After reading this week's posts I feel compelled to share an excellent paper "Open Access is a Choice" (2007) that I found during the research for my article that does an excellent job articulating the view of the traditional "toll" publishers.  Jan Velterop is the director of Springer's Open Access program and I urge you to read the entire (short) paper. It provides a counter argument not about including open access in the publishing market but about understanding toll access in the publishing market.

Veltrop also explains why serial costs have spiraled.  As we have all noted it is not due to increasing publishing costs and we posit market greed and monopoly because we have also noted the increases in publishing profits.  But Veltrop explains it differently and I am curious to see what you think:

What impact do you think these mandates will have on scholarly communication?

These mandates have a very positive impact on scholarly communication, allowing for free, easy access to valuable research and learning materials for all, be they university professors, impoverished students in third world countries, or anyone else. There is no easier way to access materials than when there are no restrictions!

Does OA undermine the traditional publishing system?

My biggest question about Open Access has been whether traditional subscription model journals can survive economically in a system that has converted primarily to open access.  From our reading, it is a little difficult to tell as advocates of Open Access have strong opinions about the system as it is and as they feel it should be.  Proponents of Open Access are enthusiastic about the advantages of OA, and describe in detail the weaknesses and disadvantages of the toll access model.  From their point of view, that means substantial changes from traditional publishing models.

OA does not undermine the traditional publishing system it only leads to additional services for authors to publish their work. There are many misconceptions about the role OA plays in regard to traditional publishing.  Scholars do not understand the benefits of OA due to the lack of information available.  Many view OA as steering away from peer review or neglecting copyright issues.  This isn't the case at all.  Infact, many scholars can still publish through the traditional systems and also publish through OA allowing for their work to be more freely available to the public.

I was initially unsure how to answer this question because I have always so negatively associated the term undermine. I decided to look up the definition of the word to help me start thinking of how to answer this question and came up with the following result:  

“To subvert or weaken insidiously or secretly”

Does OA undermine the traditional publishing system?

No.  As others have written, undermine is not the correct word.  OA has changed the traditional publishing system by becoming a market force to reckon with.  In 2000, when all of those scientists signed the petition begging the traditional publishing industry to change their access policies publishers did nothing because they did not have to.  They were making an incredible profit and dominated the market as the smaller prints and academic presses were being bought up by the bigger multinational corporations.  So when the Budapest Open Initiative formed the strategy for Green and Gold OA, the page had turned on the traditional publishers without them even knowing it.  Suddenly they had legitimate competition in the form of gold OA journals and they had competing market forces in the form of green OA mandates.  

Does this competition undermine the traditional publishing system?  No, it doesn't... but it does undermine their monopoly... 

• Does OA undermine the traditional
  publishing system?

Does OA undermine the traditional publishing system? Rather than undermining the traditional publishing system, from what I have read and seen so far it seems that OA can work in tandem to give both authors and researchers varied options. Also, the concept of OA to make available literature and research more easily accessible is important on a different level, to support open sharing of research and knowledge, than just to “undermine’ a traditional system.

Does OA undermine the traditional publishing system?

I don’t think that OA undermines the traditional publishing system; it merely offers an additional option.  The traditional publishing system is ideal for print, but we are quickly booming into a vastly digital realm.  The OA journals are just as much a quality piece of work as their traditional counterparts.  However, “the best model for information distribution in the age of the web may not be to simply translate the print model into its online equivalent” (Cockerill, 2006).