
Radical open-access plan could spell end to journal subscriptions - sohkamyung
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7
======
phoe-krk
I find it funny that this article, or even the HN comments at the moment of me
writing this one, do not mention SciHub. It's effectively the most radical
open-access plan for science paper nowadays after all.

SciHub is the original reason why open-access plans like this one have a
chance of working at all. The authors of this paper simply announce that the
SciHub approach has won and it's time to stop pretending otherwise and break
the status quo of modern science publishing.

~~~
rotskoff
While sci-hub undoubtedly plays a role here, in my field the arXiv is really
what has obviated the necessity of journal subscriptions. Essentially all math
papers, in both the preprint and post-review form, can be found on the arXiv.
I would also emphasize that, with regard to decisions involving journal
subscriptions and access, authors generally have very little power. As a
researcher, if you have the grant money, you can pay to make your work open
access; alternatively, you can restrict yourself to only open access journals
(which in some fields, could come at significant opportunity cost).

~~~
icc97
Probably worth mentioning Andrej Karpathy's [http://arxiv-
sanity.com](http://arxiv-sanity.com) as the flood of papers to read keeps
growing

~~~
rocqua
Most journals still publish a list of titles in the open, so you can 'follow'
influential journals, and read the relevant articles on the arxiv.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Google Scholar scrapes arXiv and coalesces the results with journal updates,
i.e. it will show the entry for a new journal article with a clearly visible
[PDF on arXiv] link when this is available. Google Scholar also scrapes
institutional repos (at universities etc.).

~~~
canhascodez
Google Scholar is a service to humanity. However, I do wonder: how
comprehensive is it?

------
denzil_correa
Great step forward IF the Open Access fee is rationalized. Take for example,
Nature Communications - which only publishes OA. The OA fee for one article is
€3,850! [0]. Why should tax payers pay two times - to conduct the research, to
access the research - to access the research which they fund? Specially, when
most of the work is done by the researchers themselves. And before someone
talks about journal costs etc. I have been a reviewer for different journals
and conferences for many years now. I haven't received a single penny for peer
reviews. I highly doubt hosting a PDF on a server takes € 3,850.

[0] [https://www.nature.com/ncomms/about/article-processing-
charg...](https://www.nature.com/ncomms/about/article-processing-charges)

~~~
spacenick88
I think the solution isn't to change the publishers it's to let them go
bankrupt. In my experience in Computer Science most papers are at conferences
and if those simply focused on the conference itself and maybe a website
linking to the arxiv versions of the accepted papers there simply wouldn't be
a need for any other publishing. As it stands 99% of the burden is on the
scientific community anyway, that leaves publishers with abysmal editing and
extortion.

~~~
klmr
I agree but to be fair the editing done by journals _does_ provide some value:
Most researchers, in most fields outside of mathematics, physics and computer
science, have rudimentary editing skills at best. Many very good biologists I
know outright refuse to learn LaTeX, decrying it as a waste of time. Of course
this isn’t an insurmountable problem but at least for now there’s a clear
demand that journals fill; take a look at manuscripts submitted to bioRxiv.
The average quality is a lot worse than CS conference papers or arxiv
submissions — not just in terms of text layout and formatting but also for
rudimentary language editing etc.

~~~
zdragnar
Perhaps editing could then be a product sold to the researcher, rather than a
reason to yield publishing rights to a single journal.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
by yielding publishing rights to a journal the journal gets to collect small
bits of money from lots of people, the bearable cost of editing for any
researcher would be quite a bit smaller, effectively for these publishers
selling editing as a service is a no-go.

~~~
klmr
Many researchers at the moment happily pay APCs (=Open Access article
processing charges) in the several thousands of dollars — this is _way_ more
than is required as a minimal cost of editing. In fact, you can easily hire a
freelance editor to work on your paper for less. If the process becomes
minimally streamlined it could be made very affordable: at the moment, a lot
of the work of a journal editor is (intentionally, as well as due to inertia)
due to the utter lack of streamlining.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I'm not surprised if their actual costs are in the range of thousands of
dollars, because they typically have horrible typesetting workflows that take
your nice LaTeX, mangle it into QuarkXPress and give you a PDF for
proofreading with tens or hundreds of annoying small errors. Which you have to
find and point out, and then they fix every single one manually in their
horrible software.

It's not the cost of a value-adding service, but the cost of having a huge
technical debt that nobody has bothered paying down on.

------
Vinnl
This is a fantastic step forward, and the most drastic of measures I've seen
so far. The most important part, in my opinion, is the exclusion of hybrid
journals, which do not help at all in the transition to open access other than
extract even more public money.

Other important steps:

\- Abolishing copyright transfers

\- No more embargo periods

\- A cap on publication fees ("Article Processing Charges")

~~~
btrettel
With regard to copyright transfer agreements, I have found one publisher
willing to publish an article I retain copyright of. I asked at a conference.
I have not yet published in a journal, as I am not willing to transfer
copyright and find conferences acceptable, but when I do, this will be how.
Then they won't be able to stop me from publishing the final version of the
paper on a preprint site (for free access), and I still get the benefits of my
research being in a journal.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Perhaps you could assign rights to the FSF. I'm not sure if they're prepared
for that kind of battle, but my gut indicates they might be in a better place
than the rest.

And, they have 35 years of history showing they wouldn't sell your content
under the bus.

------
dwheeler
It's about time. Currently governments fund most of the research, and then
constantly have to pay exorbitant fees for every copy of the resulting work.
This will also have a tremendous positive effect for the public, Who currently
do not have easy access to the work that they're paying for, and in many cases
the only stuff they can easily get is quackery or old things. The only thing
this is bad for is the Publishers who do not want to adjust to the internet.

------
pbhjpbhj
I don't understand the "bar publishing in 85% of journals" part; presumably
they mean "exclusively".

That actually means that papers (and research data hopefully?!) can be
published for the people who bought the research to be able to legally access
it; but journals have opportunity to prove their added value still. And if
they do add value, the market can provide a price for it.

So non-OA journals can still curate, review, typeset, index, etc., just not
lock the publicly funded research itself away.

~~~
Vinnl
Researchers funded by the participating funds are not allowed to publish in
journals that do not make all of their research freely available, which indeed
excludes many a popular journal today - unless they change their business
model, which this plan appears to aim for.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
You can require all footpaths to be mapped, and make those maps publicly
accessible (for free), without having to make it illegal to sell a footpath
map.

That means the public can find all the footpaths, but if someone creates an
innovative map, or a useful compendium they can still sell that.

~~~
Vinnl
They're not making it illegal to sell a footpath map, they're just disallowing
you from paying a footpath map seller for giving your map away for free.
Instead, you have to give them to people who are already giving away maps for
free.

------
PeterStuer
Been a while since I left academia, but certainly at the time this would open
the door wide for atrocious publication fees as long as quantitative
productivity ranking based on Science Citation Index was upheld.

Since the publication fee is covered as direct costs in research grants
reimbursed at 100% by the funding authorities, there is no incentive for
writers to be price conscious while at the same time being strong-armed to
publish in those journals or lose their job.

~~~
Vinnl
That's mostly still the case, and they're hoping to mitigate that by capping
publication fees. I do think a change in incentive structures, where you need
to publish with certain journals to advance your career ("pay to promote"), is
still needed though.

------
ericb
I'm curious, can anyone update me on the related problem of whether it is
still the case that failing studies are rarely published so there's a
potential for duplication and misreading of significance--because if 101
studies are run and publish the one time it hit p 0.01 you got what would be
expected by chance.

Are the structural problems inherent in publish-or-perish mitigated in any way
yet?

~~~
Vinnl
Yes, that is still the case, and while a problem, it's a different one than
the problem of restricted access to research.

------
amai
In the meantime Germany and Sweden are having fun with Elsevier:
[https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/universities-
in-g...](https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/universities-in-germany-
and-sweden-lose-access-to-elsevier-journals--64522)

------
buboard
Its a little confusing because the declaration of the initiative says that the
"hybrid" model is not acceptable yet just before that it says that they will
pay open access fees up to a specific capped amount throughout Europe. Which
one is it?

In any case, some disciplines in life sciences pay the fee to commercial
publishers in order to avoid their own internal politics. Open access
publishers can have their own problems with politics and transparency which
are at this time masked because everyone publishes in high-impact third party
commercial publishers. It is a little more difficult to trust the publication
record as a proxy for value when you know that e.g. connections have played a
part in it.

~~~
IanCal
Paying for OA is not hybrid.

Hybrid usually refers to journals that have some OA and some non-OA content.

However, I'm not sure if the initiative is talking about not publishing in
hybrid journals at all, or that publishing non-oa followed by later paying for
OA is not acceptable.

> In any case, some disciplines in life sciences pay the fee to commercial
> publishers in order to avoid their internal politics. Open access publishers
> can have their own problems with politics and transparency which are at this
> time masked because everyone publishes in third party commercial publishers.

I'm not sure if I understand right, but there's no distinction between OA
publishers and commercial publishers. OA really just refers to the rights of
the final paper, not whether the publisher turns a profit.

~~~
buboard
OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction. Paying for open access
used to be optional (like in Cell) now becomes mandatory (like in Cell
Reports). The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper.
It's probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather
than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill.

> I'm not sure if I understand right

I was making a point about how impact factors are used as proxy for value in
life sciences. Because life scientists have done that, they are now dependent
on a model in which a third party (the commercial publishers) is judging their
work. Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the
same impact factor, because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it
(more paid subscriptions) has gone away. So , at least in life sciences,
academics will have to learn to evaluate the work of each other more openly,
something that other disciplines have achieved long ago (e.g CS, math ,
physics).

~~~
IanCal
> OK that makes sense, but that's a tiny distinction.

It's potentially the largest part IMO. That would dramatically change the
landscape as all research output from EU funding could simply _never_ appear
in certain journals rather than requiring that journals add an OA option.
Major journals would need to switch from closed/hybrid to full OA, and soon.

> The scientist still pays a hefty fee ($5000) to publish a paper. It's
> probably more economical for the Funding bodies to pay the OA fee rather
> than paying the subscriptions, but it still foots a bill.

Yes, it's a shift in who pays - it's not a claim that the EU will now forbid
paying for publishing. They are however (as now a customer with enormous
weight) saying they'll cap the APCs.

> Going fully open access means the journals will more or less have the same
> impact factor,

I don't see that being at all true, I'm not sure why you'd expect that.

> because the strong incentive to work towards increasing it (more paid
> subscriptions) has gone away

The incentive is still to get researchers to publish in the journal, arguably
the desire to be more restrictive may increase.

~~~
adw
[These days I'm entirely industrial, but I used to be an academic working in
this space. I am extremely biased.]

This is the EU – and their allies at places like the Gates Foundation and the
Wellcome Trust – negotiating with tanks in public (and not before time, in my
personal view).

The centre of the argument is in life sciences, because that's where the most
money is, because all of the physical scientists read arXiV anyway, and
because the scholarly societies, led by the American Physical Society, have
managed to hang on and are notably less rapacious than Holzbrinck and
Elsevier.

Nature/Holzbrinck/Digital Science are arguing the other side, because of
course they are, who wants to get disrupted? And Nature is their bully pulpit.

A lot of this comes down to the scholarly societies – many of whom are much
easier to deal with, a notable exception being the American Chemical Society,
who are very hard to deal with because they're led around by the nose by the
Chemical Abstracts Service – being displaced by a small number of vehemently
commercial big corporates. They know fine well this is a wasting asset and
they've been trying to wring as much cash from it as possible, and it's
hastened this endgame.

~~~
IanCal
Not sure if I've put in this thread but just to avoid any issues, I work for
Digital Science (which is part of Holtzbrinck) though as always only ever
speak personally and not for the company.

> This is the EU – and their allies at places like the Gates Foundation and
> the Wellcome Trust – negotiating with tanks in public (and not before time,
> in my personal view).

I don't know I'd see it quite like that, far from a negotiating point they
seem to be much more simply the customer. They have decided what they want to
do with their work and money, it's entirely up to them how to spend it. It's
been a while coming, but publishing is a slow industry.

The risk, really, that the publishing industry has been running with for some
time is that it relies enormously on submitted work from a relatively small
number of funders (and then the funders are often owned by the same
government, and in the EU those governments work very closely together). A
change in view from those few customers means larger things need to change.

> Nature/Holzbrinck/Digital Science are arguing the other side, because of
> course they are, who wants to get disrupted? And Nature is their bully
> pulpit.

Not sure I've seen DS arguing either side in this really. Personally it'll
make my work at DS easier the more that's open access and unless I've missed
something doesn't really impact any of the major products - I can't see how
it'd change Dimensions for example (apart from making it easier to ingest more
full text data). I certainly can't see where it would "disrupt" DS. Would be
interested to know what you think would be disrupted.

It's a change to the business model of some of the publishing, but while a big
change in the industry hardly one that should come as a surprise - and one
that there's already a widely used alternative model already in place. It's a
much bigger shift given they aren't accepting hybrid journals, but doesn't
rule out commercial operation. Seeing what they choose as their cap for the
APCs will be interesting.

~~~
adw
Not so much DS as Nature. (I know several people who used to be at DS, and
they were uniformly all great; DS appeared pretty clearly to be Macmillan-at-
the-time's hedge against OA blowing up the conventional journal business,
though, from an outside perspective)

It certainly doesn't rule out commercial publishers, but it cuts the knees out
from the selling-non-negotiable-bundles-to-university-libraries model the big
publishers have been leaning on.

~~~
IanCal
Yes, I think part of the change is likely to be to negotiate yearly fees for
no APCs to keep more reliable revenue. It's a big change.

> DS appeared pretty clearly to be Macmillan-at-the-time's hedge against OA
> blowing up the conventional journal business, though, from an outside
> perspective)

Yes, I don't know if I'd put it as OA focussed though, rather it's been a
hedge about _something_ changing and altering the business model. Never been
in the high level meetings that would have seen this discussion though so it's
all anyone's guess.

------
dschuetz
Finally a legal way to find and read and cite publicly funded scientific
papers. What a time!

------
j0e1
Does anyone know of any open-source arXiv like frameworks that can be self-
hosted?

~~~
T-A
Maybe one of these?

[http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Free_and_open-
source_journal_...](http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Free_and_open-
source_journal_management_software)

~~~
j0e1
These are great! Thanks for pointing them out!

------
thechao
This is a great idea. Even better if they applied the requirement
retroactively.

------
Fordec
"As written, Plan S would bar researchers from publishing in 85% of journals,
including influential titles such as Nature and Science." \- Nature

Conflict of interest with this reporting much?

~~~
GuB-42
There is an obvious conflict of interest. However I see nothing wrong with the
article. What is written here is a fact. 85% of journals don't match the
criteria for Plan S and Nature and Science are definitely influential.

Arguments of both sides are presented, not too much sensationalism, that's
better journalism than many so called "independent" newspapers.

~~~
dwheeler
Oh, the text is biased. E.g., the word "radical" is not emotion free, it is
clearly selected to suggest that this is a bad idea. They also emphasize
strongly the number of journals that do not meet this criteria, without noting
that changes are absolutely possible. The percentage is so small because of
the strong armed resistance of organizations like theirs. We should not expect
that an organization used to free money would be happy about losing their
exclusive access to hard work that was paid for by the public.

~~~
dragonwriter
> E.g., the word "radical" is not emotion free, it is clearly selected to
> suggest that this is a bad idea.

No, it's clearly chosen to suggest it is an extreme break from the status quo
practice.

------
StreakyCobra
In complement to the Nature's article: The FNS/SNF (Swiss national science
foundation) explains on its website the reason for not signing it (yet):
[http://www.snf.ch/en/researchinFocus/newsroom/Pages/news-180...](http://www.snf.ch/en/researchinFocus/newsroom/Pages/news-180904-open-
access-snsf-supports-plan-s.aspx)

~~~
buckminster
"We have a different plan and we're sticking to it" is not much of an
explanation.

(I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.)

~~~
Vinnl
To be fair, it's more like "we committed ourselves to a different plan to
other stakeholders, and we're sticking to it until we have convened with those
stakeholders whether they're OK with us joining this plan".

------
syntaxErr
There are alternative ones which are using blockchain technology. I know Pluto
project([https://pluto.network](https://pluto.network)) and ScienceRoot
project([http://www.scienceroot.com/](http://www.scienceroot.com/)). It's not
exactly same with open-access(they insist a fair rewarding system.)

------
undreren
This could be great for replication studies, as they are really hard to
publish under the current model.

~~~
buboard
This is not about publishing itself, but about access to published articles.
Journals will keep wanting to maintain prestige and be picky, so guess which
studies are not going to be accepted.

------
ricksebak
Aaron Schwartz is like "wait, what was I on trial for again?"

------
mjfl
Does anyone else find this ironic that this article is published in Nature, a
subscription journal?

------
mark212
The solution here is easy and obvious. The Nobel Committee should adopt a rule
saying that any research first published in a pay-walled journal will not be
considered in evaluating a candidate for any of the Nobel prizes.

That would stop publication in a day. Or less.

------
pdfernhout
Thank Goodness. I've been advocating for funders to insist on open publication
of results (and more) for over a decade: [https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-
to-grantmakers-and-donors...](https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-
grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html) "Foundations, other
grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors
need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies
if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary
publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and
collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these
grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any
resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet,
including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute
new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents
resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely
available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to
result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the
non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-
profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge
(made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short
term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and
copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication
economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt
non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of
"self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually
lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a
condition of their grants and donations."

Longer version: [https://pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-
works.html](https://pdfernhout.net/on-funding-digital-public-works.html)

Related pledge for organizations: [https://pdfernhout.net/pledge-to-only-fund-
and-create-free-w...](https://pdfernhout.net/pledge-to-only-fund-and-create-
free-works.html) "Our organization, ______, pledges to our our stakeholders
and the people of the world that from this date forward, ________, whenever we
use charitable or public dollars to fund or create any new content, software,
or any other sort of copyrightable or patentable materials intended for public
distribution and public use (or substantially modify existing public content),
we will ensure those works will be distributed to the public under free/libre
licenses. Free/libre licenses means those who receive the works have the
freedom to use, run, copy, study, change, improve, redistribute, and/or
distribute modified versions of the works without paying additional fees or
obtaining additional permissions."

------
goldfeld
"Rent-seekers could lose their privilege and everyone else could win
indirectly."

------
SimplyUnknown
How is this radical. People who have invested in knowledge (e.g. via taxes)
should be able to access that knowledge, i.e. reap the benefits of their
investment. There is nothing radical here.

Sure, I get that this is radical in the sense that some leeches' industry will
dry up. That's a good thing but it puzzles me how we got in this situation in
the first place.

------
John_KZ
That's great, and definitely better than paywalls, but how are we going to
fund the work of good reviewers?

~~~
mvonthron
reviewers are not paid by the publisher in the current system either

basically:

    
    
      - authors pay to publish their work
      - readers pay to read the articles
      - reviewers review pro-bono
    

now you are thinking "well where the hell goes the money" and you are in the
same situation as 99% of scientists

~~~
ethanwillis
It goes to funding distribution models that can't deliver unicorns, rainbows,
OR puppies to your doorstep. See the following quote from William Gunn,
Communications head at Elsevier.

    
    
      When one user argued that people in rare-disease 
      families “shouldn’t have to jump through additional 
      hoops to access information,” Gunn responded, “Yes, 
      everyone should have rainbows, unicorns, & puppies 
      delivered to their doorstep by volunteers. Y’all keep 
      wishing for that, I’ll keep working on producing the 
      best knowledge and distributing it as best we can.”
    
    

[https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/who-gets-to-read-the-
re...](https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/who-gets-to-read-the-research-
taxpayers-fund.html)

~~~
consp
Elsevier's profit was almost a billion pounds in 2017. They are the last
people to complain about margins or cost/benefits.

~~~
rocqua
They post a profit or about 33% according to others in this thread. This means
they still have ~2 billion pounds in actual operating costs. Not that I
support the current model, but that work still needs to be done, and it seems
naive to expect it to be done for free / substantially less.

I wonder how far the 'fee per published article' gets to covering bare costs
for e.g. the journal Nature.

~~~
consp
I highly doubt most of the operating costs come from the journals. Considering
there are far more people working for other publications in the Elsevier
company. Usually the publications with high turnaround have low profit or
break even, and I do not think the journals are among those and actually raise
the profit margin substantially.

But then, I can't back this up with numbers as they do not publish
specifics...

------
bmurray7jhu
Preparing papers for publication requires a non-negligible amount of not-fun
work. Someone has to proofread the paper, verify compliance with the journal's
house style guide, manage the interactions with reviewers, etc.

For high impact journals, it may be possible to find enough volunteer editors
who are willing to accept compensation solely in the form of a line of their
CV. Less prestigious journals need to provide additional incentives to
editors, and cash has a proven track record of motivating people.

Perhaps academic publishers collect to much rent from their pseudo-monopolies
on specific publishing niches, but it is difficult to escape the basic
economics of publishing.

~~~
eslaught
I just don't get this. I was involved in a conference committee this year (CS
is published in conferences), and as far as I know everyone from the general
chair on down was a volunteer. There were some costs like conference space for
the program committee meeting that had to be covered via the cost of admission
to the conference, but in a journal presumably even those would not exist
since you don't need reviewers to meet in person.

As far as I know, the only ongoing costs for the publisher (not immediately
recouped via conference admission) would be running their own website and
providing downloads. These hardly seem like massive expenses to me.

I don't see any fundamental reason why the model in CS couldn't work for other
disciplines even if you don't want to adopt conferences; people are willing to
step up and do the work, so why is so much money going to the middle men?

~~~
dwheeler
> why is so much money going to the middle men?

Because the middle men like getting free money, and it's not other people's
jobs to fix the problem. If you're an academic, your job is to produce papers
that get published, not fix the publishing system. If you're a library, your
job is to make materials available to patrons, not fix the publishing
industry. In contrast: If you're a for-profit publisher, your job is to
maximize profit, which means minimize your costs and maximize your income.

What's changed is that the costs are now so steep, and the value provided by
publishers is so little, that it's become painfully obvious that scientific
journal publishers don't provide value compared to the rent fees they charge
everyone else.

