Jeffrey K. Aronson, Open access publishing: too much oxygen?BMJ, April 2, 2005. A response to Sara Schroter et al., Perceptions of open access publishing: interviews with journal authors, published in the same issue of BMJ but released in January 2005 and blogged here at that time. Excerpt from Aronson: 'In their survey of the attitudes of a small sample of scientists to open access Schroter and colleagues don't actually trumpet its self evident benefits, but their call for evidence refers to the author pays model, not open access publishing itself, although open access will not be possible without an author pays scheme or something comparable. But scientists' opinions should not frame policy without supporting evidence. We need to ask whether immediate free access to readers, with whatever method of payment is used, would benefit science (not the scientists or the grant giving bodies, who are also zealous about this idea) and hence society....Why should we uncritically adopt this system? We already have a better one, operated by many journals currently and in increasing numbers, in which readers pay for immediate access and access becomes universally free after a delay, for example 12 months, as required by the National Library of Medicine and the Wellcome Trust in their current initiative to digitise back issues of journals. Schemes such as HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative) and AGORA (Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture) will maximise opportunities to access material that is published in this way. In any system the burden of cost should be spread across those who are advantaged....Who doesn't instinctively feel that free access on day one is basically desirable? But we need to be completely sure that if we open the tap on the cylinder of this 100% oxygen the benefit to harm balance will be favourable, for we will not be able to turn the tap off --there will be no way back to subscription based journal publishing.'
(PS: A few quick responses. (1) OA is certainly possible without an "author pays" funding model. All OA archives and a majority of OA journals provide OA without charging an author-side fee. (2) Aronson is right to ask that the debate turn primarily on the benefit to science and society. What's remarkable is his unargued claim that the current subscription-based system is "better", presumably by this criterion, even though journal prices are rising four times faster than inflation and major research universities have called the subscription system "incontrovertibly unsustainable". (3) No one says that we should "uncritically" accept OA, including Schroter et al. As Aronson himself acknowledges, they examine evidence and call for more evidence. (4) HINARI, AGORA, and similar programs only improve access for developing countries. (5) The NIH policy does not require public access. (6) Aronson assumes that only readers are advantaged by publication and hence that only readers should pay for it. But authors are also advantaged by publication, especially by OA which demonstrably increases an author's citation impact.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/01/2005 11:51:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
