Holcombe:OpenVisionScienceVSS
Physical location: Royal Ballroom 1-3
Twitter hashtag: #OpenVisionSci (who will commit to tweeting or taking some notes for a report we'll post on the web?)
We all hope for an open system of science in which:
- Journal articles are inexpensive or free.
- Peer review is fair and efficient.
- Experiments can be fully replicated by anyone.
Achieving these goals is more feasible than ever, but most publishers, journals, and researchers have made few changes to the way they do business. This workshop will include discussion of possible solutions. We want constructive suggestions, possibly leading to an action plan.
Background
- Amusing video Scientist Meets Publisher satirizes the current situation with closed journal publishing
<html> <object width="400" height="233"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GMIY_4t-DR0?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GMIY_4t-DR0?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" height="233" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> </html> Over 7000 researchers are refusing to review, edit, and/or publish with Elsevier. Vision researchers spotted on the list include George Lovell, Jon Pierce, Edward Adelson, Alex Holcombe (who is only partially boycotting, and also made a pledge at OpenAccessPledge), Deborah Aphtorp, Joan Lopez-Moliner, Rainer Mausfeld, Nick Scott-Samuel, Michel Treisman,
Recent related talk by Alex <html> <div style="width:340px" id="__ss_12072433"> <strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/holcombea/woolcock-institute-20-mar-2012" title="Woolcock Institute 20 Mar 2012" target="_blank">Woolcock Institute 20 Mar 2012</a></strong> <object id="__sse12072433" width="340" height="284"> <param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=woolcocktalk-key-120319185214-phpapp02&rel=0&stripped_title=woolcock-institute-20-mar-2012&userName=holcombea" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"/> <embed name="__sse12072433" src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=woolcocktalk-key-120319185214-phpapp02&rel=0&stripped_title=woolcock-institute-20-mar-2012&userName=holcombea" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="340" height="284"></embed> </object> <div style="padding:5px 0 12px"> </div> </div> </html>
Publishing Solutions- subscription model
Subscription but non-profit
- Oxford Journals of OUP?
- Annals of Botany editor says they're great
- Would ARVO take VR on board?
- Duke University Press?
- MIT Press?
- Cambridge University Press? looks like the Australian Academic Press journals recently moved to it
- Highwire Press (Stanford)?
- If she doesn't answer soon, then ask Raym Crow, a Senior Consultant at SPARC who helps journals with their business models.
- Society for Neuroscience
- Brill - publishes Seeing & Perceiving, is green
- Ubiquity
- Bloomsbury Qatar
- Wiley- green, opposed RWA
Subscription, for-profit but at least not-ridiculously-profitable publishers
Danger with these is that eventually they'll be bought up by the mega-profitable mega-publishers. Quite likely actually.
So why hasn't Pion (publisher of Perception) been swallowed up by one of the megapublishers? Is there something about Pion that suggests it won't ever be?
Open Access (a dream, but not an impossible one)
- Open Journal Systems
- Annotum
- Ubiquity uses customised versions of OJS for research journals and @Annotum for meta journals.
- PLoS Currents has been re-launched using Annotum With PLoS Currents, submission to publication can take place in a matter of days and there are no publication fees. Authors use Annotum to write their submission and are in complete control of the appearance of their article.
With these options, if some universities/libraries/societies banded together, staff could presumably be hired to do administration of the above software etc.
The savings by eliminating the subscription fees for university libraries might well allow them to fund this (Heather Morrison's thesis includes calculations).
Agenda
Chaired by Jon Pierce and Alex Holcombe
11:00 Dwight J. Kravitz, coauthor of "Toward a new model of scientific publishing: discussion and a proposal"
11:20 Questions for Dwight
11:25 Alex Holcombe: Moving towards inexpensive and open publishing
11:45-12pm General Discussion
Aftermath
Continue the discussion at lunch, at the pool, at a 2-hour symposium at ECVP, at the Google Group, and on CVnet.
Attendance
All welcome. Members of the Vision Research, JoV, and i-Perception/Perception editorial boards have said they plan to attend, as has Beau Watson (founder of JoV) and Amye Kenall, publishing editor of i-Perception and Perception.