On 2012-01-18, at 8:24 PM, Sandy Thatcher wrote: > I was addressing the needs of the general public, not the > needs of researchers, many of whom are not U.S. > taxpayers and hence cannot rely on that argument. > The general public, I want to urge, does NOT need > professional journal articles. Indeed, many of those > are written in such jargon that the general public > cannot understand it. What the public needs is the > research findings, expressed in as clear and simple > a form as possible. Journal articles are written for > reasons that have to do with academic requirements > and scholarly communication. It is NOT the purpose > of the federal government to enhance scholarly > communication per se, especially when that is > unrelated to any benefit to the U.S. taxpayer. > ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
Sandy: Do you really mean to say that making research available to all researchers rather than just to those whose institutions can afford to subscribe to the journal in which it was published is "unrelated to any benefit to the U.S. taxpayer"? That maximizing research uptake, usage, applications, impact, and progress is "unrelated to any benefit to the U.S. taxpayer"? Do you really believe that U.S. taxpayer are supporting U.S. research in order to get some free reading material? [This seems to be as out of touch with research reality as the notion that researchers would prefer to have access to no version at all rather than have access to a refereed final draft with a "which" where it should have a "that"...] Stevan Harnad > From: Stevan Harnad <har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk> >> Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:47:23 -0500 >> >>> Sandy Thatcher wrote: >>> >>> a better approach... would be to require any government agency that >>> funds research to require... a final report... >>> to be posted immediately upon acceptance... openly accessible to all >> >> The primary intended users of refereed research articles >> are researchers; A "final report" is not what they need, and >> it's not what OA is about. >> >>> this approach is preferable because, unlike the current NIH >>> policy, (1) it would make the research results immediately available >>> (not after a 12-month delay... >> >> What's needed immediately is the refereed research. What would be >> preferable would be no 12-month delay... >> >>> (2) it would make the results available in the exact form in >>> which they were written up and not in the Green OA version >> >> A " final report" is not the "exact form: in which results were written >> up: the author's final, refereed draft (Green OA) is. >> >>> citation of a final report is a preferable form of scholarship than >>> citation of a preliminary version of an article, which may differ in >>> significant respects from the archival version. >> >> What researchers use and cite is the refereed article. >> >> > I am not sure why people are claiming that publishers like Elsevier, >> > by supporting the Research Works Act, are opposed to the dissemination >> > of knowledge. Many AAP-member publishers, including Elsevier (and Penn >>> State Press), permit authors of articles in the journals they publish >>> to post Green OA versions on their institutional or personal web >>> sites. >> >> And RWA would prevent their funders from requiring them to do it. >> >> Stevan Harnad > > > -- > Sanford G. Thatcher > 8201 Edgewater Drive > Frisco, TX 75034-5514 > e-mail: sandy.thatc...@alumni.princeton.edu > Phone: (214) 705-1939 > Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sanford.thatcher > > "If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying."-John Ruskin (1865) > > "The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can > write know anything."-Walter Bagehot (1853) _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
