Tuesday, July 10, 2012

In the opinion of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers

It is the opinion of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), that open access mandates with short embargoes will lead to journal cancellations and threaten the survive of scholarly journals. Audrey McCullough, Chief Executive of ALPSPs, admits that a recently released "report" by ALPSP purporting to claim evidence for this, is actually an opinion piece, as recorded in this interview by Richard Poynder. I am happy to have been able to help out a bit with research methods and history in this area; this piece is a fine example of the potential for academic / journalist collaboration. Whether this is fact or opinion is important, with open access policies under discussion. For example, the Research Councils in the UK is currently working on strengthening their OA policies.