From: Stella Dutton <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:09:57 +0100 Stevan; Like many publishers, we are genuinely trying to find a way in the long run for our subs based journals to transition from a subs based business model to a gold OA model, if that is what the world wants. It cannot be done by a flick of a switch without damaging the journals we have, which authors seem to value at the moment judging from the number of submissions we get. Many/most of our authors simply don't have the funds to pay OA gold fees. They are clinicians without research grants working in hospitals doing research on cohorts of patients. Stella Dutton Chief Executive Officer BMJ Publishing Group Limited BMA House Tavistock Square London WC1H 9JR ________________________________ From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 00:23:16 -0400 The route to green open access is not cost free. Maybe reviewers are not paid but the whole peer review process has to be managed, with editors and staff paid to run it and that has costs associated with it. While subscriptions are paying the cost of publication, Green OA is free. If/when universally mandated Green OA makes subscriptions unsustainable, then (and only then) journals can convert to (post-Green) Gold OA, paid for, per paper, out of the institutional windfall subscription cancelation savings. Harnad, S. (2007) The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition. In: Anna Gacs (ed). The Culture of Periodicals from the Perspective of the Electronic Age. L'Harmattan. 99-106. Harnad, S. (2009) The PostGutenberg Open Access Journal. In: Cope, B. & Phillips, A (Eds.) The Future of the Academic Journal. Chandos. Harnad, S. (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib Magazine 16 (7/8). Harnad, S. (2011) Gold Open Access Publishing Must Not Be Allowed to Retard the Progress of Green Open Access Self-Archiving. Logos: The Journal of the World Book Community. 21(3-4): 86-93 Stevan Harnad From: Stella Dutton <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 08:24:22 +0100 I've watched the exchange of comments over the Finch report and the recent announcement by the UK government on Open Access, and by the way the BMJ was one of the first journals back in the late 1990s to make its research papers open access. I'd like to correct an error in a number of the postings and if it seems an obvious comment then I apologise but clearly it needs restating. The route to green open access is not cost free. Maybe reviewers are not paid but the whole peer review process has to be managed, with editors and staff paid to run it and that has costs associated with it. By the way, most of our journals reject over 70-80% of the papers received with the BMJ rejecting over 95%. Stella Dutton Chief Executive Officer BMJ Publishing Group Limited BMA House Tavistock Square London WC1H 9JR ________________________________ 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