[Vwoolf] R: Open Access

Tue Nov 25 13:19:42 EST 2014

I should clarify, releasing the content publicly for open access after an
embargo period is distinct from but not incompatible with distribution
through JSTOR, Gale-Cengage, &c.

On 25 November 2014 at 10:14, Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net> wrote:

> I was about to ask the question that James apparently answers here, which
> is, does licensing content to a database such as one owned by EBSCO or
> Gale-Cengage or ProQuest, count as open access?  These are subscribed to by
> university libraries, and so are “open” to those institutions’ staff and
> students, but I had not thought the UK REF counted that as OA.
>
>
>
> (now to read the rest of James’s post)
>
>
>
> *From:* Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu] *On Behalf Of *James
> Gifford
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 25, 2014 12:58 PM
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] R: Open Access
>
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> I think there are some misconceptions in this discussion, which is surely
> broader than Woolf topics, though the dual Woolf societies may suggest a
> case.  The risk, I think, is not that of dividing scholars based on
> nationality but on class.  I read, review for, and contribute to
> periodicals in a number of nations -- the more pressing questions is what
> kinds of scholars can and cannot access the greatest breadth of the best
> scholarship.  I suspect that my excellent colleagues at comparatively poor
> institutions have the least access to current research.
>
> Many journals in North America are already open access *and* rigorously
> peer reviewed with distribution through the typical JSTOR, Project Muse,
> Sage, EBSCO, and such systems.  They simply release contents after an
> embargo period, typically a year.  My understanding is that this is
> accepted under the incoming British requirements.  I don't think that
> reflects on the quality of the work in any way.
>
> As for "pay," there are surely misnomers here as well.  Many American
> scholars have university budgets that subvent publication, and while
> publishers will hastily assure everyone that this does not affect peer
> review, we all know it does.  While we all know the limitations and biases
> of peer review, we also must realize that more easily sold books or those
> more likely to win financial aid are also more likely to be published.
>
> To this mix, the concepts of "private" and "public" are also deeply
> muddled.  I mean the word in its libatious context, not Forster...  Private
> (not for profit) universities in the USA receive extensive aid from the
> public purse and tax revenues, but like the scenario for publishing in
> Italy, it has a middleman: the student.  Public student aid funds private
> (we often prefer "independent") institutions, and if you doubt it, ask if
> your institution would make any curricular changes that could jeopardize
> its qualifying for student aid...  I suspect the Italian context for
> publication means the peer review process occurs with the grant
> application, not at the publication stage, which is *different* but not
> necessarily worse.  Frankly, I don't care where work by the scholars whom I
> admire most is published -- I'll read it because I know they do good work.
>
> Release time and direct funding for research both support scholarly
> publication, which is evaluated in job performance measures for North
> American and British academics.  Scholars, hence, give their scholarly
> labour away for "free" for the most part.  This is both for authors and
> editors as well as readers in the peer review process.  When we
> preferentially send our work to private, for profit publishers, we're
> sending the profit from publicly funded labour to a private enterprise that
> will not permit the public to access the content produced from its taxes.
> While it's important to keep scholarly publishers and university presses
> afloat, we might questions if the existing model is effective and efficient
> in its current approach.  I suspect if you drop by your local university
> press, they'll tell you the current funding model isn't working well at
> all...
>
> While there are a great many scams in academic publishing by disreputable
> sorts, such as the library sales market for cheaply made books, I don't see
> this neatly divided into an open access vs. pay wall access division.  I
> do, however, see commercial presses as more willing to accept work for
> publication that would not be viable in more rigorous review scenarios.
> For instance, I did not publish my dissertation as a book, but I can think
> of half a dozen reasonably reputable presses to which I could send it with
> full confidence it would be accepted -- I'm sure most of you can too.
>
> For various reasons, I've reviewed more than a couple hundred books for
> print reviews or as a reader for presses and several dozen articles for
> journals over the past 10 years.  I think that permits me to generalize a
> bit.  I don't see the private/public distinction as really mattering to
> scholarly quality, but I do see profit/non-profit aligning fairly clearly.
> That doesn't mean commercial presses pump out terrible books, but they do
> produce a volume of work with a particular aim.
>
> The inclination toward open access reclaims scholarship from some of these
> pressures, particularly publication in peer reviewed periodicals.  Since
> we, academics, generally write, edit, review, and consume these materials,
> the introduction of a profit agenda doesn't help the process (and we
> actively subvert that agenda by sending our work to colleagues any time
> they ask).  Strangely, the idea of accessing research for free seems to
> make many people think the work couldn't be very good, even though we
> collective tend to keep our personal purses shut...  While we know deep
> down that our peer review system and various intuitive rankings of
> publications are suspect and mired in a host of biases and quiet conflicts,
> we're equally unwilling to look to a publication and value it based on its
> editorial team, contributors, and quality based on our personal judgment.
>
> There's also the problem of affordability.  By introducing pay walls with
> often ridiculously expensive terms, we condone the creation of scholarship
> silos.  Those at universities with sufficient budgets can do research, and
> those with shallow pockets cannot.  Or more often than not, we just
> restrict ourselves to what is most convenient rather than what is best, or
> we circumvent the restrictions anyway.
>
> As a closing note, turn to the back interior cover of your latest Oxford
> UP, U California P, Rowman & Littlefield, or Routledge book and check the
> interior bar code.  You're probably holding a print-on-demand copy of a
> scholarly book from your favourite press...  The cost of printing was
> likely less than the cost of postage.
>
> All best,
> James
>
>
>
> On 25 November 2014 at 08:55, June Cummins <jcummins at mail.sdsu.edu> wrote:
>
> I think rulings like this one drive countries further apart and put the
> lie to the idea that we're "all connected" through the internet.  Having to
> pay to be published is very contrary to the expectations and experiences of
> US scholars--they will no longer publish in British and other European
> journals if they are forced to pay.  We do not receive funding to cover
> fees like that.  According to Maggie, British scholars will not want to
> publish in American journals because ours are not in open access.
> Consequently, Americans will publish in American journals, and Europeans
> will publish in European journals, and the academic communities will drift
> further apart. It's not a simple matter to tell the US to switch to the
> open access model because ours is so radically different and the switch
> would involve coming up financial resources we do not have.
>
> June
>
> On 11/25/14, 10:23 AM, Sarah M. Hall wrote:
>
> Thanks, Maggie, I think this answers my question to Mark.
>
>
>
> Sarah
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Maggie Humm <M.Humm at uel.ac.uk> <M.Humm at uel.ac.uk>
> *To:* Mark Hussey <mhussey at verizon.net> <mhussey at verizon.net>;
> "t.prudente at talk21.com" <t.prudente at talk21.com> <t.prudente at talk21.com>
> <t.prudente at talk21.com>; "Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu" <Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> <Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> <Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 25 November 2014, 16:14
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] R: Open Access
>
>
>
> The UK issue, as everyone knows, is that for the next REF (formally RAE)
> Research Excellence Framework the UK Research Councils and HEFCE are
> insisting on articles being submitted from open access journals. See useful
> summary:
>
>
> http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/softening-of-line-on-open-access-only-ref/2012340.article
>
> there is much opposition not least from the prestigious British Academy:
>
>
> http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/british-academy-fears-for-humanities-in-open-access-world/2012729.article
>
> But the REF rules all UK academics' writing and career prospects as did
> the RAE (not least because REF results are available on -line employers can
> check at a glance a candidate's standing and 'grades'). See the last
> exercise's grades (still known as the RAE) and reports:
>
> http://www.rae.ac.uk/
>
> My guess is that younger academics will be less willing to publish in US
> journals which are not open access (although the revised policy allows some
> non open access publishing Schools/Departments are going to be very wary
> and unfortunately the UK REF panels and sub-panels encompass so many
> disciplinary areas that members cannot possibly know of the status of
> journals outside their immediate fields).
>
> The REF 2014 results will be known this December. I'm included in my
> School's Media and Cultural Studies submission but I'm so glad that I
> finally retired from all this in November 2013 (and no longer need to use
> words like 'stake-holder')!
>
> Hope this is helpful.
>
> Maggie
>
> PS UK journal editors also work for free and those in the post-92
> universities get no teaching/admin relief.
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Vwoolf [vwoolf-bounces+m.humm=uel.ac.uk at lists.osu.edu] on behalf of
> Mark Hussey [mhussey at verizon.net]
> Sent: 25 November 2014 15:07
> To: t.prudente at talk21.com; Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] R: Open Access
>
> Thank you for all these responses. I know my “give away for nothing”
> phrase was provocative!
> Just to be clear, I am particularly interested in how academics in the UK
> feel about their government’s requirement as I believe it will affect their
> willingness to publish in US-based journals. The examples given are
> interesting, but do not fit the case of a very small academic press; many
> scholarly journal editors in the US, for example, perform their work for
> nothing or for perhaps a course release. This issue has, naturally, been of
> great interest on the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ)
> listserv too as people begin to try to fathom what is going on in UK
> scholarly publishing.
>
> I look forward to more points of view!
>
> From: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu
> <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu>] On Behalf Of t.prudente at talk21.com
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2014 3:47 AM
> To: Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] R: Open Access
>
> Dear all,
>
> as an Italian researcher, I feel that some more detailed explanation on
> the "peculiar" situation of Academic publishing in Italy is here needed, so
> as make - perhaps - Francesca's view more understandable.
>
> Academic publishing in Italy is mainly - if not entirely - based on a "pay
> to publish" system. Individual researchers sign a contract with a publisher
> in which they accept to pay a certain amount of money (depending on the
> publisher, the book's length, the number of copies arranged for, etc...)
> and they usually pay by using the research money that the Ministry of
> Research provides them with for their research projects. Thus, when
> Francesca talks about public financing to academic publishing she actually
> refers to this system, which does not entail public money to be given
> directly to publishers (they are private), but money that is given to
> researchers and that they usually employ for this kind of publishing. Now,
> a system of this kind presents of course a set of problems that, in my
> opinion, deeply affect research in Italy: in the majority of cases, no
> proper peer-reviewing is performed on manuscripts or articles (as long as
> you pay, you will be published), books and journals have not a proper
> circulation (the publisher is not very committed to do any effort to
> selling them, as it has not, in the end, invested any money on it, on the
> contrary, it has already had its profits from the researcher's payment),
> and public research money that could and should be used differently
> (organization of conferences, research travel etc...) goes instead almost
> entirely in this system. I don't know if this "pay to publish" system is
> also equally pervasive in other countries. Personally, I have chosen, from
> the very beginning of my career, to publish exclusively abroad in order to
> "escape" this system, to which I deeply object, and a few colleagues of
> mine are doing the same. And, publishing abroad, I was never required to
> pay money and I went through genuine peer-reviewing processes.
>
> Within the context that I have described, open access has indubitably
> represented a positive change, at least in Italy, as, as Francesca remarks,
> open access journals are obliged to perform peer-reviewing and - as long as
> I understand, not being an expert in OA - publishing costs have sensibly
> decreased. I suspect, then, that the impact and consequences of OA are
> probably different for each country, depending on their publishing system,
> and even the macro-division between "public" and "private" systems presents
> further ramifications amplifying possible differences.
>
> I hope this helps, and, especially, that I have not misinterpreted what
> Francesca, as an expert in OA, intended to highlight.
>
> best,
>
> Teresa
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Caroline Webb <caroline.webb at newcastle.edu.au
> <mailto:caroline.webb at newcastle.edu.au> <caroline.webb at newcastle.edu.au>>
> To: "Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> <Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>" <Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> <Vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
> Sent: Tuesday, 25 November 2014, 3:58
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] R: Open Access
>
> I think what’s meant by “research outputs should not be financed more than
> once by public money” is not that the journals/presses are public but the
> academic research is. European universities, like nearly all in Australia
> and like many but very much *not* all in the US, are public institutions
> funded in whole or in part by the government (in Germany it’s just become
> whole, in Australia it’s a rapidly decreasing part), and most of the grants
> available to individual researchers are also government-funded. Hence the
> public is paying, in the form of taxes, for the academics at those
> publicly-funded institutions to perform research. The theory then is that
> that research should be openly available to the people who paid for it.
>
> Caroline Webb
> The University of Newcastle, Australia
>
> From: Vwoolf [
> mailto:vwoolf-bounces+caroline.webb=newcastle.edu.au at lists.osu.edu
> <vwoolf-bounces+caroline.webb=newcastle.edu.au at lists.osu.edu>] On Behalf
> Of June Cummins
> Sent: Tuesday, 25 November 2014 9:48 AM
> To: vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] R: Open Access
>
> In the United States, academic publishing is not financed by public money
> except in cases where the press hosting the journal is in a public
> university and even then, very little of the press's finances are coming
> from "the public." Academic publishing is paid for through subscriptions,
> which are owned either by individuals or more often by universities.
> Perhaps this basic difference in academic publishing is the reason U.S.
> scholars don't understand European methods of making scholarship available.
>
> June Cummins
> On 11/24/14, 4:39 PM, Francesca wrote:
> Dear professor Hussey,
>
> I dare answer your question even though I do not belong to the academic
> world; I just have a degree (I wrote a dissertation about The Voyage Out)
> and a PhD (again about travel literature) but I am a librarian who works in
> Italy, at the Library System of the University of Trento.
>
> One of my professional tasks is related to Open Access. I will not bother
> you all advocating for OA (there are a lot of reliable websites you can
> read in order to get the information you may be interested in) but I will
> just add some words about your remark:
>
> >> journals that give their content away for nothing
>
> OA journals are peer-reviewed journals which do not give away *their*
> content for nothing (I am highlighting “their” because the content’s rights
> should not be considered as “the publisher’s”, but should be retained by
> the author…).
> These journals are just based on a different economic model.
>
> Research outputs (articles) should not be financed more than once by
> public money. There is no reason whatsoever for publicly financing a
> research project at the begining, then selling the output to a commercial
> publisher, which must be re-paid again by libraries (subscriptions) to
> enable researchers and students access the article.
>
> In OA, Universities and researchers pay just once (with research grants)
> for a paper to be published. After that, nothing more is due to the
> publisher; the paper goes through the journal's normal peer review process
> and the article is then freely and openly available because it has already
> been paid.
>
> It is so sad that after eleven years from the Berlin Declaration there
> should be still so many misunderstandings and biases about Open Access. I
> do not ask you to adhere to OA movement of course, but I would consider
> myself professionally satisfied if an unbiased knowledge of OA principles
> were slowly achieved.
>
> Sincecerly yours (and apologizing for my English),
> Francesca Valentini
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> Da: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+frvln=hotmail.com at lists.osu.edu
> <vwoolf-bounces+frvln=hotmail.com at lists.osu.edu>] Per conto di Mark Hussey
> Inviato: lunedì 24 novembre 2014 22.53
> A: VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<mailto:VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> <VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Oggetto: [Vwoolf] Open Access
>
> Do those of you likely to publish in US-based journals (such as, for
> example, Woolf Studies Annual!) have any concerns about the UK government’s
> forthcoming requirement that to be counted you may only publish in journals
> that give their content away for nothing?
>
>
>
>
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> --
>
> ________________________________________
> June Cummins, Associate Professor
> Director, Graduate Program
> Department of English and Comparative Literature
> San Diego State University
> jcummins at mail.sdsu.edu<mailto:jcummins at mail.sdsu.edu>
> <jcummins at mail.sdsu.edu>
> SDSU Children’s Literature Program
> childlit.sdsu.edu<http://childlit.sdsu.edu/> <http://childlit.sdsu.edu/>
>
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> --
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> June Cummins, Associate Professor
> Director, Graduate Program
> Department of English and Comparative Literature
> San Diego State University
> jcummins at mail.sdsu.edu
> SDSU Children’s Literature Program
> childlit.sdsu.edu
>
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> ---------------------------------------
> James Gifford, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of English and University Core Director
> School of English, Philosophy and Humanities
> University College: Arts, Sciences, Professional Studies
> Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver Campus
> Voice: 604-648-4476
> Fax: 604-648-4489
> E-mail: gifford at fdu.edu
> http://alpha.fdu.edu/~jgifford
>
> 842 Cambie Street
> Vancouver, BC
> V6B 2P6 Canada
>

-- 
---------------------------------------
James Gifford, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English and University Core Director
School of English, Philosophy and Humanities
University College: Arts, Sciences, Professional Studies
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver Campus
Voice: 604-648-4476
Fax: 604-648-4489
E-mail: gifford at fdu.edu
http://alpha.fdu.edu/~jgifford

842 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC
V6B 2P6 Canada
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