Plan S end game

(This post is taken from a recent edition of my subscription newsletter Inside Public Access)

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)

Synopsis: Now that the Plan S comment period is over and the comments made public, we can see that there is a raging debate over whether journals ought to comply or not. So it is time to consider the possible end games, which range from a lot of journals complying, to just a bunch, to almost none. The differences are pretty stark.

Everything depends on how many journals choose to comply, which in turn may well depend on how many articles fall under Plan S. At this point China and India look like the wild cards in the game.

The Twitter-verse indicates that India is considering signing on to Plan S. If true, this would be an important development. However, the Indian Science Adviser's tweets seem confused in several ways, so perhaps not to be taken too seriously. It sounds like he does not know what he is talking about, nor is this in any way official.

Note that under Plan S in its present form, middle income countries like India (and China) get an unspecified discount on all APCs. We do not know if this is 10%, 50% or 90% at this point. But a country does not have to join the S Coalition to get the discount. In any case if the discount is large it might prevent a lot of journals from flipping to Plan S compliance.

Financial disclosure is also one of the most onerous rules. It is also the funniest, because what is required -- direct costs, indirect costs and surplus -- are grant accounting terms, not business accounting. There is no such thing as indirect costs to a business.

But if India and China actually implement Plan S that is a lot of papers, perhaps bringing Plan S articles to 30% of the total submitted globally, which Smits is reported to be predicting.

The abstract question for a journal is this: What fraction of submissions has to be precluded by Plan S to make it a good decision to comply? I pointed out early on that if you have an 80% rejection rate that fraction can be large before damage occurs. On the other hand, journals do not want to write off large numbers of authors as unpublishable. It is a hard choice.

Assuming that something more than a few journals do make the leap, but many do not, we get a rather strange world in which Plan S authors can only publish in a specific subset of journals. This may be the most likely outcome, but it seems to be little discussed. The impact on the Plan S authors is probably adverse, especially if the top journals choose not to comply.

Another outcome that is quite possible is that relatively few journals choose to comply. That will be really bad for the Plan S authors, until the funders withdraw their Plan S rules, which could take a long time. A debacle in slow motion, as it were.

The worst (or best) case is where very few to no journals choose to comply. To my knowledge none are presently in compliance. What are the Plan S authors to do? This would call for emergency action by the funders, but most are government agencies so this might be difficult.

The spread of possible outcomes is very large at this point. Welcome to limbo.

A fascinating game indeed.

Two notices to notice

Two groups are now actively working to advise journals on transitioning, one to OA in general the other specifically to Plan S OA.

Here is the Plan S specific notice:

Helping learned societies transition to Open Access and explore Plan S-compliant business models

Wellcome, in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), have engaged Information Power to explore a range of potential strategies and business models through which learned societies can transition to Open Access and adapt and thrive under Plan S. The project is called Society Publishers Accelerating Open Access and Plan S (SPA-OPS).

Plan S, developed by the European Commission in partnership with Science Europe, seeks to move to a world where all research findings are made Open Access (OA). 

As the number of researchers covered by Plan S-compliant funding increases it will, in time, put pressure on the business models of many learned societies, which rely on hybrid journal publishing not only to cover their publishing costs, but to generate revenue for other important activities they undertake such as hosting meetings/conferences and awarding fellowships and other grants.

Robert Kiley, Head of Open Research at Wellcome said, Wellcome and UKRI recognise the value learned societies play in supporting researchers and contributing to a vibrant research ecosystem. We are keen for them to be successful in transition to OA in line with Plan S.  We are delighted to partner with ALPSP to explore via the team at Information Power a diverse array of potential strategies and business models through which learned societies can adapt and thrive to this changing landscape.

The team including Alicia Wise, Lorraine Estelle, and Hazel Woodward at Information Power plus additional expert Yvonne Campfens will document and develop a range of transition approaches and business models for Learned Society publishers to consider.  These will be developed in dialogue with Society publishers, libraries and consortia, funders, Society members, and Society publishing partners. Pilots with two Society publishers will bring some of the approaches and models to life.  The final report will be published in July 2019, and all materials will be available under a CC-BY licence.

About Wellcome Trust:
Wellcome exists to improve health by helping great ideas to thrive. We support researchers, we take on big health challenges, we campaign for better science, and we help everyone get involved with science and health research. We are a politically and financially independent foundation.  https://wellcome.ac.uk/

About UKRI
UK Research and Innovation is a new body which works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £6 billion, UKRI brings together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England. We work with our many partners to benefit everyone through knowledge, talent and ideas. https://www.ukri.org/

About ALPSP
The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) is an international membership trade body that supports and represents not-for-profit organizations and institutions that publish scholarly and professional content.  With over 300 members in 30 countries, membership also includes those that work with these publishers. Our mission is to connect, inform, develop and represent the international scholarly and professional publishing community. https://www.alpsp.org/about-alpsp

About Information Power:
Information Power Ltd has provided consultancy services in the research information space since 1985. The team works with funders, libraries, consortia, publishers, agents, vendors, and universities to advance learning, research, and scholarly communication. http://www.informationpower.co.uk/

Here is the more general one, from the ever active University of California:

On behalf of the University of California systemwide Office of Scholarly Communication, I am writing to share a new toolkit to help journals (& librarians or professionals who support them) interested in transitioning their publications to open access.

As explained on our blog post, (https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/2019/02/transitioning-journals-to-open-access-guidance-from-and-for-the-field/), we have just released two resources:

Guide to Transitioning Journals to Open Access Publishing. This guide is designed to help stakeholders understand basics about journal ownership, operations, and funding models, and to begin gathering important information necessary for OA publishing decision-making.

Checklist for Consultations About Transitioning Journals to OA
This checklist is for libraries and institutions to help facilitate consultations & conversations about journal operations, finances, and strategies so that journal boards and editors can come away from the conversation with a clearer understanding of how to proceed with an OA transition.

We hope these resources are of use, and we'll continue to add more. Please contact OSC@ucop.edu with any questions.

Best,
Rachael (on behalf of the whole OSC team)
-
Rachael G. Samberg, J.D., MLIS
Scholarly Communication Officer
University of California, Berkeley
438 Doe Library
Berkeley, CA  94720-6000

rsamberg@berkeley.edu
Ph. 510.664.5095 [N.B. new number]

Plan S does not exist

This article is based on the December 27 issue of Inside Public Access, which includes Inside Plan S.

http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/

December 27, 2018

Plan S does not exist

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)

Synopsis: Absent the APC cap, Plan S is decisively incomplete.

In a very real sense Plan S does not exist, because one of its most central features has yet to be stated. This is the amount or form of the cap on APCs. I say "form" because it is entirely possible that the cap will be complex. For example, given the way the discussion is going, it might be different for society journals and commercial ones. Or it may be larger for smaller publishers, etc. It is, after all, clear that the Plan S people are trying to design a new publishing system. The APC cap is a good tool to tinker with.

The key point is that the APC cap is probably the biggest single factor that publishers need in order to decide whether or not to try to comply with Plan S. Thus the publishers and journals are all in limbo until this factor is specified. Given that the Plan S people say they are going to do a study on this first, it might be a long time coming.

But the supposed 2020 compliance deadline is approaching fast. So what we have at this point is a huge mess.

The tipping point for me was a recent article, innocently titled "Thoughts on Plan S implementation guidelines" by Tony Ross-Hellauer (R-H)

R-H argues that some of the implementation guidelines for repositories are so expensive that they might cause some repositories to choose not to comply, basically opting out of Plan S. Well the same is certainly true for journals, especially given the very limited membership of funders. They are presently estimated to generate less than 4% of all journal articles, so most journals can probably do without them.

Angela Cochran's fine piece in The Scholarly Kitchen -- "Plan S: A Mandate for Gold OA with Lots of Strings Attached" -- details many of the expensive requirements that flow from the guidelines. But the cap on APCs could be by far the greatest cost. It makes an enormous difference whether the cap is, say, $1000 or $3000. Given the apparent mindset of the Plan S people it might even be as low as $500 and it certainly will not be as high as the $5000 some leading journals say they need.

In fact the two types of Plan S costs are additive. Adding expensive features while cutting income might easily make compliance financially unsustainable for most journals. That the Plan S architects are either indifferent to this outcome, or somehow unaware of it, seems clear.

R-H, who is a prominent member of this radical wing of the OA movement, actually takes it a step further. He proposes that APCs be voluntary! That is, authors can choose to pay the full amount, or less, or even nothing. That a ten billion dollar a year industry, including many non-profits, can not reliably operate this way is apparently irrelevant.

Unfortunately this is the kind of anti-business thinking that seems to dominate Plan S. It is actually rather perverse to introduce a massively disruptive plan while withholding the central feature determining its viability. All of the discussion of its details that is presently going on may in fact be pointless if the APC cap is set too low, which almost seems likely.

Yet Plan S is calling for comments. It is hard to comment on a proposal when the cost is unknown. I attribute this folly to the arrogance of funders, who are used to having absolute power over researchers. They have no such power over the journals.

In fact at this point I have to say that Plan S is -- as the saying goes -- programmed to fail. The extent to which this is true will have to wait until the APC capping system is announced, presumably some time in 2019. I am not optimistic that Plan S will be viable.

In the meantime we, just like the journals, are all in limbo because there simply is no complete Plan S to evaluate. There must be (1) a proposal and (2) a price, but Plan S has no price at this point.

Half a plan is not a plan.

Interesting times lie ahead. Stay tuned.

David

__________________________________________________________________

Inside Public Access is published bi-weekly. For subscription information:  http://insidepublicaccess.com/. Single issues may be purchased separately.

We also do confidential research and consulting. (540) 358-1080

Plan S USA?

This article is adapted from my newsletter: http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/

November 8, 2018

Plan S USA?

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)

Synopsis: If the U.S. joins the Plan S Coalition it will change the game, maybe even win it. We begin to explore the legal and political issues.

We have said from the beginning that Plan S's biggest problem is the Coalition is far too small to be effective in boycotting the myriad subscription journals. As we reported earlier, even Smits (the "Plan S bulldog") admits this. He came to the U.S. specifically to lobby OSTP to make Plan S part of the Public Access Program. It is therefore worth exploring the complex issues involved.

The U.S. joining the Plan S Coalition would be a momentous decision. While this seems quite unlikely, it should not be ignored. Politics is full of surprises. The Trump administration seems to revel in bold moves and the Democrats now have the House to play with.

OSTP is conducting a review of the Public Access Program. But to begin with, I am not sure that the funding agencies have the legal authority to impose the Plan S restrictions on researchers. The present program is based on the (claimed) agency's federal use license to the accepted manuscript, because the government paid for part of the work. This is a very far cry from telling people which journals they cannot publish in. Federal use is not federal control. Adopting Plan S would be a huge legal step.

Congress could make such a rule but it well might wind up in the Supreme Court. As a precedent, "food stamps" apparently cannot be used to buy hot foods, alcohol, cigarettes, pet food, paper products, medicine, or household supplies. But I know of no precedent for restricting publication. That applying for a grant is voluntary is probably irrelevant, as grant programs fall under the same rules as regulatory programs. (I helped write some of these rules.)

It is a question of what the federal government is allowed to do. That Plan S is about restricting freedom of expression is very important.

I cannot see an agency passing such a restrictive rule without explicit legal authority, but things have become pretty wild in the last decade or so, when it comes to the Executive Branch making its own laws. Anything is possible, but it would probably take a Democrat president.

Thus the legal issues are pretty deep. Next come the political issues.

Until now there has been very little political appetite for something like Plan S here. The green Public Access Program is up and running. Congress won't even shorten the embargo period to 6 months, despite repeated attempts; much less boycott the subscription journal industry. But now we have a new Congress, led by Democrats. Most importantly, Plan S is a new proposal, albeit a radical one.

I suppose an agency might try to just sneak it in. That would be interesting but I cannot imagine which agency it would be. NIH is probably the only agency with enough money to be seriously interested in OA and they are very green with PMC, which has captured a bunch of other agencies under Public Access.

However, PMC already has a European arm so strong ties there. Moreover, the Welcome Trust, which just joined the Coalition, has actually made PMC a potential instrument of Plan S. Welcome has specified that articles deposited in PMC with the proper terms and conditions are compliant with its new OA mandate. It remains to be seen whether the Plan S Implementation Plan does this, but it looks like PMC is actively involved. I am sure they discussed this with Welcome, maybe even sold it to them.

Gates also joining the Coalition is something of a wild card, because it gives them a significant U.S. member. Plan S is no longer just a European initiative and this means a great deal politically in the U.S., where Gates carries weight.

In general, Plan S looks very much like the British approach writ larger and tougher. The U.S. has already rejected that approach, for now anyway, but that could change.

Interesting times indeed!

Plan S questions begin to cascade

This article is adapted from my newsletter: http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/

Oct 25, 2018

Plan S questions begin to cascade

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)
 

Synopsis: A meeting between Plan S architects and skeptics produces cascading questions.

The blog Forbetterscience.com by Leonid Schneider has published fragments of an important discussion on Plan S. Schneider is a critic of Plan S so the thrust of his selection is somewhat negative, as well as confusing, but there is still a good bit of useful information. Schneider's headline is itself a bit of a pot boiler: Robert-Jan Smits: scholarly societies “will have to bite the bullet and go Open Access”

Here is the introduction: "The Plan S, developed by EU Commission’s special envoy Robert-Jan Smits and his partners of Science Europe, a lobby organisation of European funders, might become the biggest scholarly publishing revolution in history, or it might fail spectacularly. It all depends on who joins the cOAlitionS and how exactly it will be implemented. I obtained a near-verbatim transcript of a video-conference Smits and Science Europe president Marc Schiltz had on October 19th with Lynn Kamerin and other authors of the Appeal against Plan S, originally published on my site. It appears that Smits and Schiltz see the scientists and their scholarly societies as the reactionary elements blocking the road to the universal Open Access (OA)."

Below are some observations on the discussion and the issues, in no particular order. Plan S is entering that "emerging issues" phase where the questions grow exponentially. Initial basic questions raise multiple answers, each of which in turn raises multiple new questions, and this cascading dendritic growth pattern is repeated multiple times.

The resulting structure is what I have called an Issue Tree. There is a great deal of confusion and complexity to come. The issue tree structure is explained here in my never published textbook and I am happy to discuss it. It is the fundamental logical form of complex issues, which certainly includes Plan S.

Some observations and issues

1. The extent to which Plan S mandates gold OA is a big issue. Gold OA is not specified but no other feasible form seems to meet the 10 Principles. But forcing everyone in the world to pay APCs, while funding just your grantees' APCs, seems unfair.

2. Smits, the apparent leader and spokesperson, is bossy and hard to understand. He criticizes criticism. This is not a good combination of traits when it comes to dealing with the academic community.

3. There apparently is a German law on academic freedom, which specifically includes something like the freedom to choose which journal to publish in. If so then this strongly supports the argument that Plan S seriously attacks academic freedom. It may also mean that Germany cannot adopt the Plan.

4. Smits admits what I said originally, that without much broader support Plan S does not work. (Schneider opens by saying that Plan S may be a spectacular failure. This is certainly possible and it needs to be kept in mind.) At this point there is no sign of such support but these are very early days. A time frame of 5 to 10 years might be realistic. The interim could be chaotic. Smits has talked to the folks at OSTP about US support and OSTP has begun a review of the US Public Access Program.

5. There is mention of gold "mirror journals" published by publishers that try to parallel their existing prestige subscription journals. These are derided but they may well be the outcome of Plan S. As I said originally, the subscription publishers may just create gold OA journals to take the money. That is where hybrids came from.

6. Diamond option confusion. There is a lot of discussion of diamond OA, where the money comes from someplace besides readers or authors. For example, diamond journals funded from society endowment income was discussed here on TSK last year. A big obstacle here is that membership is often based on getting access to the society's journals. And of course commercial publishers do not have endowments so this version at least is not feasible. It sounds like Plan S does not include funding diamond journals.

7. As I predicted earlier, there is now a task force of Plan S funders hard at work developing (negotiating) an implementation plan. The number and complexity of the issues will grow enormously when this comes out. In addition to content, there is also the issue of the scope of consultation. Smits is (as usual?) vague about this.

The above are just a few of the complex issues driving the exponential growth of questions. Keeping in mind the fundamental issue tree structure might help.

__________________________________________________________________

Inside Public Access is published bi-weekly. For subscription information:  http://insidepublicaccess.com/. 

 We also do confidential research and consulting. 

Plan S Architect stonewalls interview

This article is adapted from my newsletter: http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/

October 12, 2018

Plan S Architect stonewalls interview

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)

Synopsis: OA guru Richard Poynder asks Plan S boss Robert-Jan Smits some hard questions and doesn't get many answers.

Poynder interviews Smits here. Robert-Jan Smits is the Open Access Envoy of the European Commission and previous Director-General for Research and Innovation at the EU. He is one of the architects of, and a principal spokesperson for, Plan S,

The questions are often detailed and probing, while the answers tend to be political and therefore superficial, but viewed in that light they can still be illuminating. Moreover, Poynder's explanations of the various issues are very good and worth reading all by themselves. Below is a quick look at some of the key points, in order of occurrence in the interview, not in importance.

When asked about the tight Jan 1, 2020 start date, Smits says this -- "Plan S cannot and will not override contracts which are in place before 1/1/20 and of course, we are willing to respect short-term transitional arrangements and on-going discussions on such arrangements."

Given that Plan S will be implemented via research contracts issued by the funding agencies in Coalition S, if it actually begins with contracts issued after January 1, then the papers involved will not appear until some time after, a long time after in many cases.

Just who "we" is, that will negotiate short term arrangements, is a very interesting question. Is this Coalition S or the individual funding agencies? As we said last issue, everything actually happens at the agency level, but there seems to be no indication of this at this point in the process. There may be serious legal issues here.

When Poynder mentions that publisher resistance is likely, Smits says this -- "We expect publishers to come forward with offerings which comply with the principles outlined in Plan S."

As we have said from the beginning, when it comes to the major publishers this expectation may be completely unrealistic. They can do perfectly well without the Plan S papers. But they may well start some new OA journals, closely aligned with their most prestigious subscription journals, to take the Plan S money.

Smits ducks the academic freedom issue, which Poynder puts very well. Here is the full exchange:

"RP: Another concern that has been raised is that Plan S is contrary to long-standing principles of academic freedom. For instance, since Plan S says that hybrid OA is not compliant with its principles European researchers will be banned from publishing in a great many journals that they currently publish in and love. As Nature put it, “as written, Plan S would bar researchers from publishing in 85% of journals, including influential titles such as Nature and Science.” This concern about academic freedom might seem a genuine grievance in light of a 1997 UNESCO document that states, “higher-education teaching personnel should be free to publish the results of research and scholarship in books, journals and databases of their own choice”."

"R-J S: Strong mandates have been in place from many funders in different countries for many years so the principle of funder mandates in the research system is well-established. See what Peter Suber writes about this. It is for publishers to provide Plan S-compliant routes to publication in their journals so that researchers can choose where to publish when accepting funding from those who sign Plan S."

That funders have the power to dictate where papers can and cannot be published is not the issue. If authors have been free to publish where they choose, and that choice is now restricted, then this is clearly a loss of freedom. There is, however, the question whether it is a loss of "academic freedom," as that term may have a narrow technical meaning.

Smits also ducks the issue of the limited scope of the boycott mandated by Plan S, including the possible role of the US (which would fall under the Public Access Program):

"RP: (snip) I understand you also hope to get the US to buy into the Plan, which would seem to be an even greater challenge since the US has historically preferred green OA and it does not have the same centralised system as Europe. As Roger Schonfeld has put it, “[T]he higher education sector in most of North America is very different from Europe, in one key element: North America is as decentralized as Europe is, at a national level, centrally coordinated.” The challenge here surely is that Plan S can only achieve its objectives if the whole world signs up to it, or at least all those countries with large research budgets? Unless they do, for instance, Europe will find it is having to pay for gold OA plus continue to pay subscriptions in order to access the research produced in countries that do not sign up. Would you agree? How hopeful are you that you will manage to sign up a sufficient number of countries to make Plan S workable?"

"R-J S: Why do you keep on saying that Plan S is about Gold Open Access? Do read the 10 principles again and you will notice that the plan does not use Gold or Green terminology. The plan welcomes self-archiving and repositories. I am confident that Plan S is workable." (Emphasis added.)

The short emphasized statement is Smits' entire answer. The part about Plan S not mandating gold OA is something of a red herring. The major publisher's present terms for green OA do not comply with Plan S and it is hard to see the publishers changing that.

Poynder also raises the huge issue of the potentially adverse impact of Plan S on the global South:

"RP: On the other hand, if Plan S does succeed it will further marginalise and disadvantage those in the global South. If all the world’s subscription journals flipped to gold OA, for instance, where today researchers in the global South are not able to afford to access the world’s research, in future they would be unable to afford to publish their own research – which might seem a worse position to be in. Does Plan S have a solution to this problem? Will it provide money to enable those in the global South to publish their research? I am not aware that this issue is discussed in the various Plan S documents."

"R-J S: Getting rid of paywalls will help researchers in the global South to access publicly funded research without charge. This huge advantage cannot be denied. Furthermore, there are many routes to publishing research available to all countries including no-embargo open access." (Emphasis added.)

Smits' single sentence response (emphasized) in no way addresses Poynder's core question. It is virtually meaningless.

So all things considered this interview raises a lot of good questions but provides few good answers. This is not Smits fault, because these answers do not yet exist. They may never exist, because the problems Poynder points out may be irresolvable.

__________________________________________________________________

Inside Public Access is published bi-weekly. For subscription information:  http://insidepublicaccess.com/

Plan S coming soon (as of Sept 27, 2018)

The following is adapted from y newsletter --  http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/ -- September 27, 2018.

Plan S coming soon

Synopsis: The first wave of Plan S rules is under negotiation and the first big confusion has emerged.
 

All we have at this point are various statements from Plan S leaders, plus some public discussion, but these provide a modicum of useful information. 

The big news is that the Plan S Coalition hopes to have actual detailed rules out this year, which gives them just 90 days to do it in. Up until now all we have had to go on is just had a list of ten so-called principles, plus some preamble and public statements by leaders. Mind you the principles are pretty rule-like so the basic structure seems clear enough.

Presumable there is a lot of negotiation and debate going on among the 11 funding agencies and other parties to the Coalition. Rules can be a lot harder to write than principles. Unfortunately there seems to be a complete lack of transparency with these negotiations.

Then too, these rules are really just proposals. Looking ahead the big question is whether the many national funding agencies simply promulgate the Coalition proposed version of the rules or whether they each adapt them, change them, add to them, etc.  These are after all different countries, with different customs and systems.

So, for example, a country that does not get the rules it wants in the Coalition negotiations might implement them in its own directives. That these directives will all be finalized in 2019 may also be problematic, especially if there is local opposition. (Local in this case means within that country.)

At this point we have little idea what the outstanding issues are within the Coalition. There seems to be no transparency to their rule making, which is disappointing given that this is the Open community at work.

Regarding the ban on publishing OA in hybrid journals, last time we said we did not see the reason for it. A kind reader has pointed out that the Preamble actually addresses this issue. The reason is that using hybrids supports the subscription model. This makes it clear that Plan S is a full scale attack on the subscription model, which may make it a hard sell in the U.S., at least as long as the Republicans are in charge.

This leads us to the first big confusion. Some OA experts argue that subscription journal articles made immediately available via a repository comply with Plan S.  One Coalition leader seems to support this, saying the Plan S does not distinguish gold OA from Green.

On the other hand, allowing this sort of green compliance supports the subscription model. If hybrid OA articles are ruled out because they support the subscription model, then by that reasoning green OA ought to be ruled out as well. Statements from other leaders seem to support this view.

In addition, the conditions under which a repository deposit might comply may be of a sort that most subscription publishers do not allow. This adds a significant degree of complexity to the case. Since this issue of green OA compliance is now well known it should be interesting to see just how the coming Plan S Coalition rules handle it (if they do).

Also on the hybrid front, there is supposed to be what the Coalition is calling a "transition period," wherein hybrid OA articles are allowed to comply with Plan S. One leader says this is period likely to be 3 or 4 years.

There is some hubris in calling this a transition period, because it assumes that the subscription model will largely disappear by the end of the term. Thus the transition intended is to the end of subscriptions, perhaps where all the subscription journals flip to gold OA, or something like that. As we have said before, the relatively small number of articles that flow from Coalition member funding makes this a questionable scenario.

So all things considered, things are moving along pretty quickly with Plan S, or at least that is what the leaders are saying. That there is zero transparency makes it hard to know what is really going on. We therefore await the first wave of actual proposed rules with great interest.

Euro funders float radical rules

The following is adapted from the Sept 14 issue of my subscription newsletter: "Inside Public Access"

http://insidepublicaccess.com/

Euro funders float radical rules

Synopsis: Many European national funders of research are proposing to prohibit their funded researchers from publishing their results in subscription based journals. This is certainly a radical proposal, slated to go into effect very quickly.

Just when public access seemed to have stabilized the Europeans have dropped a bomb. It is called Plan S, a collaborative policy to be adopted by the funding agencies of almost a dozen countries. The countries range from Sweden to Slovenia, including France and the UK. At this point Germany and the EU are not in it, but that could change. Many prominent research funders are in Plan S, especially the British Councils.

There is some complexity and the exact rules have yet to be spelled out, but the basic idea is pretty simple. All articles flowing from agency funding must be published in fully open journals. All subscription journals are excluded, including open publishing in a hybrid.

These as yet unpublished rules are scheduled to go into effect in 2020, which is just over a year from now. As rule makings go this one is very rapid. There appears to have been no public consultation.

This prohibition is quite radical, excluding an estimated 85% of all major journals. This estimate may be high because it probably does not include most new wave, low Author Processing Charge (APC) journals, which may well benefit from Plan S. But basically publishing funded research results in most major journals is prohibited. This is truly radical.

Plan S is essentially a government mandated boycott of subscription journals. It is hard to imagine the research community being happy with these sweeping prohibitions, given that publishing in important subscription journals is a major measure of their accomplishments. Senior researchers have long standing relations with these journals, including being reviewers. Some are also on the editorial boards of subscription journals.

How this will play out remains to be seen. Does a journal want to use people who are prohibited from publishing in it? Are the Plan S researchers being forcibly removed from the mainstream communication world? Time will tell.

The idea seems to be that this boycott will force publishers to flip their journals to APC OA. Many of the news articles on Plan S say as much. However, at its present size, the Plan S movement may be too small to have this effect. Preliminary analysis suggests that funding from the Plan S agencies generates about 70,000 articles a year, half of which are British. This is a very small fraction of the 3 million or so articles published annually.

If most journals have rejection rates of 50% or more, with the majors being over 80%, then the absence of these Plan S articles will hardly be felt. In this case the most likely outcome is that the publishers will simply launch some parallel APC journals to take the  new Plan S money. Subscriptions are unlikely to go down, because the rest of the world's researchers are still sending in their articles.

That the Plan S researchers should be penalized while the subscription publishers benefit is certainly an unintended consequence, but it may well be the most likely at this point. However, if the EU and Germany join Plan S then this equation could change. If the US or China were to join as well, then Plan S might well work.

Regarding compliance, I have a hard time imagining the research community accepting this mandate. The first published response is a dense 14 page essay, titled "A Response to Plan-S from Academic Researchers: Unethical, Too Risky!" which hints at the depth of the issues. Telling scholars that they cannot publish in 85% of the existing journals, including most of the top ones, and those they already publish in, is a very big ask.

The compliance issue probably will not really arise until several years after the mandate goes into effect, but enforcement will be difficult and expensive. Noncompliance means daring to publish an article that flows from funding in a forbidden journal. It will not be easy for a Plan S funder to discover that this has happened. And punishing people for publishing great work in a leading journal must seem strange.

If there is too much resistance the obvious compromise is to allow publishing in hybrid journals. In fact it is hard to see why this is prohibited. The only reason I have seen is that hybrid OA is growing too slowly, but clearly including them in Plan S would speed their growth.

Plan S may work, or do nothing, or fail deeply. Much is to come!

Fund flipping threatens publishers

The following is adapted from the April 13 issue of my newsletter: "Inside Public Access"

http://insidepublicaccess.com/

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)


Synopsis: A new movement has emerged in the OA community which has the potential to seriously threaten subscription publishing and therefore publishers. Institutions flip their funds from subscriptions to OA.


This movement seems to have no name as such but it flows from an international effort that is called simply OA2020. I call it "fund flipping" in analogy to journal flipping. In fact journal flipping to OA is an aspect of fund flipping.

The basic idea is very simple, as all potentially viable social movements are. In this case it is also breathtaking. Universities and other journal subscribers simply stop paying for subscriptions and instead direct these funds into OA. I am not making this up.

In the US this movement is centered in California, where several universities have signed the OA2020 effort's Expression of Interest. The Expression of Interest says this:

• We aim to transform a majority of today’s scholarly journals from subscription to OA publishing in accordance with community-specific publication preferences. At the same time, we continue to support new and improved forms of OA publishing.
• We will pursue this transformation process by converting resources currently spent on journal subscriptions into funds to support sustainable OA business models. Accordingly, we intend to re-organize the underlying cash flows, to establish transparency with regard to costs and potential savings, and to adopt mechanisms to avoid undue publication barriers.
• We invite all parties involved in scholarly publishing, in particular universities, research institutions, funders, libraries, and publishers to collaborate on a swift and efficient transition for the benefit of scholarship and society at large.

The fund flipping movement is explained in some detail in this recent article:

"What’s behind OA2020? Accelerating the transition to open access with introspection and repurposing funds" by Rachael Samberg et al, C&RL News.

At this stage it is all just preliminary talk, or "introspection," but there is a worst case scenario here that could devastate publishers. If even a significant fraction of their subscribers suddenly stopped paying, many would likely go under. This includes both society and commercial publishers. This is what is meant by "repurposing funds."

Of course there are less draconian scenarios. For example if this movement actually became a serious threat, then the threatened publishers could choose to flip their journals to OA. They might even cut deals to do this, at least the big ones could.

At this point it looks like every university or other major subscriber is supposed to independently "introspect" about how they would like to repurpose their subscription funding. The University of California schools are apparently already doing this. They will be worth watching.

The biggest problem seems to be that there is no formal organization here. Thus there is no one to coordinate these myriad introspections, or for the publishers to deal with.

It seems very unlikely that this sort of uncoordinated grassroots effort could actually succeed. For example, how many university faculties will go along with ending most of their library's subscriptions in the name of OA? This looks like one of those schemes where everyone has to act before it makes sense for anyone to act.

But if it did succeed the result could be pure chaos, up to and including the collapse of the journal system. Uncontrolled revolutions have a way of getting out of hand. There is simply no reason why the independent OA funding actions of myriad institutions should add up to a coherent system of journals. But then some OA advocates claim that a coherent system of journals is unnecessary.

It is far too soon for doomsday predictions, but all major publishers should be aware that this fund flipping movement is growing in Europe and California.

The OA2020 Executive Summary here: https://oa2020.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Open-Access-2020-Executive-Summary.pdf

__________________________________________________________________

Inside Public Access is published bi-weekly. For subscription information:  http://insidepublicaccess.com/. 

We also do confidential research and consulting. 

Public Access limited copyright?

The following is adapted from the March 15 issue of my newsletter: "Inside Public Access"

http://insidepublicaccess.com/

 By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)

Synopsis: OA guru John Willinsky proposes that we change the copyright law to embrace public access. It is a big step but it may make sense.

 Canadian scholar and OA guru John Willinsky (now at Stanford) has written a thought provoking book and blog article. The basic idea is amazingly simple: If we are going to make research articles publicly available then we should change the copyright law to do just that.

Here is how Willinsky puts it (speaking just of Canada):

"Canada is recognizing that people everywhere have a right to this body of knowledge that it differs significantly from their right to other intellectual property (which begins well after the author’s lifetime)."

What is true for Canada is true for America too. In fact the Canadian government has a public access program that is similar to the US program.

The point is that copyright law gives authors certain rights for a certain time, that is very long (say 100 years), and the idea here is to dramatically shorten that time for a specific set of articles, namely research articles in journals.

As Willinsky points out, we are already making a lot of these articles OA (such as under the US Public Access Program) by funder mandate. Codifying this existing practice, without the funder limitation, would be easy as far as legislative drafting is concerned.

Getting it passed is another matter, of course, but I can see it having bipartisan support. The Democrats would like the health care argument for OA and the Republicans would like the innovation and economic growth argument.

The key point is that the researcher authors are not writing to make money. One could even argue that a lifetime+ copyright was misapplied to them in the first place. We need the present limited embargo period of 12 months to protect the publishing system, but that is all.

This idea fits the fundamentals elegantly. That makes it an attractive policy.

In fact Congress has already taken a step in this direction. Public Access originated in the Executive Branch, but Congress has now legislated it for the Departments of HHS (think NIH), Education and Labor.

One possible objection is that the 12 month embargo period is too short for some disciplines. However, the publishers have had five years to raise this issue formally with the US Public Access agencies and to my knowledge none has done so.

On the other hand, some disciplines are only lightly funded by the Public Access agencies. In that sense their case has yet to arise and they can make it in the legislative process. I imagine that if Congress were to move in the direction of public access copyright there would be a lot of discussion.

Willinsky specifically mentions a Canadian government review of copyright law that is presently getting underway. His book may even be timed for it. The title of his blog article is Let Canada Be First to Turn an Open Access Research Policy Into a Legal Right to Know so this clearly is a policy proposal.

How this Parliamentary review proceeds with regard to Willinsky's radical public access proposal might be worth watching. In any case the US Congress should consider it.

Note that Richard Poynder has a lengthy discussion of, and interview with, Willinsky here:

https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/the-intellectual-properties-of-learning.html

Should Public Access go global?

The following is adapted from the January 19, 2018 issue of my newsletter: Inside Public Access.  http://insidepublicaccess.com/

Synopsis: In the long run Public Access may be the most viable form of government OA and the best way for OA to go for now.

Building on last week's discussion, it has always seemed to me that the US Public Access model might be one for other countries and regions to follow. There does not seem to be much consideration of this, but that may simply be because the OA movement is still pretty radical. In the long run PA may be the most viable form of government OA.

This issue actually arose five years ago, when Britain went one way and the US went the other. Britain opted for mandatory gold OA while OSTP went for embargoed green. I was puzzled then, and remain puzzled, why this fundamental policy choice has not been widely debated.

As I suggested last week, this absence of discussion may be because the OA movement simply does not like PA. One big wing of that movement wants to end commercial publishing, so PA does nothing for them. A related but less radical OA goal is to dramatically reduce subscription rates, which PA also does not do.

For that matter PA does little to help university librarians, other than make content OA. The problem here seems to be that basic OA does not seem to be the goal of the OA movement.

This may be a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good. A lot of what the OA movement is calling for strikes me as Utopian, especially the elimination of the journal publishing industry. As a strategic planner, I have often found that while Utopians are great at motivating change, they are less so when it comes to picking next steps. This is because their gaze is on a distant horizon, while next steps are all about the here and now.

In any case the choice still lies before the world. As a strategist I really like Public Access. It is simple, efficient and it does the job of making subscription content OA.

There are far fewer countries than there are universities. If a dozen or so major research funding countries were to adopt Public Access then a great deal, probably most, of research publication would become OA. I am pretty sure that most basic research is at least partially government funded.

Nor is there any reason why private funders, such as foundations, could not opt into government PA programs via their own mandates. Of course the government PA programs would need to be open to this, which is not presently the case with the US program. This may be an innovation waiting to happen.

PubMed Central has a nascent precedent as far as going global is concerned. They have both Canada PMC and PMC Europe. But to my knowledge neither the Canadian Government nor the EU has considered making these repositories mandatory.

The PAGES model certainly has international connections, via WorldWideScience.org and other global OSTI activities.  The other PAGES users -- NSF and DOD -- no doubt also have international contacts, as do the stand alone agency PA groups like USDA.

But I expect that the State Department would have to get involved, in order to sell the US Public Access model to the rest of the world. The OA movement is not likely to do it at this time.

Public Access going global would go a long way toward meeting the basic OA challenge.

Looking ahead at Open Access and US Public Access

The following is adapted from my newsletter -- Inside Public Access, January 11, 2018

Synopsis: The New Year is a time for reflection and Richard Poynder has provided a good hook for reflecting on the US Public Access Program. He has posted a number of structured interviews with various open access thought leaders, basically asking where do we go from here? I have added some reflections on the US Public Access Program.

One of the striking features of the Poynder interview responses (see links below) is that there is no mention of Public Access Program, despite it being by far the biggest mandatory repository system in the world. It covers a significant fraction of all physical, medical and computer science publications, perhaps 20% or more. In some research areas US federal funding is dominant.

This lack of acknowledgement, or interest, is despite the fact that Richard specifically asks about the roles of (1) funders and (2) government. Public Access is all about government funders who build and operate extensive journal article collection systems and infrastructure to provide open access. What is not to like?

So having studied both public and open access for over five years now, I thought to reflect on this striking situation.

There seem to me to be at least two different things going on. First, the US Public Access Program is distributed, unnamed and not publicized. Second it is ideologically not popular with the OA movement, for various reasons.

To begin with, I have found in numerous discussions with OA people that there is a general lack of understanding of the Public Access Program.

It does not help that this large federal program has no actual name. I call it the "US Public Access Program" but that is just me. As a result, there is no simple way to reference or even to talk about it. Attempts to do so usually involve references to the 2013 OSTP memo, which is both awkward and sounds like something that happened a long time ago.

The fact that the Program is distributed among numerous funding agencies also makes it hard to see. Individual Public Access websites and guidance are all agency focused. There is almost no sense of this being an important government wide program.

I also see the agencies doing very little to publicize their parts of the Program. This may well be because these are not separately funded. Publicity efforts are often part of the funding cycle. The agencies are more interested in publicizing their research program successes and opportunities. Plus Public Access operates on a shoestring internal budget.

Lack of interest by the OA movement also has several sources. When NIH launched Public Access over ten years ago, that was big news. Extending the Program to the rest of the Federal Government is seen by many OA advocates as something of a lateral move, not as progress.

In particular, the 12 month embargo is now often seen as an obstacle, not an accomplishment. In this regard it is puzzling that no one that I know of has petitioned an agency for a shorter embargo period. One would think that such an action, which would get lots of publicity, is a natural accompaniment to the FASTR bill's 6 month embargo mandate.

Here I think that the deeper issue is that the open access movement is largely focused on the university community, not the funders or governments. Many, perhaps most, of the activists are university librarians.

So for example the focus is on building university repositories. This stands out clearly in the Poynder interviews. That the Public Access repositories probably dwarf the US university repositories is irrelevant. It is the mechanism, not the outcome, that is the focus of the movement.

More broadly there is the ideological idea of the university community owning open access. This is a fundamental reform, to which funder or government action is something of an outsider. That open access is up to the researchers and their institutions stands out in the Poynder responses, especially those from the university sector.

Despite the apparent indifference of the open access movement, the US Public Access Program does seem to be secure for now. The biggest strategic need is inter-agency integration. Now that the agency repositories are mostly up and running, there is a tremendous opportunity to provide government wide visibility. This could be very useful, both to the agencies and to the researchers.

In fact one can argue that the universities are far too independent, numerous and distributed to undertake strategic initiatives. This is actually one of the big reasons why there are governments. If so then while the Public Access Program may not be highly regarded by the open access movement, it may well be the best way forward for open access.

Here are the Richard Poynder interviews:

Poynder says this:

I have posted a number of responses to my question asking people what they think the stakeholders of scholarly communication should be doing now to fully realize the vision outlined at the 2002 meeting that led to the Budapest Open Access Initiative.

Below are the links to those responses:

 Danny Kingsley: Open Access: What should the priorities be today? https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/open-access-what-should-priorities-be.html

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe: Achieving the BOAI Vision: Possible Actions for Realization https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/achieving-boai-vision-possible-actions.html

Richard Fisher: Open Access and its Discontents: A British View from Outside the Sciences https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/open-access-and-its-discontents-british.html

Alison Mudditt: Realising the BOAI vision: The view from PLOS https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/realising-boai-vision-view-from-plos.html

Dominique Babini: Realising the BOAI vision: A view from the global South https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/realising-boai-vision-view-from-global.html

Peter Suber: Realising the BOAI vision: Peter Suber's Advice https://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/realising-boai-vision-peter-suber.html

OMICS ruling may govern all journal publishing

In last week's IPA I began to discuss the possibility that the OMICS ruling in Federal Court might apply to all journals. Below are some relevant excerpts for possible discussion.

I do not know much about journal publishing but I know a lot about federal regulation, since it has been my field for over 40 years. This may be the beginning of a complex situation for the community. It certainly bears watching.

David
http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/

Inside Public Access
December 2, 2017

OMICS ruling may govern all journal publishing

By David Wojick, Ph.D.
(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)

Synopsis: The recent Federal Court Order in the OMICS case targets new wave journals, but it probably applies to all journals (and conferences) and the compliance issues are far from simple.


The US Government has taken another step toward regulating scholarly journals. We recently had NIH's pointed recommendations regarding where its grantees should not publish. Now the Nevada District Court has issued an injunction against OMICS that lays out numerous rules that journals must follow.

The OMICS case was brought by the Federal Trade Commission and they view this injunction as a precedent for all journals. A Retraction Watch article cites the FTC attorney saying "This is certainly our message to the academic world that, we are monitoring and on the lookout for predatory publishers." Anyone who thinks this is just about OMICS does not grasp the scope of the situation.

That the FTC actually uses the term "predatory publishers" is unfortunate, but indicative of US policy. What role the federal Public Access Program will play in all of this remains to be seen. They clearly have the lead at NIH, because they are the POC for the directive.

The FTC may well now issue its own rules, especially if they win the case, citing the Court order as authority. Even without the FTC, this Order establishes federal case law to some degree. The three branches of government each make rules. Congress passes laws, the Agencies promulgate regulations and the Courts make case law.

Mind you this is just a preliminary injunction, so the precedent may be weak. But the discussion section of the Order sounds like the Court is likely to rule against OMICS. Note too that the discussion section is itself an important part of the rule making. It needs to be read with care.

The journal industry should carefully consider the relatively detailed rules laid out in the Order. These rules primarily apply to advertising, especially (1) email calls for papers and (2) what is on the journal website. But the business practices are also deeply affected, because these requirements go well beyond just what is said, to what is actually done.

As with many disclosure regulations, you have to say what you do and do what you say. Plus there are rules about what you can and cannot say, and what you must say.

For example, the Court is working toward defining the term "peer review" to mean what the rich journals do. This is lengthy review with detailed reviewer comments and author revisions, which is very expensive. The rule seems to be that a journal cannot say that it does peer review unless it meets this standard.

In fact the discussion seems to suggest that multiple rounds of review are required, which many journals probably do not do. This is a regulatory definition issue that will require a lot of articulation to resolve.

The regulation of scholarly journals is something that the entire industry should be concerned about. Thinking that it is just about some minor predatory journal problem would be a great mistake. The entire industry is now in the Federal cross-hairs.

Any journal can be out of compliance. The discussion section of the Order makes it clear that intent to deceive is irrelevant. All that matters is what is actually done.

So, for example, if a prestigious gold OA journal sends out a call for papers that does not properly disclose its APCs then it will probably be out of compliance. This raises the issue of what counts as proper disclosure? It may be a special problem for journals that charge different APCs, for different authors or institutions or for other reasons. There is also the question of the extent to which these rules apply to APCs in hybrid journals? What about fees other than APCs, including those charged by subscription journals?

Some years ago I did a lot of work with new consumer disclosure regulations laid on the banking industry. These issues can get very hairy. Disclosure of journal (and conference) fees could be a complex beast.

Proper disclosure of fees is just one of many complex issue areas raised by this federal Order. All publishers and journals need to be concerned.

There are also a number of rules governing conferences. These apply more to scholarly societies than to commercial publishers. The central rule looks to be that advertised speakers must show up. Of course this is not always possible, so the question is how to handle that possibility? This too could be a hairy compliance issue.

End of excerpts.

Does Trump's Reg Review threaten Public Access?

INSIDE PUBLIC ACCESS

NEWS AND ANALYSIS OF:   PUBLISHERS -- LIBRARIES -- AUTHORS

CHORUS -- SHARE -- CONGRESS -- FEDERAL AGENCIES -- AND MORE!

http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/

August 17, 2017

Does Reg Review threaten Public Access?

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

 Synopsis: The Administration's massive regulatory review efforts might threaten those Public Access repositories that lack a statutory mandate.

Executive Order 13771 -- "Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs" -- was quickly issued in February 2017. Regulatory review is a traditional Presidential gesture, but unlike previous "feel good" efforts, this one has big teeth. In fact it has two provisions that are so strong they might be illegal.

First there is the "2 for 1" rule, which is not about bargain prices. It says that a federal agency cannot issue a new rule unless it has repealed two existing rules. Two repeals for every one new rule. In this case a rule can be either a formal regulation or a guidance document, basically whatever orders people to do stuff. .

Then there is the regulatory budget rule. It has long been the case that every significant regulation comes with a cost estimate. Thus there is also an estimated total cost for all of an agency's existing (significant) regs. The budget rule basically says that new rules cannot increase this total, which is now the agency's regulatory cost budget.

The intended result is that in order for an agency to issue a new rule, which has a given cost, it will have to cut the cost of its existing rules by an equal amount. It can do this either by repealing existing rules or by revising them to reduce their cost.

These two provisions are each far more sweeping than anything done before. Taken together they could change the way regulatory agencies operate, in effect requiring constant prioritization. Not surprisingly, these rules have already been challenged in Court, especially the 2 for 1 rule. Here the primary argument is that the agencies have statutory obligations to issue regulations, which the President cannot block.

Our concern here is not with the litigation, but with what might happen to Public Access if these reg review rules become truly effective. The primary concern is that regulatory agencies need to issue new rules, so they will be looking for rules to cut or gut.

Each Public Access agency has Public Access rules. Some are called plans, others called policies, but all are rules as far as reg reform goes, because all tell researchers that they have to do something. (Note that the original OSTP memo is probably not a rule because it only directs federal agencies to do something.)

It is also the case that many of the Public Access agencies issue a lot of regulations. DOE, USDA, Commerce and EPA are big examples. Others are primarily science agencies like NSF and NASA. But even these agencies have rules that govern funding, including their Public Access rules. "Agency" is defined at the Department level so the giant NIH falls under HHS, which is also a big regulatory agency. Mind you all of this has to get worked out, along with myriad other details.

The Public Access rules do not cost much to comply with, so they are probably not likely targets for regulatory budget cuts. The big threat is the 2 for 1 rule.

Suppose an agency wants to issue an expensive rule. It first finds a big cost saving by repealing an existing rule. But then it needs a second rule to repeal to meet 2 for 1. Even worse, if it meets the budget rule by modifying an existing rule then it still needs to repeal two other rules. The size of these repealable rules does not matter, which probably makes small rules a better target. They are often easier to repeal. The Public Access rules meet this criterion.

In fact the agencies may well try to game the 2 for 1 rule by breaking guidances and regulations down into small pieces, then counting them separately. In the Public Access case this could mean counting the publication and data parts as two different rules. There is some guidance for reg review but the size issue is not addressed. Plus guidances are a lot easier to repeal than formal regulations.

PubMed Central is probably safe because it has a detailed statutory requirement. But most of the other Public Access repositories have little in the way of statutory support.

As far as I know, few 2 for 1 reg repeals have been announced and the relevant internal agency negotiations are still going on, out of sight. In fact one of the arguments against litigation is that nothing has happened yet.

Expect this issue to become very large, very fast, if significant proposed repeals begin to emerge. Most federal rules have strong, vocal supporters. Let's hope Public Access does too. It may need them.

__________________________________________________________________

Inside Public Access is published weekly. For subscription information:  http://insidepublicaccess.com/. 

We also do confidential consulting. 

Beall-based Indian turmoil?

The following is adapted from the February 9 issue of my subscription newsletter: http://insidepublicaccess.com/. I think it is important enough to make OA.

Beall-based Indian turmoil?

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

Synopsis: New data sheds light on Indian researcher's use of low cost journals. The Indian Government's attack on these journals, based on Beall's list, could adversely affect the Indian university science community.

Three weeks ago we reported that an Indian agency was using a whitelist to ban the use of unlisted journals for the purpose of evaluating researcher performance. The Agency is the University Grants Commission (UGC), which apparently plays a major role in university based Indian science. I know little about this realm, but it seems to include setting the criteria for hiring and promotion, perhaps as well as granting PhD's. 

See http://cbseugcnetforum.in/jobs/ugc-notice-approved-list-journals-career-advancement-scheme-direct-recruitment-teachers/

The Commission staff says it started with the Scopus journal list, which probably rules out most of the Beall's list (BL) low cost OA journals, the dramatic growth of which we have been reporting on. This growth has been centered in India, on both the publisher and author sides. It may have been driven by earlier UGC criteria that make publication the major form of evaluation. If so then the UGC ban may well be a backlash to something the Commission itself engendered.

See https://journosdiary.com/2017/01/16/india-ugc-predatory-journals/.

A new research article provides important data on the use of BL articles by Indian researchers. It shows that these journals have come to play an important new role in Indian science. Thus the UGC ban could have serious consequences, if it is effective.

See http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/111/11/1759.pdf

The article is "India’s scientific publication in predatory journals: need for regulating quality of Indian science and education" G. S. Seethapathy, J. U. Santhosh Kumar and A. S. Hareesha in Current Science, December 10, 2016.

The title shows that the authors consider the widespread use of BL journals to be a bad thing. They do not distinguish actually predatory journals from simply low cost journals, just as Beall did not. (This is an error that is widespread.) In fact they do not mention cost.

What the data show, however, is very interesting. India, like the US, really has two tiers when it comes to doing research. The top tier is a small number of prestigious research universities, which get most of the grant money. In the second tier are the many lesser universities and colleges, which have lots of science faculty and graduates, but do relatively little funded research.

Simply put, it is the second tier faculty and grad students who are publishing hundreds of thousands of articles a year in the Beall's list journals. Moreover, the sample data show that the vast majority of these authors are paying the journal APCs out of their own pockets, not from grant or university funds.

The explosive growth of low cost BL journals makes perfect sense if there is great pressure on second tier researchers to publish. The characteristics of these journals fit the needs of the authors.

The BL journals publish less important research, often written in less than perfect English. Most of this probably could not get published in the rich journals. They provide rapid publication, often in weeks or a few months, while the rich journals often take a year or more. Even worse, the rich journals have high rejection rates, which lead to multiple lengthy submission times prior to eventual publication.

And most importantly the BL journal APCs are just a hundred dollars or so, compared to the thousands of dollars charged by the rich journals. All of this means the low cost BL journals are ideal for meeting second tier publication needs.

In fact one piece of data is astounding if correct. The article mentions that PhD candidates may need to publish one to three articles in order to graduate. To my knowledge no US PhD candidate is under this sort of pressure. The first article is usually mined from the thesis and submitted after getting the degree.

Given this situation, banning the use of BL journals for evaluation could seriously disrupt the world of second tier Indian science. If forced to submit to rich journals, many researchers probably could not get published. Those that could would face huge personal APC charges, typically thousands of dollars per article, amounting to potentially billions of dollars a year in publication charges. There would also be great delays, potentially years per promotion, compared to the present system, which is quite efficient.

This combination of rejection, delay and cost could wreak havoc with the present system of graduation and promotion. I see no evidence that the UGC has considered this adverse possibility. Most likely they have viewed the situation as others have, namely that BL journals are a bad thing. The benefits of rapid, low cost and tolerant publication have been lost in the widespread damning of so-called predatory journals.
 

Perhaps the second tier universities and colleges will simply ignore the UGC ban. Or they might relax the publication requirements. Or the UGC could expand the list to include the low cost journals that are presently publishing over a hundred thousand articles a year by Indian researchers. Recognizing the existing publishing system is the ideal solution.

If not then Indian researchers and universities may be in for a period of serious and disruptive turmoil. We are talking about onerous new rules potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of researchers, presently publishing in low cost Beall's list journals. Where are they supposed to publish and at what cost? They cannot just suddenly switch to the rich journals.

Something has to give.

Tracking Trump

December 1, 2016

By David Wojick, Ph.D.

http://insidepublicaccess.com/

Synopsis: We begin the process of tracking the new Trump Administration (as well as Congress) with regard to the uncertain future of the US Public Access Program.

The transition team

To begin with, the Trump Administration has gotten off to a very slow start. The transition team did very little work prior to the election, which is unusual. Federal funding is available to both major candidates as soon as they are nominated. Romney's transition team spent a reported 8.9 million dollars before the election. The Trump team has spent very little.

The transition team has a lot to do. To begin with it is supposed to vet applicants and job holders for about 4,000 federal positions which are held "at the pleasure of the President." About 1,000 of these positions require Senate approval, so the vetting is not trivial.

There is a transition team for each Cabinet Department and the major non-Cabinet agencies, like EPA and the SEC. In addition to vetting applicants, the teams are supposed to meet with the senior civil servants of each Dept. and agency, to be briefed on how these huge and complex organizations actually operate. Something as small as Public Access may not be noticed.

Each team is also supposed to begin to formulate specific policies for their organization. Given how vague Trump as been on policy specifics, this may not be easy. Or it may mean that the teams have pretty broad latitude when it comes to specific agency policies. There seems to be little information as to who makes up each agency team, so their views on public access are unknown at this point.

Moreover, the head of the Energy Department transition team was recently replaced, which has to slow things down a bit. DOE has been a leader in developing the Public Access Program.

But in the long run the fate of Public Access is in the hands of the Department and Agency heads, and their deputies, not the transition team. Science related nominations have yet to even be announced.

The Science Advisor and OSTP

Then there is the issue of OSTP and the memo creating the Public Access Program. The Office of Science and Technology Policy is part of the Executive Office of the President. It is headed by the President's Science Advisor.

At one extreme the memo might simply be rescinded. President Obama issued a great many orders and executive memos, in direct defiance of the Republican led Congress. Many of these orders seem likely to be rescinded and Public Access might get caught in the wave and wiped out. Then too, Republicans tend to be pro-business and the publishers may well lobby against the Public Access Program.

On the other hand, a public access policy is relatively non-partisan, as well as being politically attractive. The new OSTP head might even decide to strengthen the program, especially because Trump is being labeled as anti-science by his opponents.

The OSTP situation is also quite fluid at this point. No Science Advisor has even been proposed at this point, that I know of. The vast majority of academic scientists are Democrats. The last Republican president took a year in office before nominating a Science Advisor, and he was a Democrat.

The American science community is watching this issue very closely, even though the Science Advisor and OSTP have very little actual authority. The Public Access Program is really something of an exception in this regard, but it is after all largely an administrative program. In the interim, OSTP has over a hundred employees so it will keep operating. So will the Public Access Program if the memo is not rescinded.

In fact the slower the Trump people are in taking over, the longer the Government will be run by civil servants who will favor the status quo. This will be true of all the Departments and Agencies. The worst case scenario would be if OSTP were eliminated altogether. There is some discussion of this, but it seems unlikely as a political strategy. It would be viewed as a direct attack on science and it has no upside.

On the other hand, given that their internal Public Access Programs are well established, the agencies could decide to continue them, absent the OSTP memo, or even OSTP.

Predatory versus low cost?

http://www.insidepublicaccess.com/

September 8, 2016

Predatory versus low cost?

 By David Wojick, Ph.D.

(davidwojick@insidepublicaccess.com)

Synopsis: Low cost journals listed as predatory have taken off and are publishing a huge number of papers. The concept of "predatory journal" may incorrectly include a lot of legitimate low cost journals, masking a major change in scientific communication.

Last week we raised the issue of whether the the US Public Access agencies should screen the journals whose articles they post, as PubMed Central does. In discussing this issue with industry experts we discovered a recent report which presents some amazing, even revolutionary, numbers.

The report is Shen and Bjork, "‘Predatory’ open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics," BMC, 2015. What they did was study a sample of the roughly 11,000 journals on Beall's list of so-called predatory journals, and then they project the results to the entire list. This is crude, so the results are admittedly rough estimates and we will treat them that way by rounding them off a lot.

Here are the stunning numbers. First, the number of articles published in 2014 is over 400,000. This is an enormous number of articles. Second, the number published in 2010 was just over 50,000, so the growth has been explosive. So has the growth in the number of active journals over this short period, going from 2000 to 8000. And if the reported growth has continued there should be well over half a million articles published this year alone.

I think this is actually good news, masked by a colossal conceptual confusion.

Specifically, the so-called "predatory" net is actually capturing a lot of simple low cost journals. Note that they classify about 11,000 journals as predatory. Last I knew there were an estimated 30,000 indexed journals. So they are classifying roughly one third to one quarter that number of journals as predatory. Not likely. The total number of published articles may be as high as two million so the rough fraction is the same, one third to one quarter. Are we to believe that this many articles are somehow being published fraudulently? Surely not.

The key datum is the average APC of less than $200. Here is what I think is happening. The developing countries, especially China and India, are pouring a lot into research, hence generating a lot of articles. (Last I knew China was overtaking the US as the leading generator of scientific articles.) In pace with this we are seeing the rapid growth of the low budget APC journal, to serve the low budget researcher market. This makes economic sense and there is nothing predatory about it.

On the contrary, many OA advocates see the end state as one of very low APCs. Well here it is, in part anyway. The thing is that a $150 APC journal cannot look like a $1500 journal, which is very fancy. Back when Beall's list first gained prominence I studied it closely. My conclusion was that it was picking up low budget journals per se, the predatory ones being just a small fraction. My favorite example is a journal that seems to have been classified as predatory just because the mailing address was an apartment, not an office (in Montreal).

These numbers suggest that I was right. If so then what we are seeing is actually part of the globalization of science, which I consider a good thing. Poor researchers publishing in low cost journals.

My point is that if these journals are publishing on the order of half a million articles a year then they are not predatory. They are an extensive and fast growing new literature. And if they are not being indexed then that in itself is a major access problem.

To be clear, I am not claiming that there are no fraudulent journals. If fact I am sure there are. I just do not think that fraudulent journals can publish such a huge amount. My conjecture is that low cost journals have been wrongly classified as fraudulent.

As for peer review, it may be too expensive for this low cost business model. For that matter I have never been impressed by peer review. It is not a necessary condition for a scholarly literature. Perhaps it is a luxury.

What we seem to have here is a rapidly emerging new world of scholarship, which we know little about. I assume it is mostly science and thus it should be properly indexed and made accessible. This includes posting the relevant articles via the Public Access Program. These journals should not be screened out.

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