believe that a free society allows for the co-existence of many publishing models, including an author pays model, and therefore believe that it would be foolish and dangerous to do away with one model for another that remains largely unproven. [PS: We agree on what a free society allows. To argue that OA models are superior to non-OA models is not even close to arguing for a prohibition of non-OA models.]

The journal follows a 'hybrid' model, whereby open-access publication of original research papers will be supported by high added value content - reviews, commentaries, profiles and news, which can paid for by subscription or pay-per-view. Articles published in the original research section will be available to download for personal use directly from the site without charge.

require all US drug trials to register at launch;

list participant eligibility requirements;

list funding sources;

post results, including unpublished results;

impose fines on noncompliant sponsors of clinical trials.

(PS: I have the same questions myself. If the payments are for click-throughs from the main Google index, then I worry. If they are for click-throughs from well-identified ads, then I don't worry. The early reports on the plan are not helpful on this point, but it may be that Elsevier is arranging for relevant ScienceDirect articles to appear in Google's ad space, in the righthand column of the hit page, in response to user searchstrings. I just ran Google searches on a dozen keywords sure to elicit ScienceDirect content, and saw nothing from ScienceDirect in the ad space. Do we scratch this hypothesis or try again later?)

(PS: Whoa. Baum overlooks the fact that the NIH plan is only about disseminating articles that have already been accepted by independent, i.e. non-governmental, peer-reviewed journals. He forgets that nothing in the plan tells scientists what to study or what to conclude, and nothing in it tells journals what to publish or how to conduct peer review. He forgets that the directive to the NIH to develop this plan was adopted unanimously by two Republican-controlled committees. He also forgets what socialism is. The NIH plan does not expropriate private property for public use, but provides public access to publicly-funded research. It does not even deny property rights in these works by individual authors or journals. Let's get back to the subject.)

German STM publishing giant Springer has blasted critics of its Open Choice initiative, saying that it is essential to "take the emotion out of the debate" and give authors and customers realistic options....In an exclusive interview with IWR, Springer's chief executive, Derk Haank, said Open Choice was a pragmatic solution that would reveal just how deep the demand for OA publishing is. "I'd be surprised if in five years' time more than 5-10% of our articles have been published by author-pays," he predicted.

(PS: I criticized Springer on August 6 for apparently designing the Open Choice program "more to generate low uptake, and ground a rebuke to OA advocates, than to test the waters in good faith." This reply by Haank tends to confirm that diagnosis.)

Open Choice has come in for criticism from OA vendors and bloggers for being overpriced and not offering 'pure' open access because Springer will retain copyright. But Haank countered his critics by saying: "...Copyright is not that important to us, but we are using it here as a mechanism to protect the author from having articles taken by other commercial publishers."

(PS: I made the copyright criticism on August 2. If we take Haank's claim at face value, then Springer is paternalizing authors instead of letting them choose between retaining copyright and letting Springer "protect" them from other commercial publishers. But it can hardly be taken at face value. How often do Springer authors have their articles taken by other commercial publishers?)

In the same article, Roy mentions Academic Commons, a web site he is developing to address these needs. Still under construction and due to launch in January 2005, "the site will collect stories and projects that document the evolving nature of teaching and research, and encourage collaboration that will lead to open-source teaching and research."

(PS: Let's anticipate an AAP objection: But facilitating peer review is much more important for research literature than landscaping is for a park. Granted. But what follows? That publishers who didn't fund the research, didn't conduct the research, and didn't write up the research should control access to the results?)