The People vs. NPG

Science publishing is a curious business. Content is provided for free by working scientists. That content is then peer-reviewed, also for free. Publication and dissemination costs are dropping, as paper publishing gives way to electronic distribution. So of course it only makes sense to increase prices. That's what's happening at the University of California. Nature publishing group are pushing for an increase in subscription costs for UC from an average of $4500 per journal to a whopping $17500 each. A 400% increase. Across the 67 Nature group journals, that's a substantial sum. This is prompting UC to drop subscriptions to NPG journals and to boycott their products altogether.

Nature protests, of course, claiming price increases are capped at 7% per year and the large UC increase is due to deep discounts they receive that are no longer tenable. This may be the case, but given the profitability of science publishing and the fact that the consumers of the product also do most of the heavy lifting (writing and reviewing manuscripts) it's a PR battle that Nature can't win.

One great metaphor for the state of science publishing is Fight Club soap: “We were selling their own fat asses back to them.” Considering UC has contributed around 5300 articles to Nature journals over the past 6 years, the phrase that comes to mind is "biting the hand that feeds."

For a good round-up of news and blog posts relating to the UC-Nature dispute (and open access in general) check out Jim Till's blog: "Be openly accessible or be obscure"

Obstacles to Open Publishing

Palazzo leads a nice little discussion on obstacles to "open access" publishing, based on a conversation with Cell editor Emily Marcus. Many would like to see some sort of Utopian free-love, open-access, internet-based scientific publishing world, but at what cost?

The Memo Behind PRISM: A Battle Plan for Attacks on Open Access Publishing and Intelligent Discourse in General

Eric Dezenhall is a PR consultant who has distinguished himself by advising such wonderfully truth-fearing organizations as the Regan government, Exxon and Enron. Lately he's been working for the Association of American Publishers (which includes publishers such as Elsevier, Wiley and the American Chemical Society) in support of their efforts to impede technological and societal progress by attacking the open access publishing movement. Leading to the joke that is the infamous lobby group PRISM.

Now you can read all about the tactics he has recommended in this leaked memo (reprinted in text form below). Dezenhall concedes that reality is poised against the AAPs positions, therefore obscuring and confusing the truth with "high-concept rhetoric" is what is needed:

"Proposed Coalition Strategies and Tactics

Summary

The Coalition faces the daunting task of trying to win support for an issue in which publishers are not sympathetic — continuing to charge fees for access to scientific journals. It’s hard to fight an adversary that manages to be both elusive and in possession of a better message: Free information. There is no magical sound bite that will cure this issue, however, at the present time, there is little to no “pushback” from the publishing industry. To inject the industry’s position into the debate, we recommend bypassing mass “consumer” audiences in favor of reaching a more elite group of decision makers employing strategies that emphasize “high-concept” rhetoric and in-the-trenches political-style communications.

Challenges

• There are no clear villains.
  • Government is looking to give taxpayers free access to the research that they fund and publishers are trying to protect their business and the integrity of the research they publish.
• The free internet movement is strong and getting stronger
  • With the growing availability of free information on the Internet, the public feels that this is one more thing that should be accessible to all people at no charge.
• The public access issue is dry, bloodless, complex and, to most, uninteresting

Opportunities

• The publishing industry provides genuine value-added in its production of scientific journals
  • Publishers invest considerable resources through the peer review process to ensure that only the best articles are published in their journals.
• There is an epidemic of bad information on the internet and elite media know it
  • With the number of surveys and studies available on the Internet, it is difficult to separate genuine science from junk science. Peer reviewed journals are the only reliable source for sound science.

Strategies

• Supplement the Coalition’s lobbying efforts with communications “air cover”
• Simplify the Coalition’s arguments into easily digestible concepts (e.g., censorship)
• Mobilize a discretionary campaign-style team to inform key intellectuals about the risks associated with supporting the public access movement
• Communicate directly on some issues, but seek the support of third-party support on others (e.g., dangers of censorship, threats to free enterprise)

Target Audiences

• Members of Congress
• Targeted regulators
• Key media
• Think tank community
• The larger publishing community, librarians, researchers and scientists to reach more potential allies

Tactics

1. Form a Single-Issue Coalition

A coalition of concerned publishers must be formed as the industry’s collective point-group on the public access issue. A spokesperson must be selected and media-trained and a clearinghouse for information must be established. A website should be strongly considered.

2. Rhetorical Campaign Points

• Develop simple messages (e.g., Public access equals government censorship; Scientific journals preserve the quality/pedigree of science; government seeking to nationalize science and be a publisher) for use by Coalition members
• Develop analogies that put the public access issue in a context whereby target audiences will understand its pitfalls and perilous implications not to mention the hypocrisy of science leaders getting salaries and honoraria but declaring the publishing industry’s need for capital as being somehow immoral
  • Paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer reviewed articles.
  • In theory this may provide free taxpayer access to research that they fund, but they will pay eventually with substandard articles and their money being used to develop and maintain an electronic article depot rather than to fund new research.

3. Opposition Analysis

Inventory the Coalition’s adversaries, their arguments and weaknesses prior to launching communications.

4. Enlist Think Tank Support

Seek studies, white papers and public commentary from think tanks that may quantify the risks, the societal price tag of public access. Groups that may be considered include the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings, Cato, Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Consumers League.

5. Media Briefings and Placement

Conduct a fresh round of media briefings with high-end editorial, health and science writers and reporters. Conduct op-ed article placement.

6. Targeted Advertising

To trade journals and Beltway publications (e.g., The Hill, Roll Call) emphasizing key rhetorical points.

Estimated Budget

$300,000 - $500,000 for a six month program."

Feel free to point out the many flaws in his arguments in comments below.

Credit to Palazzo for pointing to this info, Blake Stacey for converting the memo to text format (which I have copied and pasted here) and Jim Giles for posting the leaked memo on his blog.

Open Access Workshop

There's been a lot of talk on the Bayblab about open access publishing, with our own Bayman making waves in the open publishing community. For those in the Ottawa area who want to learn more about open access publishing, and what it means for you, the University of Ottawa is hosting an open access workshop. The details:

Date: Wednesday 10 October 2007
Place: Room 140, Residential Complex, 90 University
Time: Seminar, 15:00-17:30 -- Refreshments, 17:30-18:30
RSVP to mrtservi@uottawa.ca by Wednesday 4 October 2007

Among the speakers is Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law. The event seems worth checking out.

Bayman is A God: Nature.com

A recent bayblab discussion on the topic of open publishing apparently caught the attention of our friends over at the Nature Publishing Group. First, Hilary from Nature Precedings jumped in with excellent commentary and discussion on this post. Now, in a post on NPG's blog Nascent (Nature's blog on web technology and science), Timo Hannay firsts blasts PRISM (as did we) and then goes on to cite one of my more provocative comments on the topic and has this to say about it:

"Some people are just too quick to assume base motives, and employ words like "boycott" as if they were punctuation marks. Also, let's be honest, sometimes open access publishers have stoked these flames to their own PR ends. For me, this cynical and wrongheaded mindset reached its apotheosis (so far) in a comment on this blog post, which suggested that — wait for it — scientists should boycott NPG for having set up the free preprint server and document-sharing site, Nature Precedings:

'[G]ood call on Nature preceedings being designed to fail - I totally agree, had the same thought. I think it's Nature's effort to sandbag open publishing. Scientists and open publishing supporters should be crying bloody murder on this. I suggest a boycott of Nature preceedings. Hell maybe even the rest of Nature journals...'

Yeah, right, that would be good for open access..."

My gut reaction was that I just got bitch-slapped by someone at Nature, but I wasn't totally sure because so many big words were used (damn those writers and their big dictionaries). Naturally I immediately dictionary.com-ed the hell out of his post to figure out what he was saying:

a·poth·e·o·sis /əˌpɒθiˈoʊsɪs, ˌæpəˈθiəsɪs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-poth-ee-oh-sis, ap-uh-thee-uh-sis] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun, plural -ses /-siz, -ˌsiz/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[-seez, -seez] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation.

1.	the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.

2.	the ideal example; epitome; quintessence: This poem is the apotheosis of lyric expression.

Hmmm. Elevation to the rank of a god. Ok, I can take that. Now let's look at the context, I seem to remember something from high school about meaning and context. Hmmm...

"cynical and wrongheaded mindset reached its apotheosis"

So, I'm the god of cynical wrongheadedness. Ok maybe not the best god if one had one's choice, but still, a god's a god.

Seriously though, I thank Timo for taking the time to clarify his position and respond to our provocations. Whether or not one believes the the NPG is seriously dedicated to open publishing as a corporate entity, he and others (see Hilary from NPG Precedings' comments on this post) demonstrate that some individuals within the organization are very dedicated to modernizing scientific publishing. His post and is worth reading. Hopefully I will muster up a more challenging response to his arguments in the future...

Canadian Institutes of Health Research Moves to Back Open Access Science

Leave it to me to get my science news from a technology law blog, but at any rate I just learned from Geist that the CIHR (Canada's NIH so to speak) has introduced a new policy on open access publishing. It will now be mandatory for researchers to make sure all published CIHR-funded work is available online free of charge within 6 months. Good news. Except when the publisher of an article specifically prohibits this. Not-as-good news.

The new policy has good intentions to be sure - but will it actually lead to an increase in the accessibility of scientific publications, or will the publisher's copyright stipulations prevent this? A quick search of a few life science publisher's copyright policies reveals considerable variability in the freedoms they grant the original authors to share their research online:

Cell, Cancer Cell, etc. - Author cannot archive pre-print. Author can archive post-print on their own server given that the publisher is cited and linked to, but the publisher's print or PDF cannot be used.

Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Genetics, etc. - Similar to Cell, but pre-print is allowed and there is a 6-month embargo before post-print archiving is allowed.

Cancer Research - Archiving not allowed. Except for NIH researchers, who can archive 12 months post-print. (Look to see if this exception is also granted to CIHR researchers in light of the new policy).

PLoS Biology, Medicine - Author may archive pre- and post-print under a Creative Commons Attribution License. No restrictions.

Journal of Biological Chemistry - Similar to Cell, but pre-print is allowed.

Blood - Similar to Cell, except Wellcome Trust (British funding agency) researchers may submit to the Biomed Central Repository for a fee.

As it is common practice for scientists to send copies of their articles back and forth and free of charge upon request, I don't see how any of these restrictions are justified; making your article available for download just makes the process more efficient, and makes it easier for non-academic members of the public to read about science with their own eyes.

On open-access and peer review

We've covered this topic often on both this blog and on the podcast but it may be time to revisit it one more time. Open access (OA) publishing has won the heart of most scientists. By definition our work only gains value by sharing, and sharing is easier when it's free. As an author of papers, I can also retain copyrights over my own work so that I am free to do whatever I please with it, including reproducing it in my thesis or posting it on my blog. I mean what's not to love. Well some people actually oppose it, obviously people who have a vested interest in the multi-million dollar publishing business. PLOS, one of the pioneers in open-access, has basically proven that not only can the idea work, but it can make for a high profile journal. But with the introduction of PLOS-ONE it may have shown its Achilles' heel. See the opponents of open-access always pointed out that openness would destroy peer review. Obviously a ridiculous assertion, since peer review is already open and free. But with PLOS ONE peer review was changed from outside "random" assigned expert to "in-house" academic editors. In fact I strongly suspect that Nature's precedings, was built to fail, an exercise in futility, to show how openness equals lack of peer review and craptacular creationist papers published. And while the opponents of open access like PRISM might have an axe to grind, they also make a good point, what is peer review, and who oversees peer reviewers?

First lets check out what they say one their site: what's at risk?

• undermining the peer review process by compromising the viability of non-profit and commercial journals that manage and fund it;

• opening the door to scientific censorship in the form of selective additions to or omissions from the scientific record;

• subjecting the scientific record to the uncertainty that comes with changing federal budget priorities and bureaucratic meddling with definitive versions; and

• introducing duplication and inefficiencies that will divert resources that would otherwise be dedicated to research.

The first point could have been better formulated. But what I think they are trying to say is "hold-on you guys can't police yourself, you need publishers to manage peer review". I mean they don't actually fund peer review since it's free but they do manage it. I don't see why editors of OA journals can't do the same, but it does raise the need for a peer-review watchdog (more on that later)

The second point is even more asinine. They're saying "Hold-on you can't choose what can and cannot be published, that's censorship, let corporations do that job". This is ironic since the purpose of journals like PLOS ONE is to let people publish based on the quality of the science not the importance of the findings. Importance is subjective, and often Nobel winning discoveries like PCR or antibodies were rejected from publication.

The third argument is also flawed because funding shouldn't affect OA journals, they are run by the publication costs defrayed by the authors. In fact one could argue that traditional private publishing is at the mercy of investors, stock market crashes and economic conditions.

Finally duplications could actually be a problem, especially for journals like PLOS ONE. If papers are not discriminated upon the basis of importance, very small incremental findings could be published which do not really lead the field forward. That being said, I would rather have more information than less. In fact if information is freely available, perhaps you would be less likely to unknowingly duplicate someone's work that was published in an obscure journal to which your institution doesn't have access.

Then what's the answer?:

Well one big step in the right direction was the creation of BPR3 an acronym coined by none other than Kevin Z (of bayblab podcast fame). Bloggers for peer review reporting aims to overview the peer review process, and check out their take on PLOS ONE. Ultimately we need some kind of watchdog, a "peer-review watch", and that it could be born in a blog just shows you the power of web 2.0 and openness.

In the mean time, why not check out this spoof of PRISM (the axis of evil publishers), called PISD (I think it is pronounced [piss]-t):
"We don't believe it's a publisher's place to make the value judgment that dissemination of scientific information is a greater social good than the increase in capital associated with charging higher subscription rates. That judgment should be made by politicians, ethicists, economists, and other valuable members of society. If you would like to know more, we suggest you consult review articles on the theory of utility or the laws of supply and demand. If your institution doesn’t provide access to such articles, we'll be happy to sell them to you at a reasonable price."

Meet the Opposition to Open Access Scientific Publishing

Alex Palazzo's daily transcript has some nice info on the publishing industry's anti-open access lobby group, PRISM. What a bunch of spineless bums.

The Ground of Science is Shattering and the Ivory Towers are Collapsing: A Revolution of the Super-Educated Masses for the 21st Century

As would be expected in any growing and prosperous civilization, the number of PhDs produced in the US continues to rise, as you can see below in these stats from the National Science Foundation, with interestingly the most dramatic increases in PhDs awarded to non-citizens. Don't expect to find these graduates in academic positions any time soon, as the number of permanent faculty and tenure-track positions has been taking a nosedive, at least in North America. Rather, PhDs these days are more likely to find non-traditional employment in science, through industry, entrepeneurial enterprises, patent or investment advisory and part-time/contract teaching. This will probably mean goodbye to the reign of tenureship politics and hello to an era dominated by independence, initiative and adaptability in science for the 21st century. Couple this with innovations in online open publishing (publish first, peer-review later), online networking/discussion tools such as Nature Network and open access to data around the world, and what you have is a revolution. I can't wait to see how science is done in 2050.