Fear and Loathing in Academia:Socio-Political and Economic Factors Impacting Scholarly Communications in the Digital Era

John H. Hagen

Agenda

Scholarly Communications Today – Where are we?

History of economics in scholarly publishing – John Houghton

History of scholarly publishing

Citation Impact Factor and Social Networking – Stevan Harnad

Environment

John H. Hagen

Agenda

Impediments to open access

Monopolies and Oligopolies

e-books and e-journals

Access to information, scholarly publishing and human progress

The Singularity: Ray Kurzweil

ETDs and Scholarly publishing

John H. Hagen

Agenda

Fear and loathing in academia

The 99% - from Wall Street to University Avenue – An Academic Spring

Abundance is our future - Peter Diamandis

Evolution of Paradigms

John H. Hagen

Agenda

Conclusions

City 2.0 – the future is ours

Epilogue

References

John H. Hagen

Scholarly Communications Today – Where are we?

History of economics in scholarly publishing– John Houghton

Estimating the Potential Impacts of Open Access to Research Findings / Economic Analysis & Policy, Vol. 39 No. 1, March 2009

Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models: Exploring the costs and benefits JISC EI-ASPM Project / A report to the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) – January 2009

The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models / Information Research, vol. 16 no. 1, March, 2011

John H. Hagen

Estimating the Potential Impacts of Open Access to Research Findings / Houghton

There are two main conclusions from this analysis.

First, while there are many limitations, introducing accessibility and efficiency parameters into the standard returns to R&D approach offers one possible foundation for estimating the potential impacts of enhanced/open access.

Second, these preliminary estimates suggest that there may be substantial benefits to be gained from more open access.

John H. Hagen

Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models: Exploring the costs and benefits JISC EI-ASPM Project / Houghton

John H. Hagen

Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models: Exploring the costs and benefits JISC EI-ASPM Project / Houghton

John H. Hagen

The costs, benefits and impacts of alternative scholarly publishing models revealed by this analysis demonstrate that research and research communication are major activities and the costs involved are substantial. Preliminary analysis of the potential benefits of more open access to research findings suggests that returns to research can also be substantial, and that different models for scholarly publishing can make a material difference to the returns realised, as well as the costs faced.

It seems likely that more open access would have substantial net benefits in the longer term and, while net benefits may be lower during a transitional period they are likely to be positive for both OA publishing and self-archiving alternatives (i.e. Gold OA) and for parallel subscription publishing and self-archiving (i.e. Green OA). This suggests that there are gains to be realized from moving towards more open access publishing models and that, despite the lag between the costs and the realisation of benefits, the transition would probably be affordable within current system-wide budgetary allocations.

The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models / Houghton

John H. Hagen

Figure 7: Estimated impact of open access self-archiving with overlay production and peer review services (Pounds sterling in millions over twenty years)

The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models / Houghton

John H. Hagen

The costs and benefits associated with alternative scholarly publishing models demonstrate that research and research communication are major activities and the costs involved are substantial. Our preliminary analysis of the potential benefits of more open access to research findings suggests that returns to research are also substantial and that different scholarly publishing models might make a material difference to the returns realised as well as the costs faced. It seems likely from this preliminary analysis that more open access could have substantial net benefits in the longer term and, while net benefits may be lower during a transitional period they would be likely to be positive for both open access journal publishing and self-archiving alternatives.

It must be emphasised, however, that these calculations are not a prediction of what will occur in the future, and nor are they necessarily a recommendation that governments, funders or scholars follow a particular course of action. We merely illustrated the likely economic impacts of alternative scholarly publishing models. Finally, we emphasise that many of the figures we input into the model were derived from or estimates based on the literature. A version of the model we used is available on the Web (Economic implications of alternative scholarly publishing models (EI-ASPM) for third parties to input other data and explore other scenarios.

History of Scholarly Publishing

John H. Hagen

Scholarly Publishing Societies

After Gutenberg’s printing press was operable, as of 1452...

Cambridge and Oxford Universities, England

Late 1400s, Oxford printed religious tracts

Presses at each institution were established mid-1500s

Harvard University, English Colonies

Mid-1600s, printed some texts

Harvard’s press was not established until much later (1913) Scholarly Publishing in the U.S., Then and Now: A Brief History and

Implications for the Future. Sue Ann Gardner / University of Nebraska - Lincoln

History of Scholarly Publishing

John H. Hagen

First University Presses Established in the U.S. Johns Hopkins, 1878

University of Chicago, 1891

University of California; Columbia, 1893

Scholarly Publishing in the U.S., Then and Now: A Brief History and Implications for the Future. Sue Ann Gardner / University of Nebraska - Lincoln

History of Scholarly Publishing

John H. Hagen

James Bryant Conant, 23rd President, Harvard University, 1940s Challenged the business model of the Harvard University

Press and suggested that a commercial firm publish books on behalf of Harvard ...

“[I] might well be the executioner of the Harvard University Press ... Much as I feel if we were honest and brave, we would give up the Press, we cannot undertake the gruesome slaughter ... The death agonies would drag out for many years because of the nature of our contracts and many commitments.”

Scholarly Publishing in the U.S., Then and Now: A Brief History and Implications for the Future. Sue Ann Gardner / University of Nebraska - Lincoln

History of Scholarly Publishing

John H. Hagen

Academic Journals

In time, by the early to mid-20th century, books were no longer the primary capital in academic discourse.

Academic journals became the main tool for scholarly communication.

University presses were just one producer of early journals; academic societies began to establish the corpus of scholarly journals.

This often led to liaisons with the commercial publishing world.

Scholarly Publishing in the U.S., Then and Now: A Brief History and Implications for the Future. Sue Ann Gardner / University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Citation Impact Factor and Social Networking– Stevan Harnad et al

o Beyond citations: Scholars’ visibility on the social Webo Traditionally, scholarly impact and visibility have

been measured by counting publications and citations in the scholarly literature. However, increasingly scholars are also visible on the Web, establishing presences in a growing variety of social ecosystems. But how wide and established is this presence, and how do measures of social Web impact relate to their more traditional counterparts?

John H. Hagen

Beyond citations: Scholars’ visibility on the social Web / Harnad et al

John H. Hagen

Comparison of traditional and alternative metrics in terms of author visibilityA potential strength of altmetrics is that they track forms of impact not reflected in the citation record. Heavy bookmarking suggests that an article is being used or valued in some way; this impact is likely related to citation impact, but not identical. If this is true, it should be reflected in partial correlation between citations and bookmarks. This is in fact what we found in our sample articles, as shown in Table 3 and Figure 3

Beyond citations: Scholars’ visibility on the social Web / Harnad et al

John H. Hagen

Figure 1: All tags assigned to articles published by Loet Leydesdorff.

Figure 2: All tags assigned to articles published by Stevan Harnad

Beyond citations: Scholars’ visibility on the social Web / Harnad et al

John H. Hagen

Table 3. Correlations between citations and bookmarks for 1,136 documents.

Spearman's ρ citations (Scopus) bookmarks (Mendeley) bookmarks (CiteULike)citations (Scopus) .448** .232**bookmarks (Mendeley) .448** .441**bookmarks (CiteULike) .232** .441**N=1136 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Beyond citations: Scholars’ visibility on the social Web / Harnad et al

John H. Hagen

Figure 3: Relationships between log-normalized counts per article.

Environment

growth of marginal / area studies

promotion & tenure

glut of PHDs

Publisher collusion

inept editorial control

questionable publication and business practices

monopolistic monographic and serials publishing

John H. Hagen

Publication Bias

Publication bias in evidence-based medicine

Positive findings 2x more likely to be published than negative findings

This is research misconduct and fraud

Ben Goldacre: What doctors don't know about the drugs they prescribe

John H. Hagen

Impediments to open access

Monopolies and Oligopolies

Intellectual Property Legislation – SOPA, PIPA, FRPAA

John H. Hagen

Impediments to open access Challenges of e-books and e-journals

Format compatibility issues, proprietary nature, leased access vs. ownership

Digital Working Group Pushes for Expanded Ebook Access

Federal Public Research Access Act

Threats to Digital Lending

Navigating the Ebook Revolution

John H. Hagen

Impediments to open access

Access to information, scholarly communications and human progress

John H. Hagen

Ray Kurzweil:The Singularity

John H. Hagen

ETDs and Scholarly publishing

Intersection of economies and interests – the law of supply and demand

Faculty as authors / University Promotion and Tenure and Research Generator vs. relationships with Publishers as commodities of exchange

John H. Hagen

Fear and loathing in academia

X

John H. Hagen

Fear and loathing in academia

Research without Borders: Protests, Petitions and Publishing - Widening Access to Research in 2012, Columbia University, February 28, 2012

PHD2Published

SPARC Resources

John H. Hagen

The 99% - from Wall Street to the Academy

John H. Hagen

The 99% - from Wall Street to the Academy

John H. Hagen

Peter Diamandis:Abundance [via access] is our future

John H. Hagen

X Prize

Evolution of Paradigms

IP law

Publisher practices

Author practices

John H. Hagen

Conclusions

Conclusions

City 2.0 – the future is ours

Epilogue

References

John H. Hagen

The City 2.0 – TED Prize Wish 2012

John H. Hagen

Humanity’s global challenges will be resolved when we are willing and able to look outward together in the same direction…

”Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.”-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)

John H. Hagen

References

Ben Goldacre: What doctors don't know about the drugs they prescribe - http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html

SPARC video – sign the White House petition - http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/

Open Access Now: Sign the White House Petition, Fake Elsevier Video - http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/

How Will Singularity Develop Over the Next 20 Years? – Ray Kurzweil (video) http://youtu.be/1uIzS1uCOcE

Research without Borders: Protests, Petitions and Publishing - Widening Access to Research in 2012, Columbia University, February 28, 2012. http://youtu.be/7e1hxgdJK2U

PhD2published http://www.phd2published.com/

Abundance Is Our Future – Peter Diamandis (video) YouTube http://youtu.be/1uIzS1uCOcE

Ted Talks (translation options) http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html

The City 2.0 (video) Ted Talks http://blog.ted.com/2012/02/29/watch-the-ted-prize-wish-video/

Musical version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cST7lJ-3HR8&feature=colike

With voice narrative http://thecity2.org/splash.php

John H. Hagen

References Houghton, John. The costs and potential benefits of alternative scholarly publishing models. Information

Research, vol. 16 no. 1, March, 2011.

Anonymous. More Thoughts about the Academic Publishing Racket. Credit Bubble Stocks Blog. http://www.creditbubblestocks.com/2011/08/more-thoughts-about-academic-publishing.html

Morrison, Ewan. The self-epublishing bubble. The Guardian, UK. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/30/self-e-publishing-bubble-ewan-morrison?CMP=twt_gu

Morrison, Ewan. Are books dead, and can authors survive? The Guardian, UK. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/22/are-books-dead-ewan-morrison

The Bubble In Academic Research. The Last Psychiatrist, February 16, 2009. http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/02/the_bubble_in_academic_researc.html

The Academic Bubble. Interorganisational - supply chain management, February 25, 2009. http://interorganisational.org/2009/02/25/the-academic-bubble/

The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living [Blog article] / John H. Hagenhttp://renaissanceman1.blogspot.com/2012/03/unexamined-life-is-not-worth-living.html

The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto / Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, SmileyBooks / Hay House, 2012.

“An Academic Spring” / Barbara Fister. Libraries, May/June 2012, p.22. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/04042012/academic-spring-updated

Elsevier Open Access Choiceshttp://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/open_access

Threats to Digital Lending, American Libraries, May/June 2012. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/01122012/threats-digital-lending

Navigating the Ebook Revolution, American Libraries, May/June 2012. http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/05232012/navigating-ebook-revolution

SPARC Resources. http://www.arl.org/sparc/resources/index.shtml

John H. Hagen

Thank you!

John H. Hagen

Open Access Week 2012

Hosted by Pontifical Catholic University, Lima

Live event held in Lima, Peru and global Webcast

October 24, 2012

John H. Hagen