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By Sean Graham
There are certain universal experiences that go along with being involved in academics, one of which is explaining the publishing model of academic journals. This is particularly difficult for grad students, who, upon their first publication, are confronted by family members wondering how much they got paid. It’s a well meaning question, but it’s a bit of a downer to have to explain how academic publishing works and that, as today’s guest aptly puts it, it’s a gift culture. The work is done in the pursuit of knowledge with the primary goal not being monetary gain, but rather having the information available for public consumption.
Recently, that final point has increasingly been scrutinized by the Open Access movement, which is explored by Peter Suber in this openly accessible book. More and more scholars are moving away from journals with paid subscriptions in favour of open access publications. Sometimes that’s not possible, however, which is why some institutions are requiring their faculty to put copies of their publications in open access repositories in their libraries.
At Harvard University the push towards open access has been led by the Office for Scholarly Communication, which has been able to get each school to agree to participate in its open access repository. Through Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH), publications by Harvard faculty are freely available to anyone. The site has been quite successful since its launch, recently surpassing 7 million downloads. They also maintain an Open Access Directory, which includes listings of open access materials and different funding models for open access journals.
In this episode of the History Slam, I talk with Peter Suber, the Director of Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication. We chat about his book, the challenges of getting faculty on board, and questions of funding. We also explore some of the generational challenges associated with open access and the benefits of public scholarship.
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Video Transcript:
00:05
welcome to the history slam podcast from
00:07
activist root CA here’s your host Sean
00:10
drea Thank You Adam welcome to the
00:15
history slam everybody I am Sean Graham
00:17
I’m actually nearly live we were in
00:18
Cambridge Massachusetts we are in
00:20
widener library at harvard university
00:23
which is where all the tourists come
00:26
when they come to Harvard Yard and take
00:28
a picture of the library there’s always
00:29
piva today there was somebody it’s
00:31
raining it’s been raining all morning
00:32
and somebody was sitting on the stairs
00:34
for a photo in front of the library so
00:37
it’s just part of what we do or what
00:39
happens at Harvard not why we’re in
00:41
widener to talk about Widener but we’re
00:43
here because that is where the Harvard
00:46
office for scholarly communication is
00:48
and we’re lucky enough to be talking to
00:49
the director of that office Peter Suber
00:52
welcome to the show hi Sean thanks for
00:54
having so this is really fun for us
00:55
because part of what the website is
00:58
about is essentially an open-access kind
01:01
of model that we’re online and providing
01:03
scholarship for free and and you’ve
01:06
written extensively about open access
01:09
your part of the Harvard open access
01:11
project yeah and that’s really what the
01:13
office of scholarly communication is so
01:16
if you could just sort of sum up I know
01:18
we talked about just before we recorded
01:19
but the office for scholarly
01:21
communication what is your role I direct
01:24
the office for scholarly communication
01:26
and the office has the job of
01:28
implementing hardwoods open access
01:30
policies every school at Harvard now has
01:33
an open access policy it took a while
01:35
these were adopted school by school and
01:36
separate votes between 2008 and 2014 but
01:40
in each policy the faculty grant Harvard
01:43
permission to distribute copies of their
01:46
future articles and they commit to
01:48
deposit those articles in our open
01:50
access repository so when Harvard gets
01:53
copies Harvard has permission to
01:54
distribute them all we have to do is get
01:56
our hands on the copies right so we
01:59
implement those policies and we try to
02:01
provide open access or free online
02:03
access to as much of Harvard’s research
02:06
output as we can and is that going to be
02:09
limited to people within the institution
02:11
or if I just a member of the public
02:14
go to the Harvard library website search
02:16
and hollis would I have access to that
02:19
as well yes at the point of open access
02:21
is that it’s for everybody with an
02:22
internet connection it’s not just for
02:23
Harvard people right and you wouldn’t
02:26
have to go through Hollis you could find
02:28
it in google google scholar any other
02:30
search engine whether it’s academic or
02:32
non-academic we try to be indexed and
02:33
discoverable through as many possible
02:35
indexes and search engines as possible
02:38
he said that this happened school by
02:40
school and the one thing I’ve only been
02:42
here for six or seven months whatever
02:44
it’s been the one thing I’ve really
02:45
noticed is that this is a very
02:46
decentralized place and each school
02:48
likes to do its own thing I’m just
02:51
wondering it was that a challenge to get
02:53
everyone on board and that was a big job
02:55
yeah it more unified universities there
02:58
can be a single vote that covers all
03:00
faculty and that never happens at
03:02
Harvard on any subject and including
03:05
this one so every school had to consider
03:08
the policy separately debate it
03:10
separately and then vote separately so
03:14
we had policy first at the Faculty of
03:16
Arts and Sciences in 2008 that didn’t
03:19
bind any faculty to any other school at
03:21
Harvard the law school was second just a
03:23
few months later the medical school was
03:25
last in 2014 but in each case we had to
03:27
make a separate campaign it was more or
03:28
less like persuading nine different
03:30
universities to adopt a Miss Ellison did
03:33
it help you know once one faculty got on
03:35
board was it a snowball effect or was
03:37
each one a separate case and trying to
03:40
argue different things because obviously
03:41
publishing each discipline is different
03:45
in their different models yeah so was it
03:47
a similar campaign with each school or
03:49
did you have to adapt and say here’s why
03:51
it’s beneficial to you yeah the policy
03:53
language was the same the benefits to
03:55
faculty were the same and it probably
03:58
did break the ice at the schools after
04:01
the first or second to realize that
04:03
other Harvard schools had already
04:04
decided to do this but Harvard is
04:06
fragmented for reasons that is faculty
04:08
are proud to do things their own way or
04:11
to rethink everything from the bottom up
04:13
so we had to start over again at every
04:16
school and explain why the policy was a
04:18
good idea why we use this language
04:20
rather than some other language and all
04:21
the consequences for them and we got
04:24
pretty much the same questions
04:25
objections and misunder
04:26
at every school and by the way I work
04:29
with other schools to adopt policies as
04:30
well and we get the same questions
04:32
objections and misunderstandings there
04:33
too so there’s pretty much the same set
04:36
of obstacles to work through before you
04:39
get to understanding and support but we
04:42
had to do that each school here I guess
04:45
before we move on will say the open
04:47
access the way you define it is free
04:50
online scholarship is that fair or is it
04:53
more nuanced than but I need a short
04:55
definition i call it actually free open
04:58
access literature is digital online free
05:03
of charge and free of most copyright and
05:06
licensing restrictions so first of all
05:08
it’s online and you don’t pay anything
05:09
for it but it should also be under an
05:11
open license so it’s free for use and
05:13
reuse as well ok so the reproduction is
05:16
very important because this one thing
05:18
that I’m always concerned about with
05:19
courses is you know you put together a
05:22
course back and copyright stuff and it
05:24
just increases the cost to the students
05:26
which which I’m not always crazy about
05:28
right so so that’s an important factor
05:30
here as well that’s right and there is
05:33
open access to course where and two
05:35
handouts and lectures it’s not just for
05:38
scholarly articles and scholarly books
05:39
and scholarly datasets any kind of
05:42
content can be digital in any kind of
05:43
digital content can be open access the
05:46
open access movement focused on
05:47
scholarship in particular it focused on
05:50
scholarly articles for a good reason the
05:52
authors of scholarly articles have never
05:54
been paid for them we have since the
05:56
birth of scientific journals in the 17th
05:58
century authors donated their articles
06:01
to the journal because they wrote for
06:03
impact and not for money so this was the
06:05
low-hanging fruit unlike books where
06:07
authors could receive royalties in
06:08
principle even if they don’t receive
06:10
them in practice articles never paid
06:12
royalties so authors were giving them
06:14
away from the start there was a more
06:15
than 300 year tradition in the west of
06:18
scholars writing these things with great
06:20
care but then giving them away without
06:22
expecting any payment and hoping for
06:24
wide readership and impact and the
06:27
internet allowed them to have an even
06:28
wider readership and even greater impact
06:30
and of course we couldn’t pay them but
06:33
they weren’t expecting to be paid there
06:35
was this
06:35
tradition so that was the low-hanging
06:37
fruit and we’re still working on it that
06:39
is it’s low enough to be attainable but
06:42
not quite know enough to be frictionless
06:44
no we still have to persuade people that
06:46
this is worth doing on the whole we’ve
06:48
been succeeding very well the trajectory
06:50
is definitely up but it’s easier for
06:52
articles than it is for books it’s
06:55
easier for articles in some cases than
06:57
it is for data even though data were
06:58
never published and the same goes for
07:01
other categories including courseware
07:04
and educational handouts but when the
07:06
original creators create it for impact
07:08
and not for money when they do it for
07:10
public benefit then they see the point
07:12
of giving it away they’ve been giving it
07:14
away if only they could get readership
07:16
or impact in exchange for giving it away
07:18
they see the bargain and they’re willing
07:20
to do it they just need call it the
07:22
infrastructure to do it in what sense we
07:24
had at infrastructure as soon as we have
07:25
the internet but it helps to have more
07:28
refined infrastructure repositories that
07:30
can hold this stuff that make it easy to
07:32
upload the stuff that will preserve the
07:34
stuff that will make sure it’s indexed
07:35
by search engines but we have that
07:37
already too so now we just have to
07:40
persuade more and more people to deposit
07:42
their work to make it accessible and to
07:44
persuade more users that it exists and
07:46
to use it when it’s available for
07:48
example you use the example of course
07:50
where or open educational resources many
07:52
educators are writing good open
07:55
textbooks open handouts open video
07:57
lectures we have to persuade more
07:59
schools to make use of them schools are
08:01
doing that and states that require
08:04
public approval of works that are
08:07
adopted in the curriculum are approving
08:09
these things but it’s a gradual process
08:11
so we have to persuade people the author
08:13
Anton people at the reader read but
08:14
right we’re succeeding at that right I
08:16
know for me I’m going to broad in the
08:18
summer to teach at a university and it’s
08:21
I’m teaching a couple survey courses and
08:23
in the contract it says your textbooks
08:26
have to be open access textbook that all
08:28
you’re allowed to use that’s right um
08:29
because they don’t want to burden their
08:31
students with additional costs which I
08:33
thought was kind of a good idea and then
08:35
I got to thinking I got to go look at
08:37
some open access textbook because I’ve
08:39
never I’ve never used textbooks as a
08:41
instructor yeah
08:43
I’ve only used them as a student and
08:45
they’ve always been I’ve had to purchase
08:46
them so now you know going and research
08:49
and inviting them and it’s interesting
08:50
that there’s so many more available than
08:53
I would have guessed and you know I’m
08:56
sort of involved in this even
08:58
tangentially and I’m not aware of all
09:00
the stuff that is available so I’m sure
09:02
for you that that’s sort of part of your
09:04
uphill battle that you’re talking about
09:06
is you know if I’m involved in academia
09:09
and I’m not aware of all of what’s
09:11
available you know for someone who has
09:13
the perception of academics as stodgy
09:15
and you know the ivory tower you know
09:17
how would they know right so that’s got
09:19
to be part of what you’re pushing
09:20
against in addition to getting academics
09:22
on board that’s right first we have to
09:24
persuade people that these things exist
09:26
then we have to persuade them that they
09:28
can be as high in quality as the works
09:31
that carried a price tag and of course
09:33
they can’t be there written by the same
09:34
kinds of experts mark it they just have
09:36
are written by experts with a slightly
09:38
different motivation who are more
09:39
interested in helping other people then
09:41
in royalties in the case of scholarly
09:43
articles this was pretty easy because
09:46
they were always given away in the case
09:47
of textbooks it was a little harder
09:49
because a successful textbook can be
09:51
extremely lucrative for the author wrote
09:53
and it’s hard to persuade or initially
09:55
it was hard to persuade people who were
09:57
likely to write such good textbooks to
09:59
make them free instead there are some
10:01
ways to make money back from open
10:03
textbooks but on the whole you want
10:05
people who are willing to write for the
10:06
sake of students and not for the sake of
10:08
royalties but now after quite a bit of
10:11
time has passed we have first-rate open
10:13
textbooks in every discipline we didn’t
10:16
have that 10 years ago but we do now I
10:18
guess that would be part of the
10:19
challenge with faculty you know you say
10:22
articles are pretty easy to convince
10:24
people to go open access because you
10:25
don’t get paid for them but with the
10:27
textbook like you say that you can make
10:28
a lot of money if you have a successful
10:31
test textbook that’s used widely so how
10:35
is that conversation go with people who
10:36
write textbooks and who have made money
10:38
off of them does it go along the lines
10:41
of you know if you’re a faculty member
10:42
this is sort of part of your publishing
10:44
mandate and or I’m just wondering like
10:47
if I’m used to getting paid and making a
10:50
bunch of extra money on top of what I
10:52
get paid from University for a textbook
10:54
I’ve imagined it difficult
10:56
process to get those people to go open
10:58
access right and I don’t work too much
11:01
with open textbooks but I imagine that
11:03
the conversation would be very hard with
11:05
an author who already has a successful
11:07
selling textbook that brings in a
11:09
serious revenue stream instead you would
11:13
go to people in the same field to right
11:15
alternative text books that are just as
11:17
good but a free of charge right that is
11:19
it’s hard to ask people to give up their
11:20
revenue streams when they’re already
11:22
getting about it’s not hard to ask
11:23
academics to give their work away for
11:25
the sake of impact and for the sake of
11:28
education and research right because
11:30
that’s kind of what the whole point is
11:31
right of academics is to you know have
11:36
your stuff distributed widely and have
11:38
an impact because I don’t know what the
11:41
numbers are in the United States but you
11:43
know you read studies of any humanities
11:45
articles in scholarly journals get read
11:49
like four times or something on average
11:51
which and doesn’t want to find the
11:53
paywall but yeah most of them are not
11:55
studied at all right doesn’t mean
11:56
they’re not read at all but they’re not
11:58
certain at all we don’t know how often
11:59
they’re red but there’s a long tail and
12:01
the majority of works are barely read
12:03
and it’s not because they’re bad it’s
12:06
because they’re in micro specialized
12:08
subjects and only a few people care and
12:11
by the way the authors know that going
12:12
in because the author’s themselves
12:14
specialized and they might actually make
12:17
a contribution to knowledge in that
12:18
small niche and they’re writing for the
12:21
other six people in the world who are in
12:22
the same small niche and that’s one
12:25
reason this kind of research which
12:27
actually accomplishes something has to
12:29
take place outside the market because if
12:31
you could only produce that by selling
12:33
it there’d never be a market large
12:35
enough to justify producing it so it has
12:38
to be a gift culture you have to agree
12:40
in advance I’m writing for an audience
12:42
that already is waiting for the you know
12:45
ninth decimal place on this piece of
12:48
knowledge and there aren’t too many of
12:49
those there certainly aren’t enough to
12:52
pay the costs of production so I’m going
12:54
to just give it away and the university
12:56
system has known this for centuries and
12:58
so we hire people and we pay them
13:00
salaries so that they are free to give
13:03
away the results of their scholarship
13:05
if we depended on them to sell it then
13:07
essentially nobody would get to the
13:09
ninth decimal place on a piece of
13:10
knowledge after the first or second they
13:13
would have used up the market and
13:14
knowledge would stop but that it would
13:16
not become more fine-grained more
13:18
precise deeper more extensive instead we
13:21
would just have brought her but not
13:23
deeper knowledge right and that’s on a
13:24
majority of things like I always joked
13:26
it like there’s a new book about the
13:27
Civil War every 20 minutes or anything
13:29
so like there’s some stuff where there
13:30
seems to be an endless market but for
13:32
you know ninety-nine percent not so much
13:35
that’s right so the question then of who
13:37
pays for you mentioned that universities
13:39
pay faculty to to do research most
13:43
universities I mean smaller liberal arts
13:45
teaching schools are more focused on
13:47
teaching but you know as school like
13:49
this research is a main focus and
13:51
there’s certainly government grants and
13:53
private company more private grants in
13:55
this country than at home but there’s
13:58
there’s money out there to do that but
14:00
publishers make a lot of money off of
14:04
academic journals yes they do you talk
14:06
to them about getting their authors out
14:10
of these contracts that prevent them
14:12
from putting them into repositories like
14:14
an open access one here or are you
14:16
trying to work with publishers to maybe
14:18
find a model for them to go open access
14:20
or you focus mostly on on the faculty
14:23
it’s a good question because the answer
14:25
is complicated first of all we scholars
14:30
including research institutions what act
14:33
in our own interests not in the interest
14:35
of publishers we want the work we read
14:38
to be free of charge we want the work we
14:40
produce to be free of charge so that it
14:42
can be widely taken up used applied
14:44
cited if publishers can stop us then we
14:49
want to talk with them so that they do
14:51
less to stop us right on the whole the
14:55
people in the best position to stop us
14:56
are the unpersuaded fellow scholars and
14:59
so a lot of our energy if were smart and
15:02
strategic I think most of our energy
15:04
goes to persuading our fellow scholars
15:06
if they’re not taking advantage of this
15:08
opportunity that’s actually worse for us
15:10
than publishers lobbying against it or
15:13
refusing to cooperate
15:14
and from the earliest days publishers
15:17
were cooperative to some extent that is
15:20
you could publish in a conventional
15:21
Journal that charge subscriptions so
15:23
that the result is not open access but
15:25
the majority of publishers of that kind
15:27
gave standing permission to their
15:29
authors to put the copy of the
15:31
peer-reviewed article in an open access
15:33
repository mmm the majority of such
15:36
publishers they didn’t have to do that
15:37
if they didn’t we would have tried to
15:40
persuade them to do that but the
15:42
persuasion wasn’t difficult and even
15:44
today the majority of conventional
15:46
publishers give this kind of standing
15:47
permission so authors can publish there
15:50
and make a peer-reviewed copy of their
15:52
article open access through a repository
15:53
has to be the author’s initiative the
15:55
publisher is not making it open
15:56
themselves right and authors have to be
15:59
persuaded to understand that the option
16:01
exists and then to seize the opportunity
16:03
that’s where it gets back to persuading
16:05
fellow scholars but some publishers
16:08
still don’t offer the standing
16:10
permission they’re minority but they
16:11
exist and then when effective national
16:15
or funding agency open access policies
16:18
are in the offing many publishers will
16:20
Lobby hard against them that’s another
16:21
way in which they’re hurting us there’s
16:24
not much we can do to persuade them to
16:25
stop that is we’ve tried we’ve published
16:27
arguments against their arguments it’s a
16:30
public debate and on the whole the trade
16:33
associations representing conventional
16:35
publishers are aggressive and
16:37
well-funded in lobbying against these
16:39
policies even if individual publishers
16:41
are more indifferent or more
16:42
accommodating so there’s a sense in
16:45
which publishers are opposed there’s a
16:47
sense in which the publishers are
16:48
accommodating some publishers are
16:50
actually experimenting seriously with
16:52
open access themselves this is
16:53
relatively new compared to what things
16:56
were like 20 years ago he was such a new
16:58
idea that of course no publishers were
16:59
experimenting with it it was too new
17:01
yeah but even after it became a familiar
17:02
idea some publisher said that’s not for
17:05
us in fact that would hurt us we’re not
17:07
going to do it ourselves but we’re not
17:08
going to stop other people from try it
17:09
out others said we’re not to do it
17:11
ourselves and we’ll do our best to stop
17:13
other people from trying it out and
17:14
we’ll do our best to stop funding
17:16
agencies from requiring it will do our
17:18
best to prevent universities from
17:20
requiring so publishers have taken a
17:22
range of attitudes one thing that I
17:25
think all of our
17:26
supporters should understand is that
17:28
publishers are not monolithic some were
17:31
born open access some have completely
17:32
converted to open access some partially
17:35
converted to open access some have not
17:36
converted but give standing permission
17:38
for open access and then some are
17:40
seriously experimenting with it because
17:41
they don’t want to be the last publisher
17:43
without any experience within as the
17:45
world changes toward open access so
17:48
publishers are in different positions
17:49
but insofar as they’ve been
17:51
accommodating allowing us to do which to
17:53
seize the opportunity provided we’re
17:55
willing to see it the opportunity then
17:57
we don’t have to overcome any obstacles
17:59
but insofar as they’re lobbying against
18:01
good policies we do have to fight back
18:03
and on the whole we’ve been successful
18:05
there that is legislatures who adopt
18:08
open access policies for publicly funded
18:10
agencies are more persuaded by our
18:12
arguments than by their arguments and I
18:14
think the reason is these are public
18:16
funding agencies dispersing public money
18:18
you have a public benefit and the point
18:21
is to share it with everybody you could
18:22
benefit from it not to give it to
18:24
publishers who will lock it up when it’s
18:26
already paid for by taxpayers been
18:28
teaching this semester on popular
18:30
culture and these private public
18:32
partnerships that are done for
18:34
commercial gain exists but this is not a
18:36
case where there’s commercial gain for
18:39
everyone involved in the project it’s
18:40
really just for the private entity and
18:42
the person who’s been funded by the
18:43
public is giving away what the public is
18:46
paid for to a private right I would let
18:48
in the absence of these open access
18:50
policies authors would do all the hard
18:53
work usually subsidized by public money
18:55
yeah they give it away themselves so
18:58
they’re not being paid for it they give
19:00
it to a publisher who then locks it up
19:02
and only meters it out to paying
19:04
customers right and so this publicly
19:06
funded research ends up in private hands
19:08
it’s a revenue generating asset for a
19:11
private corporation and the fact that
19:12
public money paid for in the first place
19:14
was just lost right and so the public
19:17
isn’t getting its money’s worth the
19:19
author who intended to reach people and
19:21
expand readership and impact isn’t
19:23
getting what he or she intended that is
19:25
why did they consent to give it away
19:28
without being paid royalties for the
19:30
sake of readership and impact but
19:32
when the work is locked up by private
19:34
companies and only given to paying
19:35
customers they’re not getting the full
19:36
benefit of that right so authors are
19:38
losing the public is losing taxpayers
19:40
are losing and these federal agencies
19:41
are not serving the public interest that
19:43
they were intended to serve that’s a
19:46
pretty compelling case and it’s so
19:47
compelling that liberal and conservative
19:49
legislators see it it’s one of the only
19:51
issues on which there is bipartisan
19:53
support in the United States today right
19:55
and it’s it’s interesting because when I
19:57
tell people about stuff that I’ve
19:59
published that I go how much did you
20:01
make out that yeah you say well nothing
20:03
that’s because and it’s because it’s
20:05
it’s so different from its not very much
20:07
any other publishing exactly and even if
20:09
you talk to people who do publish like
20:11
novelist poets unless their academic
20:14
novelist or poets I’ve never heard of
20:16
this and the idea that you would work
20:18
hard to write something and then not be
20:20
paid and even know that going in and
20:22
it’s not just that you had bad luck not
20:24
to be paid but that you intended to
20:26
write something that’s brand new to them
20:28
and one of the problems we had lobbying
20:31
Congress to persuade them to adopt these
20:32
policies that they thought we were
20:34
already being paid royalties because
20:35
that’s the only publishing model they
20:37
had ever heard of right and by the way
20:39
publishers didn’t disabuse them of that
20:42
I’m not sure publisher is actually a
20:44
lied and said we pay royalties to these
20:45
authors but when legislators showed that
20:47
they misunderstood the system and they
20:49
thought authors were already being paid
20:50
publishers didn’t correct them right now
20:53
so that was an obstacle I once was
20:56
talking with a notable published poet at
20:58
a party and yes what I did and I
21:00
explained I work for this and he was
21:02
horrified because he depends on the
21:04
trickle of revenue that comes from
21:06
published poetry and even if you’re
21:07
successful that’s a small trickle right
21:09
and I had to make clear I’m not talking
21:11
about poetry or novels for which there
21:14
is revenue or royalty I’m talking about
21:16
scholarly articles for which there isn’t
21:18
royalty and he was a former professor of
21:22
history and he got it right away he just
21:24
misunderstood the scope of this Roman
21:26
and he said oh yeah well of course those
21:28
things ought to be given away I thought
21:30
you were talking about my stuff right
21:32
yeah it’s also like the labor involved
21:34
like peer review I’ve peer-reviewed
21:36
stuff I haven’t been paid for that
21:37
that’s right either right so it’s not
21:38
even just the author right
21:42
this is actually one of the beautiful
21:43
aspects of the opportunity here authors
21:45
for more than 300 years have been giving
21:47
away their articles without expecting to
21:49
be paid right and the people who peer
21:51
review the articles have been donating
21:52
their time for the same period not
21:54
expecting to be paid and the editors who
21:56
supervised the peer review process read
21:58
the referee report and decide what
22:00
revisions to require and whether the
22:01
paper is finally acceptable are also
22:03
donating your labor right so everybody
22:05
involved in the authoring and the peer
22:07
review process is giving away their work
22:09
and/or labor and yet they’ve all been
22:12
giving it to publishers who lock it up
22:13
and sell it to people publishers could
22:15
get away with that because to live you
22:18
were making your money from the
22:19
University and you’re getting paid a
22:20
wage it was considered that this was
22:22
part of the the job but now that we have
22:26
this tool of the Internet to allow for
22:28
open access we can completely change the
22:31
model yeah i would put this way in the
22:34
age of print what publishers did when
22:36
the authors and referees were done was a
22:39
fairly expensive job and they needed
22:41
payment to cover their expenses when the
22:43
internet came along it became or it
22:45
could have become a much less expensive
22:47
job so the barrier was much lower and we
22:50
could distribute this work without extra
22:53
charge and we could find new payment
22:55
models that would reimburse the small
22:57
cost that remained that’s roughly what
22:59
we’re doing now but publishers that were
23:01
large and thriving in the era of print
23:03
wanted to remain large and thriving they
23:05
benefited from this tradition of giving
23:08
works to publishers and letting them
23:09
sell it and in fact granting them all
23:12
rights to the work in the publishing
23:14
contract and there was a nursery for
23:16
that so I’m going to call this a custom
23:18
rather than anything stronger it’s a
23:21
custom we can change it was never a law
23:22
it’s not absolutely required for
23:24
economic sustainability it’s just the
23:27
way things worked in the edge of print
23:28
how much changed when the internet came
23:30
along well we working for open access
23:33
thought this was one of those things
23:35
that changed publishers didn’t publisher
23:37
said well we still have expenses every
23:39
which is true yeah but it’s not true
23:41
that we have to work with them we can
23:42
repair the publishers that don’t have
23:44
the same level of expenses we can work
23:46
with lean and mean startups they don’t
23:47
have legacy overhead from the edge of
23:49
print we can work with different
23:50
business models or payment models
23:52
that do cover the costs of the publisher
23:54
but without charging the reader and
23:56
letting that charge function as an
23:58
access barrier so we had lots of options
24:00
and traditional conventional publishers
24:02
had one model that they kept pursuing
24:03
because it was liquid for them or
24:05
because the alternative was brand new
24:07
when they hadn’t finished thinking it
24:08
through now you mentioned though you can
24:10
go with sort of new startups different
24:13
people I think this is one of the
24:16
challenges the grad students and early
24:18
career academics are finding I’d say
24:21
most of grad students and I say that
24:22
only because I’m more conversing with
24:24
grad students having more recently been
24:26
a grad student that we’re expected if we
24:30
want to go in the job market to publish
24:32
and publish in big-name journals right
24:35
and so these are a lot of them from
24:37
these legacy long-standing 50 at least
24:40
50 values like these sorts of things
24:41
like journals that people have heard of
24:43
so for graduate students is it more
24:46
difficult for them to go to a new
24:49
journal a purely open access just
24:52
because of the reputation issues and the
24:54
state of the job market and having to go
24:57
with older more established journals is
25:00
it is it chat a challenge to the open
25:03
access model yes if you mean do we face
25:06
some resistance from junior faculty who
25:09
have to put their career first we do get
25:13
those sorts of objections there are good
25:14
answers to those objections and I should
25:16
also add there’s another side to this
25:18
the scholars who most support the idea
25:21
of open access our younger faculty right
25:23
ones who grew up with the internet right
25:25
ones who expect almost everything that
25:27
they want to read to be available not
25:29
only online but to be available online
25:31
free of charge yes so they expect that
25:33
for the works they’re looking for and
25:34
they aren’t surprised when people expect
25:36
it for their own work they see why that
25:37
would benefit everybody if only we could
25:39
get there but they feel this pinch they
25:42
want to be hired so they have to please
25:43
the hiring committee or they’re already
25:45
hired they have to please their
25:46
promotion and tenure committee what it
25:48
takes to please them is to publish in
25:50
prestigious journals prestigious
25:51
journals have to be old to have acquired
25:53
the right level of prestige if they’re
25:54
old they’re probably not open access
25:56
right even if open access journals are
25:59
equal in quality they’re not equal and
26:01
vulnerability and prestige
26:03
the sake of these committees bith so my
26:05
advice to those junior faculty young
26:07
scholars is published where you have to
26:09
publish to get your career because we
26:11
want you to have a career we want you to
26:13
succeed but don’t forget you can publish
26:15
in those journals and much more often
26:17
than not you can put a copy of the
26:19
peer-reviewed article in an open access
26:20
repository without violating copyright
26:23
because the publisher lets you it’s in
26:25
the contract right look for it you
26:27
probably have that opportunity and it’s
26:30
then up to you to seize it so if you’re
26:32
truly a supporter of open access but
26:35
just feel constrained not to take
26:36
advantage of it don’t feel so
26:38
constrained you can publish in those
26:40
journals and still make a copy of the
26:42
peer-reviewed manuscript open access
26:43
again this option is not widely
26:45
understood even though it’s been there
26:47
for more than a decade at most journals
26:49
but then there’s a growing number of
26:51
open access journals that are not only
26:53
high in quality but also high in
26:55
prestige because they’ve been around
26:56
long enough to acquire that that’s new
26:59
and wonderful that is a journal that’s
27:01
excellent from birth cannot be
27:02
prestigious from birth because prestige
27:04
is a different kind of thing yeah but
27:05
they can be prestigious after a few
27:07
years and we have journals that are
27:09
plenty old now old enough to be
27:11
prestigious and high in quality and
27:13
prestige actually means to be known to
27:15
be high in quality because they have a
27:17
reputation for being high quality so
27:18
many junior faculty today can publish in
27:21
those prestigious open access journals
27:23
and also please their promotion and
27:25
tenure committee right I guess and then
27:27
the flip side of this is that the people
27:28
would have the most leverage for open
27:30
access would be the senior faculty you
27:32
know the people that schools that
27:34
covered can go who are already you know
27:36
full professor somewhere else in
27:37
hurricane could say hey come come to our
27:39
school and people come I’ve been going
27:41
to these new faculty lunches over at the
27:43
Humanities Center and you think of new
27:46
faculty is junior but a lot of these
27:49
people are very senior faculty who
27:51
Harvard has been able to include and
27:52
these are the people who would have
27:53
leverage in dealing with publishers and
27:56
if who I would assume you would want to
27:59
be on the forefront of this battle
28:01
because they’re the types of authors who
28:04
people know and who people want to read
28:07
and so if they’re really pushing for
28:10
open access those are the sorts of
28:12
people who would really have a lot of
28:14
clout where someone like me could say
28:16
open act
28:16
it’s great but nobody knows who I am
28:18
that’s right senior faculty are
28:20
generally less familiar with open access
28:22
than junior faculty but some of them are
28:25
quite familiar and very supportive and
28:26
when they have the eminence that comes
28:28
from being senior in their field they
28:31
can do a lot to help a new open access
28:34
journal by submitting work to it and
28:36
suddenly it went from being high in
28:38
quality but unknown and therefore
28:39
without prestige to be in high quality
28:41
and well-known or prestigious and if the
28:44
work is widely cited or let’s say widely
28:47
paraphrased in the media or in other
28:50
articles all the citations point back to
28:52
this journal which was hitherto not well
28:54
known and it becomes well known so one
28:56
way that new journals try to acquire the
28:59
reputation they need to attract good
29:01
submissions is to have good submissions
29:03
it’s a vicious circle they need good
29:05
submissions to F prestige they need
29:06
prestige to advance america but senior
29:09
scholars can help break the vicious
29:11
circle by submitting good work to
29:13
journals that are good enough to deserve
29:15
their support but not yet very well
29:17
known and it suddenly helps them become
29:19
well-known they can also help by serving
29:21
on the editorial boards for those
29:22
journals right and that really helps to
29:25
say hey you know this person is one of
29:28
our editors and everyone’s okay they all
29:30
right that’s right like the legitimacy
29:32
that comes from being a senior faculty
29:35
can be transferred to the journal simply
29:38
by your presence that’s right um and a
29:41
legitimacy that again a junior faculty
29:43
someone like me like you know I think I
29:45
do good stuff but I mean I don’t have
29:47
that reputation because I’m a junior
29:50
individual right and senior faculty
29:52
understand is they understand that
29:54
journals live off prestige even when
29:57
prestige is not the same thing as
29:59
quality but they also know that they
30:00
have prestige to lend bread they can
30:03
lend it by submitting an article or by
30:05
serving an editorial board we’re just by
30:07
talking about it in public and not
30:09
making it sound like it’s only for
30:11
junior faculty only for second-rate
30:13
faculty but only for cutting-edge nerds
30:15
but they say in public I wrote this to
30:18
be read I wrote because I want to
30:20
influence therapy in for this disease or
30:25
I want to develop a more efficient solar
30:27
panel I did it for the sake of something
30:28
concrete
30:29
world and I need it to be read by as
30:30
many people as possible I needed to be
30:32
applied and not just published then they
30:35
educate people about the real benefits
30:37
without that I think there’s a risk that
30:40
people think about the nexus is just
30:41
cool and not useful right and it’s
30:44
actually useful that’s the whole point
30:46
now I guess the one thing you say if you
30:49
people want the stuff to be read now one
30:52
of the issues that a lot of people have
30:54
with academics and academic writing is
30:57
that when you go to read it it’s not
30:59
very accessible in terms of the language
31:01
uses sort of stuff and we actually had
31:03
this discussion over lunch the other day
31:05
and I was telling the story that when I
31:07
was doing my comps I had a professor say
31:10
to me what you think of this article and
31:11
I said well i mean the argument is ok
31:13
but just the writing is so bad and he
31:16
said well style doesn’t matter and i
31:17
thought well that’s a weird thing to say
31:19
because of course style matters and we
31:22
want these things to be read widely as
31:25
part of open access than also trying to
31:27
get people to change writing styles and
31:30
to write more excessively and not dumb
31:33
it down because i hate that term but
31:34
like to write with language that is more
31:37
accessible to write in a dial that is
31:40
more engaging than what traditionally
31:43
the reputation of academic journals has
31:46
been yeah and that’s also a good
31:47
question because the answer is
31:49
complicated when i say the purpose of
31:51
open access is to expand readership to
31:53
everybody with an internet connection
31:55
and not to lock out the people whose
31:57
libraries can’t afford subscriptions
31:59
right i mean it truly expands readership
32:02
and not just to fellow scholars but to
32:05
the general public but i think most
32:07
authors care most about being read by
32:09
fellow scholars right what they have to
32:12
appreciate which they don’t always
32:13
appreciate is that most of their fellow
32:15
scholars don’t actually have access
32:17
right they work at schools that don’t
32:19
have the library budgets necessary to
32:21
subscribe to journal so you’re writing
32:23
for the subset of the scholars in your
32:25
field let’s call it the lucky subset who
32:28
are wealthy institutions that can afford
32:30
and by the way we’re talking now from
32:32
the wealthiest institution with the
32:33
latest Sekhmet
32:34
library in the world and not even
32:35
Harvard can afford to subscribe to all
32:37
these journals every year every single
32:39
year it makes journal cancellations for
32:42
budgetary reasons alone not because
32:44
they’re not widely used here or because
32:46
they’re not high in quality but just
32:48
because we don’t have enough money
32:49
mm-hmm problem is worse every place else
32:51
so first most scholars don’t appreciate
32:53
that they’re not already reaching all
32:54
the fellow scholars that they want to
32:56
reach it would be fine if that’s all
32:58
they cared about okay I want to reach
32:59
all my fellow scholars the only way to
33:01
do that is through open access I don’t
33:02
care at all about the lay public but
33:05
once they start to make it open they
33:06
become aware that the lay public is
33:09
either reading it or capable of reading
33:11
it and in some fields there’s a large
33:15
percentage of lay readers than and
33:16
others for example a lot of non medical
33:18
professionals read medical literature
33:20
about their own medical conditions or
33:22
about the medical conditions of family
33:23
members right when the National Library
33:25
of Medicine converted to open access
33:27
more than a decade ago its usage its
33:31
downloads went up over a hundred fold
33:33
while today most of their visitors are
33:36
from non edu domains oh well so I think
33:38
people underestimate how many lay
33:40
readers actually care about cutting-edge
33:41
research at least in certain fields
33:43
right but even if by the way I
33:46
completely share your premise that a lot
33:47
of academic writing is bad it’s
33:49
needlessly inaccessible really thick
33:52
it’s one of these don’t get me started
33:53
issues there’s no reason for it even if
33:55
you’re only running for fellow scholars
33:57
you don’t have to write that badly right
33:58
on the other hand once you make your
34:01
work accessible even if it’s thick you
34:03
are reaching more people and then it
34:05
might think in and for some scholars it
34:07
is thinking it that you’re also running
34:09
for a larger public and you should take
34:11
some pains to make your work
34:12
intelligible to them and they’re a
34:14
couple ways this is happening some
34:15
scholars internalize this themselves and
34:17
so I better address the people who
34:20
aren’t exactly scholars in my field
34:22
sometimes by the way their scholars in
34:23
neighboring fields who are equally
34:25
specialized but who see some
34:28
cross-disciplinary relevance of your
34:29
work but sometimes they’re just lay
34:32
non-professional readers who have some
34:34
interest in your topic in other way it’s
34:36
happening is that there are there’s a
34:38
kind of secondary work that’s growing up
34:40
which is the open access summary of a
34:43
scholarly article the skull the article
34:45
itself might be open or not open
34:47
but it’s thick it’s hard to read it’s
34:49
impenetrable or even if it’s very lucid
34:52
for the you know few people who are
34:54
specialists in the field it’s not lucid
34:55
to anybody outside that field right so
34:58
it it might be important enough to
34:59
paraphrase or to summarize for other
35:02
people even if they’re specialists in
35:03
neighboring fields and there are works
35:05
now whole resources devoted to that kind
35:08
of Restatement or paraphrase of
35:10
scholarly work that works best when the
35:14
original works are open access because
35:15
the people doing this kind of
35:17
paraphrasing or summarizing need access
35:19
themselves and by the way this gets to a
35:22
related topic call it science journalism
35:24
science journalists need access to
35:27
cutting-edge articles to summarize
35:29
breakthroughs sometimes they get their
35:31
knowledge of breakthroughs from
35:32
attending conferences where they hear it
35:34
orally reported but if they want to read
35:36
the article then itself they tend not to
35:38
have access they might get a copy
35:40
slipped to them by the author but
35:43
scientists need open access to the
35:45
research that they’re reporting on and
35:46
it would be better all in all better
35:48
journalism if they could include a link
35:50
to an open access copy so that their
35:51
readers who suddenly got interested
35:53
through their own article could click
35:54
through and read the full text sure so
35:57
it helps this paraphrasing industry it
35:59
helps in journalism it helps educate the
36:01
lay public even those members of the lay
36:03
public who aren’t reading it directly
36:05
themselves hmm but are reading it
36:07
through journalists right so as part of
36:09
your efforts though you know that’s part
36:12
of your argument but it’s not saying to
36:14
people you have to change the way you
36:15
write it’s not it’s you know you’re
36:18
writing for large audience or
36:19
potentially a larger audience and that’s
36:21
great yeah I would say you ought to
36:23
change the way you write yeah because it
36:25
got bad but you don’t have to change the
36:28
way you write simply to make it open
36:29
right open access is a kind of access
36:31
it’s not kind of writing now would you
36:33
put MOOCs in this same open access
36:36
category know a friend of mine has done
36:39
Harvard MOOCs before and for anybody
36:42
doesn’t know MOOCs just basically large
36:43
open access free courses from
36:45
universities is that part of this open
36:49
access movement as well yes and the word
36:52
open is in the Buddha’s acronym
36:55
OpenCourseWare was
36:56
earlier term it like moves except not
36:59
always massive right and nowadays you
37:04
might distinguish many threads of the
37:05
larger openness movement open access to
37:08
texts open data open educational
37:11
resources OpenCourseWare open source or
37:14
free software open government open
37:17
collaboration open innovation there are
37:18
lots and lots or you could see all is
37:21
unified under some concept of openness
37:22
or you can see them as somehow separate
37:24
there hasn’t yet been quite the
37:26
unification here that there was in the
37:28
50s and 60s in the environmental
37:30
movement some people point to that as an
37:32
analogy to what we’re seeing on the
37:34
openness movement there were movements
37:36
for open if I’m sorry for clean air
37:39
movements for clean water movements for
37:41
animal conservation but nobody initially
37:44
thought of these as pieces of a united
37:47
environmental movement right but after a
37:49
while they did and I think now people
37:52
working in these separate threads of the
37:54
openness movement do see them as unified
37:56
by some concept of openness some concept
37:59
of sharing some concept of removing
38:01
needless obstacles to sharing even if
38:03
there are other obstacles that are not
38:05
quite so needless and they’re beginning
38:07
to think more broadly about what we all
38:10
have in common right so the only reason
38:12
to say MOOCs and OpenCourseWare are not
38:14
part of the same movement is if it’s
38:15
important to split things that are
38:17
closely related it’s just as important
38:19
to see the similarities of things that
38:22
are slightly different I guess the last
38:24
question I would have is you alluded to
38:27
a little bit it’s just the financing of
38:29
this whole thing and I guess the
38:31
question that publishers would ask her
38:33
and their lobbying would be well who’s
38:35
paying for this and I mean we talked
38:37
about how with journals it’s they can
38:40
reduce the cost I mean I know every time
38:42
I move or end a semester and have to
38:45
sort of or clean out an office or
38:47
something there are always copies of
38:48
journals that I pitch because I don’t
38:52
want to carry around journals so I mean
38:55
it’s it’s you know the way to reduce
38:56
costs is there but the question still is
38:59
who pays for the costs that we’re still
39:02
is associated with being online
39:04
and you know I would imagine that’s the
39:07
biggest push back you get as to who pays
39:09
for those yep back to the earlier
39:13
question about the different threads of
39:15
the old asthma be one reason they’re
39:16
different is that they don’t all use the
39:19
same funding models and they can’t all
39:21
use the same funding model right there
39:22
ways to pay for open journals that you
39:25
cannot apply to books or courses or data
39:29
sets and vice versa so that will keep
39:31
them somewhat distinct but to go to
39:33
articles there many ways to pay for open
39:36
access articles in fact I with a
39:38
research assistant maintain an online
39:40
open access list of different business
39:42
models that are already used by
39:43
different open access journals precisely
39:45
to show people that there’s more than
39:47
one right there’s one that people know
39:49
well and they mistakenly think it’s the
39:51
only one or they mistakenly think it’s
39:53
the dominant one when it’s neither the
39:55
only one nor the dominant one it’s just
39:57
the best known and that’s to charge
39:59
what’s called an article processing
40:00
charge in a PC or a publication fee so
40:04
you can’t charge the reader otherwise it
40:05
wouldn’t be open but you can charge
40:07
somebody at the author’s end is
40:09
typically the author’s employer or the
40:11
author’s funding agency when research
40:13
has funded many funders say you’re
40:15
allowed to use a piece of this grant to
40:16
pay the fee at a journal like that and
40:20
this is the best known but as I say not
40:23
the most common most open access
40:25
journals charge no such fees at all it’s
40:27
another one of these well-kept secrets
40:30
most scholars even scholars who support
40:32
open access are not aware of this about
40:35
half the articles published in open
40:36
access journals are published in the fee
40:38
based ones but about seventy percent of
40:40
open access journals themselves charge
40:41
no fees at all only thirty percent
40:43
charts these fees how do the no-fee
40:45
journals get their money there are many
40:48
different models there but there are all
40:50
variations on the theme of subsidy they
40:52
get a subsidy from some institution or
40:53
some group of institutions to pay their
40:55
bills hmmm it might be five to ten
40:58
nonprofits who work in their area who
41:00
want to see a good peer reviewed journal
41:02
exists in that area on that topic it
41:04
might be a funding agency itself it
41:06
might be a museum it might be a hospital
41:08
that might be a university or as I say
41:10
it might be some consortium with these
41:12
specifically pulled together to support
41:14
a journal
41:15
and if if a school or like you say like
41:19
NGOs or whatever it is you have a
41:21
journal that helps you like an open
41:23
access journal like especially if it’s a
41:25
good one and has a earns a reputation of
41:28
being a good one that helped that’s
41:30
right they have their own interest
41:31
already they want to see a high-quality
41:33
peer-review journal in their topic area
41:35
right they may be an NGO and not the
41:38
university and they may not do research
41:40
but they need the research done by
41:41
others and their research helps them do
41:43
their job or fulfill their mission so
41:46
they want to see such a journal exists
41:47
maybe they can’t pay a hundred percent
41:49
of the costs of a peer-review journal
41:50
but they can pay a tenth of the costs so
41:52
if you can get ten institutions to do
41:54
this then suddenly they’re all on board
41:55
with it right once talked with an open
41:57
access journal about how it could pay
41:58
for itself and I proposed this
42:00
particular model and the editor said but
42:03
what if they get out of it and I said
42:04
well first of all they get research
42:06
research that they need to do their own
42:08
work and secondly they get your public
42:10
thanks and she said exactly right I mean
42:13
that box is surprise for them because
42:15
they’re nonprofits there they shouldn’t
42:17
expect revenue back from us or some
42:19
other kind of good back from them and if
42:22
they’re getting all the labor in terms
42:24
of the editing the writing for free like
42:25
it’s that’s great that’s right and it
42:27
sort of everyone cooperates in this
42:29
model and it’s weird that I mean
42:31
academics do have to a certain extent
42:33
the reputation of being holy and locked
42:37
off from the community in certain
42:39
respects but when it comes to publishing
42:42
at least with articles it’s all you like
42:45
you say that we’ve given it away for
42:46
free for hundreds of years so all the
42:49
articles are a gift culture they have in
42:50
a good culture not just because authors
42:53
give them away but because the public
42:57
has been funding them and then basically
42:59
the public is supporting people in
43:00
giving them away right and then the
43:03
authors give them to publishers and
43:04
publishers receive them as gifts and
43:06
then they turn these gifts into
43:07
commodities by putting a price tag on
43:09
them right to recover their expenses now
43:11
again from the age of print they had
43:13
expenses that they needed to recover
43:15
that particular way but now their
43:17
expenses can be recovered other ways
43:19
there at least the 15 ways that I’ve
43:20
documented on this online list they
43:22
don’t need to erect this price barrier
43:25
to recover their own expenses and this
43:28
is terrific and the Harvard office for
43:30
scholarly communication you say that
43:33
you’re the director so if people go to
43:35
the site resources you mentioned this
43:37
list of models it’s not on the osc
43:40
website ok it’s on it and call it an
43:43
open access encyclopedia of open access
43:44
ok called the open access directory Oh
43:47
got away d eoad has lots of sexual lists
43:50
about open access one of them is this
43:52
list of business models used by
43:54
different open access journals ok there
43:56
are lots of others is that an OA d dot
43:59
edu or if I just Google if you google up
44:02
an excess directory good and it will all
44:04
be there a terrific you’ll be there and
44:06
you also wrote a book entitled open
44:08
access that’s right through MIT press
44:10
that’s really so folks can check that
44:12
out as well an NDE online book itself is
44:15
open access no so it’s all there so we
44:18
encourage everyone to check it out and
44:20
we will link to all this stuff too when
44:22
we post this on the website so Peter
44:25
Suber the director of the Harvard office
44:27
for scholarly communication thank you so
44:29
much for doing this thanks your honor
44:30
appreciate it if you have any questions
44:32
comments for the podcast its history
44:33
slam at gmail com twitter is at dr.
44:36
Johnny fever and if you’re out and you
44:37
seen Rico Palazzo please say hi for me
44:45
thanks for listening to the history slam
44:47
podcast be sure to check out active
44:48
history for more features articles and
44:50
be sure to subscribe on itunes
44:57
you
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Previously published on Activehistory.ca and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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