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