[open-archaeology] Letter from Elizabeth Bartman on Open Access

[Anthony Beck]

I think this is more focussed and less scatter-gun. My views are as follows:

<snip>
On the face of it, the bill may seem sensible and fair. Research projects funded by federal dollars should be made available to the public at large, and since the public has already funded that research it should not have to pay any more money to be able to read about it.</snip>
The case is overstated here. The main point at issue is that the act of research is funded (and the funder has the right to mandate that any result should be open), but the publication process is not. Therefore, if we agree that journals are an appropriate way to communicate scientific progress in the 21st Century (which I don't - however, the institution I work for does), then there needs to be a financial model in place that at least covers the costs of publication. This is a point that needs to be given. It would be much simpler if grant giving bodies funded the publication(s) as well as the research.

this is followed up with
<snip>
Federal grants usually do not cover publication costs; they normally cover only the acquisition of raw data. Published reports add interpretation and expertise, both the result of years of contemplation and the combined efforts of many scholars, not to mention the involved and expensive publication process itself. None of this is usually paid for by Federal grants.  Nor do these grants cover our costs, especially editorial and production.
</snip>
Which is obviously just a cheek! If Elizabeth Bartman wants to start paying for peer review then fine. She is right - value IS added by peer review, but much of this value is provided for free. Whilst I appreciate editorial input I do not care about typesetting (I also appreciate that there is more to it than this, including the not insubstantial archiving costs of digital content). 

<snip>
Our primary objection to the bill is to its mandate that the published research reports be made available online and free six months after publication. This time frame is too short: the AJA depends on subscriptions, especially institutional, for its financial survival. If libraries could get access to its articles free within six months they would rightly cancel their subscriptions and wait.  Free online access would also force us to increase subscription prices to the extent that we lose revenue from reprints or access to our archive
</snip>
I don't care about this. 21st C communication systems have irrevocably changed the game. Out with the old and in with the new. Adapt or die etc. Rarely do we get access to the underlying data on which a synthesis was based. Even more rarely are we provided with tools to mine and visulize this data to come up with new thoughts. One might believe that archaeological enquiry is a series of punctuated events.

To me the most telling point is here:
<snip>
authors make their articles available online, and in doing so they are all in compliance with current regulations set down by funding agencies like the NSF and NEH
</snip>
Now if I understand her correctly she is happy with authors placing pre-publication versions of articles on their own web-sites (or in 'institutional repositories') but not the version which has the 'added value' of being typeset and through the AIA editorial process (please bear in mind the article has gone through peer review already). Essentially, IMHO, little is added in the process provided by AIA apart from making the text conform to a standard and putting a re-sale value onto the article. So as it currently stands pre-publication papers can be openly accessible on personal websites or institutional repositories (preferred as it is an archive) or are accessible under pay-per-view at the journal. 

If this is the case AIA are doing what they need to do. I grant the situation is not perfect. The journal is technically redudent in this model apart from providing credibility and impact factor metrics (which are important for our universities and career progression). 

In summary (TL/DR):
This is a storm in a tea-cup. I think it's useful the debate is being had. It's a shame it started in such a polarised way.
I would like to see publication costs becoming part of research grants (although there are issues here for the 'lone' researcher and 'unanticipated discovery' - both of which, given open data, should be large :-)
I would like us to find richer, more nuanced, approaches to communicate our science that are based on 21st century, as opposed to 16th cenury, communication tools.
I would like the AIA (or AJA) to have costings for submission of articles which are Open Access
We need to find better ways to deal with credibility and impact that reflect the fluidity of interpretation and the complexities of contribution

Best

Ant

P.S. this was meant to be short - obviously this is a procrastination exercise on my behalf
---------------------------------------
Anthony Beck
Research Fellow
DART Project
School of Computing
University of Leeds

Follow me on Twitter: AntArch
Follow DART on Twitter: DART_Project

The DART project website is continually updated www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/dart
________________________________________
From: open-archaeology-bounces at lists.okfn.org [open-archaeology-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Eric Kansa [kansaeric at gmail.com]
Sent: 30 September 2012 20:09
To: John D. Muccigrosso
Cc: open-archaeology at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [open-archaeology] Letter from Elizabeth Bartman on Open Access

Seems like Bartman is more open to "open data", rather than open
access to synthetic works. At least that's my first reading of this.
Thoughts?
-Eric





On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 11:32 AM, John D. Muccigrosso <jmuccigr at drew.edu> wrote:
> On 30 Sep 2012, at 14:23 , Jessica Ogden wrote:
>
>> Just wanted to flag up that Elizabeth Bartman of AIA has released another letter on the AIA website regarding Open Access: http://www.archaeological.org/news/aianews/10349
>>
>> Seems that she has softened her tone a bit, but clearly the same issues are at the forefront.
>
> Indeed.
>
> There's a reference to a task force. Did they publish any findings?
>
> Also:
>
>> The AIA does have concerns, however.
>
> I don't remember being asked about my concerns. I think this means "the AIA's board" vel sim., not its members.
>
>
> Just a little cranky,
>
> John D. Muccigrosso
>
>
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> open-archaeology mailing list
> open-archaeology at lists.okfn.org
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