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Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

bib.umontreal.ca

11–20 of 69 posts

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#11
"UdeM Libraries will renew access to 150 of the 2,266 journals included in this collection. The price we will pay for these individual subscriptions in 2016 is the same we were willing to pay for the entire collection."

So Springer still gets all the moneys they could have gotten anyway.

I totally understand why the library has to make such a compromise, but that's not a very strong bargaining position.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#12

I wish universities would take the lead in forcing open the journal monopoly. It would be really great if a major university like Stanford or Harvard said to its professors: You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community. Until a major university or five takes a stand on this, the rest of us must continue to fight.

> You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community.

Is this possible? When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them; thereby preventing you from publishing the article any other way.

Although as far as I know many journals allow a "pre-print version" to be published by the authors on their personal website.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#13

I think forbidding professors and staff to participate in reviews and volunteer work for commercial publishers whilst on University time, or say that it is a conflict of interest which compromises their ethical duties to the University, would make Spring and Elsevier suddenly realise that there entire model is in jeopardy. It would be hilarious (at least to me!) if all Universities suddenly did this due to the outrag…

For professors, there is no "University time". They don't clock in and out. The only times they are required to be on campus is for classes, office hours and meetings. Otherwise they are free to do what they want, so forbidding them from reviewing wouldn't work. Not counting reviewing for commercial publishers in the tenure process might have an effect on those seeking tenure.

This is not necessarily true. (I am a professor.)

In general I would like to be able to refuse review requests for journals that rip off their (institutional) customers. Under the circumstances, I dare not do so, because these requests usually come from senior scientists in my field.

However, if my university had such a policy (and it was conveniently explained on a web page I could link to) it would be very easy for me to back out of reviewing for these journals without taking the blame.

Sure, some of my colleagues would continue to review for these journals, and the university would never know. But such a policy would give an out for individidual researchers who would like to support this cause.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#14

I wish universities would take the lead in forcing open the journal monopoly. It would be really great if a major university like Stanford or Harvard said to its professors: You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community. Until a major university or five takes a stand on this, the rest of us must continue to fight.

> You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community. Is this possible? When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them; thereby preventing you from publishing the article any other way. Although as far as I know many journals allow a "pre-print version" to be published by the authors on their personal website.

> When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them

That is correct. I have done this for every publication I've ever put out (O(10)). There may be exceptions but this is certainly the dominant paradigm in the physical sciences.

My two cents: this is bigger than any University. It will require a government funding agency (likely, NIH or NSF) to take a stand vis a vi the public availability of research produced by public funding.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#15
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many journals offer an open-access option for publishing. However, this is chosen after the article has been reviewed and accepted. So, currently there isn't always a way (for a reviewer) to know if an article will be published open access or not. Edit: added "for a reviewer"

Not for Springer though, right ? From Springer FAQ ( http://www.springer.com/gp/open-access/authors-rights/faq-ab... ) "I don’t want to transfer my copyright. What should I do? You can choose to publish your article open access in Springer’s Open Choice program or one of our SpringerOpen journals. Publishing an article with open access leaves the copyright with the author. The article is published under the Creative…

But the reviewers have no knowledge of this choice (nor should they really).

The parent was suggesting that Universities bar their faculty from reviewing papers unless it was an open-access publisher. I haven't published in a Springer journal, but others have the authors make the open-access determination only after the paper was accepted. In which case, the reviewers would have no idea about if they were reviewing an open-access paper or not.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... less than useful when choosing whether to publish in a particular journal then, if this is important to you.

You can view the journal's open access options before you submit your paper for review. I just did this for a paper at an Elsevier journal. If the paper is accepted, the authors can choose to publish it open access, which requires paying the "open access charge" to the publisher. Once paid, though, the journal is available for free from their website.

So... you basically do a whole bunch of work, then a publisher takes your work, makes a lot of money out of it, and you can pay to have it openly published. I see.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community. Is this possible? When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them; thereby preventing you from publishing the article any other way. Although as far as I know many journals allow a "pre-print version" to be published by the authors on their personal website.

> When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them That is correct. I have done this for every publication I've ever put out (O(10)). There may be exceptions but this is certainly the dominant paradigm in the physical sciences. My two cents: this is bigger than any University. It will require a government funding agency (likely, NIH or NSF) to take a stand vis a vi the public availability of…

Since a few years ago, any EU or UK public funded research (which is most university research) must be published as open-access. It is a requirement of the funding. So this is already happening. However, it will need to be done by a greater proportion of the world to be effective.

The only problem is that the method of open access publishing is usually to pay a few grand to the publisher for the privilege.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#18
I wonder how much this has to do with the francophonic Quebec culture. Montreal has two big universities, McGill and UdM. McGill is primarily English-speaking, while UdM is primarily French-speaking. French Canada has always been far more politically activist than English Canada - they shift paradigms without a clutch.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#19

I wish universities would take the lead in forcing open the journal monopoly. It would be really great if a major university like Stanford or Harvard said to its professors: You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community. Until a major university or five takes a stand on this, the rest of us must continue to fight.

> You may publish anywhere, but you must also publish it for free to the academic community. Is this possible? When publishing in a journal, I think you transfer your copyright to them; thereby preventing you from publishing the article any other way. Although as far as I know many journals allow a "pre-print version" to be published by the authors on their personal website.

This is already a requirement from several government funding agencies, for instance from NIH:

https://publicaccess.nih.gov

This is based on the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act (which specifies NIH funded research). What would be nice is if this type of act would be passed for all govt. funding agencies.

Re: Cancellation of subscriptions to Springer journals

#20

Librarian fight! " ... UdeM professors and researchers that are concerned about these changes are well positioned to make a difference. They can, for instance, express their disapproval (see Springer contacts for UdeM below), refuse to review articles, or support open access publishing. The greatest risk for publishers is that people start questioning their access to this free research output and volunteer workforce…

The only sort of fighting I really can get behind, to be honest.
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