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"Some college administrators seem so distracted with fund raising, academic infighting, and community initiatives that they set up their emergency communications departments very poorly. Training is poor to nonexistent, secretaries are pressed into service with tremendous responsibilities for running 'notification systems' 24/7 and on weekends because no one else knows how to do it and the administration won’t pay for additional staff. Procedures are seat-of-the-pants and dependent on HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion), except when something like Virginia Tech happens and there is some sort of scramble to do something different." --Donna
Most Colleges Avoid Risk Management, Report Says
Jill Biden Shines a Global Spotlight on American Community Colleges
Speaking at a Unesco conference in Paris, the vice president’s wife stressed the importance of two-year institutions to the nation’s educational goals.
Connecticut Public Colleges Lose 200 Professors to Early Retirement
Administrators are scrambling to plug holes in their course schedules for fall, with most expecting to do so by hiring more adjuncts or increasing class sizes.
U. of Georgia Paid 2 Fraternities $2.4-Million to Relocate, Contracts Show
The two were among five with houses on property where the university plans to build new academic facilities.
New Allegations in Admissions Controversy at U. of Illinois Suggest Ex-Provost Played a Role
Linda P.B. Katehi, the incoming chancellor of the University of California at Davis, has insisted she knew nothing of the admission of politically connected applicants at Illinois.
Sonoma State U. Foundation May Lose $350,000 on Loan to Former Board Member
The foundation will be forced to issue fewer scholarships in the 2010-11 academic year because of a diminished endowment, a university official said.
College Suspends Student for Working in Gay Pornography | 58
President Obama's Visit to Notre Dame Carries Barely a Hint of Controversy That Preceded It | 58
Drug Sting Nabs 21 Students at U. of Illinois | 57
Faculty Members and Union Protest Staff Layoffs at Temple U. as 'Cruel' | 57
North Dakota Board's Vote Puts 'Fighting Sioux' Mascot on Thinner Ice | 57
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July 21, 2008
About-Face: Psychological Association Will Not Charge for Open Access
Apparently charging scholarly authors $2,500 to place their articles in a free online database wasn’t such a good idea. Facing withering criticism from open-access advocates, the American Psychological Association has announced that the fee policy “is currently being re-examined and is not being implemented at this time.”
After the plan to charge authors and their universities was reported by The Chronicle last week, some critics called the psychological association “cash-flow hounds.” The association had planned to levy the charge against authors for placing their articles in PubMed Central, the online database run by the National Institutes of Health.
The fee put researchers in a bind because the NIH’s guidelines require scientists with its grants to place their articles in the database, but the psychological-association plan would charge those researchers a fee for complying with the rule. An association official told The Chronicle that the group was considering the fee to recoup lost revenue from journal subscriptions and licenses due to open access.
Peter Suber, in the Open Access News blog, says he applauds the change of heart but worries that the new position is only temporary because the association says the policy is still being re-examined. —Josh Fischman
Posted on Monday July 21, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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There would not be any lost revenue. Libraries will not stop subscribing to journals just because some of their articles will be available free online 6 months after publication. And libraries, not individuals, are the source of publishers’ revenue for scholarly journals.
— Bill Miller Jul 21, 03:44 PM #
The APA has a sad and unfortunate history of horrendously price-gouging its constituents and stake-holders. I have been bibliographer & reference librarian in this subject area for almost 10 years, and I recall when APA did a “price adjustment” on their PsycInfo database that wound up costing some institutions 200-400% increases in their subscription costs (ours was around 200%, I believe). Their scholarly mission seems to always have taken a back seat to their profit mission. When the last academic library without a multi-billion-dollar endowment shuts its doors, professional societies like APA will be left wondering where all their “customers” went. Professional societies and libraries have a shared responsibility to promote and facilitate scholarly communication. APA seems more intent on joining the Elseviers & Wiley’s of the world, rather than being their less-expensive, high-quality alternative. So it goes.
— Victor Lieberman Jul 21, 04:07 PM #
Mr. Miller in comment 1 is absolutely correct . Libraries will indeed not stop subscribing to American Psychological Association journals and libraries are the source of scholarly publishers’s revenues. The issue for the American Psychological Association was not that libraries would stop subscribing. The issue was that the APA saw the $2500 fee as an “easy” way to receive more money. Never did the APA mention anything in any comment or press release issued about serving the profession in making scholarly psychology information more accessible. APA members, you might wish to being up to the APA staff at the next Board meeting about what the mission of the Association is.
— S Jul 21, 04:10 PM #
Kudos to people like Peter Suber and Kevin Smith for pointing out to APA the problems with their original position. The original APA position would have implied that many authors (e.g. those with small NIH grants at research institutes like ORI that couldn’t afford the exhorbitant fee) would have had no choice but to publish in non-APA journals. By focusing on $$, it might also have encouraged authors to start charging journals for the peer review and editorial board services most of them provide for free.
APA has a well-developed policy that allows authors latitude in continuing to use their author’s final manuscript version but restricts access to the PDF formatted version of papers. A natural extension of this policy would be to allow NIH-funded authors to deposit the manuscript but not the typeset version. Note that APA’s proprietary interests are still more than adequately protected by the NIH-allowed 12 month embargo period.
— JQ Johnson Jul 21, 04:49 PM #