the last keystroke for the author, as mentioned by Stevan Harnad, that the metadata are typed in, even that can be outsourced: our Institute does this for large stacks of documents for any scientific author, with results like http://www.physik.uni-oldenburg.de/hydro/siefert04.html (check for the source code); which then the author puts on his webserver. so, the only thing left, is, that authors say either yes or a enforced by their University to do so. Ebs ................................................. Eberhard R. Hilf, Dr. Prof.; CEO (Geschaeftsfuehrer) Institute for Science Networking Oldenburg GmbH an der Carl von Ossietzky Universitaet Ammerlaender Heerstr.121; D-26129 Oldenburg ISN-home: http://www.isn-oldenburg.de/ homepage: http://isn-oldenburg.de/~hilf email : h...@isn-oldenburg.de tel : +49-441-798-2884 fax : +49-441-798-5851 Why not visit - Buendnis Urheberrecht fuer Bildung und Wissenschaft www.urheberrechtsbuendnis.de - Open Access www.zugang-zum-wissen.de - Physics Distributed Network: www.physnet.net
On Thu, 10 Feb 2005, Stevan Harnad wrote: > > The avowed purpose of the international meeting that will be hosted > by Southampton University February 28 - March 1 > > "Berlin 3 Open Access: Progress in Implementing the Berlin Declaration > on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities" > http://www.eprints.org/berlin3/program.html > > is to *implement* the Berlin Declaration, so as to turn it into a concrete > institutional policy which institutions that have signed (and will > sign) the Berlin Declaration can then commit themselves to adopting. > > The Berlin Declaration itself was only an abstract expression of principle: > Scholarly/Scientific research should be freely accessible online to all > potential users worldwide. > > http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html > > Many institutions worldwide signed that they endorsed that Principle. > > http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/signatories.html > > But not that they would put the Principle into Practice, or How! > > Berlin 2 (at CERN in May 2004) > > http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-cern/program_prelim.html > > began drafting a "Roadmap" for implementing the Berlin Declaration: > > > http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-cern/presentation-oa2berlin-roadmap-proposal.pdf > > but the Roadmap was still far too vague to provide a basis for a specific, > concrete, practical institutional policy. > > That concrete policy is what the Berlin 3 Meeting in Southampton in > February will try to formulate, and there is a candidate proposal (from > Southampton) on the table, as to what this practical implementation policy > should be: > > Unified Institutional Open-Access Provision Policy: > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/UKSTC.htm > > I. The institution's researchers EITHER publish their research > in an Open Access Journal (if/when a suitable one exists) > > OR > > II. The institution's researchers publish their research in > a suitable non-Open Access journal AND also self-archive a copy of > it in their own institutional Open Access Archive. > > This is (roughly) the OA policy that has since been adopted at Southampton: > > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/667 > > and of course the self-archiving component (II) is the critical one, as > institutions cannot create or convert OA Journals, nor can they commit > their researchers to publishing in them, but they can certainly create > OA Archives and commit their researchers to self-archiving a copy of > all their research articles in them immediately upon acceptance for > publication (and encourage self-archiving the preprints even earlier). > > At least 7 other institutions besides Southampton (2 in Germany, 2 in > France, 1 in Australia, 1 in Portugal, 1 in India) have already adopted > and implemented an institutional policy along these lines: > > http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php > http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php > > If this policy (or a suitable variant) is adopted as the Berlin > Declaration's official "Roadmap" for OA in February, then institutional > self-archiving and OA provision should shortly experience a dramatic > growth spurt worldwide. > > Also to be present at the Berlin Declaration meeting are the > representatives of two important national research institutions -- > France's CNRS and Germany's Max-Planck Institutes. These distributed > multi-disciplinary institutions are far bigger than any single > university, and if they adopt the implementation policy, all other > research universities and institutions will follow suit shortly thereafter > worldwide. > > This is especially important in light of a set-back to OA progress > that has just occurred in the US: The NIH (in the earnest hope of > promoting OA thereby) adopted a flawed policy of *inviting* (rather > than requiring) NIH grant-recipients to make their findings freely > accessible online after a delay period of up to 12 months following > publication (rather than immediately) in PubMed Central (rather than > in each author's own institutional repository). One of the purposes > of Berlin 3 is to provide a much better OA implementation policy as a > model, thereby averting any worldwide cloning and proliferation of the > NIH's very inadequate delayed-access policy -- which is certainly neither > OA nor an implementation of the Berlin Declaration, and might have > locked in a 1-year access delay for years to come. > > "Please Don't Copy-Cat Clone NIH-12 Non-OA Policy!" > http://makeashorterlink.com/?F2E01227A > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4307.html > > "Open Access vs. NIH Back Access and Nature's Back-Sliding" > http://makeashorterlink.com/?M3115427A > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4312.html > > In contrast to the US NIH policy, the UK Parliamentary Select Committee's > formal recommendation (although it has not been adopted by the UK > government) is almost identical to the Unified Institutional OA Provision > Policy described above: > > > http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm > > Research Councils UK are currently working on formulating a policy of > their own for implementing the UK Committee recommendation, but RCUK > will not present anything at the Berlin 3 meeting because its date > happens to fall exactly at the delicate time when RCUK are working on > finalising their policy, which has not yet been agreed upon. > > http://www.stm-assoc.org/conferences/Goldstein.ppt > > (It would of course have been better if RCUK too could have attended Berlin > 3 to present its own OA plans along with CNRS and MaxPlanck, but the > timing prevented it: I hope RCUK will announce soon after, and that its > announcement will be favorable, but I have no way of knowing yet what > its decision will turn out to be!) > > There is one more theme to be noted in closing: One of the outcomes of > last month's 2-day Southampton Workshop on OA self-archiving in the UK -- > "Open Access Institutional Repositories: Leadership, Direction and Launch" > > http://www.eprints.org/jan2005/programme.html > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4341.html > > had been a candidate alternative to the NIH delayed-access policy for > universities. It has become apparent across the years that the single most > important obstacle delaying 100% Open Access provision is *keystrokes*: > > If there were a way to ensure that all the metadata (author, title, date, > journal-name, etc.) plus the full-texts of all university research article > output were duly deposited in the university's institutional repository -- > by (someone) performing the relatively few keystrokes per paper required > to do this (Southampton's logs suggest it only takes 6 minutes per paper) > -- then 100% OA would only be one keystroke away: the keystroke that makes > the full-text (and not just the metadata) accessible webwide rather than > just accessible internally to the author's institution. (The metadata > are visible and harvestable worldwide in any case.) > > All the issues that derailed the NIH proposal would be bypassed if > performing that last keystroke were simply left to the discretion of > the author (though strongly encouraged) in any case where there was > any reluctance or uncertainty -- but all the preceding keystrokes (for > entering the metadata and uploading the full-text into the university's > repository) were mandatory. > > Several researcher surveys have now confirmed that although researchers > are beginning to realize the power and value of OA self-archiving, many > nevertheless state very explicitly that they will *not* self-archive > until/unless they are *required* to do so by their employers and/or > their research funders -- yet almost 80% say that if/when they > *are* required to do so, they will do so *willingly* (just as they comply > willingly with the requirement to publish-or-perish). > > http://www.eprints.org/jan2005/ppts/swan.ppt > > At Southampton University, it turned out that the practical benefits > of having all university research output deposited in the university > repository -- for the purposes of internal record-keeping, asset > management, CV-generation, and research performance evaluation, as well > as for external research assessment (e.g., the RAE), grant applications, > and research visibility -- were sufficient in themselves to motivate > making self-archiving an official university policy. > > Whether or not the last keystroke was done to make the full-text visible > externally turned out to be a minor matter, affecting a minor number of > cases, as long as the rest of the keystrokes were done: The metadata are > then (1) all already harvestable and hence (2) all already generating > eprint requests to the author from would-be users around the world, (3) > 92% of journals have already given full-text OA self-archiving their > green light, and meanwhile (4) the objective evidence of the power of > OA to enhance research usage and citation impact is growing rapidly. > > http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php > > So as long as the first N-1 keystrokes are done, nature can be trusted > to take its course. > > http://citebase.eprints.org/isi_study/ > http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/lab/chawki/ch.htm > http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html > > Stevan Harnad > Chaire de recherche du Canada > Centre de neuroscience de la cognition (CNC) > Université du Québec à Montréal > Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3P8 > tel: 1-514-987-3000 2461# > fax: 1-514-987-8952 > har...@uqam.ca > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/ >