From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:21:56 -0400

GOLD FEVER AND FINCH FOLLIES

The biggest risk from Gold OA (and it's already a reality) is that it
will get in
the way of the growth of Green OA, and hence the growth of OA itself.
That's Gold Fever: Most people assume that OA means Gold OA, and don't
realize that the fastest, surest and (extra-)cost-free way to 100% OA is to
provide (and mandate) Green OA.

The second biggest risk (likewise already a reality, if the Finch Follies
are Followed) is that Gold Fever  makes sluggish, gullible researchers,
their funders, their governments and even their poor impecunious universities
get lured into paying for pre-emptive Gold OA (while still paying for
subscriptions)
instead of providing and mandating Green OA at no extra cost.

The risk of creating a market for junk Gold OA journals is only the
third of the Gold OA risk factors (but it's already a reality too).

Gold OA's time will come. But it is not now. A proof of principle was
fine, to refute the canard that peer review is only possible on the
subscription model.

But paying for pre-emptive Gold OA now, instead of mandating and
providing Green OA globally first will turn out to be one of the more
foolish things our sapient species has done to date (though by far
not the worst).

Stevan Harnad


On 2012-07-12, at 3:23 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote:

> From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]
> Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:01:47 +0100
>
> Jeffrey Beall, a metadata librarian at the University of Colorado
> Denver, maintains a list of what he calls “predatory publishers”. That
> is, publishers who, as Beall puts it, “unprofessionally exploit the
> gold open-access model for their own profit.” Amongst other things,
> this can mean that papers are subjected to little or no peer review
> before they are published.
>
> Currently, Beall’s blog list of predatory publishers lists over 100
> separate companies, and 38 independent journals. And the list is
> growing by 3 to 4 new publishers each week.
>
> Beall’s opening salvo against predatory publishers came in 2009, when
> he published a review of the OA publisher Bentham Open for The
> Charleston Advisor. Since then, he has written further articles on the
> topic, and has been featured twice in The Chronicle of Higher
> Education.
>
> His work on predatory publishers has caused Beall to become seriously
> concerned about the risks attached to gold OA. And he is surprised at
> how little attention these risks get from the research community. As
> he puts it, “I am dismayed that most discussions of gold open-access
> fail to include the quality problems I have documented. Too many OA
> commenters look only at the theory and ignore the practice. We must
> ‘maintain the integrity of the academic record’, and I am doubtful
> that gold open-access is the best long-term way to accomplish that.”
>
> An interview with Jeffrey Beall is available here:
>
> http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-interviews-jeffrey-beall-university.html
>
> Richard Poynder