[Air-L] Open-What?

Mon Feb 11 01:31:21 PST 2008

Quick question, well, somewhat quick. Andres Guadamuz, you say:

> Open access, whichever way you define it, has proven to be a viable
> publishing model, particularly in the "hard" sciences.

How are they funded in general, or does it vary greatly?

Two reasons I ask. One, the author pays model is much more viable in
the "hard" sciences because it is difficult if not impossible to do
most "hard" science research without grants. Therefore, the costs of
publishing can be written into the grants, and accepted as an added
cost of doing academic work. Without a grant, you (essentially) cannot
do research, and therefore have no findings, and have nothing to
publish. An exception to this would be the theoretical side of fields
such as physics (and non-science fields often considered "hard" such
as math). In social science/studies, however, not all professors are
able to get grants, yet many of them are still able to conduct
research of one sort or another. If they must pay to publish, then
there will be a serious barrier to research production (and to
obtaining tenure). An author pays model is thus much less viable as a
solution.

Second, if it is organizational funding (government, universities,
non-profits, for-profits, whatever), how easy is it to create a new
journal? Do supported journals ever get dropped? At least from my
limited experience observing others trying to obtain money in the US,
I would be loathe to rely on the government (on any level), or
non-profits, to directly support academic publishing, especially
innovation in academic publishing. Of course, indirect government
funding via libraries is becoming more and more problematic anyway, so
the point may be moot. Now, you mention that you do not foresee the
end of traditional publishing, so I acknowledge that it's not
either/or. But I'm still concerned about the sustainability of any
particular model. If I were running a journal (I'm not, and never
have), I'd rather that my own activities funded the journal, than be
reliant on the whims of a granting organization.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this, given that you seem
to have evidence I've not encountered so far.

Ingbert

P.S.: I made this post public because it seems there are other people
on this list interested in the potential answers to my question. If
there's a general outcry, I'm happy to take this thread private.

On Feb 11, 2008 3:04 AM, Andres Guadamuz <a.guadamuz at ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> I get rather frustrated with the false dichotomy rhetoric in open access
> debates. Life rarely functions in predictable binary ways (I know this
> is an over-simplification in itself, but I digress).
>
> Open access, whichever way you define it, has proven to be a viable
> publishing model, particularly in the "hard" sciences. I believe this to
> be a factual statement. Similarly, open access publishing does not do
> away with some traditional functions of scientific publication, such as
> gate-keeping and peer-reviewing. Similarly, I do not think that open
> access heralds the end of traditional publishing. It may prompt a change
> in some antiquated business models, but that is another topic entirely.
>
> (Shameless plug alert) If you want to have a look at an open access
> journal that operates a strict peer-review policy, let me introduce you
> to SCRIPT-ed. We operate thanks to the kind support of the UK's Arts and
> Humanities Research Council:
> http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed/
>
> Let me address some of your points:
>
> Barry Wellman wrote:
>
> > 2. Printing and mailing costs are not the only costs of journals. A
> > journal that I helped start pays the equivalent of a Research Assistant's
> > salary to the Managing Editor; it has to arrange for reduced teaching load
> > for the editor; and there are some computer and office costs. In short,
> > this is $30-$40K per year, and it is damn hard to find universities to
> > cough up that money. Subscription fees might, though. I do know we are
> > working hard to find a few qualified editors in another journal who are
> > willing -- and whose universities will help. Unpaid volunteers work as
> > referees and advisory editors -- I do a lot of that -- but would rarely
> > last at the daily grind of constant submission, referee-finding, and
> > editing. Treasure such people, and reward them, either with released time
> > or with some salary.
> >
> I agree, editing a journal is hard work, and can be expensive. We have
> been reducing costs by allowing talented PhD students to take over
> editorship for one or two years (early in their degree). They have been
> doing a sterling job so far, and they also get paid to do it. This is an
> experience that has worked for us, but your mileage may vary. I believe
> that there is funding out there for a determined journal that wants to
> go the open access route.
>
> > 3. The real problem is readers need filtering. Not eveyone wants to read
> > everything. Journals serve as a filtering mechanism. Sometimes they make
> > mistakes, but as a frequent editor, I am usually gladdened by the rough
> > consensus among reviewers. As someone who has solicited pieces from
> > all-comers and then filtered for publication, I know how much is not ready
> > for prime time. Do you, as a reader, want to wade through this? I am not
> > talking about genre, theory, qual vs quant, or stuff like that. I am
> > talking about quality level.
> >
> As I mentioned already, peer-review and filtering are not incompatible
> with open access. On the contrary, some of the OA definitions include
> peer-review as a requisite.
> > 4. Refereeing also serves a mentoring function. Not everyone was lucky
> > enough to be mentored at a good university by a caring advisor or three.
> > Moreover, I've had the experience of turning down a paper written by
> > someone at a great university. "How dare you?" they basically asked. We
> > explained why, and with luck, they learned something. One of the unsung
> > benefits of refereeing is having some folks take a careful look at what
> > you wrote and give you feedback
> >
> In SCRIPT-ed our articles are refereed anonymously, which guarantees
> fairness.
>
> > 5. I was at a conference last week at which a frequent blogger was often
> > quoted as the authority, although I think this blogger has had at most one
> > refereed article published. "Have you checked on the validity of [this
> > blogger's] assertions?" I asked. "Well now, we just assumed," was the
> > answer. Is this any way to build a discipline?
> >
> Excuse me if I misunderstand this statement, but what does blogging have
> to do with open access? You seem to be conflating OA with other forms of
> web publication, the internet is a big place, in case you had not
> noticed. By the way, I agree that using a blogger as an authority is bad
> scholarly practice, regardless of the blogger's reputation. As a keen
> blogger, I have to admit that I find it a lot of fun, but I do not
> believe my posts should be cited in scholarly publications.
>
> > 6. So the real question is Open What? JCMC avoids printing and mailing,
> > but is still a refereed journal -- of high quality. That is quite
> > different than the anything goes model. Of course, there are variations in
> > that. I tend to put on my web page serious conference papers and even
> > recently, developed ppts. One of my mentors, by contrast, will only put up
> > articles a decent interval after they have been published. "I like to know
> > that I am right when I go public with something."
> >
> I'm curious as why you think that OA equates "anything goes".
>
> Regards,
>
> Andres
>
> --
> Andres Guadamuz
> AHRC Research Centre for Studies in
> Intellectual Property and Technology Law
> Old College, South Bridge
> Edinburgh, EH8 9YL
>
> Tel: 44 (0)131 6509699
> Fax: 44 (0)131 6506317
> a.guadamuz at ed.ac.uk
> http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/
>
> SCRIPT-ed Journal of Law, Technology and Society
> http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed
>
> IP/IT/Medical Law LLM by Distance Learning
> http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/distancelearning/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>

-- 
==========================================
Ingbert Floyd
PhD Student
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
http://ingbert.org/     ||     skype: spacesoon

Check out the unofficial GSLIS Wiki:
http://www.gslis.org/

"Dream in a pragmatic way."
-Aldous Huxley