From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2015 07:19:00 -0500

Berlin Stonewalling -- or Flip-Flop

1. Richard Poynder's take on Berlin 12 is basically valid (even though
perhaps a touch too conspiratorially minded).

2. The much-too-long series of Berlin X meetings, huffing on year
after year, have long been much-ado-about-next-to-nothing.

3. The solemn "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the
Sciences and Humanities," with its unending list of signatories, was
never anything more than a parroting of the 2003 "Bethesda Statement
on Open Access Publishing[sic]," which was, in turn, a verbose
reiteration of half of the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative --
skewed to only BOAI-2 ("gold" open access publishing), virtually
ignoring BOAI-1 ("green" open access self-archiving).

4. For what it's worth, I attended Berlin 1 in Berlin in 2003 (out of
curiosity, and in the hope it would lead to something) and we hosted
Berlin 3 in Southampton in 2005 (at which it was officially
recommended to require BOAI-1, green OA self-archiving, and to
encourage BOAI-2, gold OA publishing.

5. After that the Berlin series went on and on (I never attended
again), but the progress on implementing the Southampton/Berlin-3
recommendations was transpiring elsewhere (with the ROARMAP adopted
mandates in the UK, Australia, EU, and US, starting from 2003 to
today).

6. As far as I can tell, the Berlin X series just continues fussing
about gold OA, and although I am less suspicious than Richard, I too
suspect that the "secrecy" was because the institutional reps
attending Berlin 12 are trying to forge a common front for working out
a gold-OA "flip" deal with publishers.

And my prediction, for reasons I've repeated, unheeded, many, many
times, is that any flip will be a flop.


On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 9:33 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> 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