Re: Chat: E-Archives Challenge: Results
On Mon, 28 May 2001, Wentz, Reinhard wrote: Since issuing the challenge I have thought of a definite limitation of e-archiving: The list of references in e-archived articles will never look as beautiful as the ones produced by publishers' professional proof readers, copy editors and other valuable members of a publishing team. I can send a sample (in colour!) of such a list to anybody doubting that statement and also some pictures of what professional copy editors (what a splendid body of people!) are up to in their spare time. *cough* Do I get 10 quid if I point out you're completely wrong? e-archiving will require authors to provide reference lists in standard formats (or a format that can be heuristically extracted). Thus, using e-archives, your reference lists will look as elegant as you wish because the format will no longer be determined by author, journal or field, but by the person viewing them! (and the reason for this is that author's citations won't be shown unless they produce good quality metadata and references that can be automatically linked) Of course, this does not negate the old axiom rubbish in, rubbish out, but whatever goes in, it will look very beautiful on the way out. All the best, Tim Brody
Chat: E-Archives Challenge: Results
Dear All, I should have known better and not challenged a contributor to 'New Scientist'! How was I to know that Stevan Harnad had not only compiled a list of 22 fallacies about the barriers / negative consequences of e-archiving but supplied comprehensive refutations, as he sees it, for each of them? My main fallacy is not included in the list, but Stevan conjectured it correctly nevertheless: My wording of fallacy 1: Let us assume for a moment that the total amount of research money and number of tenured posts is stable. If more researchers improve their impact ratings (let us further assume that these are based on the total number of citations all their (major) publications received) by making their output more accessible on the Web, the baseline for successful research application will be lifted from, say, 50 cites to 100 cites for all. The number of grant applicants may increase, but not the success rate. The composition of the group of successful research applicants may change, not the total number. The number of disappointed applicants may increase and the sum total of happiness in the research community may decrease. Stevan's much more elegant phrasing: If everyone self-archives, thereby freeing access to every refereed paper, then everyone's ABSOLUTE impact may increase (more readers, more citations all round), but their RELATIVE impact may not. (So there will be no added help with getting grants and tenure.) He had a refutation of this fallacy ready, implying amongst other things that the scientific community as a whole will be better off if the e-archiving projects became reality. That may be so, but then again, it may not. We are not talking real fallacies here, e.g. the gamblers fallacy which is demonstrably wrong, but presumed events in the future. They are particularly difficult to predict when they involve technical innovations without parallel social change, and improved human intercation. I do therefore not accept his refutation and can only award him half the internal prize money. However, as Stevan alerted me to a number of points and splendid discussion-lists about e-archiving, widened the discussion, and even helped me to improve the wording of my challenge, a book token of PS 20.00 goes to Stevan Harnad. Nobody else guessed this main fallacy or another three I had in mind correctly, and I could if I wanted hold on to the original external prize money of £20.00. Albert Henderson supplied a list of 8 fallacies about e-archiving, not including any I had in mind. During the debate about this challenge, however, imputations were made about his motives (as I understand it, he has in the past associated with librarians or even publishers (now, really!)). Therefore: Three crisp US 5.00 bills to Albert Henderson out of solidarity. As far as I can see, the original New Scientist's article which prompted me to issue this challenge is not available freely on the Web. For spotting this irony in the first place a book token of PS 10.00 goes to Valerie Hamilton. Since issuing the challenge I have thought of a definite limitation of e-archiving: The list of references in e-archived articles will never look as beautiful as the ones produced by publishers' professional proof readers, copy editors and other valuable members of a publishing team. I can send a sample (in colour!) of such a list to anybody doubting that statement and also some pictures of what professional copy editors (what a splendid body of people!) are up to in their spare time. This challenge is now closed: I have no more money to spare: I want to go to Tennessee in the fall. But let the discussion continue, Best wishes and thanks to all contributors, Reinhard Wentz Declaration of interest: I am a librarian, my partner is a professional editor and translator Reinhard Wentz, Dipl. gepr. Bibl. (Han.) Imperial College Library Service Medical Library Chelsea Westminster Hospital 369, Fulham Road London SW10 9NH tel.: 0044 (0)20 8746 8109 fax.: 0044 (0)20 8746 8215 e-mail: r.we...@ic.ac.uk
Re: Chat: E-Archives Challenge: Results
On Mon, 28 May 2001, Wentz, Reinhard wrote: Dear All, I should have known better and not challenged a contributor to 'New Scientist'! How was I to know that Stevan Harnad had not only compiled a list of 22 fallacies about the barriers / negative consequences of e-archiving but supplied comprehensive refutations, as he sees it, for each of them? Never mind. The Optimal and Inevitable is already long overdue. It's evidently not enough to simply supply the refutations. They need to keep being invoked, over and over, until they have propagated widely enough to induce the research community to do the right thing, at last (for itself!). http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/nature4.htm My main fallacy is not included in the list, but Stevan conjectured it correctly nevertheless: My wording of fallacy 1: Let us assume for a moment that the total amount of research money and number of tenured posts is stable. If more researchers improve their impact ratings (let us further assume that these are based on the total number of citations all their (major) publications received) by making their output more accessible on the Web, the baseline for successful research application will be lifted from, say, 50 cites to 100 cites for all. The number of grant applicants may increase, but not the success rate. The composition of the group of successful research applicants may change, not the total number. The number of disappointed applicants may increase and the sum total of happiness in the research community may decrease. Well, perhaps this is a bit melodramatic. Isn't it more upbeat to say that (as the total pool of salary-paying and grant-funding money is not likely to increase), the outcome of at last removing the arbitrary access-barriers to research findings online will be : (1) that potentially important work that may have been overlooked because of the access barriers will now be more likely to receive its due and (2) work that might have been weakened by insufficient access to the research literature will be better informed and hence stronger so that, even if the total reward pool cannot grow, it can be more fairly and fruitfully distributed? Besides, as the overall size of everyone's research impact, and hence productivity, can only grow as a result of making it all freely accessible to everyone at last (how can it shrink? see the information glut fallacy before making an overhasty reply!), who is to say that the reward pool itself may not grow as well? http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#8./ Stevan's much more elegant phrasing: sh If everyone self-archives, thereby freeing access to every sh refereed paper, then everyone's ABSOLUTE impact may increase sh (more readers, more citations all round), but their RELATIVE sh impact may not. (So there will be no added help with getting sh grants and tenure.) He had a refutation of this fallacy ready, implying amongst other things that the scientific community as a whole will be better off if the e-archiving projects became reality. That may be so, but then again, it may not. We are not talking real fallacies here, e.g. the gamblers fallacy which is demonstrably wrong, but presumed events in the future. They are particularly difficult to predict when they involve technical innovations without parallel social change, and improved human intercation. I do therefore not accept his refutation and can only award him half the internal prize money. I hereby dedicate my award to the paying of a clerical aid of Reinhard's to make some phone calls to pertinent parties at Imperial, encouraging them to set up eprint archives at Imperial for your researchers to self-archive their refereed papers in (the lobbying may cost some time and money, but the archive software http://www.eprints.org is free). http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#7./ And what on earth could it mean to say that Well, it's not really a fallacy, so the refutation may not really be a refutation? How can freeing the access to the refereed research literature be anything but beneficial to research? (Be careful not to make your reply dependent on already-refuted fallacies about putative breakdowns in quality or quality control or its funding. Vide supra.) Or to put it another way: What can possibly be said in favour of continue to hold access to this give-away research literature hostage to the very finite and arbitrary capacity of (some) research institutions to pay for (some of) it, now that it is no longer necessary? However, as Stevan alerted me to a number of points and splendid discussion-lists about e-archiving, widened the discussion, and even helped me to improve the wording of my challenge, a book token of PS 20.00 goes to Stevan Harnad. Splendid! Twice as many phone calls and email to Imperial's Research Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Computing Services, Libraries, and Departent Heads.
