[Open-access] [GOAL] Re: Fight Publishing Lobby's Latest "FIRST" Act to Delay OA - Nth Successor to PRISM, RWA etc.

Mon Nov 18 15:54:16 UTC 2013

On Monday, November 18, 2013, 6:52:04 AM, you wrote:

> Libraries are definitely places where awareness occurs.
> They are the sentinels. However, they don't have enough
> power (generally) to impose Open Access as a permanent reflex with researchers.

You are perfectly correct: this needs to happen on the researchers' side. Which is why we collected all the data on journal rank, as journal rank is what dictates researchers where to publish:

http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00291/full 

With journal rank gone, all that is required is a superior alternative to the status quo. Given the horrible dysfunctionality of our infrastructure, this should be exceedingly easy, see e.g.:

http://www.slideshare.net/brembs/sparc-munich 

> The only way researchers can be convinced is through
> mandatory pressure from the funders and/or the Academic
> authorities.

I tend to agree that this is ONE way.

However, I would respectfully disagree that this is the ONLY way.

If journal rank no longer dictates where to publish, we don't need to replace this dictatorship with another one. Once we're free to publish where we want, wouldn't we automatically publish in something that's superior to what we have now?

Given how easy it is to provide superior functionality, why would one mandate people to to choose what is already in their best interest to begin with? No mandates are required at all for something every researcher would already do by themselves.

All mandates suffer from the Achilles' heel of political involvement. Once we have to involve politicians for mandates, we loose, because the corporations will always wield more power over politicians.

Obviously, I'm not against green mandates, on the contrary! I'm just saying they're not necessary once we have the freedom to chose where we want to publish (which we don't have now).
Mandates clearly are necessary now.

Best,

Bjoern

-- 
Björn Brembs
---------------------------------------------
http://brembs.net
Neurogenetics
Universität Regensburg
Germany