Category Archives: oa.nonprofit

Comments on EC Council Conclusions on scholarly publishing | Sesame Open Science

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“I think these Council Conclusions are very welcome and important, as they align with, and in turn can support, a number of important current developments in how open access is perceived and implemented. One of these is the growing awareness, also among research institutions and funders, of the inequality and unsustainability of APC-driven open access publishing, especially by commercial or otherwise revenue-driven publishers. Another is a growing emphasis on important qualitative aspects of open access, in particular immediacy and open licensing.

In this sense, the Council Conclusions, together with for example the UNESCO Open Science Recommendations and the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access, to name but two, can help shift focus to other models of publishing. One thing I would like to emphasize is that while developing new publishing infrastructures (for example at national or even European level) is in itself a worthwhile avenue to pursue, many examples also already exist of non-profit publishing solutions that deserve support and recognition….”

Book Bans Attack the LGBTQ+ Community, Open Access Is Part of Our Defense | punctum books

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van Gerven Oei, V. W. J., & Joy, E. A. F. (2023). Book Bans Attack the LGBTQ+ Community, Open Access Is Part of Our Defense. Punctum Books. https://doi.org/10.21428/ae6a44a6.8634dbb0  

Open Access: the Future is Diamond | In the Dark

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“As it was foretold the Council of Europe has now released a document (PDF) that calls for “transparent, equitable, and open access to scholarly publications”.  In its conclusions, the Council calls on the Commission and the member states to support policies towards a scholarly publishing model that is not-for-profit, open access and multi-format, with no costs for authors or readers. In other words, it calls for Diamond Open Access. The covering press release includes:

If we really believe in open science, 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. This should be particularly the case for research that benefits from public funding: what has been paid by all should be accessible to all.
Mats Persson, Swedish Minister for Education, Ministry of Education and Research

This is clearly how Open Access should be, though I am still worried that the sizeable publishing lobby will still try to persuade research agencies and institutions to pay the existing fees on behalf of authors, which does not solve the problem but merely hides it….”

The Beilstein-Institut collaborates with Lens.org

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“Lens.org is a secure and open infrastructure to provide our readers with the most comprehensive and accurate overview of the impact of individual published articles. The discovery and citation tool is owned by Cambia, an independent non-profit social enterprise dedicated to democratizing problem solving using science and technology.

We are looking forward to our collaboration with Lens.org to support free, open and secure patent and scholarly searches while ensuring privacy and confidentiality.”

bjoern.brembs.blog » The beginning of the end for academic publishers?

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“On May 23, the Council of the EU adopted a set of conclusions on scholarly publishing that, if followed through, would spell the end for academic publishers and scholarly journals as we know them. On the same day, the adoption was followed by a joint statement of support by the largest and most influential research organizations in Europe. At the heart of the goals spelled out in the conclusions and the statement of support is the creation of a “publicly owned and not-for-profit” infrastructure for scholarly publications….

 

Obviously, right after the declaration came out, the corporate misinformation machine sprang into high gear. I won’t repeat the misleading, false or sometimes just comically desperate attempts at smearing an obviously well thought-through, sound and logical solution that has been decades in the making. Suffice it to say, there are plenty of reasons why the plans outlined by the Council have drawn such widespread support from all corners of the research community, while the only resistance comes from the monopolistic corporations. This declaration tackles the root of the replicability, affordability and functionality crises. It aims to treat the disease, not the symptoms and has the potential to develop into an effective vaccine against parasitic businesses striving to leech the public purse. Little wonder these businesses fear it so much.”

Abolishing an “Industry”? | In the Dark

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“A week or so ago I mentioned that the European Council had adopted a text that calls for the EU Commission and Member States to support policies towards a scholarly publishing model that is not-for-profit, open access and multi-format, with no costs for authors or readers.

The journal Nature has responded to the news with a piece entitled EU council’s ‘no pay’ publishing model draws mixed response and the lede:

Some academics have welcomed the proposed open access plans. But publishing industry representatives warn they are unrealistic and lack detail.

It’s not really accurate to describe the response as mixed as it is completely separated: the vested interests in the academic publishing industry are against it and everyone else is for it! It’s hardly surprising to see Nature (owned by academic publishing company Springer Nature). I found this in the text of the Nature piece:

The conclusions are concerning because they support a move that would abolish an industry
Caroline Sutton, the chief executive of the STM (a membership organization of academic publishers)

Indeed, though I would argue that what the proposals would abolish is not so much an industry as a racket…”

EU council’s ‘no pay’ publishing model draws mixed response

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“The European Union’s council of ministers has called for the bloc to implement a ‘no pay’ academic-publishing model that bears no cost to readers or authors. The recommendations, part of a set of principles on scholarly publishing adopted by the council on 23 May, are not legally binding and have been welcomed by some members of the academic community. But representatives of publishers say that the suggestion is unrealistic and that the council has not outlined crucial details, including how such a model would be funded….

Organizations including the German Research Federation (DFG) have welcomed the principles. In a statement, the DFG said that it supported the “landmark recommendations”. “Under no circumstances should a situation arise in which the availability of funds determines participation in academic discourse,” it said.

Such statements show “strong political support” for open-access publishing, says Vinciane Gaillard, deputy director for research and innovation at the European University Association (EUA) in Brussels, which represents more than 850 institutions.

 

However, representatives of the publishing industry say that the implications of the council’s recommendations haven’t been fully considered….

The conclusions are concerning because they support a move that would abolish an industry, and propose building a new publishing system without clarification about how it would be paid for, says Caroline Sutton, the chief executive of the STM, a membership organization for the academic publishing industry headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands. One of the stated policy goals is cost reduction, yet “no proper economic analysis has been carried out”, she says. “It’s often presented as if this alternative is free.”

The STM is also concerned that the move would eliminate independent European publishing companies and usher in a state-defined system that could stymie academic freedom. It warns that the amount of public funds needed by member states or institutions to build repositories of academic research papers is hard to quantify….”

Beyond BPCs: Reimagining and re-infrastructuring the funding of Open Access books | Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM)

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Deville, J. (2023). Beyond BPCs: Reimagining and re-infrastructuring the funding of Open Access books. Community-Led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM). https://doi.org/10.21428/785a6451.bd1b0402

If you have heard any of the Open Book Collective team talk about our work, perhaps in a meeting, perhaps in a talk, then it’s likely that at some point, the issue of ‘BPCs’ will have come up. BPCs, or Book Processing Charges, are to books what APCs (Article Processing Charges) are to journals. BPCs are levied — usually to a university or a funder, but also in principle potentially to the author — as a fee for making an academic book available on an Open Access basis. By Open Access I mean work that can be accessed online without barriers, published using an open license — typically, but not necessarily, a Creative Commons licence.

Within the academic publishing industry, BPCs remain the most common way to fund Open Access books. They are used by publishers small and large, and by not-for-profits and commercial publishers. For small/not-for profit publishers, BPCs are usually used to cover the core production costs associated with book publishing. For large commercial publishers, BPCs can sometimes also be used to offset some of the profit — for example, from books sales or licensing contracts — that is lost when a book is made openly available to all.

[…]

 

How Scientific Publishers’ Extreme Fees Put Profit Over Progress | The Nation

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“On April 17, the premier journal NeuroImage’s entire editorial team, comprising more than 40 scientists, resigned over the “unethical fees” charged by the journal’s academic publisher, Elsevier. With more than $2 billion in annual revenue, the publisher’s profit margin approaches 40 percent—rivaling that of Apple and Google. “Elsevier has become kind of like the poster child for evil publishing companies,” said neuroscientist Kristen Kennedy, one of the recently resigned senior editors.

Kennedy relies on taxpayer money to study the aging brain. At the University of Texas at Dallas, federal grants help fund the staff, equipment, and experiments in her lab. But this public money, largely from the National Institutes of Health, is being drained by exorbitant publishing fees….”

Ministers’ call for free open science publishing backed

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“Publicly funded research outputs should be immediately and openly available to all without barriers such as subscription fees or paywalls, say European scientific community leaders who welcomed a recent 20-point plan agreed by the Council of the European Union to encourage open science.

The Council, as it is informally known, represents government ministers from the 27 EU member states and is one of the key European Union decision-making bodies, along with the European Parliament and the European Commission.

After years of deliberations, which continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council’s Competitiveness Council (Research) agreed the text for 20 conclusions to encourage high-quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing, including cracking down on unsustainable author fees that currently prop up open science publishing….”

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

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“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….”

Fradenburg Joy & & van Gerven Oei (2023) What is Your Threshold? The Economics of Open Access Scholarly Book Publishing, the “Business” of Care, and the Case of punctum books | The Journal of Electronic Publishing

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Fradenburg Joy, E. A. & van Gerven Oei, V. W., (2023) “What is Your Threshold? The Economics of Open Access Scholarly Book Publishing, the “Business” of Care, and the Case of punctum books”, The Journal of Electronic Publishing 26(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.3627

 

EU-Mitgliedstaaten betonen die Rolle von wissenschaftsgeleiteten Open-Access-Modellen jenseits von APCs | wisspub.net [Translation: “EU member states emphasize the role of science-driven Open Access models beyond APCs | wisspub.net”]

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Translation: “EU member states emphasize the role of science-driven Open Access models beyond APCs | wisspub.net”