Review: Peter Suber’s Open Access (The MIT Press, 2012)—now also open access!

I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I haven’t gotten around to writing this review sooner. I mean, Peter Suber’s book Open Access (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-51763-8) has been out for a year now. Richard Poynder, in a 2011 interview for Information Today, declared Suber the “the de facto leader of the leaderless [open access] revolution.” Given the well-earned accolade you would think this would merit more of my attention. Blame it on my day-job. Still, I shouldn’t have dawdled, especially considering my own interest and advocacy in open access.

Perhaps I can make amends by being among the first to offer a “second wave” review of Suber’s Open Access. For you see, the print edition was published in June 2012, and fittingly and without irony Suber negotiated with The MIT Press to have an e-book edition available as a free open access download 12 months later. The open access e-book edition of Suber’s book is now available for download (as of June 17, 2013) from links on the title’s webpage. The print edition is not very expensive, and every library/librarian, faculty member, and researcher should own a copy. But I suspect the open access e-book edition (released with a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC license) will generate renewed interest and an even broader readership. Having anticipated eventually getting around to this I consciously avoided reading earlier reviews so as not to be influenced by their “take”.

A book written for busy people

By all accounts—and it’s another source of personal shame, since I’m as apt to come home from a long day and veg-out in front of Netflix as work on a new post for the blog—Peter Suber has been absolutely tireless for well over a decade advocating, promoting, consulting, strategizing, analyzing, documenting, and reporting on the open access movement. He was present and (in the words of Richard Poynder) played the role of midwife at the event that formally signaled the birth of the movement—a meeting convened in Budapest, Hungary on December 1-2, 2001 by the Open Society Foundations, which resulted in the historic February 14, 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) Declaration.

Among other projects, Suber maintained (until July 2009) his Open Access News blog. (Who hasn’t consulted the Open Access Overview page on his blog for essential information about open access?) And until June 2013, he wrote and edited the SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Open Access Newsletter. He also launched the Open Access Tracking Project (OATP), and co-founded with Robin Peek the Open Access Directory wiki.

Peter Suber is director of the Harvard Open Access Project, a Berkman Center faculty fellow, a senior researcher at SPARC, and a research professor of philosophy at Earlham College. Beginning July 1, he will assume the post of director of the Office for Scholarly Communication at the Harvard Library (from this May 21, 2013 Harvard Library press release). This is one busy person!

Open Access is a compact book of a mere 174 body pages (plus a glossary, extensive endnotes, a guide to other resources, and an index). The brevity is intentional. In the Preface Suber writes concerning his purpose and aim:

This book is an attempt at…a succinct introduction to the basics, long enough to cover the major topics in reasonable detail and short enough for busy people to read.

I want busy people to read this book. OA benefits literally everyone, for the same reasons that research itself benefits literally everyone. … But OA only does this good work insofar as we actually implement it, and the people in a position to implement it tend to be busy. I’m thinking about researchers themselves and policymakers at stakeholder institutions such as universities, libraries, publishers, scholarly societies, funding agencies, and governments.

My honest belief from experience in the trenches is that the largest obstacle to OA is misunderstanding. The largest cause of misunderstanding is lack of familiarity, and the largest cause of unfamiliarity is preoccupation. Everyone is busy. … The best remedy to misunderstanding is a clear statement of the basics for busy people. (pp. ix-x)

In short, don’t confuse brevity for lack of substance. This book is a high-quality, thoughtful, and well-written distillation of Suber’s decade-long full-time immersion in the developing open access environment.

From What Is Open Access? to how to make your work open access

Shifting from ink on paper to digital text suddenly allows us to make perfect copies of our work. Shifting from isolated computers to a globe-spanning network of connected computers suddenly allows us to share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at essentially no cost. … Digital technologies have created more than one revolution. Let’s call this one the access revolution. …

Imagine a tribe of authors who write serious and useful work, and who follow a centuries-old custom of giving it away without charge [because] they write for impact rather than money. …

Open access is the name of the revolutionary kind of access these authors, unencumbered by a motive of financial gain, are free to provide to their readers. (pp. 1-4)

Beginning with the recognition of a technological revolution that only recently, but with remarkable speed, has moved a 350 year-old tradition of modern scholarly communication almost entirely online, Suber’s presentation of topics flow logically in ten chapters from defining what open access is (and isn’t); to offering some key motivations for open access; to describing the varieties of open access (Green and Gold, gratis and libre, Creative Commons licensing, etc.) and institutional policies that have been developed to encourage or mandate open access; to listing the scope of what research products could be open access (e.g., journal articles, theses and dissertations, and books) and who/what these products would be for (including non-researchers, and machines/software that facilitate discovery of research); to clarifying the relationship between open access and copyright; to acknowledging that open access is not free to produce but noting there are numerous funding models; to describing the impact open access might have on traditional toll-access publishing; to looking into the (near) future where generational change is on the side of open access but where scholarly newcomers may benefit by having their understanding brought up to date; to offering some concluding advice and encouragement to scholars and researchers for making their own work open access.

I think Suber accomplishes his purpose admirably. In addressing these topics, Suber writes succinctly and with clarity, applying the logic of a philosopher (which he is), the sharpness of a debater, and the cadence of a musician (speaking to his writing style). He anticipates the many sides and questions of his readers, even honest critiques, and he answers them with directness and without polemic. He clearly aims to persuade, but he also wants to bring his readers along with with him.

Download the free open access e-book right now. Then, if you can afford it, buy a copy or two of the print edition for yourself or your institution’s library. Peter Suber isn’t asking for it. But sending some royalties his way would be a great way to say Thank you! for this fine work.

Lacking any sense of proportion: Michael Eisen pushes back on The New York Times’ “dark side of open access” article

On Sunday, April 7, 2013, The New York Times ran a front page article written by Gina Kolata entitled, “Scientific Articles Accepted (Personal Checks, Too),” which exposed “a world of pseudo-academia [running parallel with legitimate scientific and scholarly communication], complete with prestigiously titled conferences and journals that sponsor them.”

The number of these journals and conferences has exploded in recent years as scientific publishing has shifted from a traditional business model for professional societies and organizations built almost entirely on subscription revenues to open access, which relies on authors or their backers to pay for the publication of papers online, where anyone can read them.

The article quotes several scholars, who as a result of their personal experience have come to call this parallel world the “Wild West,” or the “dark side of open access.” The article also refers to the work of research librarian Jeffrey Beall, who tracks what he calls “predatory open access journals,” estimating “that there are as many as 4,000 predatory journals today, at least 25 percent of the total number of open-access journals.”

The article is highlighting a real problem. But after acknowledging (barely, in passing) that “open access got its start about a decade ago and quickly won widespread acclaim with the advent of well-regarded, peer-reviewed journals like those published by the Public Library of Science,” the clear message is that scholars today ought to be skeptical and suspicious about open access. Though not stated—indeed no constructive response or course of action is really offered in the article—the impression is left that in the face of open access run amuck, the only safe harbor is the “traditional business model…built on subscription revenues.”

“The dark side of The New York Times” and of commercial journal publishers

This article was too much for Michael Eisen, biologist at the University of California at Berkeley and co-founder of the Public Library of Science. In an April 9, 2013 blog post, “Door-to-door subscription scams: the dark side of The New York Times,” Eisen pushes back:

[Y]es, a lot of these suspect journals charge authors for publishing their works, just like open access journals like PLoS do. But suggesting, as the article does, that scam conferences/journals exist because of the rise of open access publishing is ridiculous. It’s the logical equivalent of blaming newspapers like the NYT for people who go door-to-door selling fake magazine subscriptions. (link is in the original post)

Eisen chides The New York Times for running “science’s version of the Nigerian banking scams—something far more deserving of laughter than hand-wringing” on its front page. He goes on to suggest a more significant scam story the paper might rather cover:

[I]f Gina Kolata and the NYT are really concerned about scams in science publishing, they should look into the $10 BILLION DOLLARS of largely public money that subscription publishers take in every year in return for giving the scientific community access to the 90% of papers that are not published in open access journals—papers that scientists gave to the journals for free! This ongoing insanity not only fleeces huge piles of cash from government and university coffers, it denies the vast majority of the planet’s population access to the latest discoveries of our scientists. (emphasis Eisen)

Michael Eisen is responding to the lack of any sense of proportion in this article. He sees a gnat-straining attack on open access, while routinely (and historically) camels are being swallowed through the current commercial publisher-controlled system of scholarly communication. Astoundingly, Kolata’s article doesn’t even mention commercial publishers. The closest she comes is a passing reference to “the traditional business model,” but she suggests this exists only to serve “professional societies and organizations.”

Eisen reminds us that the “Wild West” and the “dark side” in journal publishing isn’t a new phenomenon.

Long before the Internet, publishers discovered that launching new journals was like printing money—something Elsevier specialized in for decades, launching hundreds of new journals with hastily assembled editorial boards and then turning around and demanding that libraries subscribe to these journals as part of their “Big Deal” bundles of journals. These journals succeeded because there are always researchers looking for a place to put their papers, and many of these new journals greased the wheels by having fairly lax standards for publication.

Commoditizing the scholarly reputation economy

We all know something of the “dark side” of commercial publishing when we see dramatic increases in subscription prices, especially after a reasonably priced society journal is acquired by a commercial publisher. But what about the way commercial publishers have commoditized the scholarly reputation economy itself?

When we go out to buy a car, flat-screen TV, or a bottle of laundry detergent at the store we are accustomed to the notion that these products are price- and quality-tiered in the market to sell to various economic classes of customers. A single company may create a diverse product line and branding based on price/quality in order to reach all sectors of the consumer market, and so maximize their profit potential. We have been conditioned to the notion that higher quality (as material craftsmanship, or scarcity) commands a higher price, and unless you are of a certain economic class, you can only aspire to higher quality.

Although we might understand that a “top-tier” journal purports to reflect publication of a certain level of research quality—that’s why we call it “top-tier” (though it’s probably more correct to say it’s a matter of reputation)—we do not commonly assume that the products of scholarly communication (i.e., journals and articles) function quite like cars, flat-screen TVs, or laundry detergent. In the current system, a scholar may aspire to have his or her article published in a top-tiered journal. But depending on the editorial and review criteria, and results of the submission, that scholar’s article may be rejected at the top-tiered journal. The scholar will then need to resubmit the article to other journals (though ethically only one at a time) before finally succeeding in getting it published. The journal where the scholar finally succeeds may be understood as a “second-” or “third-tier” journal because it lacks the same level of reputation (though not necessarily less actual quality) of the aspired top-tier journal. We tend to chalk-up the success or failure of the scholar getting published to a combination of factors, but it comes down to the scholar’s reputation.

We understand the academic economy in terms of scholarly reputation. And when we look at and rank journals for reputation we tend to focus on the journal, not the publisher. We may be aware that a given journal is published by a well-known scholarly society, but less-so if it is published by a commercial publisher. I believe this is a failure of appreciation that Eisen is bringing to our attention—and it’s another aspect of the “dark side” of commercial publishing.

What would it mean if the same publisher owned not only a top-tiered journal in a given discipline, but also several second- and third-tier journals in that same discipline? What would be the purpose of this? If the economy is based on the currency of reputation, why is a commercial publisher interested in any journal other than a top-tiered journal? There can be only one real answer. The publisher is creating a price/quality product line, much like cars, flat-screen TVs, and laundry detergent, in order to profit from all sectors of this particular consumer market. Who are the customers in this market? The customers are the scholars themselves looking for venues to publish their research. (See Who are the customers? section in my blog post “The open access journal as a disruptive innovation.”)

After we get over the sting that a commercial publisher views scholars first and foremost as customers, we might agree that the publisher is providing an important service. After all, every research scholar needs a venue to publish (as Eisen points out). Publishers are simply providing a segmented market to account for a full range of scholarly customers—not only those who can “afford” through their acquired reputation to publish in a top-tiered journal, but also “aspiring” scholars who only have a little reputation to spend. The problem in this context is that the publisher doesn’t care simply about assuring the quality of the reputation economy. The publisher is looking to profit from customers in all its market sectors.

I hasten to say here that the editor of a so-called lower-tiered journal will (or certainly should) aspire to improve his or her journal’s reputation by working hard to attract reputable editorial boards, reviewers, and high quality research articles from reputable scholars. But reputations require time to establish. This is the challenge facing many newer open access journals. The quality may be there but the reputation is still being formed because the journal is not yet well-known. I am not suggesting that a commercial publisher would interfere with the scholarly reputation economy to the degree that a given journal will remain fixed within a particular market tier. I am merely suggesting that the publisher has interests that transcend the journal level. It is in the publisher’s best interest to make sure it has and provides venues—both top- and lower-tiered journals—for all potential customers.

Remember, too (if you read my post above), that the publisher is also a customer. The publisher needs academic papers from scholars as the raw material for their journals. No papers, no journals. No journals, no business. It’s that simple. Of course, papers are pretty cheap. I mean, scholars are literally giving them away to publishers at no cost! But what to do with the relatively limited capacity (even in an online environment) of a given journal to utilize all the raw material that might flow to it? Editors and reviewers typically reject the majority (90%+) of papers submitted to top-tiered journals. So what happens to the rest? Wasted? No. These can be utilized at the lower product tiers. There is no guarantee, of course, that a rejected paper will go to another journal owned by the same publisher. But as there are typically plenty of papers being produced, it is inevitable that the publisher will capture enough to sustain their journals in the other tiers. But it has to have journals at the other tiers. Eisen describes how commercial publishers have assured that all journal tiers get profitably sold. They bundle the lower-tier journals with the top-tier journals and sell them as a package to academic libraries for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in what are called “Big Deals.”

“Personal checks, too”

The alarm generated from scholars in the Gina Kolata article highlights a basic problem—it’s right there in the title. The scholarly community can too easily believe it is operating in an idyllic and enlightened economy of reputation, untainted by “base commerce.” That is certainly how it can appear at the journal level, where typically there is no money changing hands. (Though I recently read Richard Poynder’s interview with Jack Meadows, historian of scientific communication, who reminded me that it has not been uncommon for authors to be charged “page charges” to get articles published.) Consequently, reports of unscrupulous activity at the fringes of a relatively new, dynamic, and alternative publishing model raise consternation and fear. “Can open access be trusted if it is so easily abused?!” Meanwhile, commercial publishers have exploited, segmented, and commoditized the scholarly reputation economy for years, and no one seems to mind. Indeed, the article insinuates most obliquely that the traditional subscription-based business model (which is now largely controlled by the commercial sector) is the scholar’s only reliable savior.

Why is this? Many scholars are (still!) not well informed about the costs their libraries are bearing each year to keep access to cherished journals turned on. If they are aware, the fact has yet to impress them. When someone else is paying the access bill, the problem (what problem?) seems remote, and the status quo holds the day. But more, when someone else is paying for access scholars are less apt to fully think-through the implications of research—maybe even their own research—being locked-up behind a paywall. Is it any wonder that stories of the unscrupulous demanding payment of scholars from their own pocket for the opportunity to publish sound so appalling? It seems scholars will only begin to fully embrace open access as a viable and beneficial alternative when they are awakened to the economic costs that have been borne and continue to be borne to keep the “traditional business model” in business. While it is not inappropriate to report on the darkness that lies at the fringe, this should not be used to distract scholars from the darkness that lies at the heart. A sense of proportion would seem to require as much.

Now we know first-hand: Editorial board of librarians resign over journal publisher’s restrictive licensing

The entire editorial board of the Journal of Library Administration, published by the Taylor & Francis Group, has resigned in protest over the publisher’s restrictive author licensing policies. Brian Mathews, who was preparing a special issue of JLA on library futures as guest editor, reported the mass resignation (including the text of the board’s statement) this last weekend on his The Ubiquitous Librarian blog. In the post, Mathews also linked to a post from Chris Bourg, one of the former board members, and from Jason Griffey, who earlier declined to participate in Mathews’s project due to pointed reservations regarding T&F’s author policies.

Editorial boards resigning in protest over publisher policies is not new (see the Open Access Directory’s “Journal declarations of independence” page [Update: I should have clarified that this page lists not only boards that resigned but who also took their journals [or replacements] into a less restrictive publishing environment, including open access.]). Indeed, just this last October, the editorial board of the journal Organization & Environment (SAGE) resigned over allegations of publisher intrusion on the journal’s academic freedom (see article in Inside High ED from October 29, 2012). What is interesting is how this issue has arrived at the door steps of libraries with new force and nuanced complexion. Once upon a time, it was sufficient that libraries played their primary role in providing access to information resources for “the many” who might not (OK, let’s just say they simply wouldn’t) be able to afford on their own. Publishers have never been happy with this, though occasionally they grant the marketing value of libraries—helping them sell books by enhancing public awareness.

Publishers have apparently been smarter with journals, pricing institutional subscriptions based on the assumption that one (print) copy received into the library would be accessed/read by “the many.” I’m not exactly sure how they pulled that off. Can you imagine a generalized institutional pricing system for book purchases? (Actually, I can. Kevin Smith reported here and here on the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons. Had the Court ruled in favor of the publisher, libraries could have faced precisely this kind of institutional pricing system. He says libraries “dodged a bullet” with this decision. But I digress.) Perhaps libraries thought, in our typically good-natured way, that it was reasonable for publishers to ask more based on this assumption. The problem with this calculus was run-away subscription pricing. Publishers reasoned they had captive customers in the libraries, and that “the many” would protest loudly if access was jeopardized. Problem was, while the demand was presumed to be inelastic, the budget also proved to be inelastic. We have been watching this story play-out for at least the last 30 years now.

Anyway, in the print world, no one, least of all libraries, really cared whether academic authors were getting exploited regarding their intellectual property rights. It wasn’t our business to care. Our singular mission was to provide access to published information resources for our constituencies, which we would do happily, assuming it could be done with some sense of economy. Print was the only game in town. Authors signing away their copyrights was simply the cost of doing business, and the price for getting published. Nobody, not even authors, really gave it a second thought (sadly, many still don’t).

This latest incident is a signal that something has changed in Libraryland, and librarians are awakening to it. It’s not only that we’ve been increasingly priced-out of providing access to many important and high-demand resources for our patrons. The BIG change, of course, is the whole paradigm shift in publishing from print to electronic, which includes the birth of a mode of “democratic publishing” available to anyone on the web. With this change has come the prospect of alternatives—alternatives to publishers, and (frankly) alternatives to libraries.

Something else has changed in this shift. Academic authors are starting to discover that they wield significant power in their research products. They don’t need to sell their souls for the right to be published. It’s no longer the publisher with a printing press that wields all the power, or makes all the rules. With alternatives abounding, the truth has been exposed that publishers desperately need author content in order to stay in business. Authors are starting to demand a more equitable relationship, or they’ll take their business elsewhere. (Presently, it would seem the only major lingering problems for academic authors are their out of touch colleagues, and antiquated policies of academic advancement that are still wedded to the old publisher-controlled system.)

Better late than never, astute libraries, too, are beginning to realize that it needs to be our business to care about authors, including advocating for them regarding intellectual property rights. The irony in this incident is that library researchers as academic authors are now being sensitized to the no longer acceptable practices of publishers in this regard. Creative libraries, too, are beginning to reach out to authors in the provision of direct publishing services, promising to by-pass traditional publishers altogether.

Brian Mathews, who was preparing his special issue of JLA as guest editor before all this blew-up, said he was asked why he didn’t just take the project to an open access journal. His answer was curious. “The reason I agreed to take on the guest editorship of this issue was specifically because it was in a traditional journal and distributed by a traditional publisher. I like the idea of taking disruptive content and baking it into a conventional platform. I’m a fan of OA but this was one instance where I was intentionally aiming for something with more confinement. You know, change from within, and all that” (emphases his). In an update, Mathews was even more adamant: “I get that librarians are passionate about OA and that OA definitely provides some high quality options—but I feel that a person should have the right to publish anywhere they want for whatever reason they want. … I guess you can say I’m pro-choice when it comes to publishing. I only care about the quality of the ideas expressed” (again, emphases his). I like a lot of Brian’s forward-thinking ideas on library topics. But while I can respect his opinion (I also applaud choice), and I sympathize with the fact that this news ruined his weekend, I think he is simply mistaken in this case. Libraries have given publishers too many passes. I’m siding with the editorial board on this one.

Of course this is only a first (and largely symbolic) step. Libraries admittedly cannot easily, quickly, or single-handedly extricate themselves from this ingrained system. We do still and must serve our constituencies first in the provision of needed information resources. But I think the point that this incident surfaced is that now we know first-hand how the current academic publishing system has been treating its authors, even as we have already long known (but felt powerless to avoid) what it has been asking us to pay to keep the system in place. With this new knowledge we can no longer go along as before. From now on we continue as knowing if not willing accomplices.

Article processing charges reduced to $99 on SAGE Open humanities and social sciences “mega journal”

Back in May of last year I posted about SAGE Publication’s open access multidisciplinary humanities and social sciences “mega journal” called SAGE Open (eISSN 2158-2440). The journal, launched in May 2011, is operated using a producer-side revenue model, where authors (or their sponsors) are charged an article processing fee (APC) once a submitted manuscript has been accepted for publication. The format for SAGE Open is similar to PLOS ONE, the multidisciplinary open access science “mega journal” published by the non-profit open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS).

I just learned (thanks to Richard Poynder for the tip) that SAGE has reduced the APC levied for published articles in SAGE Open to $99. (Here is a link to the SAGE press release.) This charge is reduced dramatically from the standard fee of $695, and down significantly from the “introductory rate” of $395 that was previously in force. I confirmed the price change on the Manuscript Submission page of the journal site.

According to the press release, this decision follows from the results of a survey conducted by SAGE indicating that

more than 70% of accepted authors had personally paid the article processing charge (APC) to enable their research to be published in SAGE Open. Author declarations further show that less than 15% of all articles published across SAGE’s Humanities and Social Sciences portfolio in 2012 had allocated funding.

In a post on the SAGE Connection blog, Bob Howard, Vice President, US Journals at SAGE is asked about the impact this announcement will have on the type of research published in SAGE Open.

SAGE is committed to the publication of high quality, peer reviewed research, and this will not be compromised by a change in price. All SAGE Open articles will receive the same high quality peer review, copy editing, typesetting and electronic delivery that have been present since the journal launched in 2011, maintaining the quality you would expect of SAGE as a leading independent publisher for the social sciences.

Howard recognizes that demand for open access is increasing, and SAGE apparently views it as an astute investment move to be a player in this publishing space. His expectation, however, is still heavily weighted on subscription journals.

We view this change as an investment in the future of OA publishing in the social sciences, and we will continue to adapt to our evolving landscape in order to better support HSS scholars. …

While we expect much of social science research to continue to be published in traditional subscription journals, and that remains SAGE’s core business, open access publishing and the demand for it is increasing.

According to the news release, “SAGE Open has received more than 1400 manuscripts, and more than 160 articles published” since it was launched in 2011. That works out to roughly an 11% acceptance rate, and roughly $64,000 in revenue since launch (assuming all accepted articles were charged the $395 introductory rate). Neither the press release nor the blog post gave any indication if SAGE Open is or was designed to be financially self-supporting. It is at least provocative to consider the implications of Howard’s “no compromise” claim in the face of an 86% per article decrease in revenue (assuming the standard rate of $695). How much does it really cost SAGE to publish an open access journal article on its platform? A volume proposition might make it sustainable. Clearly, the aggressive pricing is designed to make this venue more attractive to scholars.

It appears the space for open access journal publishing for humanities and social science scholars is (at last!) starting to heat up, especially in view of Dr. Martin Paul Eve’s recent proposal that interested parties get together to launch a non-profit PLOS-style mega journal for the humanities and social sciences.

If the sciences can do it… PLOHSS: A PLOS-style model for the humanities and social sciences

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) was founded in 2000 as an advocacy group promoting open access to scientific literature in the face of increasingly prohibitive journal costs imposed by scientific publishers. The group proposed the formation of an online public library “that would provide the full contents of the published record of research and scholarly discourse in medicine and the life sciences in a freely accessible, fully searchable, interlinked form.” In an open letter to scientific and medical publishers that was eventually signed by nearly 34,000 scientists worldwide, the group wrote:

We recognize that the publishers of our scientific journals have a legitimate right to a fair financial return for their role in scientific communication. We believe, however, that the permanent, archival record of scientific research and ideas should neither be owned nor controlled by publishers, but should belong to the public and should be freely available through an international online public library. (excerpt from the Open Letter)

The PLOS group morphed into an open access publisher in its own right with the launch of PLOS Biology in October 2003. Since then, PLOS has expanded to include seven peer reviewed open access scientific journals, many of which have become, in a very short time, highly-regarded prestigious titles in their respective fields. This is a significant achievement, considering that it traditionally takes many years, if not decades, for journals to build their reputations as sought-after publishing venues by authors, and recognized as hosts of high-quality research by scholarly communities (and tenure and promotion committees).

PLOS operates as a nonprofit publisher that sustains its operation by charging producer-side article publication fees (also known as article processing charges [APCs]) in lieu of traditional consumer-side subscriptions. This model begins to fulfill the promise of open access by removing the barriers to reading and reuse of published scientific research literature (PLOS publishes articles with a Creative Commons Attribution License). Having demonstrated the sustainability (if not the accustomed profit margins) of this business model, many commercial publishers are now adopting this approach for their own open access initiatives.

One of PLOS’s particularly interesting titles is PLOS ONE (eISSN 1932-6203), launched in December 2006 as a multi-disciplinary science “mega journal” that publishes articles continuously with rapid turn-around times from submission to publication (over 1,000 articles have already been published in the first half of January 2013), and rigorously peer-reviewed for technical soundness. Except in the broadest sense, the journal doesn’t impose subject or “brand” perimeters. It could even be said that it undermines the function conventionally played by journals in providing a “short-hand” for associating research quality and impact. “This research must be good because it was published in this top-tier journal.” Instead, PLOS ONE is more like a platform from which an article is allowed generate its own metrics for quality and impact, including various forms of post-publication peer review from the scientific research community.

What about the humanities and social sciences?

It is often observed that compared to humanities disciplines and the social sciences, departments of sciences at universities tend to be better funded and their researchers have access to larger pots of money from a greater number of granting sources. It has been argued that shifting publishing revenue to the producer-side in order to make open access sustainable is much easier to pull off in the sciences because of this relative wealth of funding. The cost of publishing research results can simply be rolled into the grant proposal. Indeed, open access is increasingly being mandated when it comes to publicly funded research (consider this example that landed yesterday in my Twitter stream). The expectation that publication charges will be covered is becoming increasingly matter-of-fact in the sciences.

If asked about their reluctance to publish in an open access journal venue, humanities and social science scholars are apt to raise first a concern about how to assure academic reputation. A close second would probably be skepticism about the sustainability of a producer-side revenue model, and concerns about a scholar’s ability to pay to have their research articles published, given current funding levels in their disciplines. Savvy skeptics might even argue that this amounts to a de facto limitation on access, because an inability to pay APCs means that research won’t get published to begin with. “How is this any better than the current model?”

The first reluctance arises out of a long history and deep tradition rooted in the limitations imposed upon scholarly communication by print. Knowledge was never really scarce. But the media of knowledge dissemination created an impression of scarcity because of the practical limits of physical space and time, and the costliness of resources and infrastructure. Scholarly reputation was built not only by producing quality research, but also by successfully navigating these limits to “get your name in print.”

The medium of electronic and network knowledge dissemination has been breaking down these limits. Yes, reputation still benefits from respected association. But the shift in medium has surfaced at least two significant realizations for scholars: 1) Academic reputation fundamentally originates with the scholar not the communication medium or the agent controlling that medium (e.g., a publisher). Reputation is portable and travels with the scholar. As such, the scholar may be freer than he or she previously assumed to publish in open access venues. 2) Reputation benefits most from the widest possible dissemination of a scholar’s work. Publishing in a top-tier journal brings a certain level of prestige. But if that research is locked behind a paywall it limits the number of eyeballs that can/will see it. Open access removes the paywall barrier and allows the wider community to weigh-in more directly on the value of a scholar’s research.

I believe the second reluctance (to a producer-side revenue model) arises from inadvertent ignorance about the costs associated with operating a journal, and lack of awareness regarding the accumulated costs the subscription-based revenue model has on institutional (library) budgets. A scholar may know about the modest price paid for an individual subscription to a cherished journal (assuming it isn’t being received automatically as a benefit of association membership). However, when someone else is paying the bill—both to produce the journal and to provide access to it—costs are abstracted and distanced from the scholarly endeavor. It is easy to become alarmed by any suggestion that the author should pay. “Only a vanity press would charge an author to publish their work! We all know that so-called scholars who patronize vanity presses simply can’t get their work published by legitimate and reputable means.”

While priced at a fraction of the average science journal, institutional subscriptions for humanities and social science journals have been rising dramatically (see my “A simmering ‘journals crisis’ in the humanities?” section in this earlier post), especially when scholarly society journals get acquired by commercial publishers. Just yesterday I received a notice from a colleague regarding yet another association journal that has been acquired by a commercial publisher. Though no pricing information was provided, this statement was included in the notice: “Institutional subscription rates will…be increasing to bring them to a level compatible with market norms and to account for more advanced features such as online access.” That’s a euphemism for “Brace yourself. This journal subscription is about to get significantly more expensive.”

Traditional society and non-profit academic journals in the humanities and social sciences are loathe to lose revenue generated by subscriptions. Many find it difficult to imagine converting to open access based upon accustomed practices. Some have run the numbers and have determined that the article processing charges that would have to be levied to make the conversion to open access possible are not sustainable (though becoming dated, see for example, this 2009 study [PDF] conducted by Mary Waltham).

My response to this situation has tended to encourage support for smaller, scholar or library published open access journals that are able to operate efficiently and at low cost, utilizing committed editorial teams, existing institutional network infrastructures, and open source journal platform software (such as Open Journal Systems). Most of these journals work with modest budgets funded by academic departments or by redirected library resources, and they do not levy APCs.

There may be another approach worth considering. Why not create a PLOS-style mega journal for the humanities and social sciences? Admittedly, this is new thinking, especially for humanities scholars whose academic traditions are deep and slow to change. But if it is correct to assert that scholars (do and should) create their own reputation, and if in this online era it is the disaggregated but fully discoverable article not the journal that is really the currency of scholarly communication and reputation, maybe a hosting platform otherwise capable of providing credible peer review would suffice for exposing research to anyone who is interested, in the scholarly community or beyond. While it may not be able to entirely avoid using APCs, it would not make ability to pay a pre-condition to publication. Soliciting institutional sponsorships from monies already in the system, and leveraging the scale of a shared multi-disciplinary online service could make operations sustainable and per article costs low.

Enter PLOHSS, the Public Library of Humanities and Social Science

Late last week I received a tweet from Dr. Martin Paul Eve, a lecturer in English Literature at University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. You may recall back in July I gave a hat tip to Martin for his excellent “Starting an Open Access Journal: a step-by-step guide.” The tweet linked to a post on his blog soliciting participants to help build a Public Library of Science model for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

For quite some time, I have been interested in/incensed by the scholarly publication system; the exclusions, iniquities and absurdities of it can be clearly seen from only a brief survey of the economic field. I have watched with despair as the sciences have made projects work while the humanities and social sciences have almost sleepwalked into a disaster. The Finch Report [PDF] published in the UK and accepted by the government will wreak havoc on our modus operandi and work to stratify an already split field.

… [I]t doesn’t have to be this way. We can eradicate much exclusion by building a system that is fit for purpose, more egalitarian and sustainable — a Public Library of Science model for the Humanities and Social Sciences. I can’t do it on my own, though. I need individuals and organizations to contact me so that I can form a mailing list, start brainstorming ideas, accrue startup funding, get the reputation and intellectual capital behind the system and generally get this massive project rolling.

The link immediately above points to the “initial ideas hub” for the PLOHSS project. Check it out and consider getting involved. Dr. Eve identifies areas of expertise he is looking for, including scholars to lend their experience and reputation, journal editors interested in open access, journalists to advocate and promote the project, librarians and techie-types, persons experienced with financial and legal matters, and any other persons simply intrigued by the project and willing to lend their interested support. Within a month he is hoping to coalesce interest and participation around an organizational structure composed of a number of key committees to enable the project to build momentum and focus.

In a subsequent blog post, Dr. Eve articulated his thinking about APCs and sustainability. This is definitely worth a read, as is an excellent interview Meredith Schwartz conducted with Martin earlier this week on the Library Journal website, which includes this excerpt:

We need a publishing venue that attracts instant respect from scholars. That can only be done by ensuring that it was built by scholars with the requisite academic capital, not imposed by publishers, who are losing the moral high-ground. The organization needs to be non-profit, but sustainable.

…

[I can say for sure that] there will be a rigorous but constructive peer-review process that will accept high-quality work, however niche, without bars on resubmission, and certainly no outright rejection without review or reasonable comment. I am in favour of double-blinding submissions in order to ensure fair review (and also to utterly divorce finance from editorial), but this is still under discussion. Only once something has been through the review process will any form of finance be brought up. The decisions of the finance committee on article “targets” cannot be made available, externally or internally, until the end of the year when the next set of prices and targets are revealed. In other words, if we fall short, we fall short, and will have to have backup budget to cover this rather than any form of compromise.

Finally, how do we ensure credibility: only through people. People are what will make this project work, and that’s where we’re starting. “Build it and they will come” is a fallacy. Get the right people to build it… well, that’s a different matter.

Martin Eve is a bright and energetic young scholar who is prepared to push against academic tradition with disruptive innovation, especially where open access to scholarly communication is concerned. I applaud this effort and will be watching its development closely. Again, this is new thinking. But if the sciences can do it, why not also the humanities and social sciences?

JSTOR announces free limited reading access to its journal archive

I am an academic librarian at a small liberal arts college. I am committed, within the confines of a finite library budget, to provide access to the most relevant, highest quality information resources (journals, books, and media) possible for our students and faculty. One important component of this access commitment are the 11 Arts & Sciences collections and 1 Life Science collection (over 1,600 titles) we subscribe to on the JSTOR full text journal archive platform.

JSTOR is a valuable and cost effective resource in our online information mix. JSTOR uniquely features Volume 1, Issue 1 full text coverage to most titles, which then move forward in time, embargoing (most commonly) the latest 3-5 years of coverage so as not to jeopardize publisher revenue through current subscriptions. Disciplines that require access to current content may find this embargo model unacceptable. But for many disciplines in the humanities, for example, where research retains greater informational “shelf life,” the delay doesn’t make these resources less useful. Indeed, a journal archive like this can be especially valuable for historical or diachronic research.

It still amazes me that as a small college library we are able to provide access to a resource like JSTOR for our users. Indeed, I often reflect on the information-rich environment that characterizes our library generally, even with a constrained resource budget. But I also often lament how our students will lose access to this wealth of information when they graduate and enter into their vocations. We encourage our students to commit themselves to “life-long learning” following graduation, but we have to assume that others will provide access to the needed information resources. Licensing agreements expressly prohibit us from providing it.

This is another reason why I am an advocate for open access to scholarly research. Access to information and knowledge shouldn’t be limited to an academic “hot house” environment any more than access to that same information and knowledge should be limited by paywalls within the academic environment. This is a work in progress. While still a significant distance from offering open access, I was interested to read last week that JSTOR has begun to take some steps toward opening access to its journal archive to individuals who would otherwise lose access upon graduation, or who never had access through a participating institution to begin with.

In a press release dated January 9, 2013, JSTOR announced that following a successful 10-month test, it is now expanding an experiment called Register & Read, which will give anyone who signs up for a JSTOR account free online reading access to up to three articles every two weeks in over 1,200 journals (Excel) ”from nearly 800 scholarly societies, university presses, and academic publishers” in the JSTOR archive. Affiliation with an academic institution is not required.

“Our goal is for everyone around the world to be able to use the content we have put online and are preserving,” said Laura Brown, JSTOR managing director. “Register & Read provides a virtual way for anyone to walk into the JSTOR library, register at the door, and ‘check out’ a limited number of articles for reading.” (from the press release)

Register & Read follows another JSTOR initiative launched in September 2011 called Early Journal Content (mentioned earlier on my blog here), which opened public domain journal article content (published before 1923 in the United States and before 1870 in other countries) in the JSTOR archive to anyone, regardless of institutional affiliation, and no registration is required. Indeed, any user can freely search on JSTOR for citations and article previews. [JSTOR also recently announced the Access for Alumni program, where institutions can pay an additional percentage of their annual archival collection access fees to provide access for their alumni.]

A test drive of Register & Read

I conducted a number of searches in JSTOR without logging in with my institution credentials so I could see how this process worked.

Search result (3) is entirely free to access because it is an article in the public domain (from June 1888) and part of JSTOR’s Early Journal Content program. Notice though that result (2) is marked with an “X” to indicate that I do not have normal access to this article. However, if I proceed to click on the record link I am taken to the article page that includes citation information and an article preview, over which is this banner:

The banner indicates that the article is available for me to read online for free (this article is from a journal that is part of the Register & Read archive collection). When I click the “Read Online” button I am prompted to register or login with a MyJSTOR account:

I clicked the “Register” button and was directed to a sign up form for a MyJSTOR account. I don’t recall whether this form is different than the one I would have encountered earlier as an institution-affiliated user to enable management of saved searches and citations. However, I noted the required fields that ask for my name, email address, institutional affiliation (if any), position, and area of study.

Clearly, the trade-off for being granted limited free reading access to articles is granting JSTOR and its publishing partners access to my use activity on the platform. I confess this takes some of the shine off for me—both as a librarian who is committed to protecting user privacy, and as an open access advocate who winces at the strings being attached to this idea of “free.” In fairness, I see this kind of personal information request on other aggregator platforms. I suspect the drive for this comes from the publishers that are anxious for any leverage to sustain or improve their current economic positions. Like so many free online services, users will have to decide whether the value they derive is worth the cost. JSTOR has a user Privacy Policy.

In addition to online reading, Register & Read in many cases provides users with the option of purchasing accessed articles for downloading and printing, or they can be stored in the user’s MyJSTOR account. When I click the “Download” button I am prompted with purchase options. Notice that I am here also given the option of purchasing the entire journal issue:

Register & Read is rolled into the infrastructure that has enabled unaffiliated persons to purchase individual articles off the platform for a number of years now. The price of the article is set by the publisher. JSTOR gets a cut for providing the delivery platform.

Impressions: Good start, but rationing reinforces notion of knowledge scarcity

There is no question that I am spoiled by our institutional access to JSTOR, and this inevitably colors my impressions of Register & Read. I love JSTOR. But my first thought after reading about this initiative was: “Three articles every two weeks? Really?!” What strategy would I need to devise to ration my access if I was more than a casual reading visitor to JSTOR?

I’m sure they ran the numbers after the pilot to arrive at this figure. I’m also sure they engaged in a Herculean effort to get buy-in from all the publishers that agreed to join the program. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It’s a start. Maybe it’s not the number of articles so much as the access timeframe that feels particularly tight-fisted. Research activity is not evenly spaced in time like this. If I’m doing research or working on a writing project I need access to many sources in relatively short spurts of time. Three articles every two weeks translates into 78 articles a year, 39 articles every 6 months, or 20 (rounding-up from 19.5) articles every quarter. What if JSTOR gave me the option of accessing up to 20 articles every three months to use as I needed? That would have an entirely different feel about it—more generous. It would make the Register & Read service significantly more useful to independent scholars.

I don’t see Register & Read as a form of open access, though I grant it is a step toward the opening of access. I don’t think it would be better if JSTOR were entirely closed. The ability to search the platform like a bibliographic index is itself a valuable feature, as is access to its public domain Early Journal Content. Paradoxically, though, doling-out this little bit of access behind a tracking login seems to more strongly reinforce the notion that knowledge is a scarce commodity whose value must be closely guarded and monetized at every turn. I think JSTOR can do better.

Religion, Biblical Studies and related journals in the Register & Read titles list

I scanned the current Register & Read titles list (Excel) for journals that would be of interest to persons studying religion, biblical studies, or related disciplines. I may have missed a few, but I picked out the following:

American Journal of Theology & Philosophy
The Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research
Archives de sciences sociales des religions
Buddhist-Christian Studies
The Catholic Historical Review
Die Welt des Islams
El Ciervo
European Judaism
The Furrow
Hebrew Studies
History of Religions
Iran
Iraq
The Irish Church Quarterly
Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
Jewish Historical Studies
The Jewish Quarterly Review
Jewish Studies Quarterly
Journal of Biblical Literature
Journal of Cuneiform Studies
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
Journal of Law and Religion
Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures
Journal of Moravian History
Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Journal of Qur’anic Studies
The Journal of Religion
Journal of Religion in Africa
The Journal of Religious Ethics
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues
Near Eastern Archaeology
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions
Novum Testamentum
Numen
Oriens
Philosophy East and West
Religion & Literature
Review of Religious Research
Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Studia Islamica
Syria
The Torah U-Madda Journal
Traditio
U.S. Catholic Historian
Vetus Testamentum
Vigiliae Christianae

The open access journal as a disruptive innovation

I admit it. As a humanist scholar I have not been much inclined to read books or articles on economics. I mean, what could be more boring, right? And all that math.

Well, my inclination has been slowly changing since I began writing this blog. My level of sophistication is pretty basic, and I still try to avoid the math whenever possible. But the economics of academic publishing, particularly journals, has become strangely compelling to me as I have learned more about open access and the dissemination of scholarly research as a digital product in an online environment.

My first exposure came just a few months after starting the blog. I read an interesting article by Caroline Sutton in College & Research Libraries News (December 2011) entitled “Is free inevitable in scholarly communication? The economics of open access.” Sutton applied the economic theory popularized by Chris Anderson in his 2009 book Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price to argue that the online journal as a digital product operates on a marginal cost of production basis that will inevitably drive the price of additional copies toward zero. I wrote a review of Sutton’s article here. I was so intrigued by this economic concept applied to scholarly publishing that I also read Anderson’s book. I wrote a review of Free from the context of scholarly publishing here.

The economics of disruptive technologies

In a similar vein, I recently read an article by David W. Lewis in College & Research Libraries (September 2012) entitled “The Inevitability of Open Access.” [Incidentally, online editions of both College & Research Libraries and College & Research Libraries News, publications of the Association of College and Research Libraries, are now open access.] The sense of inevitability regarding open access is still there. But with Lewis “inevitability” shifts from a question to an assertion. How can he be so confident?

Lewis has chosen to view open access, and in particular, “pure Gold” open access (journals), through the lens of another economic (business) theory as described in the work of Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, seminally in his 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma (reprinted by Harper Business, 2011).

Christensen deals with “the failure of companies to stay atop their industries when they confront certain types of market and technological change” (p. xi). These companies fail not because they ignored sound management principles, but paradoxically—and hence the dilemma—because they didn’t.

[M]any of what are now widely accepted principles of good management are, in fact, only situationally appropriate. There are times at which it is right not to listen to customers, right to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins, and right to aggressively pursue small, rather than substantial, markets. This book derives a set of rules … that managers can use to judge when the widely accepted principles of good management should be followed and when alternative principles are appropriate. … I call [these alternative principles] principles of disruptive innovation. (p. xv, emphasis his)

I found Lewis’ appropriation of Clayton Christensen’s economics of disruptive technological innovation applied to open access journals interesting enough to go and read Christensen’s book for myself. Afterward, I came back to Lewis’ article, and re-read it with greater understanding. I find his argument persuasive.

Gold and Green Open Access

Lewis’ thesis is that “open access, especially in its pure Gold form, is a disruptive innovation and that given this we can anticipate that it will become the dominant model for the distribution of scholarly content within the next decade” (p. 493). This is a bold assertion, especially considering other recent research suggesting that as of 2009, Gold open access journal articles accounted for only about 8% of all scholarly articles published.

What does Lewis mean by “pure Gold” open access? Open access comes in two major forms, differentiated by color designations, Gold and Green. Gold open access refers to articles that are published in online journals that are made freely available to readers. Green open access refers to forms of articles (e.g., a preprint version, or a delayed post-publication version) that are published in traditional subscription journals but are made freely accessible through submission to an online archive (e.g., author’s website, or an institutional repository). By “pure Gold,” Lewis means articles that are made freely available immediately upon publication, without any kind of delay, “that [also] does away with the overheads associated with restricting access to content and for collecting money from readers or their libraries” (p. 494). Some subscription-based journals make article content available to be read for free after an embargo period (delayed). This could be seen as a form of Gold open access. But because the journal itself is still sustained by subscription revenue Lewis doesn’t consider it “pure” Gold.

Who are the customers?

Lewis talks about two markets that scholarly journals engage, and from a product perspective this situation proves to be fairly unique. “The first is the market for readers’, or their libraries’, dollars. The second…is for the right to publish the best scholarly works” (p. 494). To me, this translates into an interesting question: Who are the customers in the world of scholarly journals?

One obvious customer is the consumer of research communication, or his/her institutional proxy, the library. With subscription-based journals, the product that is purchased is access to research communication. In the print era, this customer also got a tangible product to put on the shelf. As Lewis notes, this customer is clearly advantaged by open access, since articles would be available to him/her at no cost.

There are two other customers—the producer of research seeking a publishing venue, and the publisher seeking high quality research to put in its journals. Lewis highlights what makes this particular market interesting and unique:

[A]uthors do not exchange their work for money; instead, they trade it for prestige, a much less tangible commodity. Enhancements in prestige then make it possible for authors to earn tenure and promotion or to compete for grants or better jobs. Because it takes time for a journal to establish a reputation, today most high-prestige journals are subscription-based. Authors wishing to enhance their reputations often feel compelled to publish in these established, highly thought-of venues and, especially before tenure, are unwilling to risk exploring other alternatives. Established scholars have generally been successful with subscription journals and often feel no need to change their publishing choices. Currently, inertia favors subscription journals. (p. 494)

This is a unique arrangement indeed, with an odd additional wrinkle. The research producer customer is buying prestige with her articles in hopes of building her academic reputation. But she is also the research consumer customer buying access, via a subscription, to those same articles with real money. Meanwhile, the publisher customer uses the reputation it has built-up over time from past research to buy articles from current research producer customers for the cost of prestige. It then turns around and sells those articles back to research consumer customers for real money. The reputation flows in two directions. But the money flows in only one—to the publisher. The money-paying customers (e.g., libraries) are saying this is no longer sustainable, especially as prices continue to rise at dramatic rates. Exploring publishing alternatives must be risked, otherwise access will become increasingly limited.

For Lewis, “currently” (from the previous quote) is the key word. Although prestige is a powerful currency, open access brings some real advantages to these markets. Pragmatically, “to anyone connected to the Internet, the author’s [open access] work is available to the widest possible audience. The work is not restricted to those whose libraries can afford the prices of high-prestige subscription titles” (p. 494). A principled case for open access observes that “many…for-profit publishers…have used their position as monopoly providers to charge excessive prices…[T]hese pricing policies are at odds with the interests of scholars and their universities” (p. 495). I would add, also on principle, that although “inertia [currently] favors subscription journals,” because reputation flows in two directions, established scholars (at least) would not be risking that much to vet open access journal initiatives with their articles and editorial participation. Isn’t this a better use of reputation than subsidizing the profits of commercial publishers?

The Gold open access journal as a disruptive innovation

After summarizing the history and current status of open access journals as documented in a recent article by Mikael Laakso et. al., Lewis turns to the research of Clayton Christensen to argue that Gold open access journals have the characteristics of a “disruptive innovation.”

Ironically, disruptive innovations rarely begin life as a superior product. In fact, they almost always start out inferior to products sold by established firms in established markets. Even though they start this way, disruptive innovations generally have two distinct characteristics. First, they bring a new value proposition to the market. This new value proposition is almost always the application of a new technology using a new business model. Second, disruptive innovations usually make it possible for customers who had not been able to access a service or product to acquire it. … Over time, the disruptive innovation improves and becomes suitable for some of the less demanding customers of the established product. The new technology and business model embedded in the disruptive innovation provides a cost advantage that draws these customers from the established product to the disruptive one and the established firm loses market share. As time goes on, the disruptive innovation gets better and better and eventually it attracts more and more customers and comes to dominate the market. …

One might expect established firms to be able to react to disruptive innovation. They are, after all, leaders in their industries and they did not achieve this position by accident. But, as Christensen documents, this rarely happens. Established firms have succeeded because they have established successful business models and values that reinforce these models. It turns out that business models and organizational values don’t change easily, and it is thus nearly impossible for established firms to quickly adjust to take advantage of new technologies in disruptive ways. (p. 497)

Following Christensen, Lewis describes Gold open access journals as a disruptive innovation. “It combines a new technology, digital distribution of content using the Internet, with a new business model, free distribution to the reader with cost paid by the author or through other means” (pp. 497-98).

It is interesting now to reflect on the early experiments of scholars in the 1990′s who saw the potential of the Internet as a medium for the broad and free distribution of scholarly research. Early efforts were often rudimentary and primitive. These scholars often encountered skepticism, if not outright scorn, from colleagues who couldn’t conceive of the Internet as a credible venue for “serious scholarly communication.” Resistance also came from academic administrations, who viewed this “Internet thing” with suspicion—just a passing fad (well, except maybe for email). But vast improvements in network technology and browser and document delivery software in a relatively short period of time have brought a remarkable level of refinement and quality to low-cost scholar-driven online journal publishing activity (e.g., the open source Open Journal Systems platform).

It is not surprising that commercial publishers, too, have now almost universally embraced online distribution for their subscription-based journals. But they are using this technology to sustain their existing business models and values, not disrupt them (a practice repeatedly observed by Christensen in his research). Consider, for example, the level of sophistication of digital technology which now enables a commercial publisher to put its content securely behind an electronic paywall, and to monetize their journals, with time-limited pay-per-view shopping carts, down to the article level. “Please have your credit card ready.”

Gold open access brings an entirely different value proposition.

It is hard to compete with free unencumbered access, and easy and free linking and sharing. For authors the value proposition is less clear, but…it is at least as compelling. Having your work a click away from everyone should in the end be better for authors than having that work locked up, even if the lockbox is currently prestigious. …

A final part of the the value proposition that Gold OA brings is to universities and other institutions that support the scholarly enterprise. Subscription journals cost these organizations large amounts of money. … If some of this money could be redirected into more cost-effective ways of distributing scholarship, such as institutional subsidies for open access publishing ventures or author charges to open access journals, this would be a benefit. (p. 498)

Lewis notes that the response of established publishers to Gold open access “is what Christensen would predict.” Because established publishers operate on different business models based on different values—many dating from the world of print (when they were the only game in town)—they are culturally unprepared to adjust to new realities introduced by the disruptive innovation of open access. They are scrambling to keep their value propositions in place while issuing reports of doom and gloom, expressing doubts and skepticism about the sustainability of Gold open access. Lewis sees the use of Hybrid OA (where an author can pay to make their article open access in an otherwise subscription-based journal) and Delayed OA (free access to articles after an embargo period) by commercial publishers, and their tolerance for Green open access, as efforts to appear pro-OA while protecting their author base for high quality research articles without jeopardizing subscription income.

The S-curve of disruptive innovation and its impact

From Christensen, Lewis notes that Gold open access as a disruptive innovation will replace the established subscription-based journal, not through linear substitution, but by following an S-curve pattern (growth charted over time)—a pattern observed over and over in other industries and products (e.g., digital photography). The innovation may languish with slow growth initially, then the pace of adoption accelerates dramatically, until it flattens-out again after acquiring market domination. This behavior is the basis of Lewis’ bold claim regarding the future of Gold open access. Based on historical to present data, Lewis extrapolates a couple of scenarios. A conservative estimate shows 50% of articles will be published Gold OA by 2021, 90% by 2025. A more aggressive estimate shows 50% by 2017, and 90% by 2020. “Even the more conservative estimate suggests a radical shift in the nature of scholarly journal publishing in the next decade” (p. 501).

Lewis spends the remainder of the article discussing the impact of a journal system dominated by Gold open access on a variety of stakeholders (authors, readers, libraries, established subscription publishers, scholarly societies, etc.), and he offers-up some interesting points of change, including one certain and inevitable result (regardless of how long it actually takes)—the disruption and decline of the subscription journal. We can try to fight it and lose (because that’s how disruptive innovations tend to work), or we can embrace it and participate in its results. “[I]n the end [Gold OA] is a disruption whose success will make our world better” (p. 504).

Now that’s not boring.

Hat Tip: “The Future of Publishing” (But I viewed it from the perspective of open access)

I’m surprised I hadn’t seen this earlier. I want to thank a librarian colleague for the link, who posted it this afternoon to a listerv we both frequent. This wonderfully clever video was uploaded to YouTube back in March 2010. According to the description, “This video was prepared by the UK branch of Dorling Kindersley Books and produced by Khaki Films.”

The video was produced for the commercial publisher’s sales conference. Ironically, I viewed it from the perspective of open access and found its message compelling and powerful.

I encourage you to view the 2:30 video in its entirety. I won’t spoil the experience. But I’ll give you a hint. Notice how the message (in this excerpt) completely changes when it’s rewound.

Is this the message?

I know what I want when I see it and
packaging
is more important than
content
I have to tell you
my attention span is too small for big ideas
and it’s just not true that
I read a lot and I like learning …

Or this?

I read a lot and I like learning
and it’s just not true that
my attention span is too small for big ideas
I have to tell you
content
is more important than
packaging
I know what I want when I see it and …

The part about content or packaging proved serendipitous. Unbeknownst to my colleague, he posted the link just as I was preparing to participate in a thread discussing scholarly societies that turn their journals over to commercial publishers, and how this all too commonly results in increased institutional subscription prices. Here is an excerpt:

In addition to being a medium for research communication, I know many societies intend their journal to be a source of revenue to help subsidize other programming. In the print era especially, offering the journal as a benefit of membership is a long-standing tradition that is surely under considerable pressure as this incentive is losing its appeal in the digital age. I imagine that increasing institutional subscriptions is seen as a partial solution, and making a deal with the (commercial publishing) devil who has a lot of experience and brand recognition is seen as the (only?) way to do this credibly.

I appreciate this is simplistic. But it seems to me that the dilemma of a society in this situation is at least exacerbated where there is the perceived need to view their journal as a source of revenue in addition to it being a medium of research communication. If the revenue component could be minimized, or taken out of the equation entirely, then the focus could shift to simple cost recovery of the later. If, further, expectations could shift to the content and its dissemination rather than product packaging, the costs that would need to be recovered would be further reduced. (I’m working on a piece following-up on a recent article that sees open access journals as a “disruptive technology.” Disruptive technologies originate down-market but grow as they are increasingly able to satisfy core customer demands. Meanwhile, commercially published journals may actually be shown to be over-shooting customer demand, and price consciousness becomes a more important consideration. What do consumers of scholarly research really care about? Content or packaging?)

I suspect that leveraging the perception of increased value might bring the entertainment of thoughts that this product should be able to fetch a higher price in the marketplace, especially based on traditional expectations. But I find it difficult to believe that the initiative for these thoughts generally originate with the societies, especially if the reason for going to the commercial publisher in the first place is to provide a rescue from the near-term prospect of insolvency. It’s a pretty big leap from: “What can we do to keep this thing afloat?” to delusions of grandeur: “Ha! Ha! This will turn our journal into a veritable cash cow! We’ll be rich!” (OK. Maybe that’s just a little hyperbolic. But it’s for effect.)

I imagine, rather, the conversation between journal editors and society publication committees when meeting with their commercial publisher partners to be more like: “Yes, we want our journal to be revenue positive. But can you assure us that there is enough value here to justify raising the subscription price that much? Don’t we risk driving away subscribers?” The publisher replies: “No question about value. More people will learn about your great journal on our great platform, which is sure to increase subscriptions. And hey, we’ll throw-in access to a backfile. Librarians love backfiles! Besides, the increased price will offset any short-term loss of subscribers. Don’t worry. We are committed to the long-term viability and success of your journal. We can’t succeed if you don’t succeed. We’re in this together!”

Content or packaging? Selling a product or getting a message out? Which is more important?

Hat Tip: Open Access Explained!

One of the clearest, concise, and entertaining explanations of open access I have seen. Check-out this animated comic, Open Access Explained! narrated by open access advocates Nick Shockey, Director of Student Advocacy at SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and Jonathan Eisen, Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Ecology at University of California, Davis on the PHD Comics website.

The piece focuses on open access to publically-funded scientific research. I wished for more of a nod to Humanities scholarship and the unique challenges of our disciplines relating to open access. But the explanation still translates very well. For example, this excerpt—I believe it is Jonathan Eisen speaking—could just as easily be applied to Humanities scholarship:

I think the main impediment [to open access] is the slow movement of scientific cultural practices. Scientists, despite being great explorers in terms of knowledge, are sort-of very conservative in changing their practices. Lots of the [scientific] community says: “O yeah, I support openness…but I want a Nature paper [that is, I only want to publish my research in a high-profile journal].” That reliance on impact-factor and the name of the journal [prestige] does allow some journals to not respond to the community pressure toward openness…

[We need to experiment with other models.] I view it much more as scientists and scientific publishers are slow to change. Some of them are going to be left in the dirt because openness is clearly the future. The creative ones are going to survive.

“Snippet view” in Google Books is not open access

Kevin Smith’s Scholarly Communications @ Duke blog is my go-to site for unpacking the meaning of recent court decisions relating to copyright and fair use and their implications for academic communities, especially libraries. His post on Judge Harold Baer, Jr.’s October 10, 2012 ruling in favor of HathiTrust in The Authors Guild v. HathiTrust copyright infringement lawsuit is an excellent and encouraging read.

Discussion on a listserv I frequent following the HathiTrust ruling included this comment from one participant:

I read this story last night and an argument can be made for either side, but it reminded me of one of my pet peeves in this area. I find this whole thing of putting whole books (minus pieces here and there) at Google Books or other places really problematic. I can readily understand journal articles being open-access but not books. I don’t know what the financial realities are for a big publisher like Macmillan, but the publishers whose books I mostly buy, and which publish projects that I have been involved in, like dictionary articles or book chapters, such as Zondervan, Baker, Eerdmans, InterVarsity Press, etc., are not, based upon what I’ve read, exactly rolling in money from huge revenues. Here’s one example. I can go to Google Books and find John Nolland’s New International Greek Testament Commentary on Matthew. There are bits omitted but there is enough there that if a student asks me where to find a good commentary on Matthew I can point the student to this work. He/she doesn’t need to buy it. A library doesn’t need to buy it. The student can read the lion’s share of the book without it costing him/her anything. This means that groups that put (mostly) full-text books on the web are essentially contributing to the potential bankruptcy of various publishers, and that would serve no one.

More than the HathiTrust case, the commenter may be thinking about the other lawsuit brought by The Authors Guild in 2005 (and still unresolved) against Google over the later’s alleged infringement through its massive book digitization project, which includes scanning of books still in copyright. In any event, the commenter contends that “putting whole books (minus pieces here and there) at Google Books or other places” is harmful to publishers because “there is enough [of the full text provided in the preview]” that a library or student doesn’t really need to buy the book.

The commenter is referring to “limited previews” of books still in copyright in Google Books. According to Goggle’s documentation (PDF), a “limited preview” can show “from 20 percent to 100 percent” of the full text content. However, it is the copyright holder (author or publisher) that grants permission to Google as to the the amount of text that is displayed. This is not something Google is doing of its own accord. The copyright holder may only grant permission for Google to display “snippets”— “two or three sentences surrounding the search term,” or it may not allow any preview at all.

In the example referred to by the commenter, John Nolland’s The Gospel of Matthew from The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005), it is true that a significant percentage of the book’s 1,500 or so pages is included in the preview. However, the preview page also includes these words: “Pages displayed by permission of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.” In addition, there is a very prominently displayed red button with the words: “Buy Ebook – $68.” Responding to this commenter, Kevin Smith correctly assesses that publisher motivation in allowing this preview is calculated to actually encourage sales:

Publishers make such agreements because they believe that Google Books will drive traffic to purchase the book. The link to buy Nolland’s book is prominent on the page. So the publishers obviously do not believe, or do not universally believe, that allowing access of a substantial number of pages on Google Books will lead to their bankruptcy.

The basis for the commenter’s concern appears to be related to the fact that the Google Books limited preview is providing useful information—and in the case of John Nolland’s book, a significant amount of useful information—for free. “[T]here is enough there that if a student asks me where to find a good commentary on Matthew I can point the student to [Nolland's work on Google Books]. He/she doesn’t need to buy it.”

The commenter is overstating the case, though I confess that I have on more than one occasion gleaned useful information for research from a preview in Google Books instead of buying the book (or working with my library to secure a copy). But this, as we have discussed, is essentially beside the point. The purpose of the preview is to drive sales not provide access to content. It is a marketing decision, and the copyright holder can amend preview terms with Google at any time. The above documentation from Google makes this point explicitly:

Think of [Google Book Search] as a free worldwide sales and marketing program that includes your books in Google search results. Your participation in the program makes it possible for anyone searching for information on Google to discover and buy your books – even when they have no previous information to guide them. …

Prospective customers can browse sample pages as a preview, just as they can page through a book in a bookstore. If they like what they see, they can follow the purchasing links to buy the book – either directly from the publisher site or though popular online retailers.

A free preview is not open access

What I especially wanted to focus on is this statement the commenter made a few sentences earlier: “I can readily understand journal articles being open-access but not books” (emphasis added). I won’t here engage in the commenter’s suggestion that academic books should not be open access. I disagree, though I certainly understand there are many challenges. More important to me here is to push back against the notion that the availability of free content in any form (e.g., from Google Books) makes that content open access.

In attacking this notion I realize that I am attacking the keen and frugal sensibility of librarians in seeing the availability of free content from any credible source as a good thing. I also realize that I am running contrary to a proposal put forward by open access advocate John Willinsky in his book The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship (MIT Press, 2006; available as an open access download here). In the book Willinsky identifies “ten flavors” of open access (he is focusing on academic journal articles). Among the “flavors” is what he calls partial open access, which is based on an economic model where “open access is provided to a small selection of articles in each issue—serving as a marketing tool—whereas access to the rest of the issue requires subscription” (Table A.1, p. 212).

This would appear to be exactly what we are seeing in Google Books: a limited preview—serving as a marketing tool—whereas access to the rest of the book requires that it be purchased. So why am I unwilling to recognize this as a viable form (flavor) of open access?

I do not know what Willinsky’s current view regarding “partial open access” might be. But I read the inclusion of it in his 2006 book as a concession to what he called “opening access” to knowledge—by which he means “increasing access and improving access to the journal literature, largely through the use of the Internet. It is about ways of making a greater part of this literature accessible to more people.” (p. 27, emphasis his). From this perspective, a free preview in Google Books or free access to an article or two on a toll journal’s website does technically increase access—at least as long as it is available. And this is really my overriding point. Because the preview or article is intended as a marketing tool to sell access to content, the commitment to openness is suspect. I would insist this “flavor” doesn’t really improve access because that access might be pulled tomorrow.

Speaking of flavors, the Google Books documentation puts it like this: “[Through the limited preview or snippet view] people get a taste of your book—but only a taste” (emphasis added). The list commenter felt Google Books, or rather, Wm. B. Eerdmans was giving away too much of John Nolland’s commentary. Though it isn’t actually the whole book, even the amount of content currently available in the preview might change if the publisher suddenly concurred with the commenter’s assessment. This is not open access because the access is limited and because the access is unreliable. I cannot imagine any library actually deciding it didn’t need to buy this book (in print or e-book format) because it felt it could just link to the free limited preview on Google Books.

As I write this post, and throughout the month of October, SAGE Publications is providing free access to all its online content. This is more than a taste for sure, and I know some scholars who might be apt to binge on this buffet! (I’m pretty sure, however, that “all” doesn’t mean the wholesale downloading of book essays or journal articles from SAGE’s site.) I do not dispute that this is a generous offer from a commercial publishing business model perspective. However, it is a limited offer specifically designed to sell reliable and continuing access to SAGE’s content. Come November 1 the buffet goes back behind the paywall.

I recognize the legitimacy of other “flavors,” or economic models designed to support open access as an intended goal (e.g, delayed access, subsidized, value-added formats, etc.). Open access is not about giving away too little or too much where behind that snippet, preview, or limited time “all you can eat” is an intention to sell information, useful or otherwise. Associating such activities with open access undermines the concept, which is committed to facilitating the free unimpeded, unlimited, and reliable flow of information for the cause of knowledge.