- Email: [email protected]
Open access, fauxpen access: Problems in transparency and proposed solutions
Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery (2014) 67, 589e590
LETTER FROM AMERICA
Open access, fauxpen access: Problems in transparency and proposed solutions JPRAS reaches a landmark If you read JPRAS online you have seen that a landmark has been reached. JPRAS has published its first open access article.1 This means that anybody anyplace in the world can access the article without having access to a subscription or without having to pay $31.50 to get beyond JPRAS’ paywall. One of the purported benefits of open access is that it increases transparency and that is vital as transparency is an intrinsic pillar of research.
“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”2 The current cost of open access is $3000.00. Why is the article freely accessible to all? First, its authors retained the copyright; second, the study was funded by a grant from the authors’ institution. Today I received an email from a plastic surgery friend in Bangalore. He described his feelings about a recent article “Treatment of Capsular Contracture Using Complete Implant Coverage by Acellular Dermal Matrix: A Novel Technique” that described the results of using Alloderm.3 Intrigued by his remarks, I read the article and agreed with his opinions, but I noted something else. Like the JPRAS article, the Alloderm article was freely available. Unlike the JPRAS article, the Alloderm article had an invited commentary, but that invited commentary was behind that publisher’s paywall.4 In other words, unless a curious reader had a subscription or was willing to pay the publisher $35, he was barred from reading the commentary.
Questions and answers about ethics and transparency I have been interested in publication ethics and conflicts of interest for many years. In 2002, I recommended that journals have financial disclosure not only for authors, but
also for commentators.5 More recently, I have commented upon the opacity of some financial disclosures.6 I also have been concerned with transparency when financial disclosures are locked behind publishers’ paywalls.7,8 With this background, I had these questions: 1 Is there harm if an invited commentary of an open access article is locked behind a paywall? The commentator noted that the “main limitation of the study is the short follow-up period” and recommended “at least a two year follow-up”. Neither the word “limitation” nor any of its synonyms appeared in the article. The article’s discussion failed to mention that there was less than six months follow-up for eight of the sixteen treated breasts and that the median was only 5.9 months. Without the commentator’s insight, the neophyte might be misled into believing that this “novel technique” was a long-term solution. Unfortunately, the underfunded neophyte who lacks a subscription to that journal is deprived of the commentator’s remarks about the study’s lack of long-term follow-up. 2 Was the article truly open access? Before I downloaded the article I assumed that it was open access because I did not have a subscription to that journal; yet, I was able to download the article. When I read the article I learned that the authors had transferred its copyright to the journal’s owner. In other words, it was not truly open access; it was fauxpen access.a The publisher could toggle access on and off like a light switch.
a A search of both Google and Bing for the phrase “fauxpen access” yielded no hits. Instead, the phrase “fauxpen source” was the top hit. 1748-6815/$ - see front matter ª 2013 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjps.2013.09.035
590
M.F. Freshwater
3 Does it matter if an article is open access or fauxpen access? No, it should not matter if an article is open access or fauxpen access as long as there is transparency in the financial disclosure. Who paid for the free lunch? I have no issue if a manufacturer pays for access, but as the late Robert Goldwyn, who edited Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery for a quarter of a century, wrote in his editorial describing his policy on financial disclosure: “The reason for this rule is to permit the reader to assess the possible value of an article written by an author or authors who might benefit from its publication.”9 I believe that readers are entitled to know who paid for open access and fauxpen access, as they are entitled to know about any potential conflicts of interests.10 4 Is fauxpen access scholarly endorsement or product placement? Product placement is a form of advertising.11 One effective example is that more than 30 years later we remember than in Spielberg’s movie Elliott tempted E.T. with a trail of Skittles not m&m’s. Without knowing who funded fauxpen access, readers could falsely assume that a journal’s editor deemed a fauxpen access article to be more meritorious than other closed access articles and he was magnanimously sacrificing revenue for that eleemosynary purpose, when, in fact, this was nothing more than product placement. 5 How can we avoid obfuscation with open access and fauxpen access? There are simple solutions that I have listed in Table 1. If an article is freely accessible, then its invited commentary must be freely accessible. Clearly, if an editor believes that an open access article merits an invited commentary, then he is perverting open access’ intent if he deprives readers of the commentator’s insight because they lack a paid subscription. Obviously, the invited commentary’s open access funding also must be disclosed. Indeed, I believe that all invited commentaries must be freely accessible, not only in the interest of transparency, but also for good customer relations. If you had just paid $31.50 to read an article and learned that
Table 1 Solutions transparency.
by
Article type
Disclose who paid for access
Cost to non-subscriber
Closed access Open access Fauxpen access Invited commentary
Not applicable Yes Yes Yes
Yes No No No
article
type
for
increasing
you needed to pay another $31.50 to read the invited commentary, then you would not be a satisfied customer. JPRAS has dipped its toes into the waters of open access. Hopefully, it will learn from others’ missteps and not follow in their footsteps. The good news is that digital errors of omission and commission are correctible with a few taps on a keyboard and clicks of a mouse. If only we plastic surgeons could repair errors of nature, disease and trauma as easily.
Financial disclosure None.
Competing interests The author is a member of the editorial board of JPRAS and Annals of Plastic Surgery.
References 1. Noszczyk BH, Nowak M, Krzesniak N. Use of the accordion severity grading system for negative outcomes of carpal tunnel syndrome. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2013;66: 1123e30. 2. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/14/magazine/onlanguage-words-out-in-the-cold.html? pagewantedZall&srcZpm [accessed 22.09.13]. 3. Cheng A, Lakhiani C, Saint-Cyr M. Treatment of capsular contracture using complete implant coverage by acellular dermal matrix: a novel technique. Plast Reconstr Surg 2013; 132:519e29. 4. Nahabedian MY. Discussion: treatment of capsular contracture using complete implant coverage by acellular dermal matrix: a novel technique. Plast Reconstr Surg 2013;132:530e1. 5. Freshwater MF. Re: confounding conflicts of compounding interest. Ann Plast Surg 2002;49:217e8. 6. Freshwater MF. The nondisclosure disclosure. Plast Reconstr Surg 2008;162:323. 7. Freshwater MF. Lack of online financial transparency is a potential financial conflict. Br Med J. http://bmj.com/cgi/ eletters/338/mar25_1/b1252-212484; 20 Apr 2009. 8. Freshwater MF. Sharing medical research data. Financial conflicts should be included in online abstracts. Br Med J 2009; 338:b1934. 9. Goldwyn RM. Financial disclosures for authors. Plast Reconstr Surg 1991;88:323e4. 10. Freshwater MF. Financial disclosure. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2008;61:601. 11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement#Early_ examples [accessed 22.09.13].
M. Felix Freshwater Voluntary Professor of Surgery, University of Miami School of Medicine, 9155 S Dadeland Blvd, Suite 1404, Miami, FL 33156-2739, USA E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]
23 September 2013
LETTER FROM AMERICA
Open access, fauxpen access: Problems in transparency and proposed solutions JPRAS reaches a landmark If you read JPRAS online you have seen that a landmark has been reached. JPRAS has published its first open access article.1 This means that anybody anyplace in the world can access the article without having access to a subscription or without having to pay $31.50 to get beyond JPRAS’ paywall. One of the purported benefits of open access is that it increases transparency and that is vital as transparency is an intrinsic pillar of research.
“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”2 The current cost of open access is $3000.00. Why is the article freely accessible to all? First, its authors retained the copyright; second, the study was funded by a grant from the authors’ institution. Today I received an email from a plastic surgery friend in Bangalore. He described his feelings about a recent article “Treatment of Capsular Contracture Using Complete Implant Coverage by Acellular Dermal Matrix: A Novel Technique” that described the results of using Alloderm.3 Intrigued by his remarks, I read the article and agreed with his opinions, but I noted something else. Like the JPRAS article, the Alloderm article was freely available. Unlike the JPRAS article, the Alloderm article had an invited commentary, but that invited commentary was behind that publisher’s paywall.4 In other words, unless a curious reader had a subscription or was willing to pay the publisher $35, he was barred from reading the commentary.
Questions and answers about ethics and transparency I have been interested in publication ethics and conflicts of interest for many years. In 2002, I recommended that journals have financial disclosure not only for authors, but
also for commentators.5 More recently, I have commented upon the opacity of some financial disclosures.6 I also have been concerned with transparency when financial disclosures are locked behind publishers’ paywalls.7,8 With this background, I had these questions: 1 Is there harm if an invited commentary of an open access article is locked behind a paywall? The commentator noted that the “main limitation of the study is the short follow-up period” and recommended “at least a two year follow-up”. Neither the word “limitation” nor any of its synonyms appeared in the article. The article’s discussion failed to mention that there was less than six months follow-up for eight of the sixteen treated breasts and that the median was only 5.9 months. Without the commentator’s insight, the neophyte might be misled into believing that this “novel technique” was a long-term solution. Unfortunately, the underfunded neophyte who lacks a subscription to that journal is deprived of the commentator’s remarks about the study’s lack of long-term follow-up. 2 Was the article truly open access? Before I downloaded the article I assumed that it was open access because I did not have a subscription to that journal; yet, I was able to download the article. When I read the article I learned that the authors had transferred its copyright to the journal’s owner. In other words, it was not truly open access; it was fauxpen access.a The publisher could toggle access on and off like a light switch.
a A search of both Google and Bing for the phrase “fauxpen access” yielded no hits. Instead, the phrase “fauxpen source” was the top hit. 1748-6815/$ - see front matter ª 2013 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjps.2013.09.035
590
M.F. Freshwater
3 Does it matter if an article is open access or fauxpen access? No, it should not matter if an article is open access or fauxpen access as long as there is transparency in the financial disclosure. Who paid for the free lunch? I have no issue if a manufacturer pays for access, but as the late Robert Goldwyn, who edited Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery for a quarter of a century, wrote in his editorial describing his policy on financial disclosure: “The reason for this rule is to permit the reader to assess the possible value of an article written by an author or authors who might benefit from its publication.”9 I believe that readers are entitled to know who paid for open access and fauxpen access, as they are entitled to know about any potential conflicts of interests.10 4 Is fauxpen access scholarly endorsement or product placement? Product placement is a form of advertising.11 One effective example is that more than 30 years later we remember than in Spielberg’s movie Elliott tempted E.T. with a trail of Skittles not m&m’s. Without knowing who funded fauxpen access, readers could falsely assume that a journal’s editor deemed a fauxpen access article to be more meritorious than other closed access articles and he was magnanimously sacrificing revenue for that eleemosynary purpose, when, in fact, this was nothing more than product placement. 5 How can we avoid obfuscation with open access and fauxpen access? There are simple solutions that I have listed in Table 1. If an article is freely accessible, then its invited commentary must be freely accessible. Clearly, if an editor believes that an open access article merits an invited commentary, then he is perverting open access’ intent if he deprives readers of the commentator’s insight because they lack a paid subscription. Obviously, the invited commentary’s open access funding also must be disclosed. Indeed, I believe that all invited commentaries must be freely accessible, not only in the interest of transparency, but also for good customer relations. If you had just paid $31.50 to read an article and learned that
Table 1 Solutions transparency.
by
Article type
Disclose who paid for access
Cost to non-subscriber
Closed access Open access Fauxpen access Invited commentary
Not applicable Yes Yes Yes
Yes No No No
article
type
for
increasing
you needed to pay another $31.50 to read the invited commentary, then you would not be a satisfied customer. JPRAS has dipped its toes into the waters of open access. Hopefully, it will learn from others’ missteps and not follow in their footsteps. The good news is that digital errors of omission and commission are correctible with a few taps on a keyboard and clicks of a mouse. If only we plastic surgeons could repair errors of nature, disease and trauma as easily.
Financial disclosure None.
Competing interests The author is a member of the editorial board of JPRAS and Annals of Plastic Surgery.
References 1. Noszczyk BH, Nowak M, Krzesniak N. Use of the accordion severity grading system for negative outcomes of carpal tunnel syndrome. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2013;66: 1123e30. 2. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/14/magazine/onlanguage-words-out-in-the-cold.html? pagewantedZall&srcZpm [accessed 22.09.13]. 3. Cheng A, Lakhiani C, Saint-Cyr M. Treatment of capsular contracture using complete implant coverage by acellular dermal matrix: a novel technique. Plast Reconstr Surg 2013; 132:519e29. 4. Nahabedian MY. Discussion: treatment of capsular contracture using complete implant coverage by acellular dermal matrix: a novel technique. Plast Reconstr Surg 2013;132:530e1. 5. Freshwater MF. Re: confounding conflicts of compounding interest. Ann Plast Surg 2002;49:217e8. 6. Freshwater MF. The nondisclosure disclosure. Plast Reconstr Surg 2008;162:323. 7. Freshwater MF. Lack of online financial transparency is a potential financial conflict. Br Med J. http://bmj.com/cgi/ eletters/338/mar25_1/b1252-212484; 20 Apr 2009. 8. Freshwater MF. Sharing medical research data. Financial conflicts should be included in online abstracts. Br Med J 2009; 338:b1934. 9. Goldwyn RM. Financial disclosures for authors. Plast Reconstr Surg 1991;88:323e4. 10. Freshwater MF. Financial disclosure. J Plast Reconstr Aesthet Surg 2008;61:601. 11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement#Early_ examples [accessed 22.09.13].
M. Felix Freshwater Voluntary Professor of Surgery, University of Miami School of Medicine, 9155 S Dadeland Blvd, Suite 1404, Miami, FL 33156-2739, USA E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]
23 September 2013