[Irtalk] Journal substitutability, hassle factor, and green open access - Gavia Libraria | (the Library Loon)

[Hilton Gibson]

It so happens that the Loon participated in a “where shall we publish this
thing?” discussion with a group of coauthors not long since. The lead
author (not the Loon) offered a list of suggestions, all but one of which
were immediately shot down by the Loon and other colleagues (the Loon, of
course, because the journals in question were not open-access–friendly, and
yes, one of them was an Elsevier outlet, in which words of the Loon’s will
be published only subject to Gavia Libraria’s CC-BY license or over the
Loon’s Boring Alter Ego’s dead and rotted body). The last journal standing
(a gold-OA journal without author-side fees, if anyone is curious) is now
the designated outlet, the lead author understandably not caring to argue
with the Loon or their other coauthors.

If this choice-by-elimination process is broadly typical, and the Loon has
no reason to think it isn’t, it presents a problem for Elsevier’s
anti-open-access tactics, because Elsevier constantly and consciously
designs those tactics in ways that make it far more likely authors will
eliminate their journals from consideration because of *hassle factor*—coauthor
*hassle factor*, journal-style *hassle factor*, “keep the funder happy” *hassle
factor*, speed of publication *hassle factor*, and so on.

*Prestige? Bah. Outside the glamour mags, prestige pales in comparison to
hassle factor*—or, perhaps better said, at any given level of prestige in
many disciplines, several journals exist that compete largely on the basis
of *hassle factor*. *Moreover, the bog-standard academic is absolutely
useless at gauging journal prestige*; why else has impact factor lasted as
long as it has, and how else do scam journals (of any business model)
survive? The problem is worsening, too, as the journal issue and the
journal itself gradually disassemble themselves. How many young scholars
have the concept of a journal truly baked into their bones, the way
scholars of the Loon’s generation and older do?

*Elsevier’s next fight against green open access, which neither Eisen nor
Taylor particularly took into account in their discussions, is against the
feds*—that is, major United States governmental grant agencies subject to
the OSTP Memo, most of whom are pushing green rather than gold. This will
touch tens of thousands of researchers, perhaps more. It is shaping up to
be (as the Loon has expected from the start) an absolute maelstrom of
researcher, program-officer, librarian, and publisher confusion. *Hassle
will be perilously near maximum*.

*And Elsevier thinks it can play hassle-increasing games in the face of all
this and get away with it?* The Loon doesn’t. And that means, given the
thrust of agency responses to the OSTP Memo so far, that green open access
is still very much in the game, even in its current admittedly primitive
form.

http://gavialib.com/2015/05/journal-substitutability-hassle-factor-and-green-open-access/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lib.sun.ac.za/pipermail/irtalk/attachments/20150625/8ec0683b/attachment.html>