From: "Guédon Jean-Claude" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2015 10:19:26 +0000 It seems to me that Richard Poynder is making three logical mistakes: 1. The decision to hold a closed "Berlin" meeting may be questioned, but does it imply that this will be the norm for such meetings in the future? 2. Open access and strategies to reach open access work on different planes. While, personally, I always favour openness and transparency in governance or decision-making processes, I can readily accept the fact that some open access advocates feel the need for occasional, focused, by-invitation only, meetings. Incidentally, Elsevier, Wiley, etc. do not open their strategy sessions to everybody, so far as I know. Incidentally again, I was not invited to Berlin-12, and I do not resent the fact; 3. The strategy of flipping journals is one way to achieve open access, as is self-archiving in suitable depositories. Open access is proceeding along a number of parallel and complementary tactics and strategies, as can be expected of a "movement" that is a movement only in the loosest of all meanings and without any institutionalized governance system. So, let us forget about statements such as "the primary means of achieving open access". Attempts in the past to privilege Green over Gold, or Gold over Green, equally based on the faulty assumption of a homogeneous "movement" have crippled progress toward OA way too much. And may 2016 bring about significant OA victories in the world! Happy festivals to all. Jean-Claude Guédon ________________________________ From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Date: Sun, 20 Dec 2015 14:42:07 +0000 The 12th Berlin Conference was held in Germany on December 8th and 9th. The focus of the conference was on “the transformation of subscription journals to Open Access, as outlined in a recent white paper by the Max Planck Digital Library”. In other words, the conference discussed ways of achieving a mass “flipping” of subscription-based journals to open access models. Strangely, Berlin 12 was "by invitation only". This seems odd because holding OA meetings behind closed doors might seem to go against the principles of openness and transparency that were outlined in the 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. Or is it wrong and/or naïve to think that open access implies openness and transparency in the decision making and processes involved in making open access a reality, as well as of research outputs? Either way, if the strategy of flipping journals becomes the primary means of achieving open access can we not expect to see non-transparent and secret processes become the norm, with the costs and details of the transition taking place outside the purview of the wider OA movement? If that is right, would it matter? Some thoughts here: http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/open-access-slips-into-closed-mode.html Richard Poynder