From: Ulrich Herb <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 2:40 AMDear all,

Dear All:  some news on the Plan S implementation:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/european-funders-detail-their-open-access-plan.
..

Best regards


Ulrich

----- Am 26. Nov 2018 um 14:14 schrieb David Wojick [log in to unmask]
:

It sounds like the researchers are pawns in a game between funders and
publishers. One can see why the researchers might be unhappy about being
put in this position, especially by their governments.

David
Inside Public Access

> On Nov 25, 2018, at 2:21 PM, Guédon Jean-Claude <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> What I am saying is that Plan S forces researchers to re-examine how they
intend to prioritize their journal choices, and suddenly the dilemma is
between the journal with the most desirable JIF, or the journal (or other
compliant solution) that may help getting more grants from a number of
funders. Interesting dilemma: instead of playing the game of publishers,
you are invited to play the game of funders.
>
> Not publishing in the highest impact factor becomes a handicap only if
evaluation blindly follows the JIF. So the "disadvantage" has to be
examined carefully in each case.
>
> I do not understand the paragraph starting with: "The argument I’m
hearing here ..."
>
> The "unilateral disarmament" argument - in passing what a terrible
metphor - assumes that evaluation works absolutely the same way everywhere.
With cOAlition funders, one may expect a revisiting of the ways in which
evaluation is or should be conducted, or they will look totally incoherent.
>
> Regarding the big paragraph about metrics, what is a "market for ideas".
The JIF does not address any "market for ideas", but rather a market for
journals, which is entirely different.
>
> Regarding quality, the JIF does not refer to quality (of what, anyway?
journals? Based on the average value of a counting exercise done across a
highly skewed distribution of citations from article to article within the
same journal), but rather to the ability of being cited, whatever the means
used to achieve this goal. It vaguely refers to visibility, but Aileen Fyfe
is spot on when she says that the IF refers to mere citability. The logic
is that of Nielsen ratings for TV shows that had nothing ever to do with
the quality of the TV broadcasts. If they did, television would not be as
terrible as it has been for the last few decades.
>
> Furthermore, when your indicator allows rankings, you are no longer
speaking about quality, but rather excellence: here is the game we are
going to make you compete with and, through rankings, we are going to award
the traditional Gold, Silver and Bronze medals.
>
> In short, lots of confusions there...
>
> Jean-Claude Guédon