Alex Holcombe - FriendFeed

My slides from 10-min Open Access Week talk http://www.slideshare.net/holcomb... Covers the OA Hulk, of course

suelibrarian and Graham Steel liked this

Yo there Alex, was nice to now see this (and you) in context:- http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/stream... - Graham Steel

It would be useful to have URL's for each video... - Graham Steel

Let's say the editors of a journal (one for which the publisher allows authors to deposit postprints or preprints in institutional repositories) decided to add to their manuscript submission requirements a *requirement* to deposit the pre-print or post-print. Would publisher want to drop the journal? Could publisher drop the journal, or would that

October 29 - Comment - Like - Share

Kaan Öztürk liked this

be breach of contract? - Alex Holcombe

Someone curious about starting openaccess journal with no fees. Where can learn about Open Journal Systems, other options, costs, editing, maintnce time- so that can estimate whether it's feasible?

October 29 - Comment - Like - Share

Opening access with peer reviewing pledges- Hypocrite and green road objections http://wp.me/ph4jF-hK #oa #oaweek

October 24 - Comment - Like - Share

Steve Koch, Heather Piwowar, The Ghost of Library Past and 3 other people liked this

Our new video http://youtu.be/GMIY_4t-DR0 for Open Access. Open Access Week is one month from now. Consider pledging to direct your manuscript reviewing efforts towards openaccess at http://openaccesspledge.com

September 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Kubke, Deborah Fitchett, Graham Steel and Mario Pineda-Krch liked this

I would like to do a German version of this one. Any chance of sharing the script/ settings? - Daniel Mietchen

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Hi Daniel, just seeing your comment now- yes I was planning on posting the script somewhere, and will send it to you if I can find it now - Alex Holcombe

Here we go: http://science.okfnpad.org/xtranor... . - Daniel Mietchen

First go at German version, with built-in error finding contest: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch... . - Daniel Mietchen

If anybody is interested in translating it into yet another language, let me know and you can paste in a new script - Alex Holcombe

Final German version at http://www.xtranormal.com/watch... #oaweek #oa - Daniel Mietchen

Now also available via http://www.youtube.com/watch... and http://www.openaccessweek.org/video... and http://vimeo.com/30917560 . - Daniel Mietchen

Exp Brain Res maybe most expensive journal in neurosci, $13670 subscription. For open-access week, would ppl be willing to hyperlink "Exp Brain Research" to a webpage that features the high price, explains lower-cost alternatives, and urges editorial board to decamp? Not so much a googlebomb as a public service announcement

October 3 - Comment - Like - Share

science3point0, Daniel Mietchen, Björn Brembs and Graham Steel liked this

ha ha - nice one..... I'm in. - Graham Steel

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My blog doesn't have much googlejuice after a long hiatus, but I'll spread the link around as best I can. - Bill Hooker

It's unfortunate that such an action, which is actually nothing unusual or underhanded in this case, is associated with a term that has the word 'bomb' in it! I don't see anything truly ethically wrong with a bunch of people mentioning the high price of Exp Brain Res online and all linking to the same webpage that describes the situation in more detail. - Alex Holcombe

I'm all for it and will participate! - Björn Brembs

Count me in. - Daniel Mietchen

Any news on this one? - Daniel Mietchen

I haven't done anything- too busy with other OA stuff :) An alternative search term to use might be "most expensive neuroscience journal" or we could try making blog posts that use both terms. What do you think? I think maybe we'd several dozen ppl to make it work, so if you like it do you want to ask some others and we'll see how many we get on board? - Alex Holcombe

Any analysis of what arXiv.org did to the physics journal market? Are there fewer physics journals now than there would be otherwise? What distinguishes them from journals in sciences that don't use arXiv? How many journals would survive if everyone in science posted all their articles to repositories? How many libraries would subscribe, and why?

September 23 - Comment - Like - Share

suelibrarian liked this

Hmmmm. Good questions. - The Ghost of Library Past

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You know about SCOAP3, right? http://scoap3.org/ - Meg VMeg

My point being that libraries are invested in peer review, so plenty of them appear to be willing to fund that process, even if the resulting content were OA. Granted, HEP is a tiny, tiny world with a huge preprint culture, so it's hard to say whether this is generalizable/sustainable. - Meg VMeg

http://scholar.google.fi/scholar... - Daniel Mietchen

The tender process for scoap has begun. http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record... - The Ghost of Library Past

I didn't know about SCOAP3; SCOAP3 is great! Reading between the lines of the SCOAP3 report, it sounds like although almost everyone in high-energy physics has posted some version of their article on arxiv, it's often not en earlier version than the post-print. Is that right? Is that the reason libraries are still subscribing to the HEP journals? And/or is it partly out of a patronly feeling they need to sponsor the existing peer review process? - Alex Holcombe

#openaccess #oaweek idea: Make xtranormal.com comedy satire movie of when academic publisher asks scientist to sign away copyright. Want to collaborate on script?

September 18 - Comment - Like - Share

The Ghost of Library Past, Kubke, Björn Brembs and 5 other people liked this

WIll respond offline when I'm back home from work. Definately count me in !! Never seen www.xtranormal.com before. Looks much more whizzy than something similar I've used before. Have you used it before Alex (i.e. do you have an account)? - Graham Steel

3 more comments

hi Graham, I hadn't used it before but I started in on it and it looks very straightforward, although making a good video will be time-consuming work. I've seen a few videos with people sitting at a desk, which is the context I want, but unfortunately I don't see how to do that at the site. Maybe I should make an account from scratch and share the password so you can help me. - Alex Holcombe

There are 'desk settings' in the 'Beigez Movie' format :) - Graham Steel

And..............here is the video:- http://youtu.be/GMIY_4t-DR0 - Graham Steel

thanks Graham - Alex Holcombe

Open Access Week is coming,on 24 October! I want to make some kind of pledge but hard because of complications with co-authors, CV impact factor stuff for grants, etc. Howzabout a fairly minimal pledge: we could pledge to review for closed journals only as many manuscripts as we submit to them, and spend all the rest of our reviewing and editing...

September 15 - Comment - Like - Share

time for open access outlets - Alex Holcombe

A journal editor wrote (in a comment at bottom of http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/2011...) that some of the comments people have written on my blog constitute defamation against him and his journal and are therefore illegal. I believe strongly in free speech, and therefore don't want to delete the comments "just to be on the safe side". What should I do?

July 6 - Comment - Like - Share

Pawel Szczesny liked this

I don't think I am liable, but don't want to support such commenting activity if it is illegal. - Alex Holcombe

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Example comment: "Glossing over greed with syrupy intentions is corrupt." The others are here: http://bit.ly/otsVB9 - Alex Holcombe

Added comment on the thread. I've never met GE but my impression is that he's a straight arrow -- but that doesn't mean all publishers are as honest! Regarding liability, surely that is a settled question by now -- if bloggers were liable for comments, where would that leave Wordpress, political bloggers, facebook, etc etc etc? - Bill Hooker

Thanks Bill for your helpful comment! BTW, although I don't like GE's aggro stance, and certainly mentioning libel/defamation has a somewhat chilling effect, he may not have intended to threaten or chill my speech, so I wouldn't want to accuse him of that. About the comments he say are defamatory, I certainly didn't like their tone and maybe developing a good comment policy for my blog will reduce them in future and give me cover for deleting the ones that are particularly ad hominem. - Alex Holcombe

Can anyone point me to a good blog commenting policy? (for someone like me who is a big believer in free speech) - Alex Holcombe

Gunther Eysenbach is often heated in his interactions with other editors and publishers, e.g. see http://gunther-eysenbach.blogspot.com/2008.... I am not a lawyer but under US law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... covers you from liability (no idea if your blog would be under US jurisdiction), but it may be wise to remove inflammatory comments anyway as they tend to derail debate. - Matt Hodgkinson

I also agree: if comments would make blog authors liable, the judicial systems in any country wouldn't be doing anything else :-) - Björn Brembs

Thanks guys- also if any of you disagree with GE's points, feel free to comment on my blog (http://bit.ly/psyMfH ), because GE writes as if I'm the only one with my "illogical" views that "make no sense" regarding the possibility of fast-track fees biasing the journals - Alex Holcombe

My attempt at a popular article about my research: Hold your horses – news just in on the speed of sight! http://theconversation.edu.au/hold-yo...

June 22 - Comment - Like - Share

Should formulate and make pledge to review only for open-access journals. Alternative is for only open-access plus Green OA journals, but that's probably too easy. Anyone interested?

June 15 - Comment - Like - Share

Kubke and Bill Hooker liked this

Not obvious to everybody :( And because I haven't made a pledge yet, I make all these exceptions. Like for cool paper in prestigious journal. Or for paper that should be citing me more :) Plus, if nobody knows we're doing it, won't spread as much. - Alex Holcombe

Sure, I'll support and sign. Did this for myself a while back -- http://www.sennoma.net/main... -- and don't even have to make an exception to help out a colleague any more. I haven't been asked to do so since that post, but if I'm asked again to review for a non-OA journal I will decline and explain why. One useful thing a pledge could do is provide a standard explanation that people could copy/paste or link. - Bill Hooker

thanks Bill, and I've got to add you to my list of earlier pledgers http://bit.ly/lTtxmE - Alex Holcombe

I'm thinking of making some kind of open-access pledge, probably Green OA. Who has done so and what exactly did they pledge? I ought to try to maximize impact of pledge on my institution, others

June 13 - Comment - Like - Share

searching the web, I found only philosophy and law OA pledges, and institutional mandates, not individuals - Alex Holcombe

Obesity Reviews cancels fast-track fees! http://wp.me/ph4jF-eq , and journals that fast-track for a fee, updated http://wp.me/ph4jF-er

June 11 - Comment - Like - Share

Graham Steel and Egon Willighagen liked this

Hoping that nobody confuses fast-track fee journals with author-pays open-access journals http://wp.me/ph4jF-e3

June 9 - Comment - Like - Share

Kaan Öztürk and Cameron Neylon liked this

Protest of fast-tracking fees- two journals respond, and one bows out: http://wp.me/ph4jF-dD

June 5 - Comment - Like - Share

Egon Willighagen, Claudia Koltzenburg and Kubke liked this

"hypotheses non fingo" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... What is true understanding? Maybe we set too high a bar- ever since Newton's law of gravity, no leap of understanding can clear that bar.

June 5 - Comment - Like - Share

Australian govt scraps journal rankings. But not clear on what they'll use instead http://economics.com.au/...

May 30 - Comment - Like - Share

Emre Sevinc and golyandro liked this

journal rejects (non)replications of precognition ESP work http://www.newscientist.com/article... , because they don't publish replications! This is an advantage of PLoS ONE

May 6 - Comment - Like - Share

Matt Hodgkinson, Graham Steel, Björn Brembs and Cameron Neylon liked this

"Publish all of your data", problem solved. - science3point0

I just sent our fast-track fee protest letter (http://groups.google.com/group...) to the associated journals! But how to deal with all the responses? I think I will post them here: http://groups.google.com/group... and suggest everyone responds there or link to your response there.

April 26 - Comment - Like - Share

Emre Sevinc, ferayebach and Kaan Öztürk liked this

I'll need the help of people here to address their responses, hopefully to convince the journals to stop these policies, as I believe they threaten science's good reputation. http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/tag... - Alex Holcombe

Keep science fair, protest fast-track fees—we have refined our protest letter to the offending journals, and I'll soon send it, please sign on! http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/2011...

April 15 - Comment - Like - Share

Kaan Öztürk, Graham Steel, ferayebach and 3 other people liked this

direct link to the letter: https://docs.google.com/documen... - Alex Holcombe

4 more comments

signed! - Björn Brembs

Sorry... I missed that. Fast-track fee? Does part of that fee go to the referees for making them work harder? Or is this a common you-pay-me-to-get-you-published-faster? Do you pay up front? The more you pay the faster, and with starting with four digits the editor let's you know the same day how fast that track can be? - Egon Willighagen

Egon: for some journals a portion of the fee goes to reviewers, for others not, in which case it's pay-me-to-get-you-published-faster (why did you use "common" there?). At least for one journal (obesity reviews) you pay up front, not sure about the others... - Alex Holcombe

Note that typical open-access author-fee journals treat all authors the same so the reader knows what they're getting, my objection with these is that money gets preferential treatment (and possible peer-review shortcuts), and moreover the journals don't seem to indicate which were fast-track and which weren't - Alex Holcombe

@Alex... that common is misplaced... I wanted to make the parallel with other uses of financial incentives (bribe, lobbying complemented with party donations, etc)... the 'common' in the comment was a left over... sorry about that. - Egon Willighagen

"it's much easier to get published in physics than in the social sciences and humanities. Rejection rates are much lower in the physical sciences. Physicists don't mind incorrect papers because they think that, over time, any incorrect results will be shown to be incorrect" sociologist of science Collins interview: http://bit.ly/gChvSM

April 16 - Comment - Like - Share

Ahmet Yükseltürk, Emre Sevinc and Kaan Öztürk liked this

Creating a two-tier academic system of rich and poor: Now, money fast-tracks journal submissions! http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/2011...

March 16, 2011 - Comment - Like - Share

Kubke, Daniel Mietchen, newrüm and 7 other people liked this

_Obesity Reviews_ has a “Fast Track Facility”: A submission fee of $1,000 or £750 for articles up to 9000 words long, or $1500 for articles more than 9,000 words long guarantees peer-review within 10 working days - Alex Holcombe

26 more comments

I suppose this was inevitable. - Bill Hooker

Maybe it's inevitable, but we should protest somehow, in case it's not inevitable :) - Alex Holcombe

Wow. That's really shady. - Georgie Bestie

Money for fast peer review? When will there be money for no peer-review? - Björn Brembs

well, this sounds like a wake-up call to me... any suggestion as to where and how to protest? - Claudia Koltzenburg

Soon, very soon...which is exactly the wrong way to be going... - Cameron Neylon

commoditization might be a key term to search (Suber 2009) http://www.earlham.edu/~peters..., commoditization was apparently also talked about at OASPA conference in Prague August 2010 http://oaspa.org/coasp/ - Claudia Koltzenburg

How does a journal "guarantee" peer review within a certain period without compromising peer review? - Matt Hodgkinson

Indeed ! - Graham Steel

we might ask journals with a very short submission<->acceptance period... - Claudia Koltzenburg

I think reviewers must be getting a cut so that they will evaluate the paper quickly. When money is involved, they will tend to accept some borderline cases which they would reject otherwise. They want to be "cooperative" so they will get more manuscripts (=money). Some may even make a career out of this. - Kaan Öztürk

MKaan - where do I sign up? Depending on the money involved, I can make my review shorter and quicker than anyone! - Mr. Gunn

Coming soon to a journal near you, Mr. Gunn :) - Kaan Öztürk

Here's another one, requesting a $200 processing charge. http://www.aicit.org/JDCTA... - Kaan Öztürk

And another. Wow. I'm afraid of digging further. http://www.jmir.org/cms... - Kaan Öztürk

Thanks MKaan et al., looks like these 3 journals are different publishers so it is not just an isolated case. I suppose we should start by writing a letter protesting to the journals and their publishers. The fee (and the associated compromise in standards that will sometimes occur to get the action letter done by the deadline) violates an ethic of scientific fairness. Has anyone codified fair practices by journals? We need a code to shame violators, and reduce their prestige - Alex Holcombe

I've started an open protest letter on Google Doc, I would love any help to write it, also lemme know if you're likely willing to sign on: https://docs.google.com/documen... - Alex Holcombe

I've made some contributions to the letter. I'll certainly consider signing it (being cagey only because I don't know where other folks will want to go with this). - Bill Hooker

thank you, signed as the Managing editor of an OA journal that is a Western/Russian cooperation - Claudia Koltzenburg

Thanks. I've signed it, too. - Kaan Öztürk

anything came from this, @Alex Holcombe? - Claudia Koltzenburg

Lars Hvild alerted me to the existence of the International Committe of Medical Journal Editors (http://www.icmje.org/) which sets some norms for journal behavior. Anyone have any contacts there? Otherwise I'll simply cold-email them, although that hasn't worked yet for a few other places I tried. Of course we should also send our letter in to those journals at some point. Any other ideas? You might also be interested in one journal editor's defense in the comments on my blog:http://bit.ly/hDb8Ci - Alex Holcombe

@Alex re ICMJE, if you like I am a representative of a medical journal so, yes, we 'belong', so you and me (CTT) could team up if you think that might be helpful in this regard, good idea @Lars Hvild - Claudia Koltzenburg

@Claudia that's great! BTW we only have 6 signatories at the moment so anyone reading, please consider signing on: http://bit.ly/f1LDjb @Claudia I haven't found your email, mine is alex.holcombe-AT-sydney.edu.au I'll draft an email to ICMJE for us - Alex Holcombe

info at ctt-journal.com - Claudia Koltzenburg

I wonder if some of that money is going to pay peer reviewers to comment within a certain number of days? - The Ghost of Library Past

Alex, I doubt many people are going to read this far down the comments on this thread. I'd try posting a new item to your feed and the Science 2.0 room just saying "we think the letter is ready to go, please consider signing". I think that's a reasonable thing to do, and not spammy. - Bill Hooker

China to beat US scientific output quantity in 2013? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news...

March 28 - Comment - Like - Share

"It will take many years for some of the research to catch up to Western standards." - Alex Holcombe

We are losing our top spot and when the brain drain kicks in, it may be irreversible. Already some fields like stem cells are struggling. However, sneering at "low quality" mass produced Chinese publications doesn't suggest any useful solutions. - Mr. Gunn from Android

How many hours do they suggest again 10000... that's how long it takes them to catch up. - Egon Willighagen

Age of Wonder. history of 19th-century science http://www.amazon.com/Age-Won...

March 14, 2011 - Comment - Like - Share

Experimental Brain Research too expensive at $11751/yr (as is being discussed at CVnet vision list), what publisher should editorial board decamp to make a new low-cost title? Science2.0 and open-access people, please advise! Not everyone will go for open-access, so should also have a more conventional (but low cost) subscription option

February 24, 2011 - Comment - Like - Share

‎"The peer-review system is the most ludicrous system ever devised. It is useless and does not make sense in dealing with science funding when history abounds with a plethora of examples that indicate that the most important breakthroughs are impossible to foresee." Nobellist Harry Kroto...

January 18, 2011 - Comment - Like - Share

Claudia Koltzenburg, Daniel Mietchen, science3point0 and 4 other people liked this

http://www.nature.com/nature... ""The science budget should be split into three (not necessarily equal) parts and downloaded to departments. The local institutions, and not government departments, should disburse funding as they are close to the coalface and can decide what needs support and what is in the long-term interest of the department. There should be no research proposals on which to waste time. One part should go to young people chosen by their universities as the researchers on which their institution's future will depend — they have done the work, why waste time doing it again when people have no time and are too far away from the coalface and in general do not have the relevant expertise? The second part should go to a group whose most recent report was excellent. This is the racehorse solution — if a scientist has just done some great work, let her or him run again." - Alex Holcombe

lack of written clarity or legibility can improve retention of information?! http://www.wired.com/wiredsc...

January 16, 2011 - Comment - Like - Share

anybody use a friendfeed app for iphone and like it? all the app reviews I find via google seem to be from 2009, before facebook acquisition

January 11, 2011 - Comment - Like - Share

finally, the Australian Research Council supports open access http://alexholcombe.wordpress.com/2011...

January 6, 2011 - Comment - Like - Share

Andrew Perry, The Ghost of Library Past, Matthew Todd and 4 other people liked this

If you have ideas of how this should be made stronger for future years, maybe we can sign a letter to the ARC together. It would be good to move towards a stronger mandate - Alex Holcombe

4 more comments

why the limit of 2% of funding to be used for OA? avg ARC DP grant is something like $100,000 a year (actually less I think), and $2000 would only pay for one PLoS ONE paper at $1350/paper or if you prefer the today-announced Nature Publishing Group PLoS ONE imitation journal, Scientific Reports it would cost you... $1350/paper! So you could only do about one, although other OA journals... more... - Alex Holcombe

I was thinking it was reasonable guideline figure but I'd forgotten that ARC grants aren't really paying the full costs so that could be a problem. The other option is to get ARC to pay overheads properly of course. - Cameron Neylon

It's about what Wellcome budget for, for instance in their costing for OA charges in general. - Cameron Neylon

Don't understand the need for a limit. Just budget it in the grant proposal. Done. Was anyone here asked to consult on this? - Matthew Todd

The explanation I heard - about ten years ago - is that the old ban on payment had nothing to do with OA, and was rather due to the ARC simply not wanting to pay author fees, on top of what libraries were already paying for subscriptions. (Different organizations of course, but most of it ultimately comes from the same source: taxpayers.) Admittedly, this was hearsay, but it was from a pretty reliable source. - Michael Nielsen