From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 14:12:48 -0500

And one reason "a repository-based infrastructure would be more
cost-effective" is that it would forego some quality control that the
traditional system ensured, such as copyediting. I see no emphasis
anywhere in the literature on repositories that copyediting is a
function that needs to be preserved in that infrastructure.  Green OA
is, in this respect, a less than optimal approach to disseminating
knowledge, and it is unfair to claim that a repository-based
infrastructure is more cost-effective when it is so only in part
because it is content to offer a lower level of service.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: Frederick Friend <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:11:06 +0100
>
> Although Joe and I may not agree on everything, I do agree with his
> emphasis on what will be sustainable and fundable, whether through
> commercial investment or public funding. And I do understand (this
> also relates to the reply from Sheila Dutton of BMJ) that part of the
> quality control cost in the current research dissemination process is
> borne by publishers. But every time a publisher comments on this kind
> of issue it is from the starting-point of the current research
> dissemination infrastructure, and an (understandable) wish to maintain
> the current research dissemination infrastructure. If there were to be
> a large-scale switch to a repository model rather than a journal
> publishing model, the full quality control costs would have to be met
> as part of repository costs, and it could be that people who are now
> publishers would have the expertise to manage the quality control
> process for the research community, but it would be within an
> infrastructure very different from that operating now. The evidence we
> have from the work of economists like John Houghton is that a switch
> to a repository-based infrastructure would be more cost-effective than
> the current research dissemination infrastructure, but it will not
> happen unless there is the political will for it to happen.
>
> Fred Friend
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 01:28:08 -0700
>
> I really can't agree with Fred about most of this.  For one, the idea
> that the work of peer review is somehow free because many of the
> reviewers are unpaid displays not only profound ignorance of how peer
> review systems are managed but, worse, a complete lack of curiosity.
> But if Fred or any one else wants to place articles in a repository
> somewhere, why, go right ahead.  I don't know what problem that is
> supposed to solve, but no one should get in the way of a man with a
> fixed idea.
>
> But in the end, the fact that so-called Green OA has no meaningful
> economic model is irrelevant.  That which is not sustainable cannot
> and will not be sustained.  It will simply go away.  If the articles
> deposited in repositories cannibalize the publishers' versions (where
> such exist), then over time the published versions will go away.  If
> "pure" repository publishing is what we have left, then it will
> attempt to justify its costs, which will surprise many with how large
> and unexpected they are.  Even OA repositories with enormous community
> support such as arXiv run into the problem that from time to time
> significant investments have to be made in platforms.  Volunteer labor
> does many things truly well (think of Wikipedia), but a full
> publishing service of the kind contemplated here may be a steep climb.
>
> The notion that research publishing--alone among all things in the
> world--can somehow sit outside the economy is a strange idea,
> something that will be studied by anthropologists years from now as a
> characteristic myth of our era.
>
> What will happen, what is happening already, is that investment in
> publishing will shift to new areas, especially those that are most
> resistant to copying and that continue to provide a return on capital.
> It can be no other way:  this is the way the world works.
>
> None of this is happy news for the commercial publishers that have
> looked to libraries for huge sums of money; I am not arguing for their
> position.  They will have to invest heavily in new businesses instead
> of harvesting past investments.
>
> Joe Esposito
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 3:31 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>  From: Frederick Friend <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:12:38 +0100
>>
>>  I cannot let pass without challenge the STM Association's statement
>>  that "Green Open Access has no business model to support the
>>  publications on which it crucially depends". Firstly deposit of a
>>  research report by an author in an institutional or subject repository
>>  does not depend upon publication in a journal. It is a separate route
>>  to the dissemination of publicly-funded research and could operate
>>  world-wide whether or not any STM journals were published at all.
>>  Secondly green open access does have a business model which is
>>  entirely within research and higher education budgets. Repositories
>>  are supported by their institution or funding agency, and a fully
>>  peer-reviewed version of a research article could be supplied on open
>>  access using the time of reviewers currently supplied without charge
>>  to publishers.
>>
>>  A further quality stamp could be provided by the institution or
>>  organization funding the repository and appropriate metadata attached
>>  to the version to indicate that it could be regarded as a "version of
>>  record". Few people are currently advocating a total switch away from
>>  publishing in journals to a total reliance upon repositories (although
>>  it would be feasible), but as both the European Commission and
>>  Research Councils UK acknowledge in their policies the two models can
>>  live alongside one another. The UK Government, in accepting the
>>  unbalanced recommendations from the Finch Group, has made a decision
>>  which is bad for researchers and bad for taxpayers. It may not even be
>>  good for publishers in the long-term, once the full implications of
>>  the UK Government's decision are worked through.
>>
>>  Fred Friend
>>  Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
>>  http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk