What are the Basis of Open Access? Not Volunteerism, Harnard Says
First published at SPARC OA Forum, December 26, 2003 in response on Open Access activist Stevan Harnard draft letter for institutions to sign to support OA (*)
"...I do not agree with Stevan Harnard "no need to specify the possibility of subsidy and volunteerism" while [defining what OA journal is, and] stating "e.g., by instead charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish".
Are subsidy and volunteerism (A) the key elements of academic science (B) that need to be published (C)? As this ABCs' major goal is Public Interest will it be correct to mention in the S. Harnad letter proposal only the statement that imply interests other then public (at least in case of the BMC?): "e.g., by instead charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish"?
To make sure: It is the voluntarism (or more precisely activism or dedication) of individual scientists and assembled editorial groups who committed themselves to run the BioMedCentral specialist journals, (representing today NEAR HALF of all BMC journals,). To run these journals editors had to accept the following BMC Conditions:
BioMed Central is the sole publisher and owner of the journal (although this is negotiable for journals proposed by scientific societies).
BioMed Central will pay the journal and its officers no monies, except for the possibility of a payment relating to the number of published articles.
(quoted from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/startajournal)
The question is: Will the public (not BMC corporate) interest be better served when these journals are published by Editorial Groups, perhaps with modest support of a grant or a library/communication technology expert at their Institution, so, there will be no [profiting BMC or covering the cost of the PLoS Biology launch parties] article publication cost at all? If so, why not to include grant or other funding mechanisms for Open Access in the proposed letter?
Please note that as I stated in my earlier letter of today ( archived at this link ) the low cost (or even free for not-for-profit usage) end user technology is available to ensure no technical compromise for such titles, reserved to be published (not only editorially managed) by those who need them to communicate with peers, not make profit or have an office package in a not-for-profit "charging the author" publishing setting. The missed is the community education that one need to initiate. The educational follow up for this letter will be forthcoming.
Sincerely,
Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD
http://neurobiologyoflipids.org/
(*) Avialable at the bottom of this page
"...I do not agree with Stevan Harnard "no need to specify the possibility of subsidy and volunteerism" while [defining what OA journal is, and] stating "e.g., by instead charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish".
Are subsidy and volunteerism (A) the key elements of academic science (B) that need to be published (C)? As this ABCs' major goal is Public Interest will it be correct to mention in the S. Harnad letter proposal only the statement that imply interests other then public (at least in case of the BMC?): "e.g., by instead charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish"?
To make sure: It is the voluntarism (or more precisely activism or dedication) of individual scientists and assembled editorial groups who committed themselves to run the BioMedCentral specialist journals, (representing today NEAR HALF of all BMC journals,
BioMed Central is the sole publisher and owner of the journal (although this is negotiable for journals proposed by scientific societies).
BioMed Central will pay the journal and its officers no monies, except for the possibility of a payment relating to the number of published articles.
(quoted from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/startajournal)
The question is: Will the public (not BMC corporate) interest be better served when these journals are published by Editorial Groups, perhaps with modest support of a grant or a library/communication technology expert at their Institution, so, there will be no [profiting BMC or covering the cost of the PLoS Biology launch parties] article publication cost at all? If so, why not to include grant or other funding mechanisms for Open Access in the proposed letter?
Please note that as I stated in my earlier letter of today ( archived at this link ) the low cost (or even free for not-for-profit usage) end user technology is available to ensure no technical compromise for such titles, reserved to be published (not only editorially managed) by those who need them to communicate with peers, not make profit or have an office package in a not-for-profit "charging the author" publishing setting. The missed is the community education that one need to initiate. The educational follow up for this letter will be forthcoming.
Sincerely,
Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD
http://neurobiologyoflipids.org/
(*) Avialable at the bottom of this page
posted by Israel Scholar | 31.12.05
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