Re: Who Should Own Scientific Papers?

     This is a fairly long article which those not interested in the "Who should own scientific papers" thread may wish to delete at once. However, it is important in that it shows the feelings of an academic administrator in a significant position who can affect academic thinking on copyright policy.

Bert R. Boyce, Professor & Dean
School of Library & Information Science
Louisiana State University
267 Coates Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803

     (504)388-3158
FAX: (504)388-4581
LSBOYC[_at_]LSUVM.sncc.lsu.edu

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  The Chronicle of Higher Education
  Section: Information Technology
  Page: A29
  From the issue dated September 18, 1998                                         

  A Provost Challenges His Faculty to Keep   Copyright on Journal Articles

  He asks: Why should colleges pay publishers to gain access   to work produced on the campus?

  By LISA GUERNSEY

  Steven E. Koonin, provost of the California Institute of Technology,   has an idea about journals and copyright, an idea radical enough to   change the way scholars share the results of their research. It has   already intrigued his colleagues, prompted a rigorous debate among   professors, and disturbed some of the biggest players in scholarly   publishing.   

  What if, he asked one day last spring, Caltech and its professors   announced that they intended to control the copyrights of articles about   research done on the campus? Instead of signing over those rights to   publishers, as is typical, the institute and its faculty members would   turn the tables: Journal publishers would be informed that they could   publish articles by Caltech researchers only if the authors and the   university retained copyrights to the material.   

  Doing so would give Caltech researchers control over their written work,   enabling them to distribute it on line without worrying about getting   permission from publishers, Mr. Koonin argued. As it is, some   publishers prohibit professors from posting their articles even on their   own World-Wide Web sites, and most publishers don't allow researchers to   distribute published copies of their work to large numbers of peers.   

  What's more, he said, controlling the copyrights could give Caltech   faculty members -- or larger groups of researchers -- the chance to vet   and distribute research results on line by themselves, bypassing   traditional publishers altogether.   

  At first, Mr. Koonin says, "it was something of a joke." But behind the   notion was a more serious idea. It evolved, he says, from years of   watching Caltech's library spend a large portion of its budget on   subscriptions to high-priced, for-profit journals that ran articles   about research by Caltech's own faculty members.   

  That's not the kind of arrangement to bring a smile to any provost's   face: Commercial publishers get articles free from university   researchers, and make money by selling the same articles back to the   universities the researchers work for -- the very universities that paid   for the research in the first place.   

  The publishers note that they add value to the articles by editing them   and arranging for other scholars to vet them. But even so, many   universities would jump at an alternative.   

"It became clear to me," says Mr. Koonin, "that copyright is the
  linchpin" of the vast system of scholarly communication. "If you're   going to change that system, copyright is the nexus that you have to go   after."   

  After professors at Caltech heard about Mr. Koonin's notion, the debate   broke out. Several researchers welcomed the prospect of an unfettered   sharing of their articles on line. But many others were wary. Would   they be risking their chances of publication in respected journals?   

  That question will be at the heart of a full-scale discussion of the   idea, which is to be held at Caltech from October 1 through the end of   December. It will take place on an electronic network designed by   Bruce C. Murray, a planetary-science professor. Called HyperForum, the   network allows users to post messages, attach documents, and develop   arguments in a closed on-line forum.   

"This is a complex issue that most people have not thought about in
  great detail," says Richard C. Flagan, a chemical-engineering professor   who has worked with Mr. Koonin on issues of intellectual property and   journal pricing for several years. "We're going to have an extended   deliberative discourse, rather than a one-hour meeting."   

  Proposals like Mr. Koonin's have been discussed before, usually among   small groups of librarians and university researchers. Now they are   gathering steam.   

  At Yale University, for example, the university librarian, Scott   Bennett, has suggested that Yale add an advisory note to its copyright   policy that would encourage researchers to retain their copyrights when   dealing with journal publishers. The proposal has been posted on line   to trigger discussion (http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/bennett.html).   

  At the University of Kansas, the provost, David E. Shulenburger, has   asked the Board of Regents to consider a similar plan. Kansas would   require authors to retain the right to post their articles in a national   on-line repository of scholarly works, if one were someday to become   available.   

  Most recently, 12 scholars from the American Academy of Arts and   Sciences wrote a commentary, published in Science magazine, urging the   federal government to play a role in the debate (The Chronicle,   September 11). Under their plan, federal agencies might require that   researchers using government funds retain the copyrights to their   published works. Most federal agencies so far have no plans to consider   that idea.   

  The Caltech proposal, however, represents the first time that an entire   university has considered confronting journal publishers in such a   dramatic fashion.   

  Mr. Koonin says he would like to see Caltech and its faculty members   jointly own and retain rights to journal articles and license those   copyrights to publishers on a limited basis. Some ideas include giving   a journal exclusive license to publish an article for a period of time,   or promising a journal that the author would not allow the paper to be   published for profit in any other forum.   

  But before getting into such details, Mr. Koonin must convince   professors that keeping their copyright is worth the risk.   

  Junior faculty members, especially, worry that publishers will reject   any manuscript for which professors refuse to sign over the copyright.   They see adopting Mr. Koonin's plan as a threat to their chances at   publication -- and, ultimately, tenure.   

  That alone makes even senior faculty members skeptical that Mr.   Koonin's ideas will gain support. "You want to have complete discretion   as to where you send your papers," says Stephen L. Mayo, an associate   professor of biology at Caltech. "If there is some conflict between the   institution and journal publishers, this limits the breadth of journals   available to you, and could limit your ability to report those results   to your peers."   

  Mr. Koonin, however, predicts that by the end of the electronic-network   debate at Caltech, professors will decide to make some sort of policy   change to give themselves more control over their own work. "People   come at this from very different perspectives initially," he says, "but   when you talk to them about what's really happening here and what it   means for the long run, they say, Okay, maybe we should be thinking   about this."   

  If Caltech professors do come up with a policy under which they retain   the copyrights to their papers, it could signal major changes in the   dynamics of journal publishing.   

  Already, journal publishers are feeling the ground shift beneath them as   the Internet takes over one of their main roles: the timely distribution   of written works. Compared with the speed of the Net, the months-long   process of putting out a journal seems tedious.   

  On-line clearinghouses for draft articles have been formed to provide   researchers with information weeks or months before it appears in   peer-reviewed journals. Some publishers worry that they will lose   readers to these clearinghouses, known as e-print servers, but most   comfort themselves by arguing that journals are delivering more than   just on-line drafts -- they're presenting the final, peer-reviewed   product.   

  Yet even the publishers' lock on peer review is under attack. The   Association of American Universities released a proposal this spring to   cut commercial journals out of that process. Peer review, the group   says, could be taken up instead by universities and societies, who could   publish vetted papers on their own Web sites.   

  Under such circumstances, publishers aren't likely to be keen on giving   up control over copyrights. If professors control the right to post   their published articles on line, the works could be available free to   all. How, publishers ask, can they compete with that and have any hopes   of making money?   

  Karen A. Hunter, vice-president of Elsevier Science, the world's   largest publisher of scientific journals, acknowledges that the threat   of such competition would cause the company to have "serious   reservations" about a university policy that required professors to   retain the copyrights to their articles.   

  But, she says, on rare occasions Elsevier already signs licensing   agreements with authors in lieu of copyrights. Depending on the type of   policy Caltech may come up with, she says, Elsevier could have no   problem accepting articles under license from professors there. The   only approach that might drive the company to reject papers that   stipulated specific licenses, she says, "is if the rights were so narrow   that we couldn't do our job."   

  She adds that Elsevier does allow professors to post copies of their   published papers on their own Web sites -- as long as the distribution   of the papers does not become "commercially competitive." But in   general, Ms. Hunter questions the wisdom of having authors retain the   copyrights when publishers are already sanctioning some on-line   dissemination of their work.   

  So does Jerome Kassirer, editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
"I see only trivial advantages and some real disadvantages for
  scientists if an institution required its researchers to retain the   copyrights of their work," he says.   

"We allow authors to freely use their material -- with no charge, no
  penalty, nothing," Dr. Kassirer notes, but that's for paper copies.   The journal does not want authors to post copies of their articles   openly on line. Instead, "we simply encourage them to have a link to   the article on our Web site," he says. Articles on the journal's site   are available to those who have a subscription or who use computers at   institutions that have a subscription.   

  Other publishers argue that universities and professors don't realize   the burden of copyright. Granting permissions for reprints and tracking   down cases of copyright infringement could be an administrative   nightmare, they say.   

  Mr. Koonin, however, has already tried the concept himself and says he   hasn't had any problems: He has submitted scientific papers to   well-known journals with the copyright section of the contract scratched   out.   

"So far," he says, "they have accepted it."
  

  If publishers don't want to give up their hold on copyright, he says,   researchers will find other publishing outlets on line. What about a
"Publications of Caltech" Web site, he asks, or a site developed by
  scholarly societies or a consortium of universities?   

  Besides, he argues, if a critical mass of prestigious researchers demand   that they retain their copyrights, publishers may have no choice but to   license the articles rather than own them.   

"The publishers have basically been getting a free good up to this point

• which is the copyright," he says.

  Charles E. Phelps, provost at the University of Rochester, agrees. He   is a major proponent of the proposal put forth by the Association of   American Universities.   

  However, he warns that if only one university makes the attempt, and   faces rejection by publishers, "there is the risk that the professors   are going to feel like they have been hung out to dry."   

"We need to encourage this very widely and rapidly, so that everyone is
  doing it," he says. "This is a discussion that we all want to have on   our own campuses."   

  That's exactly what Mr. Koonin wants to hear. "Frankly," he says, "I   hope it spreads." Received on Tue Sep 22 1998 - 19:10:33 GMT