Nascent

I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask for open mindedness and to avoid knee jerk counterattacks to reasonable discussions. And ever since you raised this point some time ago, I have tried to do just that.

In my blog response to Butler's article I tried to be not too reactionary. Personally, I disagree with the logic of his argument and I tried to point that out in my blog. I also disagree with some of your logic in your posting here. But for now I will move on to another issue.

I would like to defend some of the reactionary responses here. I think Butler's article was designed to elicit this type of response. It was a classic flame type of posting and it started a flame war. So to then say that the response it elicited is some sign that people who disagree with him/you on OA issues are unreasonable, I think is not really fair and is not in the spirit of trying to have a collegial debate.

I did a highly unscientific survey of some friends and colleagues who are not involved in scientific publishing and asked them to look at this article. All of them responded with something like "Clearly he was trying to provoke a response". It is of course entirely possible that he did not intend this. And it is entirely possible that nobody at Nature who read his piece before it came out thought that some of the wording and logic and presentation might be interpreted as an provocation. Sure, if Butler raised these points, even in the tone he used in the article, in a pub at a scientific publishing conference, it might have generated a rolling, fun, and interesting discussion. But instead it was imprinted with the stamp of "Nature News" Not "Nature Opinion" or "Nature Blogs but Nature News. I think that is what elicited the response, which I personally think has been a bit over the top in some places, but, perfectly understandable.

There is a way forward to have an open reasonable discussion about these issues. But it seems pretty clear to me and to many others that Butler's piece was not a step in the right direction.

I wonder if you're being unfair by concentrating on the top end of the journal market. It seems to me that PLoS can make a good case that their top journals are loss-leaders establishing the brand, and PLoS One is now the major vehicle for creating a sustainable business (you may notice some similarities between this argument and a recent Nature news piece).

So I'm not sure your Dr. Evil comparison is fair - you have to look at the whole business. My take on this is that PLoS are actually succeeding with open access, but the news is that the high end of the market won't support itself.

And it has to be possible to be critical without the risk of knee-jerk counterattacks. (Right now I don't think this is possible, but I guess we'll find out.)

Isn't 'evil' sort of like Thomson's IF? Thoroughly discredited? Looking at motivations and interests (i.e., goals) is usually a lot more revealing about the causes for a particular set of behaviors. So I agree on your 'evil' comment :-)

More importantly, though, as a scientist I really don't care if someone's plans don't work out and then they come up with a Plan B to make it work. We do this all the time in our grants. Moreover, how do you know that what PLoS stated at the outset really was their plan and not a marketing trick? Either way, PLoS in general is working fine and probably will be for quite some time, whether that was according to plans or not isn't really all that relevant, at least not to me. If anther publisher were to go the same way, it should also work for them, shouldn't it? Why should what works for PLoS not work for others?

Finally and most importantly (to me), is the question of why we still need to distinguish between 'high-end' and 'low-end' journals? I mean this question to be understood on principle grounds. Why does the editor-choice have to come before peer-review? Why not have the editors chose papers after they've been vetted by peers? In such a system, each manuscript eventually passes one instance (of X rounds) of peer-review, reducing the review load drastically. Once the peer-reviewed papers enter the publicly accessible database, trained professionals get a chance to establish a track record for their choices: which of his/her picks get how many downloads, how many citations? How many trackbacks, comments, ratings,media coverage, etc.? That way, editorial performance could be measured objectively - as well as scientific impact of the papers published.
Why, with today's technology available, don't we have such a system already? what are the drawbacks of such a scheme and could they be overcome?

A fair and open essay by Timo Hannay. I have only one observation, and one question:

Observation: Open Access (OA) is not synonymous with Gold OA Publishing; as Timo notes, there is also Green OA Self-Archiving, and Green OA Self-Archiving mandates, from institutions and funders.

Question: Nature is not anti-OA, but can it be described as pro-OA having backslid in 2005 from having endorsed immediate GreenOA Self-Archiving (along with the majority of other journals [62%]) to imposing a 6-month embargo. (Does a 6-month access-denial for researchers whose institutions cannot afford to subscribe to Nature not 6 months of anti-OA?)

I don't want to overstate this point, though, as Institutional Repositories have the semi-automatic "email eprint request" Button to tide would-be users over the embargo period with almost-instant, almost-OA, but one does wonder why Nature is not fully on the side of the angels on this one...

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Fine, fine. None of this explains or excuses what the snide and dismissive tone of the piece, which implies the science published by PLoS One is somehow suspect. What is the evidence that the articles are of "lower quality?" Certainly, PLoS One does not seek out the most trendy, splashy, or novel papers, or exclude papers for not reaching any such aesthetic threshold. Experimental rigor and scientific quality are essentially its sole editorial criteria. Clearly, journals like nature have many other criteria, which they are welcome to. None of this has anything to do with "quality."

PLOS is right, absolutely, and clearly. "Real" scientific progresses are nowadays so abundant, that they need the cooperation of the most famous PGs with their websites to be freely (free open) spread among "all" scientists around the world. At this point, I have honestly to underscore an highlighting event on the firsighted Editors of both PLOS and NATURE. Although, since 52 years I am a "solitary" Researcher in the field of physical semeiotics(now Quantum Biophysical Semeiotics), i.e.,independent of Acàdemy, University, National Institute, a.s.o., my researches have been honoured to be posted (due to my poor... English, properly edited!), helping them in spreading, because of their recognized usefullness. Interestingly, I have been demonstrating for decades that individuals are not born all equal, so that patients, too, are really different as regards disorder onset and outcome. For instance, not all patients, involved by Metabolic Syndrome, classic and "variant", the later I discovered, are suffering from type 2 diabetes. In fact, exclusively those with diabetic constituions and diabteic inherted real risk may become diabetic. Based on a long clinical experience, I illustrated in books and papers an original Theory on Single Patient Based Medicine, based on biophysical-semeiotic constitutions, that completes the well-known Evidence Based Theory. Well, since years, PLOS has posted it in his celebrated website:. http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=read-response

Why not have a model somewhere in between the traditional model and the open access model.

Hmmm, like a freely accessible public articles but without the dirty word "open access" associated with it. The model could be heavily ad-oriented, with a lot of ads in the article themselves, and if you want to print the article you would also have to print out the ads in between the pages. There could be coupons for Dominos pizza and viagra, it would be glorious.

so nature has been claiming all along that it is not possible to successfully running an open-access, yet selective journal that only publishes a few articles. well, now that the era of funder-mandated archiving has begun, what is nature going to do ? is it going to change its business model, or shut shop ? or are we suddenly going to see how it was indeed possible, all along, to run a "selective" journal that allows free access to its scientific content ?

ps. i have posted more thoughts at: http://floatingnotes.tumblr.com/post/41156654/nature-plos-fracas-html

Thanks for all the comments.

Jonathan: Point taken. As I said, the responses were in many ways understandable. FWIW, I think yours was quite levelheaded. As for the tone of the article, I'm not in Nature editorial, and they write whatever they want irrespective of the views of publishers like me, so I can't really speak for them.

Bob: Yes, I understand your point well. My point is that (i) if you wanted to prevent author-pays spreading at the high end then the current set-up is hard to beat, and (ii) author-pays was already happening at low end even before PLoS. Since the principle reason for PLoS's existence is as a catalyst for change this is, well, disappointing. I haven't yet been over to Greg's blog but I look forward to doing so later. :-{

Bjoern: I think the current incentive is for other publishers to mimic PLoS ONE (which is very similar in publishing terms to BioMed Central) and ignore the loss-making bits. This goes as much for non-profits as for commercial outfits because they have to make ends meet too. You can certainly make the argument that PLoS's high-end journals are a loss leader (though given the scale of the loss it's at least debatable whether or not they pay their way in this regard), but the fact remains that they are also a strong disincentive to competition in that particular segment.

Suresh: Funder-mandated archiving as it currently exists provides an embargo period (typically 6-12 months) during which publishers retain exclusivity, so there's still an opportunity for them to charge for content. There is also the potential to create paid services on top of open-access primary research content (e.g., by making it easier to navigate and understand), just as organisations like Westlaw and LexisNexis have done in legal publishing.

I have a completely crazy schedule over the next few days, but I'll do my best to moderate any further comments promptly, and respond where I might have something to add.

First of all, thanks so much for responding in such a well thought out manner, presenting the issue without need for the brash language from the original. It is a pity the original article was not so well thought out. I will first list my complaints with the original, and then problems with the rebuttal.

I note you still have not responded to miko's point, specifically: "what is the evidence that the articles are of "lower quality?". This is the main problem I had with the original article. Your readers are not brick-headed, and the original article was charged with language rich in the wrong sort of connotation.

First, to "we need to be able to discuss these things openly because anyone who doesn't care about the economics of open access doesn't care about making it a reality." you are absolutely right. To that end, it would be quite interesting to see how Nature makes its money. If a different open-access model is to be considered, perhaps it would be easiest to start with a working model (like Nature's) and cut out any exorbitant costs or analyze the level of profit.

Second, the line "the poster child of the open-access publishing movement" makes it clear that the article is using the lack of success of PLoS to intimate that future tries will also be failures. Buried deep within the article is the line "PLoS is on track to be self-sustaining within two years." which is perhaps as notable as what you have chosen for the headline.

Thirdly, the line "relying on bulk, cheap publishing of lower quality papers to subsidize its handful of high-quality flagship journals" implies that this is a negative thing. Quality is subjective, and, what's more, in this case that subjective claim is being made by a party with competing interests... thus the repeated calls for a conflict of interest statement.

Finally, to your response (and a very good one). This line: "Since the economics for high-end author-pays journals may never be workable, it's legitimate to argue that PLoS has merely put some barbed wire and a big "Keep Out!" sign on top of a barrier that was already insurmountable. But that hardly makes it a catalyst for positive change in publishing." You don't support the end of that statement. How does a failure not bring positive change? There are clearly other models that could be tried, and a failure allows one to narrow down the choices to reach an economically viable open-access model faster. Also, like Exxon and Shell to alternative energy, I think Nature is making a mistake by not pioneering its own pricing structure to allow authors to be in compliance with the NIH repository (and Stanford, Harvard, etc.). I'd appreciate a link if Nature is indeed trying out a model for this.

Second, your quote from PLoS's FAQ doesn't mention economics, making it clear that's not priority 1. Also, see aforementioned quote from article that the PLoS system should be self-sustaining in 2 years... so it is not a failing model, it has failed to meet an arbitrary time goal. It's a government created project, and that's almost the norm for such things, no?

May be able to make these points more coherent later, once a reply narrows down the exact issues, but I think some things are consistently not being addressed, such as why the original article was so overwhelmingly negative in the face of facts that are really half good news and half bad news...

Evans: Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I haven't responded to the "lower quality" question because I didn't use that phrase. The Nature article did, but as I explained to Jonathan, I'm not a Nature editor, I'm just responding with my own views to the issues raised in the article, not explaining or defending it (which I'm not in a position to do because I played no part in writing it). The same goes for your other comments about the article, I'm afraid.

I haven't compared them, but it's probably reasonable to assume that the cost of producing a Nature-branded monthly journal is in the same ballpark as the cost of producing a top-end PLoS journal. The problem is that at current prices, author fees cover only a very small proportion of these costs. And the question is whether it's a good thing to maintain this situation through grant funding or cross-subsidy. I argue that it isn't. To see why, imagine if a new entrant came up with a way to produce similar high-quality journals at a third of the cost. They ought (quite rightly) to be able to dominate the market. But given the level of subsidy provided to the PLoS titles, they wouldn't be able to charge competitive author fees and still cover their costs. This not only provides a disincentive for these kinds of new players to enter the market, it provides a disincentive for anyone to even try and come up with such lower-cost approaches. That's how, to use your phrase, failure does not bring positive change (in this particular case).

Nature absolutely does allow - and encourage - its authors to deposit their manuscripts in institutional and funder repositories. There are more details here.

You're correct that the quote I chose from the PLoS FAQ doesn't mention economics explicitly. But perpetually subsidised publishing doesn't sound to me like a template that other publishers will adopt. So my argument is that if the economics are ignored then this approach will not only fail, it could even do more harm than good.

Further to Evans' point above about author self-archiving (and my response below that), NPG is now offering a free service to archive manuscripts on behalf of authors. More details here.

Also, John Wilbanks of Science Commons has an excellent post on this whole PLoS discussion over at Nature Network. As ever, his perspective is very knowledgeable and wise.

I am very excited about Nature's new service! Poor language from last week's article is certainly forgiven, and this willing compliance (and then some) with the NIH's public access system is as wonderful as it is unexpected. Congrats to Nature for jumping again to the forefront of scientific publishing.

Thanks again for the reply. I see your point about the author's fees, but still think this considers only too narrow of a pricing structure space. There is not only pay to read vs. pay to publish, and a third party could potentially compete (even with the unfair subsidies) if it used, say, a decaying pay-to-read price along with author fees to compete with PLoS. Your point is certainly well taken though, the free market isn't being allowed to work here, but I'd say that it shouldn't be, as clearly evidenced by Elsevier's "free market" pricing over the past decades.

They could certainly take a page from NPG's book at this point.

There is a very good, related post on Spoonful of Medicine, the Nature Medicine blog, here:
http://blogs.nature.com/nm/spoonful/2008/07/ignorance_is_bold.html

Thanks, Evans. I think the point you make about (over)pricing actually illustrates very well how important it is, from the point of view of scientists and the scientific process, that there should be as much competition as possible between publishers.

Overpricing typically comes about from a lack of competition: there's only one source for a given piece of content. Author-pays publishing could help to improve this situation because authors seeking to publish a particular piece of work have more choice - and therefore more market power - than readers seeking to access it. But perpetual subsidy neutralises this effect, once again reducing competition and choice, which is bad for scientists and science.

Of course, self-archiving also increases competition in the sense that it limits the extent of publishers' monopolies over content. This is why in principle it's a good thing, as long as it's balanced with the need to pay for the publishing process (hence embargo periods).

Unfortunately, I cannot read the full original 'offensive' article since it is not Open Access. I am disappointed how many responders (‘Impact Factor junkies’, to steal a phrase) still use Impact Factor as a datum for argument when the measure has long been discredited. I invite all keen participants in this debate to attend the forthcoming 2nd European Conference on Scientific Publishing in Oslo 4-5 September http://www.ecspbiomed.net/ on Open Access and the ‘bibliometrics’ of scientific achievement. It is a not-for-profit event; I disclose that I am the Chair of the Programme Committee and the publisher of the Open Choice TheScientificWorldJournal. Graham V. Lees, PhD