Linda, Much as I would like to agree with you that scientists do understand the issues, I'm afraid that the survey results you offer is rather in support of my suspicion that they don't, really. For those who see the benefits and want open access for their articles, the concerns listed are either irrelevant, having little to do with open access, or relatively easily surmountable.
As for the Springer Publishers copyright form in relation to US government research, this is not a question of the US retaining copyright, but of US government research results not being copyrightable at all (effectively making them public domain and therefore easily depositable - if that's a word - in self- or institutional archives). Best, Jan Velterop -----Original Message----- From: Linda Humphreys To: [email protected] Sent: 11/29/02 3:44 PM Subject: Re: UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) review On Fri, 29 Nov 2002 14:33:46 +0000 Jan Velterop wrote: > > I'm not so sure that they <scientists> do understand the > concepts and benefits of open access. That is simply > because they haven't really been exposed to them. The > librarians have been very good in making it seem to many scientists as if > access to their desired journal titles is free and easy. The researchers > don't feel the pain. To them, as readers, it may often seem as if large > parts of the literature are open access. At the University of Bath, academic staff are well aware of the costs and barriers to access of traditional journals, and I think the same would be true of most similar institutions. Budgets for journals have been tight for years, and we librarians liaise very closely with academic staff over cancellations, and the purchase of electronic subscriptions. We carried out a survey earlier this year of academic staff views of e-prints. Only 74 replied - perhaps that is par for the course, or perhaps it backs up Jan's assertion that they are largely ignorant of open access/e-print issues? The majority of replies were from scientists. You might be interested in a few results? Out of the 74 respondents: - 11 had posted articles on personal or departmental web pages - 3 had posted to an e-print server - 11 had used an e-print server for research and/or teaching They appeared to be generally well-informed of the problems surrounding self-archiving: - 62 expressed concern that if they posted a pre-print they would not be able to get the work published in their chosen journal - 60 said that copyright issues would be an important factor in any decision not to self-archive post-prints - 59 were concerned about quality and peer review issues - 60 were concerned about plagiarism There seem to be several issues surrounding quality and peer review, including the common misconception about self-archiving being an alternative to self-publishing, and impact factors (which have been discussed at length on this list). Also, a number of staff have commented that they would not wish to include their work in an archive which contained non-refereed material (pre-prints), the perception being that any inclusion of poor-quality papers reflects badly on the whole Institution. The concerns about plagiarism baffle me somewhat - presumably it is just as easy to plagiarise an electronic article on a toll-access publisher site as an e-print! I wonder if this is really about who will protect the author's rights in the event of plagiarism from a pre-print on an e-print server? Regarding copyright, I was interested to note the Springer Verlag copyright transfer form, which begins: "The copyright to the contribution identified above is transferred to Springer-Verlag ..(for U.S. government employees: to the extent transferable)." Presumably the U.S. government is retaining at least some degree of copyright in work which is funded by the taxpayer - does anyone have more information about that? Is anyone (JISC? SCONUL?) lobbying the British government and/or Universities to do likewise? Linda ---------------------- Linda Humphreys Science Faculty Librarian University of Bath Claverton Down Bath BA2 7AY [email protected] 01225 385248
