From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 11:42:59 -0400

>On 2013-08-11, Ari Belenkiy, SFU <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>Why will publishers agree to this scheme?

Peer-review is the most important service they provide ... for nothing?

(1) Publishers today are paid for (managing) peer review -- paid in
full, many times over -- by institutional subscriptions.

(2) The majority of journals today already agree to immediate,
unembargoed Green OA self-archiving of the author's peer-reviewed
final draft.

(3) For the minority of journals that embargo OA, there is the
immediate-deposit (ID/OA) mandate - mandatory deposit in the author's
institutional repository immediately upon acceptance whether or not
access to the deposit is immediately set as OA -- plus the
repository's eprint-request Button to tide over user access needs with
one click from the requestor and one click from the author
("Almost-OA") for those deposits to which access has been set as
Closed Access, to comply with a publisher OA embargo.

Plans by universities and research funders to pay the costs of Gold OA
Publishing are premature.

Funds are short; 80% of journals (including virtually all the top
journals) are still subscription-based, tying up the potential funds
to pay for Gold OA; the asking price for Gold OA is still high
("Fools-Gold"); and there is concern that paying to publish may
inflate acceptance rates and lower quality standards.

What is needed now is for universities and funders to mandate
immediate-deposit (of authors' final peer-reviewed drafts, immediately
upon acceptance for publication). (U of C should add such an
immediate-deposit clause -- with no opt-out -- to its new Green OA
mandate.)

This will provide immediate Green OA for all unembargoed deposits +
immediate Almost-OA for all embargoed deposits.

Then, if and when universal Green OA should go on to make
subscriptions unsustainable (because users are satisfied with just the
Green OA versions)
that will in turn induce journals to cut costs (print edition, online
edition, access-provision, archiving), downsize to just managing the
service of peer review, and convert to the Gold OA cost-recovery
model.

Meanwhile, the subscription cancellations will have released the funds
to pay these residual service costs (for affordable, sustainable
post-Green Fair-Gold OA).

The natural way to charge for the service of peer review then will be
on a "no-fault basis," with the author's institution or funder paying
for each
round of refereeing, regardless of outcome (acceptance,
revision/re-refereeing, or rejection). This will minimize cost while
protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in
peer-review quality standards.

Stevan Harnad


On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 5:23 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: "Friend, Fred" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2013 08:24:50 +0000

Experience suggests that the value added to a peer-reviewed manuscript
by a copy-editor varies considerably. If the peer-reviewers have done
their job, any false facts or illogicality in the research arguments
should have been picked up. Precision of language and grammar are
important but an author may have as good a grasp of language and
grammar as a copy-editor. I am not suggesting that copy-editors do not
play any role in the quality of the published article, but quality
lies to a greater extent in the quality of the research reported in
the article than it does in copy-editing. The question we have to face
is whether the variable value added by a publisher through
copy-editing or any other service is worth the substantial sum a
publisher charges for such services. How much is using the services of
a publisher worth?

Fred Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

________________________________________

From: Mark Goodwin <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2013 11:16:21 -0400

Ah, so *not* the "final" version, but the penultimate version (post
peer review, at acceptance, pre-copyedit).

That is, the rough manuscript version that has not yet passed a
rigorous copyedit for facts, logical structure, and precision of
language, not to mention grammar, etc., irrespective of whatever
typesetting or formatting may be applied for public consumption.

(apologies for the intentional smug tone...)

Ever and always, a Copy Editor at heart... -Mark

M. L. Goodwin, ELS ([log in to unmask])
Editorial Manager, Publications
The American Physiological Society
Bethesda, MD  20814
http://www.The-APS.org