All very well, Andrew, but did it ever occur to you that when there is no wide cultural or societal support for whatever law or mandate, more effort is generally being spent on evasion than on compliance and enforcement turns out to be like mopping up with the tap still running? If you insist on taking examples from US politics, the 'war on drugs' is the one to look at.
Forcing scientists into OA is only ever likely to be successful if it rooted in an already changing culture. A culture with an expectation that research results are openly available to all. By the shame that researchers will be made to feel at dinner parties, or in the pub, if their results are not OA. Of course that will still be mainly peer-pressure, but changing hearts and minds of peers is greatly helped if there were a societal substrate in which the open culture can grow. Mandates or not, OA will never happen if scientists aren't convinced from within. An appeal to them as human beings and members of society is more likely to achieve that than mandates, in my view. The latter should back up a general change of heart, not be a substitute for it. What is 'the general public' should not be misunderstood and be construed to be only those interested in medical literature. It includes all those interested in the other 999 areas as well. Ex scientists, retired scientists, SMEs, scientists interested in another discipline or cross-discipline topics, students, lawyers, reporters, teachers, even hobbyists. Einstein wasn't an institutionalised scientist when he worked on his most important work; he was a patent clerk. Of course, those OA evangelists who wish to pursue mandates should be pursuing mandates. I encourage them to keep doing just that. But to narrow the efforts of OA evangelism to what is stubbornly being called "the quickest route", in spite of it being no more than a hypothesis which certainly over the last decade and a half hasn't proved itself to be as effective as first thought, is a mistake. By all means where there are opportunities to promote mandates let us do that, but not at the expense of making the moral and societal responsibility case for OA. Jan On 28 Apr 2012, at 16:13, Andrew A. Adams wrote: >> Researchers may already know that providing peer access is in their >> best interest, yet they don't massively take that interest to >> heart. The scientific 'community' is very conservative. Scientists, >> like politicians, are generally into reluctant followship, less into >> leadership. In my view it is time to change tactics and put more >> effort into mustering the persuasiveness that the potentially more >> dynamic general public may be able to provide. A recent spate of >> articles in The Guardian and The Observer in the UK, and even articles >> in The Economist, are good examples of what can be done to create an >> atmosphere in which not providing open access is frowned upon and >> becoming unacceptable. The pressure of public opinion can be >> formidable, particularly on governments and government-backed funders >> (though rarely admitted, of course). Recent steps taken by the RCUK >> may well (subconsciously) have been inspired by a desire to preempt >> such public pressure (and having to admit that 'it was the pressure of >> public opinion wot did it'). Especially in times of austerity it pays >> to keep the general public on board. Literally. > > Jan, > > How much influence does public opinion actually have on real policies and > real actions by ordinary academics, though? Having been an academic union > activist for a number of years and having tried to talk to my friends about > the highly stressful situation of academics and the poor pay they receive in > the UK, I found that even those with degrees (most of my friends) really had > no understanding of academic work, situations etc. I suspect that's the > reality found by most academics. Since they know non-academics don't > understand academia, they tend to ignore pressure from the general public on > specific issues because they assume the general public just doesn't "get it" > about academia (and in many cases they are right, even if they're wrong in > this one). > > Getting the general public to support OA may help in getting funder mandates, > although as we've seen, often those funder mandates are slightly mis-aimed at > central deposit. The numbers also suggest that support for medical literature > will be easy (everyone needs health and even those without the understanding > will know someone (their own doctor if no one else) who would probably > benefit from OA). However, the number who actually read any field are likely > to be a minority, and those who read any particular field an even smaller > minority. Trying to get them all to get behind OA in general may well be hard > to do with the publishers using their large warchests to fight us in the > public debate (if you think large warchests don't matter in public debate, > look at US presidential politics). > > We're also talking about where to focus our (i.e. archivangelists) efforts to > achieve the quickest route to as much OA as we can get. Spreading ourselves > thin by trying to swing general public opinion round as well as the rest may > end up delaying OA if instead we focussed on persuading researchers, > librarians and managers at universities and research institutions that it is > in their best interests to adopt a mandate and promote it with the Liege > model. By all means where there are opportunities to promote public access > and funder mandates let us do that, but not at the expense of following up on > the hopefully S-shaped curve of mandate adoption to keep it moving on the > increasing acceleration path we've seen in the last few years. I think we're > in danger of taking our eyes of the ball just as we are beginning to get > somewhere with mandates. > > -- > Professor Andrew A Adams aaa at meiji.ac.jp > Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and > Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics > Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/ > > > > > >
