Let me try to be a little clearer. I’m one of the drafters of the statement under discussion, so I think my statements are reasonably authoritative on the subject.  And I think the bulk of my response was pretty unequivocal - our goal is to promote, through concerted and sustained action, and with clear purpose aligned with our public mission, a scholarly communications system for research publication that does not rely on toll access.  

Any caveats around that statement were intended to discourage  unproductive detours into niche areas and edge cases.  I think the primary directionality should be pretty clear, as is its endorsement by UC’s key leadership committees.  

As to what that system will look like, I imagine it will be diverse and continually evolving.  APC models, community investment models, academy-controlled and supported infrastructure, the evolution of preprint and other forms of early dissemination to accommodate new models of peer review and validation, will all be part of the mix.  Which of those models will win out, and in which disciplines or communities, will involve a process of discovery and experimentation among all stakeholders.  We’re all engaged in a fascinating journey whose unfolding we have an opportunity to influence, but the ultimate shape of which will only be fully known in hindsight. 

This doesn’t mean that our goals, or intended actions, should be interpreted as modest or moderate in any meaningful sense.  

From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2018 03:42:32 +0000

Thanks, Ivy. But at the risk of being called a stickler again, I guess I’ll just point out that the sentiment you’re expressing (basically, “let’s get things as open as we can as soon as we can and avoid making the perfect the enemy of the good”) is a pretty moderate one. The UC system’s expressed position is much stronger and more categorical: “achieving a truly open scholarly communication system (is a) moral imperative.” The difference between those two positions isn’t a nitpicky semantic one or just a matter of word choice; they look like fundamentally different stances.

 

As you pointed out, you’re just speaking for yourself, which of course is all you can do. But since there seems to be quite a bit of daylight between your expressed position and the one expressed in the UC statement, I’d still be interested to know what the UC system means by “a truly open scholarly communication system.” If achieving such a thing really is a moral imperative—and if an organization as large and influential as UC is actively working to make it happen—then dang, isn’t it important to be able to say what its characteristics are, and how we’ll know when it’s been achieved?

 

Is there someone at UC who can answer that question?

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

[log in to unmask]

 

 

From: Ivy Anderson <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2018 19:09:10 +0000

Hi Rick,

 

You’re such a stickler for language…  ;-)

 

Without wishing to assert that anything I say here represents the views of the entirety of the University of California, since many hands went into drafting this statement, and of course we are a large and diverse system –

 

We would like to see a scholarly publishing system emerge in which funding for publication does not interfere with or impose barriers to dissemination and re-use.  As a public institution that takes its public service mission seriously, we believe the fruits of UC scholarship should be open to the citizens and scholars of California, the nation, and the world.  Clearly this won’t happen overnight, and certainly there are disciplines, genres, and formats that present more challenges than others.  The statement we’ve drafted refers specifically to the research journal literature, but like many other institutions, we have experiments and initiatives underway in the monographic space as well.   And while many consider open access more feasible in the sciences than in non-STEM fields, making the humanities and social sciences literature open is arguably even more important as a means of informing public policy and stimulating intellectual inquiry.  So this is just to say that we would hope that toll access publishing would eventually – and sooner rather than later if we can marshal the collective will – operate under a business model or models that are no longer predicated on restricting and metering access. 

 

So my answer is yes – we envision a world that puts an end to toll access scholarly publishing.

 

But let’s also avoid the mistake of making the perfect the enemy of the good – the more we can accomplish, the better, and the sooner, the better. 

 

Ivy Anderson

Associate Executive Director & Director of Collections

California Digital Library

University of California, Office of the President

[log in to unmask]  |  http://cdlib.org

 

From: Rick Anderson <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2018 03:17:34 +0000

This is really interesting, Ivy – thanks for sharing it.

 

One question: I notice the phrase “the moral imperative of achieving a truly open scholarly communication system.” Can you tell us how UC defines a “truly open scholarly communication system”? Or to put it another way, when that goal has been achieved, what will the scholarly communication system look like? (For example, will there still be any role at all for toll-access publishing, or will it have gone away entirely?)

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

[log in to unmask]

 

 

From: Ivy Anderson <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2018 17:37:46 +0000

List members may be interested in this statement from the University of California, issued today: 

Over the past year, the University of California’s Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee (SLASIAC), in partnership with our university libraries and the systemwide academic senate’s Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication (UCOLASC), has been considering the twin challenges of journal affordability and the moral imperative of achieving a truly open scholarly communication system.  Making the research produced at the University of California open to the world has long been an important goal at UC, as evidenced by the strong Open Access policies enacted at the campus and systemwide level, our many initiatives to create open access publishing options for UC authors (including CDL’s eScholarship publishing service and our early open access pilots with third party publishers), and most recently, a Declaration of Rights and Principles to Transform Scholarly Communication promulgated by UCOLASC.

We believe it is time to take a further step along this road.

http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2018/06/championing-change-in-journal-negotiations/

 

Ivy Anderson

Associate Executive Director & Director of Collections

California Digital Library

University of California, Office of the President

[log in to unmask]  |  http://cdlib.org