On 2013-11-17, at 2:27 PM, LIBLICENSE <liblice...@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Sandy Thatcher <s...@psu.edu>
> Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 09:02:15 -0600
>
> Why should Green OA not apply to books if and when the authors are
> receiving no royalty payments? What difference is there in the
> intellectual content that justifies treating them any differently? If
> money is not involved as a reward to authors, why should they not be
> under the same mandate as journal article authors? It seems artificial
> to create this digital divide between books and journals. Both
> contribute to the advance of knowledge, and access to both is
> important.
One thing at a time, Sandy: Green mandates have not yet prevailed for
journal articles,where the case is more clearcut and exception-free.
(Let's not, like Stephen Leacock's fabled horseman, jump on a horse
"and gallop off in all directions" (articles, books, data, software, Green,
Gold, CC-BY.)
There is one priority, and it will usher in all the rest: mandate Green for
journal articles (Liège model immediate-institutional-deposit, whether
or not embargoed, as a condition for funding, employment, evaluation).
Do that, and we'll soon have 100% OA for articles, and then all the rest
will follow too.
Keep running off in all directions, as we've been doing for 10 years now,
and we'll keep getting nowhere, fast…
A word to the wise, from the wizened...
Chrs, Stevan
>
> Sandy Thatcher
>
>
> At 9:40 AM -0500 11/15/13, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>
> Commentary on "Open Access and Academic Freedom" in Inside Higher Ed
> 15 November 2013, by Cary Nelson, former national president of the
> American Association of University Professors
>
> ________________________________
>
> If, in the print-on-paper era, it was not a constraint on academic
> freedom that universities and research funders required, as a
> condition of funding or employment, that researchers conduct and
> publish research -- rather than put it in a desk drawer -- so it could
> be read, used, applied and built upon by all users whose institutions
> could afford to subscribe to the journal in which it was published
> ("publish or perish"), then it is not a constraint on academic freedom
> in the online era that universities and research funders require, as a
> condition of funding or employment, that researchers make their
> research accessible online to all its potential users rather than just
> those whose institutions could afford to subscribe to the journal in
> which it was published ("self-archive to flourish").
>
> However, two kinds of Open Access (OA) mandates are indeed constraints
> on academic freedom:
>
> 1. any mandate that constrains the researcher's choice of which
> journal to publish in -- other than to require that it be of the
> highest quality whose peer-review standards the research can meet
>
> 2. any mandate that requires the researcher to pay to publish (if the
> author does not wish to, or does not have the funds)
>
> The immediate-deposit/optional-access (ID/OA) mandate requires authors
> to deposit their final refereed draft in their institutional
> repository immediately upon acceptance for publication, regardless of
> which journal they choose to publish in, and regardless of whether
> they choose to comply with an OA embargo (if any) on the part of the
> journal. (If so, the access to the deposit can be set as Closed Access
> rather than Open Access during the embargo, and the repository
> software has a facilitated copy-request Button, allowing would-be
> users to request a copy for research purposes with one click, and
> allowing the author the free choice to comply or not comply, likewise
> with one click.)
>
> Since OA is beneficial to researchers -- because it maximizes research
> downloads and citations, which universities and funders now count,
> along with publications, in evaluating and rewarding research output
> -- why do researchers need mandates at all? Because they are afraid of
> publishers -- afraid their publisher will not publish their research
> if they make it OA, or even afraid they will be prosecuted for
> copyright infringement.
>
> So OA mandates are needed to embolden authors to provide OA, knowing
> they have the support of their institutions and funders. And the ID/OA
> mandate is immune to publisher embargoes. Over ten years of experience
> (of "performing a useful service by giving faculty a vehicle for
> voluntary self-archiving") have by now shown definitively that most
> researchers will not self-archive unless it is mandatory. (The only
> exceptions are some fields of physics and computer science where
> researchers provide OA spontaneously, unmandated.) So what is needed
> is a no-option immediate-self-archiving mandate, but with leeway on
> when to make the deposit OA. This is indeed in a sense "optional Green
> OA," but the crucial component is that the deposit itself is
> mandatory.
>
> Funding is a red herring. Most universities have already invested in
> creating and maintaining institutional repositories, for multiple
> purposes, OA being only one of them, and the OA sectors are vastly
> under-utilized -- except if mandated (at no extra cost).
>
> The ID/OA mandate requires no change in copyright law, licensing or
> ownership of research output. Another red herring.
>
> There are no relevant discipline differences for ID/OA either. Another
> red herring. And the need for and benefits of OA do not apply only to
> rare exceptions, but to all refereed research journal articles.
>
> OA mandates apply only to refereed journal articles, not books.
> Another red herring (covering half of Cary Nelson's article!).
>
> As OA mandates are now growing globally, across all disciplines and
> institutions, it is nonsense to imagine that researchers will decide
> where to work on the basis of trying to escape an OA mandate -- and
> with ID/OA there isn't even anything for them to want to escape from.
>
> The ID/OA mandate also moots the difference between journal articles
> and book chapters. And it applies to all disciplines, and publishers,
> whether commercial, learned-society, or university.
>
> Refereed journal publishing will adapt, quite naturally to Green OA.
> For now, some publishers are trying to forestall having to adapt to
> the OA era, by embargoing OA. Let them try. ID/OA mandates are immune
> to publisher OA embargoes, but publishers are not immune to the rising
> demand for OA:
>
> Paying for Gold OA today is paying for Fool's Gold: Research funds are
> already scarce. Institutions cannot cancel must-have journal
> subscriptions. So Gold OA payment is double-payment, over and above
> subscriptions. And hybrid (subscription + Gold) publishers can even
> double-dip. If and when global Green OA makes journal subscriptions
> unsustainable, journals will downsize, jettisoning products and
> services (print edition, online edition, access-provision, archiving)
> rendered obsolete by the worldwide network of Green OA repositories)
> and they will convert to Fair Gold, paid for peer review alone, out of
> a fraction of the institutions windfall subscription cancellation
> savings.
>
> It is not for the research community to continue depriving itself of
> OA while trying to 2nd-guess how publishers will adapt. That -- and
> not OA mandates -- would be a real constraint on academic freedom: The
> publishing tail must not be allowed to continue to wag the research
> dog.
_______________________________________________
GOAL mailing list
GOAL@eprints.org
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
