Support the UC's "publish & read" proposal to Elsevier

Support the UC's "publish & read" proposal to Elsevier

Started
March 20, 2019
Petition to
Elsevier
Signatures: 11Next Goal: 25
Support now

Why this petition matters

Started by David Barner

If you edit, review, or author articles in an Elsevier journal and support the principle that all academic research should be openly accessible to academics, PhDs in industry, policy makers, and the general public who funds research, you're invited to sign this petition in support of an Open Letter to Elsevier, co-authored by members of Elsevier editorial boards.

This letter, pasted below and available with links to sources here (https://goo.gl/6vH5zp) supports a recent proposal by the University of California to renegotiate its terms of subscription with Elsevier, in a deal that would have retained existing journals, editorial teams, and even Elsevier profits, but would have funded Open Access publishing charges for UC authors, making their work openly accessible. Unfortunately, Elsevier rejected this proposal, leaving the UC without an active subscription. We urge Elsevier to reconsider the UC proposal, and we support the University of California's effort to transform our current academic publishing system to one in which journal subscriptions include fees to fund Open Access for all research.

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March 19, 2019.

TO: Elsevier Publishing

FROM: Members of The Editorial Boards of Cognition, Cognitive Psychology, Journal of Memory & Language, Social Science Research, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Social Networks, Neuropsychologia, Trends in Neuroscience & Education, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Cognitive Development, Journal of Phonetics, Journal of Research in Personality, Journal of Hydrology, Advances in Water Resources

An Open Letter to Elsevier and the Editorial Boards of Elsevier Journals

Recently, the University of California broke off negotiations with Elsevier and suspended subscriptions to Elsevier journals. We, as members of the Editorial Boards of Elsevier journals, are dismayed by the events that led to this outcome. We urge Elsevier to embrace the core principles of transparency and openness that organize modern science, and to endorse the forward-looking model of Open Access proposed by the University of California.

The UC proposal addresses a profound imbalance in the relationship between academic researchers and the publishing industry. Currently, when researchers publish papers, we use public tax dollars (in the form of grants and public subsidies to universities) to generate intellectual property (research reports), and then transfer these intellectual properties without charge to publishers. Publishers then monetize these goods by selling our collective intellectual property back to universities, in the form of journal subscriptions which are accessible only to universities who can afford the negotiated rates. Critically, these subscriptions also draw in part on tuition fees and tax dollars, incurring a second round of costs to the general public and raising the cost of education (the UC pays $11 million a year for just Elsevier journals). Overall, this model results in a profit margin of 37% for Elsevier, with total profits exceeding $1.1 billion in 2017 alone, of which almost none is returned to researchers who do the work of reviewing and editing papers, often as volunteers. Meanwhile, the general public cannot access the fruits of publicly funded research, including the 25,000 American PhDs who leave academia for positions in government, policy making, and industry every year. For science and academic research to have its fullest impact on human society and decision making, it must be openly accessible to both those who conduct research, and the general public who funds it.

Many in the academic sphere are ready to abandon Elsevier entirely, and some of the undersigned are in agreement with this stance and have resigned their previous positions. Various Editorial teams have decided to leave publishers like Elsevier to create Open Access journals that are funded entirely by publication fees paid by researchers, which make published research accessible to all researchers as well as the general public (e.g., see Glossa, Quantitative Science Studies). However, this is not the UC proposal. Instead, the UC proposal offers a much more modest compromise, which retains our current journals, editorial boards, and role for publishers like Elsevier, while rendering UC intellectual property accessible to the general public. On this cost-neutral proposal, called “publish-and-read”, fees paid by the UC to Elsevier would allow UC researchers to both publish Open Access articles and to access Elsevier journals. No radical change in how researchers, journals, or editorial boards is proposed, and Elsevier would enjoy the same level of revenue it does today. The key change is that library fees paid to Elsevier would not only allow academics to read work, it would also open that work up to others, whether academics, PhDs in industry, policy makers, or the general public.

Troublingly, Elsevier has rejected this proposal, and has countered with a proposal that would only further augment its profit. On Elsevier’s model, the UC would continue paying subscriptions, and articles would remain behind a paywall, but the UC would have the option to pay Elsevier additional fees (Article Processing Charges) to make articles Open Access. If the Open Access option were fully implemented, the UC estimates it would result in a net gain of as much as $30 million in Elsevier revenues over three years (an 80% increase).

As members of the Editorial Boards of Elsevier journals, we reject this move by Elsevier. Many of us will not continue serving on the boards of Elsevier journals if an alternative solution is not found that respects the principles of cost-neutral Open Access articulated by the UC. We view Elsevier's model to be an unethical misuse of public funds with consequences for the sustainability of publicly funded academic research. We urge Elsevier to return to the negotiating table with the UC and agree to terms that are acceptable to the UC, the academic community, and the general public.

Signed,

Members of the Editorial Boards of Elsevier Journals

David Barner (formerly Cognition; UCSD)

Victor Ferreira (Journal of Memory and Language; UCSD)

Fernanda Ferreira (Cognitive Psychology; UCDavis)

Nora S. Newcombe (Cognitive Psychology, Temple University)

Jason Houle (Social Science Research, Dartmouth College)

Cameron Brick (Journal of Environmental Psychology, University of Cambridge)

jimi adams (Social Networks, CU-Denver)

Daniel Ansari (Cognition, Cognitive Development, Trends in Neuroscience & Education, Neuropsychologia, University of Western Ontario).

Tony W. Buchanan (Psychoneuroendocrinology, Saint Louis University)

Gareth Gaskell (Journal of Memory and Language, University of York)

James Magnuson (Cognition, University of Connecticut)

Duane G. Watson (Journal of Memory and Language, Vanderbilt University)

Falk Huettig (Journal of Memory and Language; Max Planck Institute Nijmegen)

Tamar Gollan (Journal of Memory and Language; UCSD)

J. Kiley Hamlin (Cognition, University of British Columbia)

Sarah Creel (Cognition, UC San Diego)

Amy Perfors (Cognition, University of Melbourne)

Sarah Brown-Schmidt (Journal of Memory and Language, Vanderbilt University)

Pat O’Seaghdha (Cognition, Lehigh University)

Inbal Arnon (Journal of Memory and Language, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Matt Gordon (Journal of Phonetics, UC Santa Barbara)

Rachel Giora (Journal of Pragmatics, Tel Aviv University)

Kevin Lanning (Journal of Research in Personality, Florida Atlantic University)

Chris Cummins (Journal of Pragmatics, Bielefeld University)

Sven Mattys (formerly Journal of Memory and Language, University of York)

Arthur Samuel (Journal of Memory and Language, Stony Brook University)

Francis Nimmo (formerly Icarus, UC Santa Cruz)

Roland Bürgmann (formery EPSL, UC Berkeley)

Paolo D’Odorico (Advances in Water Resources, UC Berkeley)

Timothy W. Lyons (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Paleo3, formerly Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, UC Riverside)

Amir AghaKouchak (Journal of Hydrology, University of California, Irvine)

Paterno Castillo (Lithos, Chemical Geology, University of California, San Diego)

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Signatures: 11Next Goal: 25
Support now
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  • Elsevier