Basic question about Plan S, OSI, and universal OA

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Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 11:32:03 AM12/17/18
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As our conversation about Plan S, the future of OA, and OSI’s function in the scholcomm environment unfolds, I find myself repeatedly wondering the same thing:

 

The future of scholcomm will ultimately end up being one of two things: either 100% OA or something less than 100% OA. Does OSI take a position on which of those is the more desirable outcome? If so, which outcome is the one toward which OSI is working?

 

Some of us have expressed quite clearly a preference for 100% OA (however defined), while others seem to anticipate and accept an outcome in which the scholcomm environment continues to hold a place for non-OA models. It seems to me that where one stands on this question is going to have a big impact on how one regards initiatives like Plan S.

 

(Please note that this is not a question about how long it will take to become 100% OA, assuming that’s what we want. The question is what we are hoping will ultimately happen, not whether it will take a long time to get there.)

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

Joyce Ogburn

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Dec 17, 2018, 11:40:57 AM12/17/18
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A couple of comments but they may not answer your question. 

We have developed a spectrum, which acknowledges that not everything related to scholarly endeavors will be open for one reason or another. What things is a key part of the question. 

Time is an important element here. I assume we are talking about going forward, not governing the past. We can't possibly open up everything from the past, but we might set some goals for what would be productive to have more open (avoiding the definition here). 

Joyce
 
Joyce L. Ogburn
Professor, Digital Strategies and Partnerships Librarian
Appalachian State University
218 College Street
Boone NC 28608-2026
@libjoyce

Lifelong learning requires lifelong access 


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Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 11:44:53 AM12/17/18
to Joyce Ogburn, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Thanks, Joyce. To be clear, I do recognize both that we’ve defined a spectrum of openness, and that a 100% OA future probably can’t be 100% retrospective.

 

So let me rephrase my question a little bit:

 

In the future, one of two things will be true: either 100% of scholarship will be promulgated under a fully-OA model, or something less than 100% of scholarship will be promulgated that way. Does OSI take a position on which of these scenarios is the desired one?

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

Michael Eisen

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Dec 17, 2018, 11:49:45 AM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, Joyce Ogburn, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Are you asking what is the goal? Or what people expect? Because if the goal is anything less than 100% what’s the point? Or are you asking if people ar realists and do they recognize that 90% is better than 30%?
Michael Eisen, Ph.D.
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development
Department of Molecular and Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 11:52:28 AM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Hi Rick,

 

My vote is neither. Our group has evolved on this over time---go back to your original invitation to join OSI and compare it to what we’re talking about now. We’ve discovered that open is about more than just OA, and where we go once we get to open is of critical---and largely neglected---importance.

 

I’m attaching my slides from SciELO (again, sorry, but may some folks didn’t see this the first time thru). Take a look at the section titled “the future.” That’s the way I see our road ahead---working together for a more open world, knocking down key roadblocks as we move along, building a record of success, and opening up all pathways to open so we can really invigorate this space and realize its full potential.

 

That, to me, should be our focus----not nickel and diming each other over whether CC-BY is pure, but focusing together on the big picture and the huge potential of open.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

OSI-logo-email-sm2

 

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 8:32 AM
To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>

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Finding common ground-final2.pdf

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 11:55:55 AM12/17/18
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My use of the word “desirable” was intended to convey the concept of a goal rather than just a prediction.

 

As for what the point is if the goal is anything other than 100%: the point for some may be a significant increase in the amount of OA content, while preserving the possibility of publication under other models, including paid access. Not everyone in the scholcomm environment (even outside of the publisher community) agrees that the future landscape must be OA-only.

 

For example, even as noted an OA advocate as Robert Darnton has publicly expressed support for the idea of “non-commercial journals whose sole purpose is to disseminate knowledge” charging “reasonable prices” (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/05/22/world-digital-library-coming-true/).  

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

Michael Eisen

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Dec 17, 2018, 11:58:58 AM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, Joyce Ogburn, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Well perhaps the name OSI should be changed to POSI.

Roy, Michael D.

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:00:15 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
If we are going to ask ourselves some foundational questions about basic assumptions and goals, one of the key assumptions that I suspect we do not have agreement on is the current health of the system of scholarly communication. It would be fascinating to poll the membership/participants as to whether or not they agree with a statement like "The current state of the system of scholarly communication is broken." In my interactions with OSI, I run into some who share my belief that the system is broken, and others who think that that is an over-statement. That in turn speaks to the question of urgency. 

My read on Plan S, independent of the details of implementation, is that it is a sign of a market failure. Funding agencies are declaring the current system to be fundamentally broken, and using the power of the purse to intervene. 

Mike



Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College

mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy
skype:  roymichaeldonald



On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:52 AM Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Hi Rick,

 

My vote is neither. Our group has evolved on this over time---go back to your original invitation to join OSI and compare it to what we’re talking about now. We’ve discovered that open is about more than just OA, and where we go once we get to open is of critical---and largely neglected---importance.

 

I’m attaching my slides from SciELO (again, sorry, but may some folks didn’t see this the first time thru). Take a look at the section titled “the future.” That’s the way I see our road ahead---working together for a more open world, knocking down key roadblocks as we move along, building a record of success, and opening up all pathways to open so we can really invigorate this space and realize its full potential.

 

That, to me, should be our focus----not nickel and diming each other over whether CC-BY is pure, but focusing together on the big picture and the huge potential of open.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

OSI-logo-email-sm2

 

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rick Anderson

Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 8:32 AM
To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>

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Joyce Ogburn

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:05:16 PM12/17/18
to Michael B. Eisen, Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
You beat me to it! Joyce

Joyce L. Ogburn
Professor, Digital Strategies and Partnerships Librarian
Appalachian State University
218 College Street
Boone NC 28608-2026
@libjoyce

Lifelong learning requires lifelong access 

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:07:28 PM12/17/18
to Roy, Michael D., Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

I think you hit the nail on the head Mike

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:08:01 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

So if OSI’s official position is that we take no position on whether the “100% OA” or the “less-than-100% OA” scenario is preferable, then we need to make sure that’s clear to everyone as we discuss issues and initiatives like Plan S (among others). It means that arguments predicated on either “we should do X because it’s more likely to lead to 100% OA” or “we should do Y because it’s more likely to preserve a more mixed and diverse environment of access models” are probably not going to be productive in the context of OSI discussions, since OSI isn’t actually committed to either “100% OA” or “less-than-100% OA.”

 

Does that sound right?

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

Ivy Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:08:57 PM12/17/18
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I think it’s been determined that OSI can’t take a position on anything as presently constituted given its diverse participation (other than the position that creating a field on which diverse perspectives can engage can be fruitful over time, which I presume is OSI’s raison d’etre).  

Or Rick, are you asking for the views of individual OSI participants?

Ivy
Sent from my tiny thumb thingy - please excuse brevity and typos

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:13:08 PM12/17/18
to Ivy Anderson, mbe...@gmail.com, Joyce Ogburn, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Nope, I was asking what I asked: does OSI, as a group, take a position on the question I posed? (Recognizing, of course, that there’s a diversity of views among the individual participants.)

 

One reason I felt it was important to ask that question is because it looks to me like so many of the arguments being made in our recent conversations about Plan S seem to be based on the assumption that OSI does have a position on that issue. So I wanted to see whether there’s been a shift of some kind in our collective position as an organization.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

Joyce Ogburn

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:21:11 PM12/17/18
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The discussion surfaces again who can speak for OSI and who we are. We have no official body, elected or otherwise, that can make these final determinations based on principles, established plans or goals, or other criteria.  This is in part why the discussions are often lengthy and unresolved. 

Joyce

Joyce L. Ogburn
Professor, Digital Strategies and Partnerships Librarian
Appalachian State University
218 College Street
Boone NC 28608-2026
@libjoyce

Lifelong learning requires lifelong access 

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:25:54 PM12/17/18
to Joyce Ogburn, Ivy Anderson, mbe...@gmail.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Right, the question “Who speaks for OSI?” is important too. It’s separate from “What would that person say if asked OSI’s position on the 100% question?”, but it’s still important.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

Joyce Ogburn

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:28:55 PM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, Ivy Anderson, mbe...@gmail.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative
What I am saying is that there is no one to make that determination in a group this diverse with so many different positions and ideas. No one person or group has been charged to sum up all of the discussions and declare the answer to your question. Joyce

Joyce L. Ogburn
Professor, Digital Strategies and Partnerships Librarian
Appalachian State University
218 College Street
Boone NC 28608-2026
@libjoyce

Lifelong learning requires lifelong access 

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:33:33 PM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

No---and sorry if I’m being thick-headed here Rick. OSI is committed to helping build a more open world, and now. And realistically---not someone’s unilateral vision of open but a global, collaborative, sustainable model that will actually work. Will open end up being 100 percent with this model? Who knows. Probably not. Will it be 90 percent? Okay---that sounds better. But the point is to aim for high function, not high numbers. Where are we going with all this open after all? If we can align incentives, as Vint Cerf advised us at OSI2017, then we can build a self-sustaining, self-regulating, self-empowering system where researchers are racing to join open and using open because doing so is in their best interests. If we do anything less and create frameworks that rely on mandates and penalties and solutions that people don’t like and try to wiggle out of using, then we are forever stuck at 80 percent-ish compliance with 20% exceptions and 100% eye-rolling about why things need to be this way. There is no energy in the system, no alignment, and no future apart from simply creating vast troves of nominally usable material.

 

Does this make sense? I know I tend to ramble….

image002.jpg
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Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:33:43 PM12/17/18
to Joyce Ogburn, Ivy Anderson, mbe...@gmail.com, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Right, which would suggest that the answer may (still) be “As a group, we don’t take a position on whether the 100% scenario or the less-than-100% scenario is preferable.” Which I think would be something worth surfacing in the context of our current conversations.

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:36:24 PM12/17/18
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We do Joyce. The summit group is empowered to do this, and set a clear agenda for 2018. The governance plan from OSI2017 is being rewritten at the moment by this group and hopefully (maybe in January) will be circulated again for comment/revision.

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:44:04 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Hi, Glenn –

 

You’re not being thick-headed at all, but your response does veer away from my question (“What do we see as the more desirable of the two possible future scenarios?”) towards a different one (“Which of those two scenarios do we think is the most likely or practical?”).

 

Both of those questions are important, but they’re not the same.

 

Of course, the answer to my question may be “Neither. OSI doesn’t take a position on whether the future of scholcomm ought to be 100% OA or less than 100% OA.” Whatever our answer is, it has important implications for the discussions we’re having right now about policies and mandates. For example, if we don’t take a position as to the desirability of a 100% OA future, then the argument “We must support Plan S because it helps move us towards a complete transition to OA” becomes less powerful in the context of OSI. (And the reverse would be true as well, obviously – if we do take a position on that question, then that argument becomes more or less powerful depending on the position.)

Joyce Ogburn

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Dec 17, 2018, 12:44:05 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, Ivy Anderson, Michael B. Eisen, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Well, we haven't been asked to settle the questions on the Plan S briefing. Is this something we should be doing?

Joyce

Joyce L. Ogburn
Professor, Digital Strategies and Partnerships Librarian
Appalachian State University
218 College Street
Boone NC 28608-2026
@libjoyce

Lifelong learning requires lifelong access 

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 1:02:59 PM12/17/18
to Joyce Ogburn, Rick Anderson, Ivy Anderson, Michael B. Eisen, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Yes. We don’t have a summit meeting scheduled for December due to the fact that there’s a small holiday coming up and our volunteer community deserves a day or two of rest (but no more 😊). The next opportunity to meet will be January, which will still be timely; I may try to organize something else before then, however, but still into early January.

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Joyce Ogburn

Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 9:44 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 1:25:27 PM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Hi Rick,

 

You’re asking a good question that really may be fundamental (along with Mike’s earlier comment about perceptions of system collapse and the need for government intervention).

 

I’ll take one more swipe at this and then shut up because I want people to read my next email (coming in a few minutes). As a group, I don’t think OSI should take a position on whether the 100% scenario or the less-than-100% scenario is preferable, because I think this question itself is false. Plan S will NOT result in 100% open---no plan will. It will result in a push toward open, but this push will get pushback and the net will at best be something akin to PubMed Central, which (I think) has around 85%-ish compliance (and this is with copyright and embargos allowed). To posit that Plan S will result in 100% open just because it says it will achieve 100% open is false---it’s going to aim for this, but it will achieve less.

 

So, I think my dissent here is that we should be realistic about this challenge and aim for a solutions that are going to achieve MUCH more open than now, that bring more support on board (including the US)---and remember, this means more open---that lower the risk of unintended consequences, and that act to catalyze and synergize the marketplace rather than intervene in it (although some amount of regulation may be helpful here).

 

Clear as mud part 2?

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image006.jpg

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 1:32:56 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Thanks, Glenn. Just to clarify one point:

 

The question I’ve posed isn’t false: logically, the two future scenarios I’ve outlined are the only two possible. Either we’ll eventually end up with a 100% OA future, or we’ll eventually end up with a less-than-100% OA future.

 

Of course you’re right that Plan S itself will not determine which of those futures arrives. However, if OSI is not going to take a position on which of those futures is the most desirable, then that does have implications for the ways we discuss Plan S in the context of OSI. Anyone should feel free to discuss Plan S in any way that seems right to them, obviously – but if OSI is explicitly not taking a position in favor of a 100%-OA future, then (for example) arguments in favor of Plan S based on its capacity to move us towards that future will carry less weight in the context of OSI discussions.

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 1:51:29 PM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Got it (I think). Yes, we’re totally in favor of a 100% open future---we’re not aiming for a “better than now” future because that’s going to happen anyway, so why bother? I don’t mean to be flip with this analogy, but I guess it’s like saying I plan to get rich by pulling the handle on a $1,000 slot machine versus working hard on a solid and achievable plan. The first plan might work but it really isn’t a plan, just a desperate gamble. No hate mail please---just making an illustration.

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Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 1:54:07 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

OK, great. Thanks very much for clarifying that, Glenn.

JJE Esposito

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Dec 17, 2018, 2:17:41 PM12/17/18
to Mike Roy, Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
There is no "system" of scholarly communications. What there is is a diverse, multifaceted environment that is dynamic. It is delivering on a level that boggles the mind. We live in a period of intellectual genius, and publishing--toll, open, sponsored-- plays a huge role in it. Years from now we will look back and say, with Wordsworth, that bliss it was that dawn to be alive.

Joe Esposito
Joseph J. Esposito
espo...@gmail.com
@josephjesposito
+Joseph Esposito

David Wojick

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Dec 17, 2018, 3:11:20 PM12/17/18
to JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Systems need not be centrally controlled, Joe. Hog farming is a system, so is commuting to work. A system is parts acting together to achieve a goal. Consider the monetary system. Scholarly communication is indeed a system, albeit a decentralized one.

However, claiming that a system that has been working for hundreds of years is suddenly "broken" is something of a hyperbolic advocacy device. It is one thing to want progress, but quite another to demonize reality as "broken." As Joe says, the system of scholarly communication is doing just fine. That is actually the problem when it comes to the fundamental change that some people want. Nothing is actually broken so there is little pressure to change. There are millions of researchers and tens of thousands of journals happily cranking away.

David
Inside Plan S


At 02:17 PM 12/17/2018, JJE Esposito wrote:
There is no "system" of scholarly communications. What there is is a diverse, multifaceted environment that is dynamic. It is delivering on a level that boggles the mind. We live in a period of intellectual genius, and publishing--toll, open, sponsored-- plays a huge role in it. Years from now we will look back and say, with Wordsworth, that bliss it was that dawn to be alive.

Joe Esposito

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 12:00 PM Roy, Michael D. <md...@middlebury.edu> wrote:
If we are going to ask ourselves some foundational questions about basic assumptions and goals, one of the key assumptions that I suspect we do not have agreement on is the current health of the system of scholarly communication. It would be fascinating to poll the membership/participants as to whether or not they agree with a statement like "The current state of the system of scholarly communication is broken." In my interactions with OSI, I run into some who share my belief that the system is broken, and others who think that that is an over-statement. That in turn speaks to the question of urgency.Â

My read on Plan S, independent of the details of implementation, is that it is a sign of a market failure. Funding agencies are declaring the current system to be fundamentally broken, and using the power of the purse to intervene.Â

Mike



Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College

mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy
skype: Â roymichaeldonald
zoom:Â https://middlebury.zoom.us/my/mikeroyÂ

free/busy calendar https://beta.doodle.com/mikeroy


On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:52 AM Glenn Hampson < gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Hi Rick,

Â

My vote is neither. Our group has evolved on this over time---go back to your original invitation to join OSI and compare it to what we’re talking about now. We’ve discovered that open is about more than just OA, and where we go once we get to open is of critical---and largely neglected---importance.

Â

I’m attaching my slides from SciELO (again, sorry, but may some folks didn’t see this the first time thru). Take a look at the section titled “the future.†That’s the way I see our road ahead---working together for a more open world, knocking down key roadblocks as we move along, building a record of success, and opening up all pathways to open so we can really invigorate this space and realize its full potential.

Â

That, to me, should be our focus----not nickel and diming each other over whether CC-BY is pure, but focusing together on the big picture and the huge potential of open.

Â

Best,

Â

Glenn

Â

Â

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

Â

Â

Â

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com < osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 8:32 AM
To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' < osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Basic question about Plan S, OSI, and universal OA

Â

As our conversation about Plan S, the future of OA, and OSI’s function in the scholcomm environment unfolds, I find myself repeatedly wondering the same thing:

Â

The future of scholcomm will ultimately end up being one of two things: either 100% OA or something less than 100% OA. Does OSI take a position on which of those is the more desirable outcome? If so, which outcome is the one toward which OSI is working?

Â

Some of us have expressed quite clearly a preference for 100% OA (however defined), while others seem to anticipate and accept an outcome in which the scholcomm environment continues to hold a place for non-OA models. It seems to me that where one stands on this question is going to have a big impact on how one regards initiatives like Plan S.

Â

(Please note that this is not a question about how long it will take to become 100% OA, assuming that’s what we want. The question is what we are hoping will ultimately happen, not whether it will take a long time to get there.)

Â

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

T Scott Plutchak

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Dec 17, 2018, 3:30:47 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Is this the “official” OSI vision or is this Glenn’s view of what OSI should be?  There are plenty of declarative statements here that I suspect would be debated by people on this list.  So who is the “we” of which you speak?

Scott

On Dec 17, 2018, at 11:33 AM, Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

No---and sorry if I’m being thick-headed here Rick. OSI is committed to helping build a more open world, and now. And realistically---not someone’s unilateral vision of open but a global, collaborative, sustainable model that will actually work. Will open end up being 100 percent with this model? Who knows. Probably not. Will it be 90 percent? Okay---that sounds better. But the point is to aim for high function, not high numbers. Where are we going with all this open after all? If we can align incentives, as Vint Cerf advised us at OSI2017, then we can build a self-sustaining, self-regulating, self-empowering system where researchers are racing to join open and using open because doing so is in their best interests. If we do anything less and create frameworks that rely on mandates and penalties and solutions that people don’t like and try to wiggle out of using, then we are forever stuck at 80 percent-ish compliance with 20% exceptions and 100% eye-rolling about why things need to be this way. There is no energy in the system, no alignment, and no future apart from simply creating vast troves of nominally usable material.
 
Does this make sense? I know I tend to ramble….
 
Best,
 
Glenn
 
 
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

JJE Esposito

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Dec 17, 2018, 3:39:31 PM12/17/18
to David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative
No one is talking about "flipping" hog farming. While it's true that systems need not be centrally controlled, the advocates of Plan S take a more inflexible view. 

Joe Esposito

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 4:08:28 PM12/17/18
to David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

As long as we’re philosophizing here…

 

So, what’s been postulated here so far is that there are three fundamental perception differences that we need to understand and bridge:

 

  1. The issue of urgency (i.e., is the system broken and what does this mean for different people---escalating library costs, undiscoverable work, poor transparency, etc.)
  2. The issue of goals (are we aiming for completely open research processes or just OA, totally open now or by 15 years, etc.), and
  3. Ownership (who has the right to fix this for everyone, on what authority, who decides, what interests get considered, etc.)

 

Does this sound right? To these three, I would suggest adding a third: Morality. We debated the moral aspects of open at OSI2016. To what degree is open a moral issue (without getting sidetracked too deeply into the double-dipping question because that can be argued both ways)? This is more like the description of open that Abel likes to use---that open science is a pubic good (not in the economic sense, but in the cultural sense).

 

Is there more?

 

How does Plan S stack up? Where do we align and where does the conversation (globally) need more clarity and understanding? This is kind of a deeper look at the alignment question Rick suggested a few days ago (alignment on principles, policies, etc.).

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

OSI-logo-email-sm2

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Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 17, 2018, 4:11:41 PM12/17/18
to T Scott Plutchak, Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

It’s the royal we Scott---just me and my ego. Naturally, we (the OSI we) need to discuss this as a group before breaking out the parchment paper.

 

From: T Scott Plutchak <splu...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 12:31 PM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 4:23:55 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Those look like pretty good formulations to me, Glenn.

 

With regard to the “morality” parameter, I’d add maybe another layer: it’s not just about the morality of open access itself, but also about the moral use of power. This connects back to item 3, which you’ve framed as “Ownership” but could maybe also be framed as “Control.” In other words, let’s assume that all of us agree that open access is more morally defensible than paid access. That doesn’t mean we’re all going to agree that every proposed OA program is therefore more moral than a paid-access program – because there are other moral parameters at play as well.

 

In the context of Plan S, one of the parameters that has generated really intense conversation recently is the rights of authors. Many of us believe that letting authors maintain some level of control over their work is also, to a very real degree, a moral issue. And that means that our situation is a classic one in which we’re arguing about how best to balance the rights of individuals with the obligations of individuals to serve the best interests of the community.

 

These situations always pose (at least) two classes of problem:

 

1. Do we agree as to what “the best interests of the community” are?

2. Assuming we do, then do we agree about the degree to which individuals ought to be free to make decisions that don’t serve the best interests of the community?

 

We deal with these problems in society all the time. Speed limits, compulsory education, tax laws, etc. all reflect decisions that we’ve made as a society about where the right balance is between freedom and coercion, and between the rights of individuals and the needs of society. Plan S is generating controversy not only because there are mixed opinions about whether Plan S serves the best interests of the community, but also because there are mixed opinions about how to balance the rights of individuals with community obligations.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>
Date: Monday, December 17, 2018 at 2:08 PM
To: David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>, 'JJE Esposito' <jjoh...@gmail.com>
Cc: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: Basic question about Plan S, OSI, and universal OA

 

As long as we’re philosophizing here…

 

So, what’s been postulated here so far is that there are three fundamental perception differences that we need to understand and bridge:

 

1.       The issue of urgency (i.e., is the system broken and what does this mean for different people---escalating library costs, undiscoverable work, poor transparency, etc.)

2.       The issue of goals (are we aiming for completely open research processes or just OA, totally open now or by 15 years, etc.), and

3.       Ownership (who has the right to fix this for everyone, on what authority, who decides, what interests get considered, etc.)

David Wojick

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Dec 17, 2018, 4:48:47 PM12/17/18
to JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative
I understand, Joe. The Plan S approach is unrealistic for just this reason, but misdescribing it is not helpful. Please take the time to be precise. Unlike many others. 

Actually there are people who want to restructure hog farming, in a variety of interesting ways, including abolition, but I digress. 

David

Mel DeSart

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Dec 17, 2018, 5:00:21 PM12/17/18
to Roy, Michael D., Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

I think you’d have to be very careful with the language of your questions on this front to get any useful results.  Example:

 

I’ve been an academic librarian for over 30 years.  Do I think the system is broken?  No.  Authors do research and write papers.  Those papers get peer reviewed and some percentage of them get published.  Some subset of people are able to access and read those papers.  So at least _to a degree_ the existing system works.

 

But I easily see where some players within that system, myself among them, would at the very least describe the current system as reasonably dysfunctional in certain respects.

 

So WHAT you ask on this front will be all-important to getting useful results.  It would also be good to be able to sort the results by “industry” or location of respondent, so that one can see how the responses from librarians compare to those of publishers or how responses from the global south compare to responses from survey participants in other areas.

 

Whether you consider a system as complex as that of scholarly communication to be “broken”, or to what degree it is broken, will almost assuredly depend on your points of intersection with that system.

 

Mel

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mel DeSart     (he/him/his)

Head, Engineering Library

University of Washington                   des...@u.washington.edu

Box 352170                                         voice: 206-685-8369

Seattle, WA   98195-2170                   fax: 206-543-3305

 

“It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is going

on -- a truism that I often find damnably annoying."

 

                              Robert A. Heinlein, from his novel "Friday"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com [mailto:osi20...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Roy, Michael D.


Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 9:00 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>

Cc: Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>; The Open Scholarship Initiative <osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Basic question about Plan S, OSI, and universal OA

If we are going to ask ourselves some foundational questions about basic assumptions and goals, one of the key assumptions that I suspect we do not have agreement on is the current health of the system of scholarly communication. It would be fascinating to poll the membership/participants as to whether or not they agree with a statement like "The current state of the system of scholarly communication is broken." In my interactions with OSI, I run into some who share my belief that the system is broken, and others who think that that is an over-statement. That in turn speaks to the question of urgency. 

 

My read on Plan S, independent of the details of implementation, is that it is a sign of a market failure. Funding agencies are declaring the current system to be fundamentally broken, and using the power of the purse to intervene. 

 

Mike

 

 

 

Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College

mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy

skype:  roymichaeldonald

 

 

 

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:52 AM Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Hi Rick,

 

My vote is neither. Our group has evolved on this over time---go back to your original invitation to join OSI and compare it to what we’re talking about now. We’ve discovered that open is about more than just OA, and where we go once we get to open is of critical---and largely neglected---importance.

 

I’m attaching my slides from SciELO (again, sorry, but may some folks didn’t see this the first time thru). Take a look at the section titled “the future.” That’s the way I see our road ahead---working together for a more open world, knocking down key roadblocks as we move along, building a record of success, and opening up all pathways to open so we can really invigorate this space and realize its full potential.

 

That, to me, should be our focus----not nickel and diming each other over whether CC-BY is pure, but focusing together on the big picture and the huge potential of open.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

 

 

 

Virginia Barbour, Director, AOASG

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Dec 17, 2018, 5:50:32 PM12/17/18
to Mel DeSart, Roy, Michael D., Glenn Hampson, Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Hi all - My take on this is we are not aiming for OA for its own sake - it's a means to an end and yes we need 100% OA

This is what I use as an opener when I'm talking about OA etc here - which encompasses FAIR etc    -  though its a bit of a mouthful  it resonates with audiences here

"A fully interconnected, purposefully designed, equitable, global scholarly ecosystem supported by a wide variety of open publishing models, underpinned by sophisticated linking of well-curated, interoperable research articles and other outputs, including data and software." 

Ginny

Dr Virginia Barbour
Director, Australasian Open Access Strategy Group - AOASG
Brisbane, Australia
ORCID : 0000-0002-2358-2440


AOASG: Making Australasian research Open and FAIR
Keep up to date with our newsletter


Glenn Hampson

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Dec 17, 2018, 8:46:47 PM12/17/18
to e...@aoasg.org.au, Mel DeSart, Roy, Michael D., Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

I love this Ginny. But I thought you supported Plan S as written? If you don’t, how would you go about saying that you (and/or AOASG) support the plan but also support taking a closer look at some elements of it?

 

Thanks for weighing in---I’ve been waiting years for this moment!! 😊

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

OSI-logo-email-sm2

image002.jpg

Virginia Barbour, Director, AOASG

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Dec 17, 2018, 9:07:26 PM12/17/18
to Glenn Hampson, e...@aoasg.org.au, Mel DeSart, Roy, Michael D., Rick Anderson, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Plan S addresses just part of this equation. And we are drafting a response from this region (Au and NZ) to Plan S, which I'll share when its done
Ginny


Roy, Michael D.

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Dec 17, 2018, 9:52:51 PM12/17/18
to David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative
David and Joe, I would agree that the system is doing just fine, for certain people. Those would include commercial publishers enjoying profits that rival Apple, scholarly societies who subsidize their operations with their journals, faculty whose reputations are made through being published in a-list journals, tenure committees who rely on journal impact factor as a proxy for quality of their faculty, and consultants who make a living advising all of the above. Those who would say it is broken include librarians who can no longer afford to license what their communities need, faculty and students served by these librarians, indendent scholars and community members with no institutional affiliations, start up journals struggling to break into the prestige economy. Which is to say that it all depends on your subject position. And this is why the whole Habermasian public sphere fantasy that we can all just work this out through dialogue seems hopeless at best, and in my cynical moments, the strategy of those trying to maintain the status quo with modest tweaks around the edges. There are winners and losers in this system and another view of Plan S is that it is an effort to change the rules to level the playing field to allow for a more egalitarian system. The current set of winners never like that, be they publishers or hog farmers.

Mike





On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 3:11 PM David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us> wrote:
Systems need not be centrally controlled, Joe. Hog farming is a system, so is commuting to work. A system is parts acting together to achieve a goal. Consider the monetary system. Scholarly communication is indeed a system, albeit a decentralized one.

However, claiming that a system that has been working for hundreds of years is suddenly "broken" is something of a hyperbolic advocacy device. It is one thing to want progress, but quite another to demonize reality as "broken." As Joe says, the system of scholarly communication is doing just fine. That is actually the problem when it comes to the fundamental change that some people want. Nothing is actually broken so there is little pressure to change. There are millions of researchers and tens of thousands of journals happily cranking away.

David
Inside Plan S

At 02:17 PM 12/17/2018, JJE Esposito wrote:
There is no "system" of scholarly communications. What there is is a diverse, multifaceted environment that is dynamic. It is delivering on a level that boggles the mind. We live in a period of intellectual genius, and publishing--toll, open, sponsored-- plays a huge role in it. Years from now we will look back and say, with Wordsworth, that bliss it was that dawn to be alive.

Joe Esposito

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 12:00 PM Roy, Michael D. <md...@middlebury.edu> wrote:
If we are going to ask ourselves some foundational questions about basic assumptions and goals, one of the key assumptions that I suspect we do not have agreement on is the current health of the system of scholarly communication. It would be fascinating to poll the membership/participants as to whether or not they agree with a statement like "The current state of the system of scholarly communication is broken." In my interactions with OSI, I run into some who share my belief that the system is broken, and others who think that that is an over-statement. That in turn speaks to the question of urgency.Â

My read on Plan S, independent of the details of implementation, is that it is a sign of a market failure. Funding agencies are declaring the current system to be fundamentally broken, and using the power of the purse to intervene.Â

Mike



Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College

mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy
skype: Â roymichaeldonald
zoom:Â https://middlebury.zoom.us/my/mikeroyÂ

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:52 AM Glenn Hampson < gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Hi Rick,

Â

My vote is neither. Our group has evolved on this over time---go back to your original invitation to join OSI and compare it to what we’re talking about now. We’ve discovered that open is about more than just OA, and where we go once we get to open is of critical---and largely neglected---importance.

Â

I’m attaching my slides from SciELO (again, sorry, but may some folks didn’t see this the first time thru). Take a look at the section titled “the future.†That’s the way I see our road ahead---working together for a more open world, knocking down key roadblocks as we move along, building a record of success, and opening up all pathways to open so we can really invigorate this space and realize its full potential.

Â

That, to me, should be our focus----not nickel and diming each other over whether CC-BY is pure, but focusing together on the big picture and the huge potential of open.

Â

Best,

Â

Glenn

Â

Â

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

Â

Â

Â

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com < osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 8:32 AM
To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' < osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Basic question about Plan S, OSI, and universal OA

Â

As our conversation about Plan S, the future of OA, and OSI’s function in the scholcomm environment unfolds, I find myself repeatedly wondering the same thing:

Â

The future of scholcomm will ultimately end up being one of two things: either 100% OA or something less than 100% OA. Does OSI take a position on which of those is the more desirable outcome? If so, which outcome is the one toward which OSI is working?

Â

Some of us have expressed quite clearly a preference for 100% OA (however defined), while others seem to anticipate and accept an outcome in which the scholcomm environment continues to hold a place for non-OA models. It seems to me that where one stands on this question is going to have a big impact on how one regards initiatives like Plan S.

Â

(Please note that this is not a question about how long it will take to become 100% OA, assuming that’s what we want. The question is what we are hoping will ultimately happen, not whether it will take a long time to get there.)

Â

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

Desk: (801) 587-9989

Cell: (801) 721-1687

rick.a...@utah.edu

Â

--

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 17, 2018, 10:16:24 PM12/17/18
to Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Habermasian? What a great vocabulary word. Thanks Mike! I’ve been called Dr. Pangloss before but I like Habermasian way better 😊

 

You’re exactly right about the inequities in the system. Inefficiencies too. We can do better. That’s why we’re all here reading this email instead of watching Monday Night Football (well, actually, I’m doing both).

 

But to get from here to there, dialogue is all we have here at the moment, to be followed soon by action flowing from this dialogue (which to me anyway is incomparably better than action flowing from no dialogue, or no action at all).

 

If you read the OSI reports---where publishers, librarians, policy wonks, society officials, researchers and more sat down for days on end and talked about the future of impact factors, peer review, etc., you’ll see a tremendous amount of common ground. There are often more differences within these groups than between them, as OSI2017 participants noted. This is working, but people still persist in saying it won’t. You aren’t the first to criticize this effort for being fantasy, or for being in the pocket of special interests (didn’t we just do this yesterday?), and you probably won’t be the last, but I do grow weary of the attitude that we shouldn’t even try. Sorry. Or are you saying we should try but (a) you’re just tired of talking, which is understandable, or (b) action needs to be unilateral because anything collaborative just won’t happen---also understandable.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

OSI-logo-email-sm2

 

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Roy, Michael D.
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 6:53 PM
To: David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>

image001.jpg

Rick Anderson

unread,
Dec 17, 2018, 10:30:03 PM12/17/18
to Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Mike, how confident are you that you’re accurately representing the views held by all of these various subsets of the scholcomm community?

 

For example, on what do you base your assertion that the faculty and students served by academic librarians would agree with you that the system is broken?

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Roy, Michael D." <md...@middlebury.edu>


Date: Monday, December 17, 2018 at 7:52 PM
To: David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>

Ilona Miko

unread,
Dec 17, 2018, 10:45:41 PM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Early Careeer Researchers (ECRs), represented in part by Organizations like Future of Research , would probably take a position that it's broken.

ilona miko, phd
principal
MikoArtSciencecommunications for digital science products

Rick Anderson

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Dec 17, 2018, 10:52:37 PM12/17/18
to Ilona Miko, Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Has anyone asked them, in any kind of organized way?

 

To be clear, I’m not denying that they would respond this way. I’m just not sure we can assume they would, and I feel like there are an awful lot of big assumptions floating around about what different subsets of the scholcomm community think about things.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

Ilona Miko

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Dec 17, 2018, 10:55:59 PM12/17/18
to Rick Anderson, Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative
If none of them are on this OSI list I would be happy to ask. I know some of the leadership.

Glenn Hampson

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Dec 18, 2018, 12:14:51 AM12/18/18
to Rick Anderson, Ilona Miko, Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

I think (if I’m recalling correctly here Rick) there are a number of good researcher surveys out there already---I’ll try to dig some up tomorrow unless someone beats me to it (Anthony probably has a stack of these on his desk already; maybe our publisher colleagues on this list would be willing to share some resources they’re aware of as well). Generally (if I recall), early career researchers are more frustrated with the current system and more interested in open options because it’s harder to get published in big journals and the pressure to publish is intense---they need options. At the same time, these young researchers are also big fans of the current system because they need it get ahead (everyone says publish a blog post, etc., but the career benefits are still way bigger for publishing an article in Nature that gets media coverage). Tenured researchers tend to care less, and are less likely to rock the establishment boat because it serves them well as is, thank you---they have fewer challenges getting published, have a longer track record of publishing so they don’t need more articles to impress grant agencies, etc. And then there are wide variations by age, field, institution, region, etc. Sorry if this is incorrect---I think it’s right but will look for sources.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

OSI-logo-email-sm2

image001.jpg

Rick Anderson

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Dec 18, 2018, 12:39:10 AM12/18/18
to Glenn Hampson, Ilona Miko, Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Thanks, Glenn – it would be good to gather links to all of these studies and put them together somewhere.

 

That being said, one thing that makes me kind of skeptical is all these “becauses.” It’s one thing to demonstrate that faculty do or don’t believe the scholcomm system is functional; it’s another thing to demonstrate (as opposed to make assertions about) _why_ they hold the views they do. One refrain that I hear over and over again is “Well, of course established academics support the current system. They like it because it’s given them job security and prestige.” But how do we know that those who support the current system support it because it’s given them prestige, rather than because they genuinely believe it works reasonably well for its intended purpose? (Or for some other reason—or for a combination of reasons?)

 

I think it would be really interesting to survey faculty and researchers not only about whether and to what degree they think the current scholcomm system is either functional or broken, but also about _why_ they hold those views. I’d be interested to know whether anyone has done a study on that already. I’ll poke around and see if I can find something along those lines, but I feel like I probably would have seen it cited somewhere if it already existed...

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

Roy, Michael D.

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Dec 18, 2018, 8:54:48 AM12/18/18
to Glenn Hampson, David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Hi Glenn,
I apologize for continuing to return to this issue of the 'big tent' approach, but I believe (as I've stated earlier) that it is fundamentally flawed as an approach for making change happen in this system. That said, I think the discussions, particularly of late, on the OSI list are great for (in the words of Hume when speaking of Kant) awakening me from my dogmatic slumbers. 

I would reframe your questions to me about how change might come about. First, I don't think of the list of 'winners' that I enumerated last night are special interests. I think that they are the ones in power. The fight (and yes, it is a fight) over Open Access is about reclaiming control over a system that is now largely controlled by corporate interests. Those who have power rarely hand that power over without a fight. 

I also would not characterize efforts like Plan S as non-collaborative and unilateral. Per above, I personally think the notion of a collaborative solution where commercial interests come to an agreement with the community of scholars, researchers, students, and librarians is highly unlikely. Those in power will spend time talking (and talking and talking) to buy time, but I have yet to see any evidence that they are willing to collaborate or to give up power. I would love to be convinced otherwise. A number of people have described the challenge as one of needing to organize and to act collectively in order to reclaim control and ownership over this system. Such a movement needs to be highly collaborative and decidedly not unilateral. It is just that this probably won't include those for whom this shift is unwelcome. 

Best,

Mike

Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College

mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy
skype:  roymichaeldonald
On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 10:16 PM Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Habermasian? What a great vocabulary word. Thanks Mike! I’ve been called Dr. Pangloss before but I like Habermasian way better 😊

 

You’re exactly right about the inequities in the system. Inefficiencies too. We can do better. That’s why we’re all here reading this email instead of watching Monday Night Football (well, actually, I’m doing both).

 

But to get from here to there, dialogue is all we have here at the moment, to be followed soon by action flowing from this dialogue (which to me anyway is incomparably better than action flowing from no dialogue, or no action at all).

 

If you read the OSI reports---where publishers, librarians, policy wonks, society officials, researchers and more sat down for days on end and talked about the future of impact factors, peer review, etc., you’ll see a tremendous amount of common ground. There are often more differences within these groups than between them, as OSI2017 participants noted. This is working, but people still persist in saying it won’t. You aren’t the first to criticize this effort for being fantasy, or for being in the pocket of special interests (didn’t we just do this yesterday?), and you probably won’t be the last, but I do grow weary of the attitude that we shouldn’t even try. Sorry. Or are you saying we should try but (a) you’re just tired of talking, which is understandable, or (b) action needs to be unilateral because anything collaborative just won’t happen---also understandable.

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson

OSI-logo-email-sm2

 

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Roy, Michael D.
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 6:53 PM
To: David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us>

JJE Esposito

unread,
Dec 18, 2018, 9:08:30 AM12/18/18
to Mike Roy, David Wojick, The Open Scholarship Initiative
Mike,

We just have to agree to disagree. I find the application of the social justice metaphor to science to be inappropriate. Science is measured by its outputs. My objection to Plan S is that it will stifle innovation, which other OA programs do not. I continue to ask, Why must things be wholly one way or the other? Why not multiple ways of doing this and let them find their own constituencies and areas of operation? Why is everybody suddenly so afraid of different ideas?

Joe Esposito

David Wojick

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Dec 18, 2018, 11:20:10 AM12/18/18
to Roy, Michael D., The Open Scholarship Initiative
As an analyst I am well aware of all this, Roy. My point is painfully simple. Your desire to reform the system does not make the system broken. The point is semantic if you like, but in an important way. (My Ph.D. field is analytic philosophy which argues that precise language is important.) The system is doing the job it has always done, so nothing is brolen.

David
Inside Plan S


At 09:52 PM 12/17/2018, Roy, Michael D. wrote:
David and Joe, I would agree that the system is doing just fine, for certain people. Those would include commercial publishers enjoying profits that rival Apple, scholarly societies who subsidize their operations with their journals, faculty whose reputations are made through being published in a-list journals, tenure committees who rely on journal impact factor as a proxy for quality of their faculty, and consultants who make a living advising all of the above. Those who would say it is broken include librarians who can no longer afford to license what their communities need, faculty and students served by these librarians, indendent scholars and community members with no institutional affiliations, start up journals struggling to break into the prestige economy. Which is to say that it all depends on your subject position. And this is why the whole Habermasian public sphere fantasy that we can all just work this out through dialogue seems hopeless at best, and in my cynical moments, the strategy of those trying to maintain the status quo with modest tweaks around the edges. There are winners and losers in this system and another view of Plan S is that it is an effort to change the rules to level the playing field to allow for a more egalitarian system. The current set of winners never like that, be they publishers or hog farmers.

Mike





On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 3:11 PM David Wojick <dwo...@craigellachie.us > wrote:
Systems need not be centrally controlled, Joe. Hog farming is a system, so is commuting to work. A system is parts acting together to achieve a goal. Consider the monetary system. Scholarly communication is indeed a system, albeit a decentralized one.

However, claiming that a system that has been working for hundreds of years is suddenly "broken" is something of a hyperbolic advocacy device. It is one thing to want progress, but quite another to demonize reality as "broken." As Joe says, the system of scholarly communication is doing just fine. That is actually the problem when it comes to the fundamental change that some people want. Nothing is actually broken so there is little pressure to change. There are millions of researchers and tens of thousands of journals happily cranking away.

David
Inside Plan S

At 02:17 PM 12/17/2018, JJE Esposito wrote:
There is no "system" of scholarly communications. What there is is a diverse, multifaceted environment that is dynamic. It is delivering on a level that boggles the mind. We live in a period of intellectual genius, and publishing--toll, open, sponsored-- plays a huge role in it. Years from now we will look back and say, with Wordsworth, that bliss it was that dawn to be alive.

Joe Esposito

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 12:00 PM Roy, Michael D. <md...@middlebury.edu> wrote:
If we are going to ask ourselves some foundational questions about basic assumptions and goals, one of the key assumptions that I suspect we do not have agreement on is the current health of the system of scholarly communication. It would be fascinating to poll the membership/participants as to whether or not they agree with a statement like "The current state of the system of scholarly communication is broken." In my interactions with OSI, I run into some who share my belief that the system is broken, and others who think that that is an over-statement. That in turn speaks to the question of urgency.Â

My read on Plan S, independent of the details of implementation, is that it is a sign of a market failure. Funding agencies are declaring the current system to be fundamentally broken, and using the power of the purse to intervene.Â
Mike


Michael Roy
Dean of the Library
Middlebury College
mobile: 860 301 2611
twitter: @michaeldroy
skype: Â roymichaeldonald
zoom:Â https://middlebury.zoom.us/my/mikeroyÂ
free/busy calendar https://beta.doodle.com/mikeroy

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:52 AM Glenn Hampson < gham...@nationalscience.org> wrote:

Hi Rick,
Â
My vote is neither. Our group has evolved on this over time---go back to your original invitation to join OSI and compare it to what we̢۪re talking about now. We̢۪ve discov discovered that open is about more than just OA, and where we go once we get to open is of critical---and largely neglected---importance.
Â
I’m attaching my slides from SciELO (again,in, sorry, but may some folks didn’t see this the firstrst time thru). Take a look at the section titled “the fututure.†That’s the way I see our road ahad ahead---working together for a more open world, knocking down key roadblocks as we move along, building a record of success, and opening up all pathways to open so we can really invigorate this space and realize its full potential.
Â
That, to me, should be our focus----not nickel and diming each other over whether CC-BY is pure, but focusing together on the big picture and the huge potential of open.
Â
Best,
Â
Glenn
Â
Â
Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)
Â
Â
Â
From: osi20...@googlegroups.com < osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 8:32 AM
To: 'The Open Scholarship Initiative' < osi20...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Basic question about Plan S, OSI, and universal OA
Â
As our conversation about Plan S, the future of OA, and OSI̢۪s function in the scholcomm environment unfolds, I find md myself repeatedly wondering the same thing:
Â
The future of scholcomm will ultimately end up being one of two things: either 100% OA or something less than 100% OA. Does OSI take a position on which of those is the more desirable outcome? If so, which outcome is the one toward which OSI is working?
Â
Some of us have expressed quite clearly a preference for 100% OA (however defined), while others seem to anticipate and accept an outcome in which the scholcomm environment continues to hold a place for non-OA models. It seems to me that where one stands on this question is going to have a big impact on how one regards initiatives like Plan S.
Â
(Please note that this is not a question about how long it will take to become 100% OA, assuming that̢۪s what we want. t. The question is what we are hoping will ultimately happen, not whether it will take a long time to get there.)
Â
---
Rick Anderson
Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication
Marriott Library, University of Utah

Wagner, Caroline S.

unread,
Dec 18, 2018, 11:26:50 AM12/18/18
to David Wojick, Roy, Michael D., The Open Scholarship Initiative

Dear Friends,

I want to support David in this discussion. The systemic nature of scholarly publications is not simply a semantic turn. I study the system as a system and it has measureable systemic qualities. As a system, it has developed over centuries, adapting to social changes along the way. It is in the process of adapting to the demands for openness. The efforts to ‘force’ it open with Plan S actually threaten to do serious damage. It is a self-organizing system, and efforts to impose a change of order to self-organizing systems often have destructive outcomes. Better to encourage the adaptations underway (i.e., preprints, repositories). I realize that costs are at issue for librarians, but these can be eased along rather than torn from their moorings.

Caroline Wagner

Rick Anderson

unread,
Dec 18, 2018, 12:37:45 PM12/18/18
to Wagner, Caroline S., David Wojick, Roy, Michael D., The Open Scholarship Initiative

This is one of the reasons I really like the term “ecosystem” to describe scholarly communication. It’s a classic business ecosystem: a “network of organizations – including suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors, government agencies and so on—involved in the delivery of a specific product or service through both competition and cooperation” (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/business-ecosystem.asp).

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

 

Glenn Hampson

unread,
Dec 18, 2018, 12:41:56 PM12/18/18
to Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Hi Mike,

 

It really is a fascinating dive. I’m not sure how much patience everyone here has for too much back and forth on it so I’ll make one last observation and then bow out. (Rick and Ilona are cooking up a survey on this general issue---it will be fun to see what OSIers think; I’ll do a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card---which you can use to purchase Rick’s new book 😊---for those who take the survey.)

 

In general, I hear echoes of the Bernie Sanders approach in your argument---that corporations can’t possibly be responsible and responsive members of society. In the case of large commercial publishers, they have co-opted the system, are blocking reforms, gouging customers, perverting the scientific process, etc.---or so the argument goes. It’s a visceral argument. I used to buy it myself before publishers started paying me to do their dirty work I started learning more about all the different perspectives in OSI.

 

One could also argue, however (not more accurately, just differently), that it’s really universities and researchers who hold all the cards here---they just don’t know it yet. And the reason they haven’t risen en masse against the current system is because it’s so ingrained, as Caroline notes. It’s part of the fabric of academia, and serves the system well, which isn’t to say it’s perfect or should be static---far from it. But the publishing system (and publishers) responds to the needs of universities and researchers, and as their needs change, so does the system.

 

So, “resistance” to change is partly inertia, partly entanglement, and partly a lack of uniform and coordinated pressure (based on unmet needs) to change. Maybe the tragedy of the commons is the best parallel here---where we all recognize the need to reduce our carbon footprint but still want to drive our SUVs. We all recognize the ideal of open, but the system is also built on deep moorings and lifting it from these to try something new is a bold/reckless/futile/only-possible-solution (pick your adjective) approach---it’s a need we’d like to address, but actually getting there is going to take a combination of innovative approaches (incentives, restrictions, options, awareness, remediation, etc.---all of the above---plus patience :).

 

Best,

 

Glenn

 

 

Glenn Hampson
Executive Director
Science Communication Institute (SCI)
Program Director
Open Scholarship Initiative (OSI)

OSI-logo-email-sm2

 

 

 

From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Roy, Michael D.

Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 5:55 AM
To: Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>

image003.jpg
image004.jpg

Rick Anderson

unread,
Dec 18, 2018, 12:51:21 PM12/18/18
to Glenn Hampson, Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

> So, “resistance” to change is partly inertia, partly entanglement, and partly a

> lack of uniform and coordinated pressure (based on unmet needs) to change.

 

I suspect that it’s also partly an informed and principled disagreement on the part of some members of the system that either the system is actually broken, or that the proposed fixes are the right ones.

 

As always, we need to bear in mind that people don’t always resist change because they’re lazy, or because they’re reactionary. Sometimes they’re completely in favor of change in principle, but don’t think the thing under examination is actually broken. And sometimes what they don’t like are the particular changes being proposed, and they would be very open to different ones.

 

---

Rick Anderson

Assoc. Dean for Collections & Scholarly Communication

Marriott Library, University of Utah

rick.a...@utah.edu

From: <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Glenn Hampson <gham...@nationalscience.org>


Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 10:43 AM
To: "'Roy, Michael D.'" <md...@middlebury.edu>

Eric L Olson

unread,
Dec 20, 2018, 12:48:52 PM12/20/18
to Rick Anderson, Glenn Hampson, Roy, Michael D., David Wojick, JJE Esposito, The Open Scholarship Initiative

Good point, Rick.  I would also add one element to the last paragraph:


>As always, we need to bear in mind that people don’t always resist change because they’re lazy, or because they’re reactionary. Sometimes they’re completely in favor of change in principle, but don’t think the thing under examination is actually broken. And sometimes what they don’t like are the particular changes being proposed, and they would be very open to different ones.  


Also affecting how people react to proposed changes is WHO proposes the changes.  The always vocal OA advocates are advocating OA again?  That's great, but unlikely to change any minds.  Representatives of communities that are often excluded in those discussions or come out on "the other side" advocating or proposing the changes?  Now you have a shot at catalyzation of some kind.  


As the old Vulcan proverb goes, "Only Nixon could go to China".



Eric



--
Eric Olson
Engagement and Partnerships Lead, North America, ORCID



From: osi20...@googlegroups.com <osi20...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rick Anderson <rick.a...@utah.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 12:51:03 PM
To: Glenn Hampson; 'Roy, Michael D.'
Cc: 'David Wojick'; 'JJE Esposito'; 'The Open Scholarship Initiative'
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