EU research ministers make fresh call for a full transition to free open access publishing | Science|Business

“EU ministers made a fresh call for open access to become the default mode for scientific publishing in a new set of Council conclusions today, prompting opposing reactions from the science community and journal publishers.

The Council conclusions call for a crack down on the unsustainable author fees that are currently propping up open science publishing, and undermining the ambition of making research results free to access. “We need to make sure that researchers can make their findings available and re-usable and that high-quality scientific articles are openly accessible to anyone that needs to read them,” said Mats Persson, Swedish minister for research, who currently holds the rotating council presidency chair.

The push for open access isn’t new and the EU has made a lot of headway with various initiatives and political statements. A big breakthrough came in 2018 in Plan S, under which a group of major research funding and performing organisations signed up to paywall-free science….”

Library associations across Europe joint call for action on eBooks – Knowledge Rights 21

“National and other library associations from across Europe have signed a letter underlining the urgency to find ways to ensure that library users continue to be able to benefit from services in a digital world.

The letter highlights the traditional and essential support that libraries play in supporting education, research and access to culture while highlighting that current eBook models and licensing are undermining this….

It is essential to ensure that eBook markets work in ways that allow libraries to do their job and to fulfil their public interest responsibilities, within a clear legal framework. Working alternatives that currently exist rely on voluntary action by publishers, and do not provide full access.Government action is therefore necessary on all three of the following fronts:

Guarantees in law that libraries shall be able to acquire, preserve and electronically lend digitised analogue and born-digital works, such as eBooks, on the same basis as they lend physical works. This will enable more constructive negotiations between libraries and rightholders.

Work to ensure that eLending platforms operate in ways that work best for libraries, their users and authors. 

Aside from copyright reform and market regulation, support further investigation into the dynamics of eBook markets and their impacts on the achievement of public interest goals. This will also serve to inform wider cultural, education and research policies….”

Publishing industry announces record profits as European library associations call for action on ebooks – Campaign to investigate the Library ebook market

“The Publishers Association has reported another year of record breaking profits for the publishing industry in 2022, in spite of the cost of living crisis….

Meanwhile, frustrated by policymakers’ and competition authorities’ failure to address the ongoing library ebook crisis, library associations from across Europe signed a letter requesting parallel action on eBooks to enable libraries to continue to support education, research, and cultural access in a digital world. The letter can found in full at https://www.knowledgerights21.org/news-story/library-associations-across-europe-joint-call-for-action-on-ebooks/ ….

Raging Against The Mythical Figure Who Keeps Us Down (Not) – Future U

“A related issue: Academic publishing thrives on the unlimited growth model. Scientists publishing more papers are a source of revenue. Type’ academic publishing racket’ into a search engine. I got 3,990,000 links. You only need to read a few to see that publishers are making big profits, are double dipping, and are not overly concerned about the damage done to the open exchange of ideas. You will see that vanity journals (e.g., Nature, Science, Cell), and the perceived need to publish within them, have changed the behavior of the science community in detrimental ways.

Who keeps for-profit journals in business? Who does free work for them as an author or referee? Who maintains the idea that if you don’t publish in vanity journals, you haven’t done quality science? People like me. There are alternative dissemination outlets that are more open, less profit-driven, and less vanity based. So why do I not use them? Maybe I justify choices by saying, ‘That’s the nature of the science game.’ Maybe in doing ‘my job,’ I lose attention to the reality that affects what I do, even if it isn’t listed on my job-to-do lists. Maybe I need to remind myself that resistance is in my control. I can stop supporting organizations that limit access to public resources for monetary gains….”

Future of Scholarly Communications Committee Promotes Equitable, Sustainable Academic Publications at Faculty Senate Meeting | The Cornell Daily Sun

“The Ad Hoc Committee: Future of Scholarly Communications presented at the Wednesday, March 8 Faculty Senate meeting in Schwartz Auditorium at Rockefeller Hall to discuss the effects of large corporations on academic publications.

To kick off the meeting, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian Elaine Westbrooks, who serves as the co-chair of the committee, emphasized the significance of Cornell libraries….

Following Westbrooks’s presentation, Prof. K. Max Zhang, engineering, who serves on the University Faculty Library Board, introduced the Ad Hoc Committee: Future of Scholarly Communications. According to Zhang, the committee is made up of roughly 15 members, representing both Cornell’s library system and academic side.

The committee details seven charges towards more accessible scholarly journals. Zhang summarizes these charges into four categories — assessing the current publishing model, evaluating new publishing models, identifying the University’s role in new models and reporting to the faculty about the problems of for-profit publishing….

“I want to be clear that I do not believe that publishers are inherently evil, or bad,” Westbrooks said. “What I really want to bring home is the fact that this is not good for science, it’s not good for scholarship and it’s not good for innovation to have a small set of multinational companies, that we call an oligopoly, control all the academic publishing in the world.” …”

FUNDING THE BUSINESS OF OPEN ACCESS: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF ARTICLE PROCESSING CHARGES, RESEARCH FUNDING AND THE REVENUES OF THE OLIGOPOLY OF PUBLISHERS

Abstract:  Since the early 2010s, more than half of peer-reviewed journal articles have been published by the so-called oligopoly of academic publishers – Elsevier, Sage, Springer-Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. These publishers are now increasingly charging fees for open access journals, especially given the rise of funder OA mandates. It is worthwhile to examine the amount of revenue generated through OA fees since many of the journals with the most expensive article processing charges are owned by the oligopoly. This study aims to  stimate the amount of article processing charges for gold and hybrid open access articles in journals published by the oligopoly of academic publishers, which acknowledge funding from the Canadian Tri-Agencies between 2015 and 2018. The Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications mandates that all funded research for Canadian Institute of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grantees be made available as OA. To comply, grantees will often use grant funds to pay OA fees, or APCs. During the four-year period analyzed, a total of 6,892 gold and 4,097 hybrid articles that acknowledge Tri-Agency funding were identified, for which the total list prices amount to $USD 25.3 million ($13.1 for gold and $12.2 for hybrid). 

OpenAI co-founder on company’s past approach to openly sharing research: ‘We were wrong’ – The Verge

“Yesterday, OpenAI announced GPT-4, its long-awaited next-generation AI language model. The system’s capabilities are still being assessed, but as researchers and experts pore over its accompanying materials, many have expressed disappointment at one particular feature: that despite the name of its parent company, GPT-4 is not an open AI model.

OpenAI has shared plenty of benchmark and test results for GPT-4, as well as some intriguing demos, but has offered essentially no information on the data used to train the system, its energy costs, or the specific hardware or methods used to create it….

Speaking to The Verge in an interview, Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist and co-founder, expanded on this point. Sutskever said OpenAI’s reasons for not sharing more information about GPT-4 — fear of competition and fears over safety — were “self evident”:…

OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit but later became a “capped profit” in order to secure billions in investment, primarily from Microsoft, with whom it now has exclusive business licenses….

When asked why OpenAI changed its approach to sharing its research, Sutskever replied simply, “We were wrong. Flat out, we were wrong. If you believe, as we do, that at some point, AI — AGI — is going to be extremely, unbelievably potent, then it just does not make sense to open-source. It is a bad idea… I fully expect that in a few years it’s going to be completely obvious to everyone that open-sourcing AI is just not wise.” …”

ResearchEquals Supporting Memberships

“Supporting memberships are a community based approach to how ResearchEquals evolves. They come with membership dues (€79.99 per year or €9.99 per month) and together we build a network of people with one common denominator: To make all research work visible.

As a supporting member, you get front row in shaping ResearchEquals. Every member has equal voice regardless of whether you are a professor, junior researcher, citizen scientist, or even an institute. One member, one vote.

With a supporting membership you also get certain rights:

The right to request information
The right to petition for action or to desist action
The right to block third party acquisitions…”

Tired of the profiteering in academic publishing? Vote with your feet. – Spatial Ecology and Evolution Lab

“First, let’s say one of the Olympian Editors asks you to review a manuscript for one of the profit-making esteem engines. You record on your CV that you have been asked to review for this journal (esteem points!), but you politely decline the invitation, explaining that you would rather your professional service go towards open science initiatives.

The editor at the esteem factory finds that her job has just become a lot harder than it used to be. It is hard to find reviewers, and the reviews aren’t as thorough or as good anymore. She keeps the line on her CV stating that she has been an editor at X (esteem points!), and then steps down at the next opportunity. She has better things to do than spend her days cajoling reluctant reviewers. And so it goes.

Being a discerning reviewer has nothing but benefits. There are no esteem points lost for the individual, and there is a higher turnover of editorial staff at high-esteem journals. This turnover means more opportunity and less competition for these positions, and it means the esteem hierarchy is flattened somewhat because, well, who hasn’t been an editor for Nature, and, besides, the stuff published there isn’t as good as it used to be. Overburdened reviewers have an important reason to do less reviewing; they are, through individual decision, changing the face of academic publishing and making science accessible to all….”

‘The attitude of publishers is a barrier to open access’ | UKSG

“Transitioning to open research is incredibly important for the University of Liverpool for two reasons: the external environment we are now operating in, and our own philosophy and approach to research.

But there are barriers, particularly the research culture and the attitude of publishers….

In my experience, the biggest barrier is culture: researchers are used to operating in a particular way. Changing practice and mindset takes time and must be conducted sensitively.

Open research benefits all researchers, so having their support on this journey is vitally important.

Some researchers are concerned that publishing their work open access has implications for their intellectual property (IP) rights. In fact, this is a perceived problem, since the same IP protections apply to all work, whether published behind a paywall or published open access.

Despite the recognition that citation metrics are not a suitable proxy for research assessment, some researchers continue to seek the kudos of publishing in a so-called prestige journal with a high-impact factor, such as ‘Nature’.  They see this as a key career goal and worry their progression will falter without this achievement….

So, while I acknowledge there has been significant progress towards open access globally, and in particular compliance with UKRI’s open access policy, the attitude of publishers which are driven by profit margins continues to be an unacceptable barrier….”

European academies hit out at high author charges for open access publishing | Science|Business

“Open access means more and more scientific research is free to read. But now there are complaints about ‘massive’ fees that must be paid upfront by authors and claims commercial publishers are making excessive profits….

ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, claims commercial publishers are making the large profits from open access publishing under what is known as the gold model, which allows journal papers to be free to read as soon as they are published.

Instead of journal subscriptions, publishers are paid article processing charges (APCs). These fees can sometimes be thousands of euros.

The financial burden is shifting away from the readers of papers and onto the authors. This is putting a strain on academics around the world, particularly those in less well-off countries, ALLEA says in a report published last month. These fees are often rolled into partner agreements with big publishers, but researchers not covered by these agreements must usually pay APCs.

ALLEA claims that publishers make around $2 billion per year from APCs….

Robert-Jan Smits, president of Eindhoven University of Technology and former European Commission director general for research, who is a leading advocate for open access, told Science|Business that a cap should be placed on APCs to “avoid an explosion of costs,” saying, “There is enough money in the system, it is just in the wrong place.” …”

Data for Good Can’t be a Casualty of Tech Restructuring  • CrisisReady

“Technology companies like Meta, Twitter and Amazon are laying off thousands of employees as part of corporate restructuring in an uncertain global economy. In addition to jobs, many internal programs deemed unnecessary or financially infeasible may be lost. Programs that fall under the rubric of “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) are generally the first casualties of restructuring. CSR efforts include “data for good” programs designed to translate anonymized corporate data into social good and may be seen in the current climate as a way that companies cater to employee values or enable friendlier regulatory environments; in other words, nice-to-haves rather than need-to-haves for the bottom line.  

We believe the platforms built to safely and ethically share corporate data to support public policy are not a luxury that companies should jettison or monetize. The data we produce in our daily lives has become integral to how public decisions are made while planning for public health or disaster response. Our 21st century public data ecosystem is increasingly reliant on novel private data streams that corporations own and currently share only conditionally and increasingly, for profit….

We contend that the rapid sharing of aggregated and anonymized location data with disaster response and public health agencies should be automatic and free — though conditional on strict privacy protocols and time-limited — during acute emergencies….

While the challenges to realizing the full value of private data for public good are many, there is precedent for a path forward. Two decades ago, the International Space Charter was negotiated to facilitate access to satellite data from companies and governments for the sake of responding to major disasters. A similar approach guaranteeing access rights to privately held data for good during emergencies is more important now….”

The Bookseller – News – Springer Nature revenues up as profit climbed 12% in 2021

“Springer Nature’s revenue grew 4.5% to €1.7bn (£1.5bn) in 2021 while adjusted operating profit climbed 12%, the company has revealed in its first ever annual progress report.

Revenue rose from €1.63bn (£1.4bn) in 2020, but was marginally down on 2019’s €1.72bn (£1.5bn). Adjusted operating profit increased to €443m (£387m) from €396m (£346m) the year before and €411m (£360m) in 2019, attributed to “strong revenue growth and careful cost management adopted in response to the economic uncertainties caused by the pandemic”. …”