11 ms·

Here is the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts: https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/framework/ https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/fra

Here is the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts: https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/framework/ https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/framework/ It requires that: 1. No author will be required to waive any institutional or funder open access policy to publish in any of the publisher’s journals. 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with generous reuse rights. 3. Publishers will directly deposit scholarly articles in institutional repositories immediately upon publication or will provide tools/mechanisms that facilitate immediate deposit. 4. Publishers will provide computational access to subscribed content as a standard part of all contracts, with no restrictions on non-consumptive, computational analysis of the corpus of subscribed content. 5. Publishers will ensure the long-term digital preservation and accessibility of their content through participation in trusted digital archives. 6. Institutions will pay a fair and sustainable price to publishers for value-added services, based on transparent and cost-based pricing models. Not surprising that Elsevier couldn't meet these requirements. #2 in particular seems antithetical to Elsevier's philosophy. What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract.

enriquto 6y ago
> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a mathematician used to third-excluded logic, it may seem impossible, since you can prove anything from "p and not p". Yet, these organizations manage to not be able to do arbitrary things from contradictory inputs, but somewhat sane things (some of the time).
- skywhopper 6y ago
  I mean, the reality of any large institution (or even a single human being) is that there will inevitably exist many contradictory "rules" that must be handled. I'm not sure how it is amazing. It's a fundamental necessity for their existence.
- jiveturkey 6y ago
  > they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. Not amazing. Rules are for the ruled. The executive is not bound by them.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules This is caused by managers' and middle-managers' performance metrics being tied to the wrong outcomes. The top layer of management's target is the desired outcome. The bottom layer's (the worker) target is also clear, it's to do whatever their manager says to do. In the middle is where it often breaks down; their objectives are short-sighted and while it works out for their own career, it rarely benefits the top level target. At best, it introduces a large inefficiency, waste of resources and unnecessary busywork ("bullshit jobs" becomes relevant here) and at worst it goes completely against the target set at the top level. Imagine it as an eventually-consistent system. If you don't change anything and give the system enough time it will eventually achieve its goal. The problem is that the "time" we're talking about is measured in years if not decades and during that period the system is stuck in a contradictory state. Endless restructurings and other external factors often reset this "timer" so the system is even more likely to stay in the contradictory state forever (some other "systems" depend on this system staying in the contradictory state), despite theoretically advancing towards the end-goal.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    > At best, it introduces a large inefficiency, waste of resources and unnecessary busywork ("bullshit jobs" becomes relevant here) If the COVID-19 lockdown has taught us anything, it's that probably a full third of our economy is bullshit jobs. We're at best self-perpetuating economic 'nice-to-haves', at worst parasitic rent seekers, probably somewhere in between, whose real role is simply to distribute GDP more widely, while pretending to add value to society.
    - saalweachter 6y ago
      I suppose that is a third way to deal with automation. I usually say, there are two ways to deal with productivity increases (from automation and industrialization): you can either attempt to do more as a civilization (build moon bases, increased consumer goods, etc) or you can have everyone work less (3 or 4 day work weeks, 5 hour work days, etc). I guess you can also just create lots of bullshit jobs so everyone is still "working" 40+ hours a week without actually doing anything.
- mcphage 6y ago
  > you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. That's how life is, though—a jumble of rules that don't all agree and aren't all consistent. So you get used to juggling them all, making them work together as well as you can, so you can get your job done and move on.
  - ptero 6y ago
    Yes, but to me this (the contradictory nature of a large set of rules in life) is a nuisance, not a feature to be welcomed. Sometimes it is unavoidable or very expensive to clean, but we should discourage adding complex rules contradicting our existing set if possible. My 2c.
    - zentiggr 6y ago
      Consider the state and intent of a group of humanity as a spin glass, and you can apply a little bit of vaguely applicable analysis. I've tried for most of my life to internalize that most of the difficulty in life is caused by different people having different viewpoints and goals and conditions. Any endeavour only works as well as the sum of its implementors.
    - fnovd 6y ago
      Light behaves as both a wave and a particle. This goes well beyond human eccentricities. The universe does not care that our simple brains want to model it simply.
      - marksbrown 6y ago
        The wave and particle models are our own. They don't necessarily respect the true nature of reality. A bit like the old anecdote about blindfolded people feeling an elephant.
        fnovd 6y ago
        The dual, contradictory model predicts reality better than a unified one can. A set of contradictory rules might create better outcomes than a set of straightforward rules.
- devit 6y ago
  It's easy to make this non-contradictory by making the rules apply only to future contracts, or only when the decision maker wants them to apply.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    this guy manages!
- rini17 6y ago
  Ruthlessly applying logical rules onto reality tends to create singularities :)
- oliwarner 6y ago
  Policy compliance is a constant battle of wills in most large organisation. Enough of a battle in some places that they have compliance staff. Just because they sign up to do something in a particular way doesn't mean everybody in that org is going to follow those rules.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Tainnor 6y ago
  Totally a tangent, but: the law of the excluded middle ("tertium non datur") doesn't state that "a and not a" is always invalid, it states that "a or not a" is always valid. This is a somewhat important distinction since there are logic systems (intuitionism) where "a or not a" is not a tautology, yet I don't know of any logic that accepts "a and not a".
  - mehrdadn 6y ago
    I'm confused. Or maybe you're confusing AND with OR? How can "A and not A" ever be true, let alone tautologically so? Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction
    - dfischer 6y ago
      Quantum states can be A and not A. Unknown questions are A and not A. There’s interesting alternative logic systems that try to tackle this. We get into interesting territory when using English and then “is” as a statement. Most English is assumed to have a certain value because of to be. English is almost inherently flawed with logic bugs and assumptions. E-Prime may help with this. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catu%E1%B9%A3ko%E1%B9%ADi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catu%E1%B9%A3ko%E1%B9%ADi 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaina_seven-valued_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaina_seven-valued_logic 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite-valued_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite-valued_logic
      - mehrdadn 6y ago
        Okay but I still don't see how the law of the excluded middle says that "a and not a" is always valid.
        dash2 6y ago
        Grandparent said that the law doesn't say that "a and not a" is always INvalid. (The law also doesn't say that "a and not a" is sometimes valid. It makes no comment at all, but only claims that "a or not a" is always valid. According to the grandparent. Now I need to lie down for a bit....)
- arcturus17 6y ago
  Just like the humans that make them, then.
- bananamerica 6y ago
  Maybe it doesn’t make sense to think about large organizations as monolithic entities. They’re composed of numerous sub entities that may follow different rules. A platoon may be ordered to shoot, but it’s conceivable that not all soldiers will comply. This is not at all contradictory.
- m463 6y ago
  I can't help but think of the legal system. You would think it was rigorous and logical and would have parallels in science in some way, but when you can "exclude evidence" you realize they are different animals. as to large organizations... Look, it's just Game of Thrones all the way down.
- jlokier 6y ago
  There's a whole class of formal logic systems that accept "a and not a". They are called Paraconsistent Logics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic), which allow contradiction without explosion. Ideal for mathematically representing the kind of reasoning that bubbles up from contradictory positions and goals as you described, where organisations manage to do sane things anyway, sometimes!
- watwut 6y ago
  Organizations are composed from many people doing independent decisions and forgetting about old decisions. There is nothing difficult about organization being inconsistent, the difficult leadership task is to make it consistent. Inconsistency is natural state even when we ignore the fact that all humans are internally inconsistent - including mathematicians.
setgree 6y ago
> 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with generous reuse rights. I've published a few papers (and have worked closely with Elsevier in a business context). When we published in a paywalled journal, we had the option of paying an APC [0] to make the particular article open access. So in that sense, we were not 'required' to relinquish copyright. It was just costly to retain it. I suspect this is how some publishers argue that their contracts do not violate these maxims, because an APC option is fairly common, even at Elsevier, I think. Many journals also permit authors to post pre-edited versions of their papers on their personal websites. I also think that, in line with what a commenter below, a large organization like MIT is not a coherent actor. There are political battles and compromises we don't see. So publishing this list could be someone's tactic for winning the internal struggle against negotiating with Elsevier. Chris Bourg, who is a prominent advocate for open access at MIT, is my best bet for the driving force behind this: https://twitter.com/mchris4duke/status/1271094535297339399 https://twitter.com/mchris4duke/status/1271094535297339399 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge
- dathinab 6y ago
  As far as I understood it 2. isn't about open access per see. It's just completely absurd that e.g. if I publish an paper and than want to re read it in a year I have to buy my own paper. Same when I want to give it to an intern to read and similar. So it's about the author being able to reuse it for himself, not about open access.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    But in practice "reuse it for himself" means "upload to arXiv."
- btrettel 6y ago
  > When we published in a paywalled journal, we had the option of paying an APC [0] to make the particular article open access. So in that sense, we were not 'required' to relinquish copyright. It was just costly to retain it. It's worth noting that some (maybe even many) journal open access options do not allow the authors to keep copyright, even if they pay money! Open access ≠ keeping copyright.

enriquto 6y ago

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a mathematician used to third-excluded logic, it may seem impossible, since you can prove anything from "p and not p". Yet, these organizations manage to not be able to do arbitrary things from contradictory inputs, but somewhat sane things (some of the time).

skywhopper 6y ago
I mean, the reality of any large institution (or even a single human being) is that there will inevitably exist many contradictory "rules" that must be handled. I'm not sure how it is amazing. It's a fundamental necessity for their existence.
jiveturkey 6y ago
> they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. Not amazing. Rules are for the ruled. The executive is not bound by them.
Nextgrid 6y ago
> they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules This is caused by managers' and middle-managers' performance metrics being tied to the wrong outcomes. The top layer of management's target is the desired outcome. The bottom layer's (the worker) target is also clear, it's to do whatever their manager says to do. In the middle is where it often breaks down; their objectives are short-sighted and while it works out for their own career, it rarely benefits the top level target. At best, it introduces a large inefficiency, waste of resources and unnecessary busywork ("bullshit jobs" becomes relevant here) and at worst it goes completely against the target set at the top level. Imagine it as an eventually-consistent system. If you don't change anything and give the system enough time it will eventually achieve its goal. The problem is that the "time" we're talking about is measured in years if not decades and during that period the system is stuck in a contradictory state. Endless restructurings and other external factors often reset this "timer" so the system is even more likely to stay in the contradictory state forever (some other "systems" depend on this system staying in the contradictory state), despite theoretically advancing towards the end-goal.
- JackFr 6y ago
  > At best, it introduces a large inefficiency, waste of resources and unnecessary busywork ("bullshit jobs" becomes relevant here) If the COVID-19 lockdown has taught us anything, it's that probably a full third of our economy is bullshit jobs. We're at best self-perpetuating economic 'nice-to-haves', at worst parasitic rent seekers, probably somewhere in between, whose real role is simply to distribute GDP more widely, while pretending to add value to society.
  - saalweachter 6y ago
    I suppose that is a third way to deal with automation. I usually say, there are two ways to deal with productivity increases (from automation and industrialization): you can either attempt to do more as a civilization (build moon bases, increased consumer goods, etc) or you can have everyone work less (3 or 4 day work weeks, 5 hour work days, etc). I guess you can also just create lots of bullshit jobs so everyone is still "working" 40+ hours a week without actually doing anything.
mcphage 6y ago
> you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. That's how life is, though—a jumble of rules that don't all agree and aren't all consistent. So you get used to juggling them all, making them work together as well as you can, so you can get your job done and move on.
- ptero 6y ago
  Yes, but to me this (the contradictory nature of a large set of rules in life) is a nuisance, not a feature to be welcomed. Sometimes it is unavoidable or very expensive to clean, but we should discourage adding complex rules contradicting our existing set if possible. My 2c.
  - zentiggr 6y ago
    Consider the state and intent of a group of humanity as a spin glass, and you can apply a little bit of vaguely applicable analysis. I've tried for most of my life to internalize that most of the difficulty in life is caused by different people having different viewpoints and goals and conditions. Any endeavour only works as well as the sum of its implementors.
  - fnovd 6y ago
    Light behaves as both a wave and a particle. This goes well beyond human eccentricities. The universe does not care that our simple brains want to model it simply.
    - marksbrown 6y ago
      The wave and particle models are our own. They don't necessarily respect the true nature of reality. A bit like the old anecdote about blindfolded people feeling an elephant.
      - fnovd 6y ago
        The dual, contradictory model predicts reality better than a unified one can. A set of contradictory rules might create better outcomes than a set of straightforward rules.
devit 6y ago
It's easy to make this non-contradictory by making the rules apply only to future contracts, or only when the decision maker wants them to apply.
- enriquto 6y ago
  this guy manages!
rini17 6y ago
Ruthlessly applying logical rules onto reality tends to create singularities :)
oliwarner 6y ago
Policy compliance is a constant battle of wills in most large organisation. Enough of a battle in some places that they have compliance staff. Just because they sign up to do something in a particular way doesn't mean everybody in that org is going to follow those rules.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Tainnor 6y ago
Totally a tangent, but: the law of the excluded middle ("tertium non datur") doesn't state that "a and not a" is always invalid, it states that "a or not a" is always valid. This is a somewhat important distinction since there are logic systems (intuitionism) where "a or not a" is not a tautology, yet I don't know of any logic that accepts "a and not a".
- mehrdadn 6y ago
  I'm confused. Or maybe you're confusing AND with OR? How can "A and not A" ever be true, let alone tautologically so? Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction
  - dfischer 6y ago
    Quantum states can be A and not A. Unknown questions are A and not A. There’s interesting alternative logic systems that try to tackle this. We get into interesting territory when using English and then “is” as a statement. Most English is assumed to have a certain value because of to be. English is almost inherently flawed with logic bugs and assumptions. E-Prime may help with this. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catu%E1%B9%A3ko%E1%B9%ADi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catu%E1%B9%A3ko%E1%B9%ADi 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaina_seven-valued_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaina_seven-valued_logic 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite-valued_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite-valued_logic
    - mehrdadn 6y ago
      Okay but I still don't see how the law of the excluded middle says that "a and not a" is always valid.
      - dash2 6y ago
        Grandparent said that the law doesn't say that "a and not a" is always INvalid. (The law also doesn't say that "a and not a" is sometimes valid. It makes no comment at all, but only claims that "a or not a" is always valid. According to the grandparent. Now I need to lie down for a bit....)
arcturus17 6y ago
Just like the humans that make them, then.
bananamerica 6y ago
Maybe it doesn’t make sense to think about large organizations as monolithic entities. They’re composed of numerous sub entities that may follow different rules. A platoon may be ordered to shoot, but it’s conceivable that not all soldiers will comply. This is not at all contradictory.
m463 6y ago
I can't help but think of the legal system. You would think it was rigorous and logical and would have parallels in science in some way, but when you can "exclude evidence" you realize they are different animals. as to large organizations... Look, it's just Game of Thrones all the way down.
jlokier 6y ago
There's a whole class of formal logic systems that accept "a and not a". They are called Paraconsistent Logics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic), which allow contradiction without explosion. Ideal for mathematically representing the kind of reasoning that bubbles up from contradictory positions and goals as you described, where organisations manage to do sane things anyway, sometimes!
watwut 6y ago
Organizations are composed from many people doing independent decisions and forgetting about old decisions. There is nothing difficult about organization being inconsistent, the difficult leadership task is to make it consistent. Inconsistency is natural state even when we ignore the fact that all humans are internally inconsistent - including mathematicians.

setgree 6y ago

> 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with generous reuse rights. I've published a few papers (and have worked closely with Elsevier in a business context). When we published in a paywalled journal, we had the option of paying an APC [0] to make the particular article open access. So in that sense, we were not 'required' to relinquish copyright. It was just costly to retain it. I suspect this is how some publishers argue that their contracts do not violate these maxims, because an APC option is fairly common, even at Elsevier, I think. Many journals also permit authors to post pre-edited versions of their papers on their personal websites. I also think that, in line with what a commenter below, a large organization like MIT is not a coherent actor. There are political battles and compromises we don't see. So publishing this list could be someone's tactic for winning the internal struggle against negotiating with Elsevier. Chris Bourg, who is a prominent advocate for open access at MIT, is my best bet for the driving force behind this: https://twitter.com/mchris4duke/status/1271094535297339399 https://twitter.com/mchris4duke/status/1271094535297339399 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge

dathinab 6y ago
As far as I understood it 2. isn't about open access per see. It's just completely absurd that e.g. if I publish an paper and than want to re read it in a year I have to buy my own paper. Same when I want to give it to an intern to read and similar. So it's about the author being able to reuse it for himself, not about open access.
- garmaine 6y ago
  But in practice "reuse it for himself" means "upload to arXiv."
btrettel 6y ago
> When we published in a paywalled journal, we had the option of paying an APC [0] to make the particular article open access. So in that sense, we were not 'required' to relinquish copyright. It was just costly to retain it. It's worth noting that some (maybe even many) journal open access options do not allow the authors to keep copyright, even if they pay money! Open access ≠ keeping copyright.