{"id":1197,"date":"2012-03-08T22:39:44","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T03:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/?p=1197"},"modified":"2012-04-24T10:02:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T14:02:00","slug":"the-cost-of-knowledge-boycott-trajectory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/03\/08\/the-cost-of-knowledge-boycott-trajectory\/","title":{"rendered":"The “Cost of Knowledge” boycott trajectory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
\"Have<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cHave scientists lost interest again?\u201d
\n<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The “Cost of Knowledge<\/a>” boycott of Elsevier is in its seventh week. The boycott was precipitated by various practices of the journal publisher, most recently its support for the Research Works Act<\/a>, a bill that would roll back the NIH public access policy<\/a> and prevent similar policies by other federal funding agencies.<\/p>\n

Early on, several hundred researchers a day were signing on to the pledge not to submit to or edit or review for Elsevier journals, but recently that rate had settled down to about a hundred per day. On February 11, I started tracking the daily totals<\/a> by scraping the site through a simple scraper I set up at ScraperWiki<\/a>. I’ve graphed the results<\/a> in the attached graph, showing raw count of signatories with the blue line (left axis) and the number added since the previous day with the green bars (right axis).<\/p>\n

As you can see from the chart, there seems to be a slight drop in activity around weekends, and Sunday February 26 and Monday February 27 had clearly been the slowest days since I’ve been keeping records,\u00a0and likely since the effort started. On the 27th (red arrow), Elsevier issued its quasi-recantation<\/a> of support for RWA. (“While we continue to oppose government mandates in this area, Elsevier is withdrawing support for the Research Work Act itself. We hope this will address some of the concerns expressed….”)<\/p>\n

The day after Elsevier’s announcement saw a bit of a bump back to previous levels. Was this an instance of the\u00a0Streisand\u00a0effect<\/a> or was the 26-27 dip an aberration? It’s hard to tell. However, since the 27th, it seems clear that the number of pledges is down considerably. It could well be that Elsevier’s tactical approach has worked and it has stanched the spate of boycott pledges, despite the fact that the community was generally\u00a0unimpressed\u00a0with Elsevier’s statement,\u00a0as Peter Suber has cataloged<\/a>. Alternatively, the current rate of new pledges may just reflect the natural reductions that had been happening over the last few weeks.<\/p>\n

Elsevier has not changed its underlying stance. It still “continue[s] to oppose government mandates<\/a>” for public access, as per RWA. It strongly opposes FRPAA<\/a>. Have scientists lost interest again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u201cNote the surges…\u201d
\n<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

[Update 4\/20\/2012:<\/strong> Now that a few more weeks have passed, here’s an updated figure of the boycott growth. Note the surges around March 18 and April 10. As near as I can make out, these were the result of widely disseminated coverage in Slashdot<\/a> and the Guardian<\/a>, respectively. These surges show that the boycott hasn’t played itself out yet, and that continued discussion of the boycott is likely to lead to a continued steady rise in the number of signatures. <\/p>\n

At the current rate, I expect the number of signatories to hit 10,000 around April 27 or so.]<\/p>\n

[Update 4\/24\/2012:<\/strong> Well, my guess was wrong. A big bump of activity in the last few days meant that the boycott broke 10,000 signatures on April 23. I’m not sure who to blame for the renewed interest in the last couple of days. Anyone have any conjectures?]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHave scientists lost interest again?\u201d The “Cost of Knowledge” boycott of Elsevier is in its seventh week. The boycott was precipitated by various practices of the journal publisher, most recently its support for the Research Works Act, a bill that would roll back the NIH public access policy and prevent similar policies by other federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholarly-communication"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5pLfN-jj","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1203,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/03\/06\/an-efficient-journal\/","url_meta":{"origin":1197,"position":0},"title":"An efficient journal","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Tuesday, March 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cYou seem to believe in fairies.\u201d Photo of the Cottingley Fairies, 1917, by Elsie Wright via Wikipedia. Aficionados of open access should know about the Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR), an open-access journal in my own research field of artificial intelligence, a subfield of computer science concerned with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "computer science"","block_context":{"text":"computer science","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/computer-science\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1139,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/02\/25\/is-the-pot-calling-the-kettle-black\/","url_meta":{"origin":1197,"position":1},"title":"Is the pot calling the kettle black?","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Saturday, February 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201c...the interpersonal processes that a student goes through...\u201d Harvard students (2008) by E>mar via flickr. Used by permission (CC by-nc-nd) Is the pot calling the kettle black? Oh sure, journal prices are going up, but so is tuition. How can universities complain about journal price hyperinflation if tuition is hyperinflating\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "libraries"","block_context":{"text":"libraries","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/libraries\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1284,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2012\/03\/30\/statement-before-the-house-science-committee\/","url_meta":{"origin":1197,"position":2},"title":"Statement before the House Science Committee","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Friday, March 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cMajesty of Law\u201d Statue in front of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C., photo by flickr user NCinDC, used by permission (CC-by-nd) Here is my written testimony filed in association with my appearance yesterday at the\u00a0hearing on \"Federally Funded Research: Examining Public Access and Scholarly Publication Interests\" before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":712,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2011\/02\/14\/dissertation-distribution-online-my-comments-at-the-aha\/","url_meta":{"origin":1197,"position":3},"title":"Dissertation distribution online: my comments at the AHA","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Monday, February 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I spoke at a panel last month at the annual meeting of the\u00a0American Historical Association devoted to the question of electronic dissertations and intellectual property rights entitled \"When Universities Put Dissertations on the Internet: New Practice; New Problem?\" My co-panelists included Edward Fox, professor of computer science at Virginia Tech\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":693,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2011\/02\/01\/the-tetrahedron-test-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":1197,"position":4},"title":"The Tetrahedron test case","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Tuesday, February 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Phil Davis's recent post over at The Scholarly Kitchen on whether open access might save the academic world some money misses the point of the COPE initiative and Harvard's open-access fund (HOPE). Davis speculates that for the case of one set of journals that happened to be mentioned in my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":925,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/2011\/09\/11\/subscription-fees-as-a-distribution-control-mechanism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1197,"position":5},"title":"Subscription fees as a distribution control mechanism","author":"Stuart Shieber","date":"Sunday, September 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Stamps to mark \"restricted data\" (modified from \"atomic stamps 1\" by flickr user donovanbeeson, used by permission under CC by-nc-sa) Ten years ago today was the largest terrorist action in United States history, an event that highlighted the importance of intelligence, and its reliance on information classification and control, for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "open access"","block_context":{"text":"open access","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/category\/scholarly-communication\/open-access\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1315,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions\/1315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/pamphlet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}