[IGSTK-Developers] IEEE Elections & Open Access

[Ziv Yaniv]

Hi Luis and all the rest,

 First of all I'll come clean and say in advance that I am all for
 *Open Access* (its already here), but:

 Publishing quality journals, even ejournals, requires money (I
 assume someone was paid to tell me that I forgot the page
 numbers in bibliography entry 5).

 In the current *Closed Access* model:
 a. Softcopies are usually available from the authors' web page, or by 
    request.
    I've seen many web sites with the final IEEE journal
    version and a disclaimer stating that the paper is meant to further
    knowledge etc., I'm guessing this is illegal.
 b. Publishing doesn't cost the author (not counting over page
    limits).

 One version of the *Open Access* model I am aware of turns things
 around:
 a. Journal access is free.
 b. Author's pay for the publication costs, these are projected to
    be very high.

  If the IEEE will turn to this *Open Access* model, then I'd
  rather stay with the current model.

  I know that there are researchers (o.k., mostly young researchers)
  that don't have the money to pay for publications.
  From my experience and that of others I have very rarely
  had a problem acquiring a journal paper.

  To summarize, I believe *Open Access* is here de-facto, but I'm
  wary of what the official *Open Access* will bring with it.
  If on the other hand we get both free access and no additional
  publication costs, then sign me up.

                    No Free Lunch?
                          Ziv

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Luis Ibanez <luis.ibanez at kitware.com>
Date:  Sat, 17 Sep 2005 18:52:51 -0400

>
>  IEEE is currently holding elections for its board.
>
>
>IEEE so far has been hostile to the notion of Open Access Publications,
>mainly because the organization get about half of its revenue from
>subscriptions to journals. For example, IEEE was among the organizations
>that lobbied against the new NIH rule that publications of NIH-funded
>research should be made freely available in PubMed.
>
>
>If you are a supporter of *Open Access* and an *IEEE member*, here is
>your opportunity for making hear your opinion on this issue.
>
>
>As you vote for the new members, you may want to take into account
>their position with respect to the Open Access movement.
>
>
>
>You will find the full statements of the candidates at
>
>                   http://www.ieee.org
>
>
>As a help, here is the summary of the statements from
>presidential candidates with respect to Open Access, as
>it appeared in "The Institute" this month:
>
>
>1) James Tien:
>
>    Sales of IEEE publications account for approximately
>    half of the IEEE revenue and therefore are not something
>    that the organization can unilaterally and easily abandon.
>    For example, total IEEE revenues reached US$ 247 million...
>
>
>2) Gerald Peterson:
>
>    suggested to look at the IEEE standards association's
>    corporate membership program that allowed free downloads
>    of its popular wireless networking suite of standards...
>    ... industry groups have decided that wide dissemination of
>    the new technologies took precedence over generating revenue...
>
>
>3) Leah Jamieson:
>
>    Pointed out that in a sense, papers are free. An author may post
>    his or her paper on a corporate Web site, where it would be available
>    for free to anyone. But the agglomeration and organization of all
>    IEEE articles through the IEEE Xplore document delivery system adds
>    value and is not free.
>
>
>
>In my humble opinion we can interpret these statements as:
>
>
>1) James Tien: IEEE is first of all a business and we should take
>                care of making money instead of fulfilling the
>                mission of a technical society.
>
>    with his opinion, IEEE will end up like the American Chemical
>    Society who opposed the creation of NIH Open Databases PubChem
>    because it was detrimental to a paid service that the society
>    provided:
>
>     http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/acs_pubchem.html
>
>    as a response, Richard J. Roberts (Nobel Prize 1993) resigned
>    to his 20 years membership to the ACS and posted the following
>    open letter:
>
>     https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/1977.html
>
>     ACS (as well as IEEE) also oppossed Google initiative of
>     Scholar Google, that fine tunned the search engine for
>     searching technical and scientific literature.
>
>
>
>
>
>2) Geral Peterson:  "If there is a will there is a way".
>               At least he recognizes that dissemination of
>               technical information is more important than
>               generating revenue, and that IEEE have done
>               so in some activities.
>
>
>
>
>3) Leah Jamieson:  Dr. Jamieson seems to be is ill-informed
>              on the US copyright laws,
>
>               http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html
>
>              and most of importantly on the standard policy of
>              IEEE publicaitions of requiring copyright transfer
>              from the authors to the society as a requisite for
>              publishing in IEEE journals.
>
>      http://www.ieee.org/about/documentation/copyright/cfrmlink.htm
>
>              Progressive Open Access journals do not require
>              authors to transfer their copyright, they simply
>              obtain permission from them in order to disseminate
>              the document. The Creative Commons Attribution License
>              clearly demonstrates that other models are viable:
>
>                http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>In any case,...
>
>
>This is just to encourage you to take this factors into account when
>you cast your ballot for IEEE board members. Just consider whether
>IEEE is supposed to be a Corporation or a Technical Society.
>
>
>
>
>
>     Luis
>
>
>
>
>
>
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