On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 10:16 AM, Michael Eisen <mbei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a difference between trying to be inclusive, and redefining goals > and definitions to the point of being meaningless. I can not tell you how > many times I hear that the NIH provides open access because they make > articles freely available after a year. This is not just semantics. The > belief that the NIH provides open access with its public access policy > provides real drag on the quest to provide actual open access. You can > argue about whether or not the policy is a good thing because it's a step > in the right direction, or a bad thing because it reifies delayed access. > But calling what the provide "open access" serves only to confuse people, > to weaken our objectives and give the still far more powerful forces who do > not want open access a way to resist pressure for it. > It's nice to be able to agree with Mike Eisen. Open Access (OA) comes in two degrees <http://www.sparc.arl.org/resource/gratis-and-libre-open-access>: *Gratis OA* is immediate, permanent free online access and *Libre OA* is Gratis OA plus various re-use rights (up to CC-BY or even public domain). What both degrees of OA share is that they are both immediate (and permanent) <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march05/harnad/03harnad.html>. Otherwise, there's just Delayed (Embargoed) Access, which is no more "Open Access" than Toll Access is. To treat Delayed Access as if it were a form of Open Access would be to reduce OA to meaninglessness (and would play into the hands of publishers who would like to see precisely that happen). Stevan Harnad > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 5:00 AM, Heather Morrison < > heather.morri...@uottawa.ca> wrote: > >> hi David, >> >> Redefining open access and understanding that a great many people are >> moving towards open access in slightly different ways are two different >> things. My post will focus on the benefits of a more inclusive and >> welcoming approach to open access. >> >> For example, I have been conducting interviews and focus groups with >> editors of small journals that either are, or would like to be, open >> access. Behind the more than 10 thousand journals listed in DOAJ are >> probably much more than 10 thousand such editors, working hard to convince >> colleagues to move to open access, struggling to figure out how to do this >> in order to make ends meet. While some of us have been active and vocal in >> OA discussions and policy formulation, others have been quietly doing this >> work, often contributing a great deal of volunteer effort, over the years. >> We rarely hear from these people, but actively listening and figuring out >> how to provide the support needed for the journals to thrive in an OA >> environment is in the best interests of continuing towards a fully open >> access and sustainable system. These people are OA heroes from my >> perspective, whether their journal is currently OA or not. In my >> experience, when someone says their journal is free online after a year and >> they would like to move to OA, asking about the barriers and what is needed >> to move to OA results in productive discussions. >> >> OpenDOAR maintains a list of over 2,600 vetted open access archives: >> http://opendoar.org/ >> >> OA archives have made a very great deal of work open access - so much so >> that counting it all is very hard! The thesis, for example, was until >> recently available in perhaps 1 or 2 print copies (that libraries were >> reluctant to lend as they were not replaceable) and microfilm. Today we are >> well on our way to open and online by default for the thesis. arXiv in >> effect flipped high energy physics to full preprint OA close to two decades >> ago. PubMed was an early OA success story making the Medline index >> available for free. In the 1990's I remember how big a deal it was for a >> small Canadian university college to buy access to Medline, and even then >> having access restricted to senior students in biology. Today it's free for >> everyone with internet access. So is Medline Plus, which provides high >> quality free consumer health information. PubMedCentral both makes the >> medical literature available and ensures that it is preserved, working with >> both authors and journals to make this happen. By my calculations, 30% of >> the literature indexed in PubMed is freely available through PubMed 2 years >> after publication (all literature, no restrictions based on funder policy); >> 32% after 3 years. For the data, see the Dramatic Growth of Open Dataverse >> http://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dvn/dv/dgoa download the latest >> spreadsheet and go to the PMC Free tab. >> >> These archives have happened because librarians and others have fought >> for the resources to develop the archives, often the policies (there are a >> great many more thesis deposit policies than are listed in ROARMAP), and >> educating anyone who would listen about OA. Many smart people worked on the >> concept and technology, and many if by no means all authors have taken the >> time to deposit their works. >> >> In the early years, the OA movement really was small, and it is a good >> thing that some of us stepped up to defend OA against attacks. Today I >> think we should ask ourselves whether this defensiveness has become a >> habit. Are we starting to snap at OA friends as much as OA detractors? Are >> we over-reacting? The Elsevier archiving policy change is unfortunate, a >> step in the wrong direction, and fully merits critique. But this is not the >> same level of wrongfulness as Elsevier's lobbying for the Research Works >> Act a few years ago, which would have prevented the US from enacting public >> access legislation. >> >> respectfully, >> >> Heather >> >> On 2015-06-01, at 5:09 AM, David Prosser wrote: >> >> > >> > Ever since ‘Open Access’ was first defined there have been people who >> have wanted to redefine it. Heather is the latest of these. The trouble >> is, by broadening the definition of ‘Open Access’ it is in danger of >> becoming meaningless. >> > >> > So, Heather wants to include journals who make their content freely >> available after one or two years. I certainly agree that free access after >> two years is better than no free access after two years, but where do we >> draw the line - is a five year embargo ‘Open Access'? Ten? Fifty? And >> Heather has warned us of the hypothetical dangers of CC-BY papers being >> re-enclosed, but wants us to consider entire archives where free access can >> be turned off at the flick of a switch at the whim of the publisher as >> being open access! >> > >> > I’m all for celebrating free archives, and if somebody wants to compile >> a list then that would be great - but let’s not call it ‘Open Access’. The >> trouble with all the attempts to redefine ‘Open Access’ is that nobody has >> come up with a definition that improves on that of the Budapest Open Access >> Initiative of 2002. >> > >> > Heather’s final paragraph is frankly baffling. I know of nobody who >> feels that 'the OA movement consists of the small group of people who have >> been to meetings in Budapest’. What I do know is that many of those who >> attended the first meeting in 2002 where the definition of Open Access was >> thrashed out have spend a huge amount of their time over the past 13 years >> travelling the world promoting open access. Often, especially in the early >> years, to audiences that were in single-figures and/or overtly hostile. >> The fact that there is an OA movement today is, in great part, thanks to >> the inspiring efforts of those early pioneers (together with others). They >> have advocated for repositories, for mandates, for open source software to >> allow cheaper journal publishing, for more liberal licensing, etc., etc. >> Denigrating them by implication is quite ridiculous revisionism. (And for >> full disclosure, I attended the 10th anniversary meeting in Budapest, where >> we were able to celebrate a vibrant, international OA movement.) >> > >> > David >> > >> > >> > >> > On 30 May 2015, at 20:03, Heather Morrison <heather.morri...@uottawa.ca> >> wrote: >> > >> >> What if, instead of condemning the many people who are doing their >> best to provide the most open access they feel they can, the OA movement >> were to be more inclusive? For example, DOAJ excludes journals that make >> their work freely available after one or two years' embargo. I realize and >> agree that we want immediate OA, but the vast majority of such journals are >> published by people who are completely in favour of open access but just >> haven't figured out how to make the economics work for them. >> >> >> >> The opposite of open access is closed access. The Big Chill report on >> the silencing of federal scientists in Canada is a good illustration. >> Excerpt: "the survey [of Canadian federal scientists] ...found that nearly >> one-quarter (24%) of respondents had been directly asked to exclude or >> alter information for non-scientific reasons and that over one-third (37%) >> had been prevented in the past five years from responding to questions from >> the public and media" from: >> http://www.pipsc.ca/portal/page/portal/website/issues/science/bigchill >> >> >> >> I understand that the U.S. has had similar problems with political >> interference with science, e.g. states such as Florida having legislature >> forbidding reference to climate change (example here: >> http://fcir.org/2015/03/08/in-florida-officials-ban-term-climate-change/) >> >> >> >> Even without any political interference, works under toll access can >> be locked down for the full term of copyright. In the U.S. that's life of >> the author plus 70 years. If a work is written 30 years before an author >> dies, that's a century. The great many works freely available within a year >> or a few of publication should be understood as a huge success, not a >> failure. >> >> >> >> If the OA movement consists of the small group of people who have been >> to meetings in Budapest [sometimes people on this list talk as if this were >> the case], that's a small movement indeed and not likely to grow very >> much. On the other hand, if the OA movement is seen as the millions of >> authors who have provided free access to their own work (however they did >> this), the thousands of journals providing free access (whether we think >> they are perfect in this or not), the thousands of repositories - that's a >> huge global movement, one that we can build upon to continue and grow the >> momentum to date. >> >> >> >> best, >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Dr. Heather Morrison >> >> Assistant Professor >> >> École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies >> >> University of Ottawa >> >> http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html >> >> Sustaining the Knowledge Commons >> http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/ >> >> heather.morri...@uottawa.ca >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> GOAL mailing list >> >> GOAL@eprints.org >> >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >> > >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > GOAL mailing list >> > GOAL@eprints.org >> > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> GOAL mailing list >> GOAL@eprints.org >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >> > > > > -- > Michael Eisen, Ph.D. > Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute > Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development > Department of Molecular and Cell Biology > University of California, Berkeley > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > >
_______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
