BioMed Central Press Release

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

** Apologies for Cross-Posting **

On 24-Jun-09, at 5:01 AM, Charlotte Webber (BioMed Central) wrote 
in the press release appended in full after this posting):

> The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) now requires 
> authors to publish research results into open access journals 
> and also encourages dual submission into an institutional 
> repository.

I invite readers to review the CIHR policy below and judge 
whether the above is an accurate description of the policy or 
self-serving spin by a commercial journal publisher (and IR 
service-provider) promoting its product:

CIHR Policy on Access to Research Outputs: 
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/34846.html

-- Grant recipients are now required to make every effort to 
ensure that their peer-reviewed publications are freely 
accessible through the Publisher's website (Option #1) or an 
online repository as soon as possible and in any event within six 
months of publication (Option #2).

-- Under the second option, grant recipients must archive the 
final peer-reviewed full-text manuscripts immediately upon 
publication in a digital archive, such as PubMed Central or the 
grantees institutional repository.

-- Publications must be freely accessible within six months of 
publication, where allowable and in accordance with publisher 
policies...

-- Grant recipients may also wish to submit their manuscripts to 
a journal that provides immediate open access to published 
articles (if a suitable journal exists). CIHR considers the cost 
of publishing in open access journals to be an eligible expense 
under the Use of Grant Funds.

Yes, the difference between the reality and the spin makes a 
difference: a considerable difference. The underlying issue is 
always the same: Should priority be given to requiring Green OA 
self- archiving of all journal articles to make them OA, or to 
publishing articles in Gold OA journals to make them OA?

No institution or funder on the planet "requires authors to 
publish research results into open access journals"!

This is wishful thinking on the part of the publishers of open 
access journals. And when put in the way it is put in this BMC 
Press Release, it generates confusion at a time when OA mandates 
are still few and what is needed is clarity, not self-serving 
spin by commercial publishers promoting their Gold OA journals.

Of lesser consequence, but worthy of note, are two further points 
related to the BMC press release:

(1)  "[T]he University's Supporter Membership with BioMed 
Central" is an incoherent (and self-serving) subscription-like 
notion that (if anyone gives it just a moment's careful thought) 
cannot scale to the day when many, most or all journals and 
publishers are Gold OA (10,000 universities "joining" the 
publishers of 25,000 journals with individual annual 
memberships). "Membership" only gives the illusion of making any 
sense at all today, when a few Gold-OA journal-fleet publishers 
like BMC (now part of Springer) are promoting it to short- 
sighted and serials-stressed librarians: http://bit.ly/g62wK

(2) Re: "BioMed Central's "Open Repository" system... using 
BioMed Central's extensive open access knowledge and technology 
experience": I am of course all for promoting Institutional 
Repositories (IRs); but one cannot but feel a touch sceptical 
about the notion of a commercial Gold OA publisher "promoting" 
IRs when IRs are -- and let us state this quite openly -- 
fundamentally in conflict with their primary commercial mission, 
which is to promote their Gold OA product. Green OA simply means 
author self-archiving of articles published in any journal at all 
-- and most journals are non-OA journals, let alone BMC journals. 
Hence it is inescapable that Green OA self-archiving is in 
competition with Gold OA publishing at this time.

(Green OA will no longer be in competition with Gold OA once 
Green OA mandates have prevailed globally, and if and when the 
resulting universal Green OA eventually induces a universal 
transition to Gold OA by making subscriptions unsustainable. But 
today, for Gold OA publishers, promoting Green OA means promoting 
a rival means of providing OA itself, and, especially for 
commercial Gold OA publishers, that would be a bad business 
strategy. "Don't buy my product, because you can get it elsewhere 
for free." Hence the spin you see above.)

Full Disclosure: I promote and very strongly endorse University 
of Southampton's "rival" IR system (Eprints); but Eprints is 
noncommercial, free, and has, and always has had, only one 
agenda, which is to promote universal Green OA, as quickly and as 
effectively as possible. "Eprints Services," fee-based, is only 
offered, reluctantly, as an option for those institutions who 
insist that they do not wish to set up Eprints on their own, for 
free; and Eprints Services revenues are used solely to sustain 
and promote the use of the free software, and Green OA itself: 
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/

Moreover, I would welcome BMC's Open Repository Service as an 
ally, not a rival, if BMC ORS, too, could dedicate itself to the 
straightforward promotion of universal Green OA, without the 
obvious strains of conflict-of-interest evident in this press 
release.

Stevan Harnad

> News release from BioMed Central
> 24 June 2009
>
> "Canadian Excellence" strengthened by extensive adoption of 
> open access
>
> * Wilfrid Laurier University adopts Open Repository and BioMed 
> Central Membership
> * Open access movement gains ground in North America
>
> BioMed Central and Wilfrid Laurier University today announce 
> the launch of Laurier IR, an institutional repository that 
> provides a visible point of open access archiving of 
> intellectual output for all members of the University 
> community.
>
> Built on BioMed Central's "Open Repository" system and using 
> BioMed Central's extensive open access knowledge and technology 
> experience, Laurier IR is a personalized in-house repository 
> that will significantly increase access to the university's 
> scholarly information and also highlight the talent of the 
> Universities researchers and students.
>
> Laurier University is just one many organizations globally that 
> have adopted Open Repository since its inception. Open 
> Repository is built upon DSpace, an open-source solution for 
> accessing, managing and preserving scholarly material.
>
> In addition, the University's Supporter Membership with BioMed 
> Central reduces the barriers for Laurier researchers publishing 
> in BioMed Central's open-access journals by providing 
> researchers with a 15 percent discount on the article 
> processing charges.
>
> The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) now requires 
> authors to publish research results into open access journals 
> and also encourages dual submission into an institutional 
> repository. Complying with this mandate and also heeding wider 
> position statements from bodies such as the Canadian Library 
> Association (CLA) necessitated Wilfrid Laurier University to 
> establish Laurier IR.
>
> Laurier IR embraces the 'open access' movement by allowing 
> authors to submit their original research directly to the 
> repository. Electronic documents, including articles, 
> pre-prints, monographs, reports, movies and databases can all 
> be archived in the repository.
>
> The service ensures that Laurier's scholarly communication 
> output is consolidated, thus enabling researchers to broaden 
> their knowledge base through greater collaboration and also 
> providing a central point to store teaching support materials 
> across the Laurier community.
>
> Laurier University aims to build a full community structure for 
> their repository within the next 12 months which will include 
> customized designs and collections for particular groups of 
> researchers. They also hope to implement a 'content recruitment 
> strategy' to ensure that as much scholarly output from the 
> university as possible is held with the repository.
>
> Speaking of the continued development of Laurier IR said 
> "Laurier is excited to be developing an institutional 
> repository" said Dr. Deborah MacLatchy, Vice-President: 
> Academic and Provost at Laurier. "It will be an excellent way 
> for other scholars, as well as students and professionals, to 
> access scholarly and creative works and theses published by 
> Laurier faculty and students. It increases Laurier's presence 
> internationally and extends our scholarly output to a much 
> wider audience, such as researchers in the developing world."
>
> -ENDS-
>
> Media Contact
> Matt McKay
> Head of PR
> BioMed Central
>
> Tel:  +44 (0) 203 1922 2216
> Mob: +44 (0) 7825 257 423
> Email: matthew.mckay@biomedcentral.com