From: "Guédon Jean-Claude" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 10:19:26 +0000

It seems to me that Richard Poynder is making three logical mistakes:

1. The decision to hold a closed "Berlin" meeting may be questioned,
but does it imply that this will be the norm for such meetings in the
future?

2. Open access and strategies to reach open access work on different
planes. While, personally, I always favour openness and transparency
in governance or decision-making processes, I can readily accept the
fact that some open access advocates feel the need for occasional,
focused, by-invitation only, meetings. Incidentally, Elsevier, Wiley,
etc. do not open their strategy sessions to everybody, so far as I
know. Incidentally again, I was not invited to Berlin-12, and I do not
resent the fact;

3. The strategy of flipping journals is one way to achieve open
access, as is self-archiving in suitable depositories. Open access is
proceeding along a number of parallel and complementary tactics and
strategies, as can be expected of a "movement" that is a movement only
in the loosest of all meanings and without any institutionalized
governance system. So, let us forget about statements such as "the
primary means of achieving open access". Attempts in the past to
privilege Green over Gold, or Gold over Green, equally based on the
faulty assumption of a homogeneous "movement" have crippled progress
toward OA way too much.

And may 2016 bring about significant OA victories in the world! Happy
festivals to all.

Jean-Claude Guédon
________________________________

From: Richard Poynder
<[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2015 14:42:07 +0000

The 12th Berlin Conference was held in Germany on December 8th and
9th. The focus of the conference was on “the transformation of
subscription journals to Open Access, as outlined in a recent white
paper by the Max Planck Digital Library”.

In other words, the conference discussed ways of achieving a mass
“flipping” of subscription-based journals to open access models.

Strangely, Berlin 12 was "by invitation only". This seems odd because
holding OA meetings behind closed doors might seem to go against the
principles of openness and transparency that were outlined in the 2003
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and
Humanities.

Or is it wrong and/or naïve to think that open access implies openness
and transparency in the decision making and processes involved in
making open access a reality, as well as of research outputs?

Either way, if the strategy of flipping journals becomes the primary
means of achieving open access can we not expect to see
non-transparent and secret processes become the norm, with the costs
and details of the transition taking place outside the purview of the
wider OA movement? If that is right, would it matter?

Some thoughts here:
http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/open-access-slips-into-closed-mode.html

Richard Poynder