3 ms·

Its a little confusing because the declaration of the initiative says that the "hybrid" model is not acceptable yet just before that it says that they will pay

Its a little confusing because the declaration of the initiative says that the "hybrid" model is not acceptable yet just before that it says that they will pay open access fees up to a specific capped amount throughout Europe. Which one is it? In any case, some disciplines in life sciences pay the fee to commercial publishers in order to avoid their own internal politics. Open access publishers can have their own problems with politics and transparency which are at this time masked because everyone publishes in high-impact third party commercial publishers. It is a little more difficult to trust the publication record as a proxy for value when you know that e.g. connections have played a part in it.

IanCal 8y ago
Paying for OA is not hybrid. Hybrid usually refers to journals that have some OA and some non-OA content. However, I'm not sure if the initiative is talking about not publishing in hybrid journals at all, or that publishing non-oa followed by later paying for OA is not acceptable. > In any case, some disciplines in life sciences pay the fee to commercial publishers in order to avoid their internal politics. Open access publishers can have their own problems with politics and transparency which are at this time masked because everyone publishes in third party commercial publishers. I'm not sure if I understand right, but there's no distinction between OA publishers and commercial publishers. OA really just refers to the rights of the final paper, not whether the publisher turns a profit.
- buboard 8y ago
  OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction. Paying for open access used to be optional (like in Cell) now becomes mandatory (like in Cell Reports). The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper. It's probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill. > I'm not sure if I understand right I was making a point about how impact factors are used as proxy for value in life sciences. Because life scientists have done that, they are now dependent on a model in which a third party (the commercial publishers) is judging their work. Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the same impact factor, because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it (more paid subscriptions) has gone away. So , at least in life sciences, academics will have to learn to evaluate the work of each other more openly, something that other disciplines have achieved long ago (e.g CS, math , physics).
  - IanCal 8y ago
    > OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction. It's potentially the largest part IMO. That would dramatically change the landscape as all research output from EU funding could simply never appear in certain journals rather than requiring that journals add an OA option. Major journals would need to switch from closed/hybrid to full OA, and soon. > The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper. It's probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill. Yes, it's a shift in who pays - it's not a claim that the EU will now forbid paying for publishing. They are however (as now a customer with enormous weight) saying they'll cap the APCs. > Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the same impact factor, I don't see that being at all true, I'm not sure why you'd expect that. > because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it (more paid subscriptions) has gone away The incentive is still to get researchers to publish in the journal, arguably the desire to be more restrictive may increase.
    - adw 8y ago
      [These days I'm entirely industrial, but I used to be an academic working in this space. I am extremely biased.] This is the EU – and their allies at places like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – negotiating with tanks in public (and not before time, in my personal view). The centre of the argument is in life sciences, because that's where the most money is, because all of the physical scientists read arXiV anyway, and because the scholarly societies, led by the American Physical Society, have managed to hang on and are notably less rapacious than Holzbrinck and Elsevier. Nature/Holzbrinck/Digital Science are arguing the other side, because of course they are, who wants to get disrupted? And Nature is their bully pulpit. A lot of this comes down to the scholarly societies – many of whom are much easier to deal with, a notable exception being the American Chemical Society, who are very hard to deal with because they're led around by the nose by the Chemical Abstracts Service – being displaced by a small number of vehemently commercial big corporates. They know fine well this is a wasting asset and they've been trying to wring as much cash from it as possible, and it's hastened this endgame.
      - 8y ago

IanCal 8y ago

Paying for OA is not hybrid. Hybrid usually refers to journals that have some OA and some non-OA content. However, I'm not sure if the initiative is talking about not publishing in hybrid journals at all, or that publishing non-oa followed by later paying for OA is not acceptable. > In any case, some disciplines in life sciences pay the fee to commercial publishers in order to avoid their internal politics. Open access publishers can have their own problems with politics and transparency which are at this time masked because everyone publishes in third party commercial publishers. I'm not sure if I understand right, but there's no distinction between OA publishers and commercial publishers. OA really just refers to the rights of the final paper, not whether the publisher turns a profit.

buboard 8y ago
OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction. Paying for open access used to be optional (like in Cell) now becomes mandatory (like in Cell Reports). The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper. It's probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill. > I'm not sure if I understand right I was making a point about how impact factors are used as proxy for value in life sciences. Because life scientists have done that, they are now dependent on a model in which a third party (the commercial publishers) is judging their work. Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the same impact factor, because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it (more paid subscriptions) has gone away. So , at least in life sciences, academics will have to learn to evaluate the work of each other more openly, something that other disciplines have achieved long ago (e.g CS, math , physics).
- IanCal 8y ago
  > OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction. It's potentially the largest part IMO. That would dramatically change the landscape as all research output from EU funding could simply never appear in certain journals rather than requiring that journals add an OA option. Major journals would need to switch from closed/hybrid to full OA, and soon. > The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper. It's probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill. Yes, it's a shift in who pays - it's not a claim that the EU will now forbid paying for publishing. They are however (as now a customer with enormous weight) saying they'll cap the APCs. > Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the same impact factor, I don't see that being at all true, I'm not sure why you'd expect that. > because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it (more paid subscriptions) has gone away The incentive is still to get researchers to publish in the journal, arguably the desire to be more restrictive may increase.
  - adw 8y ago
    [These days I'm entirely industrial, but I used to be an academic working in this space. I am extremely biased.] This is the EU – and their allies at places like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust – negotiating with tanks in public (and not before time, in my personal view). The centre of the argument is in life sciences, because that's where the most money is, because all of the physical scientists read arXiV anyway, and because the scholarly societies, led by the American Physical Society, have managed to hang on and are notably less rapacious than Holzbrinck and Elsevier. Nature/Holzbrinck/Digital Science are arguing the other side, because of course they are, who wants to get disrupted? And Nature is their bully pulpit. A lot of this comes down to the scholarly societies – many of whom are much easier to deal with, a notable exception being the American Chemical Society, who are very hard to deal with because they're led around by the nose by the Chemical Abstracts Service – being displaced by a small number of vehemently commercial big corporates. They know fine well this is a wasting asset and they've been trying to wring as much cash from it as possible, and it's hastened this endgame.
    - 8y ago