Wie das DEAL-Konsortium in einer Pressemitteilung meldete, wurde die notwendige Beteiligungsquote für den DEAL-Elsevier-Vertrag erreicht. Der im September 2023 abgeschlossene Vertrag tritt damit analog zu den Verträgen mit den Wissenschaftsverlagen Springer und Wiley auch offiziell in Kraft: Der Vertrag gilt nun bis zum Jahr 2028.
In December last year, it was widely publicized e.g. in Science magazine [1], that Scopus has been instrumental in legitimizing publication scams whereby authors pay to bypass real scholarly peer review and have their work published on a website that looks like a real scholarly journal but is in fact not a proper journal, merely an impersonation of one.
As some people abroad were interested in my earlier posts on the German DEAL contracts, I have decided to summarise here some key points of the new contracts with Wiley, Springer Nature and Elsevier. The three contracts differ in some aspects, but at least there are two issue they have in common: They are opt-in contracts , only those organisations that actively join the contract will benefit from the conditions.
No matter how well-intended (and we all know to which place the road leads that is paved with good intentions!), transformative agreements (such as DEAL in Germany) are generally the wrong tool at the wrong time for making publicly funded science accessible to the public.
Data broker RELX is represented on Twitter by their Chief Communications Officer Paul Abrahams. Due to RELX subsidiary Elsevier being one of the largest publishers of academic journals, Dr. Abrahams frequently engages with academics on the social media platform.
Ohne Wissenschaft gäbe es keine Wissenschaftsverlage, so viel ist klar. Aber andersherum? Versprach die Open-Access-Bewegung nicht eine Befreiung vom Verlagswesen? Trotz hoher Gebühren fällt es der Wissenschaft schwer, von ihren Verlagen zu lassen. Vier Gründe, warum die Beziehung so verstrickt ist.
Or let’s think a a few sizes smaller and imagine a renowned pulmonologist taking the, say, “Marlboro Endowed Chair” in the Mayo Clinic’s Pulmonary Medicine Division, sponsored by Philip Morris. What would they have to endure and how much credibility would they and the institutions lose? Undoubtedly, the foul stench of corruption and hypocrisy would be difficult to counter.
Offen, transparent und nachnutzbar – so sieht Open Science im Idealfall aus. Kommerzielle Großverlage hingegen wollen Geld verdienen. Sie tun dies zunehmend mit digitalem Tracking von Forscher*innen und hohen Publikationsgebühren. Wie groß die Probleme sind und welche Lösungen nötig werden, will eine Podiumsdiskussion an der Freien Universität klären.
Wissenschaftsverlage wie Elsevier oder Springer Nature sind nur noch vordergründig Verlagshäuser – eigentlich arbeiten sie daran, Tracking-Tools zur Analyse und Überwachung wissenschaftlicher Arbeit zu entwickeln. Das sagt Björn Brembs im Interview mit iRights.info. Der Naturwissenschaftler beobachtet und kritisiert die Entwicklungen seit Jahren.
Christian Gutknecht published an exciting posting on the Swiss EUR 57 million Elsevier deal in which he outlines the transformative Open Access agreement between Elsevier and swissuniversities. Since Germany has been trying for years to reach such a contract with Elsevier, it is worth comparing it with the two transformative contracts with Wiley and Springer Nature in Germany, which were reached and coordinated by Project DEAL.