The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Jennifer Howard reports that the Association of American Publishers has landed in hot water with university presses and research librarians, as well as open-access advocates, thanks to a new undertaking that is billed as an attempt to “safeguard the scientific and medical peer-review process and educate the public about the risks of proposed government interference with the scholarly communication process.” That effort, known as the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine (PRISM) is seen by open-access advocates within the scientific and library communities as just another bid by the AAP to clamp down on such efforts and infringe on the ability of scientists to conduct free and open research.
Brian D. Crawford, chairman of the executive council of the AAP’s professional and scholarly publishing division, acknowledged that the strength of the negative reaction had taken his group by surprise. “We did not expect to have encountered the sort of criticism that we have seen thus far,” Crawford told The Chronicle. “We were truly hoping to establish this as a way to have a very productive dialogue on what are important and nuanced issues.”