[GOAL] Re: : Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Confirmation of Arxiv author practice regarding preprints, postprints, refereeing and revisions. (Common sense already said as much.) Now it would be good if authors in other fields (as well as repository managers) exercised some common sense too... SH -- Forwarded message -- From: Tedds, Jonathan A. (Dr.) ja...@leicester.ac.uk Date: Sun, Mar 24, 2013 at 11:20 AM Quick point re deposit of preprints in physics: in at least some branches of astrophysics there is an established culture of researchers only posting the **accepted** version of a paper to arXiv following peer review (but still prior to publication). Final corrections, e.g. during the proof editing process, may lead to an updated version being deposited and of course conference proceedings etc usually go straight online. I think people regard this as the right thing to do with respect to the scientific process and perhaps people may also wish to avoid potential embarrassment if peer review subsequently catches a mistake. However, I certainly know of exceptions to this as well, and I think there can sometimes be an element of taking a risk and rushing something out to lay claim to a particular research question. It would be interesting to know how this varies from branch to branch of physics more broadly so I’ll try and ask around. Regards, Jonathan ** ** -- Dr Jonathan TeddsTel: +44 (0)116 229 7780 Senior Research Fellowhttp://uk.linkedin.com/pub/jonathan-tedds/16/79b/769 , (0)779 504 6277 D2K Data to Knowledge (Health Scienceshttp://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/health-sciences/research/gen-epi ), @jtedds http://twitter.com/jtedds PI, Biomedical Research Infrastructure Software Service (#BRISSKithttp://brisskit.le.ac.uk/) PI, Peer REview for Publication Accreditation of Research Data in the Earth sciences (#PREPARDEhttp://www.le.ac.uk/projects/preparde/ ) Astronomical Surveys e-Research http://xmmssc-www.star.le.ac.uk/~jat (Physics Astronomy http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/physics/research/xroa) University of Leicester http://www2.le.ac.uk/ Leicester LE1 7RH, UK Email: ja...@le.ac.uk -- ** ** ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 5:59 AM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.comwrote: And if they remain closed access forever, what has been achieved [by mandating immediate deposit]? (1) They will not remain closed access, since about 60% of journals already endorse making the immediate-deposit immediately OA and about 20-30% more endorse making it OA after an embargo of 6-12 months. So 60% immediate OA plus 40% immediate Almost-OA via the Button would be immediately achieved by universal adoption of the immediate-deposit mandate. (2) 60% immediate-OA plus 40% Almost-OA would soon go on to generate an unstoppable worldwide pressure from authors and users toward the inevitable death of embargoes and 100% immediate-OA. (Certainly not a fulfilment of the proposed HEFCE/REF requirements, funder mandates, etc.) It will achieve a lot more than the fulfilment of the proposed HEFCE/REF requirements, funder mandates, etc. thanks to the unstoppable adoption of the immediate-deposit mandate model worldwide! *One size fits all, and publishers and embargoes are out of the loop.* I just did a quick check for some physics publishers that do not permit post-print archiving. I couldn't find any deposits of post-print material in arXiv. (i) How do you know the deposits have not been revised to incorporate the revisions from the peer review? The deposits are authors' drafts, not publisher PDFs. (ii) What percentage of physics journals do not permit immediate-OA post-print archiving? Maybe you are right the physicists are sensible. Try asking some repository admins if authors [in other disciplines] can be trusted to deposit the correct thing, at the correct time. Adopt the correct mandate, and monitor it correctly (by requiring the date of the acceptance letter and the deposit to accompany papers in order to be eligible both for institutional performance review and for REF, as HEFCE has proposed) and leave the rest to the authors (and the consequences of non-immediate deposit). *We are only talking about keystrokes.* Sorry, I can see now where I misread the statements. It would have been clearer if there was some distance the deposit, and the act of making it OA. I hope that in a short time, if the HEFCE/REF mandate proposal is adopted, the distinction between date of deposit and date of setting access to the deposit as OA (and the immense power of this fundamental distinction) will be crystal clear in everyone's minds. The only thing standing between the world and 100% OA for the past 20 years has been keystrokes. An immediate-deposit mandate requires N-1 of those keystrokes for 40% of papers and all N keystrokes for 60%. With an immediate-deposit mandate the only thing standing between authors/users and OA for the remaining 40% will be one keystroke. Once that is true worldwide, I don't think there is a sensible thinker on the planet who has the slightest doubt about what would happen next, sooner or later. I wouldn't go so far as to say that [reprint requesting/providing] is not a copyright matter. Rather that it has been tolerated and accepted (much like an author retaining rights to make use of their papers in teaching, for example). Reprint requesting/providing has been tolerated for 50 years -- just as physicist self-archiving has been tolerated 20 years -- because researchers and research need and want it. Immediate-deposit mandates will speed evolution to the optimal and inevitable for researchers and research -- and journal publishers will adapt to it. If you have a system that allows for easy mass fulfilment of requests to access at low cost, then it's not unthinkable that a publisher might expect an author to prove that only legitimate requests are being fulfilled. Otherwise, they could attempt to either restrict availability of request copy buttons, or deny closed access deposits. How successful they might be in such a venture is debatable, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them trying. If reprint requesters/providers and self-archiving physicists had taken such hypothetical contingencies seriously, the research world would have lost 50 years' worth of reprint access and 20 years' worth of physics OA. Let's hope that with the help of immediate-deposit mandates from their institutions and funders the same will soon be true for all disciplines, worldwide. Stevan Harnad ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Hi Arthur, I don't understand how a link is more useful than a copy (although obviously having both is preferable)? Let us say that either a) an author imports a record from a publisher with link or b) pastes a link into the repository. Either way, that link tells us nothing about the state of the item on the publisher's web site (gold or green). As you say, you could hit a jump-off page, robots challenge or otherwise. In order to say for certain that the link given is as the metadata describes, and that the item is available under the correct license, someone will have to visit the publisher's site (from a public IP) and set a flag to say 'verified'. By comparison, taking a copy is little extra effort and the institution can say unambiguously that they have an open access copy. It also has the added benefit of guaranteeing long-term access to that work. After all, that is what libraries have been doing for hundreds of years with paper. -- All the best, Tim. On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 08:54 +1100, Arthur Sale wrote: Thanks Tim. No I don't think I missed the point. I agree that certification of all *repository* documents for REF (or in our case ERA) is the same, whether the source is from a subscription or an open access source. The point is that repository documents are divorced from the source, and are therefore suspect. Researchers are as human as everyone else, whether by error or fraud. However, Gold is slightly easier to certify (see next para), even leaving aside the probability that the institution may not subscribe to all (non-OA) journals or conference proceedings. One of the reasons I argue that the ARC policy of requiring a link to OA (aka Gold) journal articles (rather than taking a copy) is that one compliance step is removed. The link provides access to the VoR at its canonical source, and there can be no argument about that. Taking a copy inserts the necessity of verifying that the copy is in fact what it purports to be, and relying on the institution's certification. May I strongly urge that EPrints, if given a URL to an off-site journal article, at the very least *inserts* the URL (or other identifier) into a canonic source link piece of metadata, whether or not it bothers about making a copy (which function should be able to be suppressed by the repository administrator as a repository-wide option). One of the problems that the take-a-copy crowd ignore, is that the link to a Gold article might in fact not be direct to the actual VoR, but to a guardian cover page. This cover page might contain publisher advertising or licence information before the actual link, or it might require one to comply with free registration maybe even with a CAPTCHA. It may be protected with a robots.txt file. No matter, the article is still open access, even though repository software may not be able to access it. (Drawn to my attention by private correspondence from Petr Knoth.) Arthur Sale -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Tim Brody Sent: Tuesday, 19 March 2013 9:19 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate Hi Arthur, I think you missed the point I was trying to make. The statement I was responding to was that gold includes everything you need to audit against (UK) funder compliance and the same can not be said for Green. I have no wish to debate the merits of gold vs. green, beyond pointing out that publisher-provided open access is no easier to audit than institution-provided open access. Indeed, if institutions are doing the reporting (as they will in the UK) an OA copy in the repository is easier to report on than a copy held only at the publisher. I don't know where Graham got the idea that gold will make auditing easier. Whether the publisher provides an OA copy or the author, all the points you make apply equally. -- All the best, Tim. On Tue, 2013-03-19 at 08:40 +1100, Arthur Sale wrote: Tim, you oversimplify the auditing of green. Try this instead, which is more realistic. For green, an institution needs to: 1) Require the author uploads a file. Timestamp the instant of upload. (1A) Check that the file gives a citation of a journal or conference published article, and that the author is indeed listed as a co-author. You might assume this, but not for auditing. EPrints can check this. (1B) Check that the refereeing policy of the journal or conference complies with the funder policy. This is absolutely essential. There are non-compliant examples of journals and conferences. More difficult to do with EPrints, but possible for most. (1C) Check that the file is a version (AM or VoR) of the cited published article. This requires as a bare minimum checking the author list and the title from the website metadata
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Am 21.03.13 10:35, schrieb Tim Brody: By comparison, taking a copy is little extra effort and the institution can say unambiguously that they have an open access copy. wrong: if somebody uploads a PDF the institution - may have a /*copy*/ if the identity of the file submitted or its equivalence with the version of record can be established - may have an /*OA copy*/. But to establish that, someone at the institution (the library?) must check the copyright notice in it (if any) and possibly consult with the authors about his/her contract with the publisher (because, legally, something found on the web pages of the publisher or ROMEO does not count), ... I just insisted on bean counting because it was done to the other side as well. I think this could go on indefinitely and should therefore be stopped. Seen from a non-British perspective, the discussion has morphed from being about Open Access to a discussion about controlling of science. And setting up of mandates and policies which are the least costly to enforce. Cost to the admin dept., of course! Where the library, if involved in this, may morph into a branch of admin. How very German! Enjoy! best, Hans ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
An immediate-deposit mandate moots most of this discussion. Versions and rights need not be checked if the mandate simply says: Deposit the refereed draft immediately, and make it Closed Access. So all this discussion is about what *else* you can do, and when. Here's a list: 1. A sensible author will make the immediate-deposit OA immediately, just as physicists have been successfully doing for decades with no problems. 2. A cautious author will look up the publsher's embargo policy as well as the funder's embargo limit, and make the immediate-deposit OA at whichever date comes first. 3. A timid author will look up the publsher's embargo policy and make the immediate-deposit OA at whatever date the publisher indicates. 4. A foolish author will simply make the immediate-deposit and leave it as Closed Access (attending to reprint requests generated by the request copy Button on an individual case by case basis). The speed with which we reach 100% Green OA and beyond depends on the relative proportion of foolish, timid, cautious and sensible authors. But please, while we keep speculating, let us all mandate immediate-deposit. I don't mean just: Deposit the refereed draft immediately, and make it Closed Access. Improve on that in any way you like: and make it OA immediately and make it OA immediately or after X months at the latest But in any case, deposit immediately! Stevan Harnad On 2013-03-21, at 9:40 AM, Hans PfeiffenbergAer hans.pfeiffenber...@awi.de wrote: Am 21.03.13 10:35, schrieb Tim Brody: By comparison, taking a copy is little extra effort and the institution can say unambiguously that they have an open access copy. wrong: if somebody uploads a PDF the institution - may have a copy if the identity of the file submitted or its equivalence with the version of record can be established - may have an OA copy. But to establish that, someone at the institution (the library?) must check the copyright notice in it (if any) and possibly consult with the authors about his/her contract with the publisher (because, legally, something found on the web pages of the publisher or ROMEO does not count), ... I just insisted on bean counting because it was done to the other side as well. I think this could go on indefinitely and should therefore be stopped. Seen from a non-British perspective, the discussion has morphed from being about Open Access to a discussion about controlling of science. And setting up of mandates and policies which are the least costly to enforce. Cost to the admin dept., of course! Where the library, if involved in this, may morph into a branch of admin. How very German! Enjoy! best, Hans ___ 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] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Tim Let me put it simply. A true copy is as good as a link. Not better, but the same. But a true copy is difficult to ensure. The odds are significant that the copy is not true. · Let us assume that the copying process makes a copy of the file to which the link refers. · It may not collect the actual full-text but to a route on the way. In this case the copy is a serious distraction and its links may well be broken and fail. · It may be a partial copy to the full text or a copy of something completely different. For example suppose the link is to an html article. First Monday is an example Gold refereed journal which uses this style. The copy process retrieves the raw text file (hopefully, if it is not in a frame, otherwise it retrieves just the external frame code) complete with hyperlinks to all the images, diagrams, charts, audio, or video. Pretty likely the links in the copy are broken. The reader is presented with a stupid and unsatisfying copy. He or she wants the real thing, so either uses the link in the metadata (if there is one which I assert should be mandatory) or has to search for the article using a search engine. Or forget about it. · In other cases of which I am aware, the end document is constructed of a table of contents, with dependent hyperlinked separate chapter files. The copy process now retrieves the table of contents, with probably broken links. · In yet other cases the end article is protected by a cover page with a CAPTCHA. The automated copy process fails to make a copy. · I defer talking about ensuring that you are trying to make a copy of an actual thing. To forestall Stevan’s inevitable response that this is all unnecessary because the author can just deposit the accepted manuscript, what he has failed to take into account is: · The author may not have an AM. Quite often a journal will ask me to not integrate everything into a Word file, but to provide the raw text (preferably unformatted and looking pretty crummy) with markers where I would like the figures and diagrams to go, and to provide the non-text items as a set of separate files. This means that a requirement to deposit the AM may involve the author in extra work, to suit a Stevan-inspired mandate. (Or if he/she does not do the work, the reader gets a collection of files, poorly presented.) · If the author has chosen to publish in an open access outlet and wear the cost (if any, quite often none), they will want people to see the Version of Record, not a preliminary version. The situation is totally dissimilar to that of publication in a subscription journal where the VoR is hidden behind a price barrier, and access even to a preliminary version copy (the AM) is better than none. In the already OA case the compromise does not have to be made and shouldn’t. I return to the point: copying an already open access document is a waste of the author's time if they have to disassemble a complete version to put into the repository. It is possible that it may not even be feasible to incorporate into a single file. Believe me, I have met this situation. It is not hypothetical. We are also likely to waste the reader's time as well as the author's. And we introduce the possibility of error and the temptation to fraud into open access. I don’t think we need either. I think that you are falling in the trap of thinking that every journal article is produced as a Word file or a pdf. They aren't. Even less will they be as Internet usage continues to expand into academic territory. Best wishes Arthur -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Tim Brody Sent: Thursday, 21 March 2013 8:35 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate Hi Arthur, I don't understand how a link is more useful than a copy (although obviously having both is preferable)? Let us say that either a) an author imports a record from a publisher with link or b) pastes a link into the repository. Either way, that link tells us nothing about the state of the item on the publisher's web site (gold or green). As you say, you could hit a jump-off page, robots challenge or otherwise. In order to say for certain that the link given is as the metadata describes, and that the item is available under the correct license, someone will have to visit the publisher's site (from a public IP) and set a flag to say 'verified'. By comparison, taking a copy is little extra effort and the institution can say unambiguously that they have an open access copy. It also has the added benefit of guaranteeing long-term access to that work. After all, that is what libraries have been doing for hundreds of years with paper. -- All the best, Tim. On Wed, 2013-03-20 at 08:54
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Sorry Stevan. My recent reply to Tim answers most of these points. Please remember than I am an ICT professional. The ones that are not refuted by that reply (or require emphasis) are: . All author deposits must be audited. They may be in error and may even be fraudulent. There is plenty of incentive for the latter, given the lax controls. I could even see phishing repositories developing. Even author identity can be hacked, perhaps by students. . There may not ever have been an AM (refereed draft in your terminology) as a single file. To deliberately make one up for the local repository is extra effort (aka work) by the author, or imposes extra work on the reader if that the integration is not done or not possible. . Physicists produce pretty simple papers in ICT terms. Few animations, 3D models, videos, audio, etc. In other words physicists produce clunky pdf-reducible objects, whether in astronomy or particle physics. That's why they were and are good candidates for OA. Computer scientists were, but no longer are as much. . The request-a-copy button is not perfect. Especially with the direction that scholarly publication is likely to go. For example, sending 50 files by the button is not catered for. I can provide advice if wanted. If we preface your mantras by [if convenient] or [if immediately possible], they are perhaps barely acceptable. Frankly, I think that academics are cleverer than you give them credit for. In reading your comments, I have mentally deleted the perjorative 'sensible', 'cautious', 'timid' and 'foolish'. For your information, I do (1) when I can [not always]; (2) almost never since I don't know the publication date in advance, (3) I never ask the publisher for a date for reasons in (2), (4) I've never actioned this, because I am an OA advocate and I won't publish unless I can make my article OA, or feel safe being illegal. I regard the REF deposit requirement to be absurd, and will continue to support the Australian authorities in their better grasp of the situation than the UK. Best wishes Arthur Sale From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Friday, 22 March 2013 1:55 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum Subject: [GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate An immediate-deposit mandate moots most of this discussion. Versions and rights need not be checked if the mandate simply says: Deposit the refereed draft immediately, and make it Closed Access. So all this discussion is about what *else* you can do, and when. Here's a list: 1. A sensible author will make the immediate-deposit OA immediately, just as physicists have been successfully doing for decades with no problems. 2. A cautious author will look up the publsher's embargo policy as well as the funder's embargo limit, and make the immediate-deposit OA at whichever date comes first. 3. A timid author will look up the publsher's embargo policy and make the immediate-deposit OA at whatever date the publisher indicates. 4. A foolish author will simply make the immediate-deposit and leave it as Closed Access (attending to reprint requests generated by the request copy Button on an individual case by case basis). The speed with which we reach 100% Green OA and beyond depends on the relative proportion of foolish, timid, cautious and sensible authors. But please, while we keep speculating, let us all mandate immediate-deposit. I don't mean just: Deposit the refereed draft immediately, and make it Closed Access. Improve on that in any way you like: and make it OA immediately and make it OA immediately or after X months at the latest But in any case, deposit immediately! Stevan Harnad On 2013-03-21, at 9:40 AM, Hans PfeiffenbergAer hans.pfeiffenber...@awi.de wrote: Am 21.03.13 10:35, schrieb Tim Brody: By comparison, taking a copy is little extra effort and the institution can say unambiguously that they have an open access copy. wrong: if somebody uploads a PDF the institution - may have a copy if the identity of the file submitted or its equivalence with the version of record can be established - may have an OA copy. But to establish that, someone at the institution (the library?) must check the copyright notice in it (if any) and possibly consult with the authors about his/her contract with the publisher (because, legally, something found on the web pages of the publisher or ROMEO does not count), ... I just insisted on bean counting because it was done to the other side as well. I think this could go on indefinitely and should therefore be stopped. Seen from a non-British perspective, the discussion has morphed from being about Open Access to a discussion about controlling of science. And setting up of mandates and policies which are the least
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Hi Arthur, I think you missed the point I was trying to make. The statement I was responding to was that gold includes everything you need to audit against (UK) funder compliance and the same can not be said for Green. I have no wish to debate the merits of gold vs. green, beyond pointing out that publisher-provided open access is no easier to audit than institution-provided open access. Indeed, if institutions are doing the reporting (as they will in the UK) an OA copy in the repository is easier to report on than a copy held only at the publisher. I don't know where Graham got the idea that gold will make auditing easier. Whether the publisher provides an OA copy or the author, all the points you make apply equally. -- All the best, Tim. On Tue, 2013-03-19 at 08:40 +1100, Arthur Sale wrote: Tim, you oversimplify the auditing of green. Try this instead, which is more realistic. For green, an institution needs to: 1) Require the author uploads a file. Timestamp the instant of upload. (1A) Check that the file gives a citation of a journal or conference published article, and that the author is indeed listed as a co-author. You might assume this, but not for auditing. EPrints can check this. (1B) Check that the refereeing policy of the journal or conference complies with the funder policy. This is absolutely essential. There are non-compliant examples of journals and conferences. More difficult to do with EPrints, but possible for most. (1C) Check that the file is a version (AM or VoR) of the cited published article. This requires as a bare minimum checking the author list and the title from the website metadata, but for rigorous compliance the institution needs to be able to download the VoR for comparison (ie have a subscription or equivalent database access). [In Australia we do spot checks, as adequate to minimize fraud. Somewhat like a police radar speed gun.] [Google Scholar does similar checks on pdfs it finds.] EPrints probably can't help. 2) Make it public after embargo. In other words enforce a compulsory upper limit on embargos, starting from the date of upload of uncertain provenance (see 3). EPrints can do this. 3) Depending on the importance of dates, check that the upload date of the file is no later than the publication date. The acceptance date is unknowable by the institution (usually printed on publication in the VoR, but not always), and then requires step 1C to determine after the event. Doubtful that EPrints can do this. 4) Require every potential author to certify that they have uploaded every REF-relevant publication they have produced. Outside EPrints responsibility, apart from producing lists on demand for certification. I just adapted this from your constraints on gold, and common Australian practice in the ERA and HERDC, which have long been audited. Arthur Sale -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Tim Brody Sent: Monday, 18 March 2013 8:45 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate On Sat, 2013-03-16 at 08:05 -0400, Stevan Harnad wrote: On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 5:14 AM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.com wrote: 2) By definition, everything that you require to audit Gold is open, baked into the publication process, and independent of who is being audited. The same can not be said for Green. RCUK and HEFCE will require institutions to report on, respectively, the APC fund and REF return. For gold, an institution needs to: 1) Determine whether the journal policy complies with the funder policy. 2) Run an internal financial process to budget for and pay out the APC. 3) Check whether the item was (i) published (ii) published under the correct license. 4) (For REF) take a copy of the published version. For green, an institution needs to: 1) Require the author uploads a version. 2) Make it public after embargo. So, actually I think green is easier to audit than gold. Even if it were as you say, it will still be the institution that is tasked with auditing. For most institutions that will be done through their repository (or cris-equivalent). It therefore follows that green (Do I have a public copy?) will be no more difficult than gold (Do I have a publisher CC-BY copy?). (Commercial interest - as EPrints we have built tools to make the REF return and are working on systems to audit gold and green for RCUK compliance.) -- All the best, Tim ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Thanks Tim. No I don't think I missed the point. I agree that certification of all *repository* documents for REF (or in our case ERA) is the same, whether the source is from a subscription or an open access source. The point is that repository documents are divorced from the source, and are therefore suspect. Researchers are as human as everyone else, whether by error or fraud. However, Gold is slightly easier to certify (see next para), even leaving aside the probability that the institution may not subscribe to all (non-OA) journals or conference proceedings. One of the reasons I argue that the ARC policy of requiring a link to OA (aka Gold) journal articles (rather than taking a copy) is that one compliance step is removed. The link provides access to the VoR at its canonical source, and there can be no argument about that. Taking a copy inserts the necessity of verifying that the copy is in fact what it purports to be, and relying on the institution's certification. May I strongly urge that EPrints, if given a URL to an off-site journal article, at the very least *inserts* the URL (or other identifier) into a canonic source link piece of metadata, whether or not it bothers about making a copy (which function should be able to be suppressed by the repository administrator as a repository-wide option). One of the problems that the take-a-copy crowd ignore, is that the link to a Gold article might in fact not be direct to the actual VoR, but to a guardian cover page. This cover page might contain publisher advertising or licence information before the actual link, or it might require one to comply with free registration maybe even with a CAPTCHA. It may be protected with a robots.txt file. No matter, the article is still open access, even though repository software may not be able to access it. (Drawn to my attention by private correspondence from Petr Knoth.) Arthur Sale -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Tim Brody Sent: Tuesday, 19 March 2013 9:19 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate Hi Arthur, I think you missed the point I was trying to make. The statement I was responding to was that gold includes everything you need to audit against (UK) funder compliance and the same can not be said for Green. I have no wish to debate the merits of gold vs. green, beyond pointing out that publisher-provided open access is no easier to audit than institution-provided open access. Indeed, if institutions are doing the reporting (as they will in the UK) an OA copy in the repository is easier to report on than a copy held only at the publisher. I don't know where Graham got the idea that gold will make auditing easier. Whether the publisher provides an OA copy or the author, all the points you make apply equally. -- All the best, Tim. On Tue, 2013-03-19 at 08:40 +1100, Arthur Sale wrote: Tim, you oversimplify the auditing of green. Try this instead, which is more realistic. For green, an institution needs to: 1) Require the author uploads a file. Timestamp the instant of upload. (1A) Check that the file gives a citation of a journal or conference published article, and that the author is indeed listed as a co-author. You might assume this, but not for auditing. EPrints can check this. (1B) Check that the refereeing policy of the journal or conference complies with the funder policy. This is absolutely essential. There are non-compliant examples of journals and conferences. More difficult to do with EPrints, but possible for most. (1C) Check that the file is a version (AM or VoR) of the cited published article. This requires as a bare minimum checking the author list and the title from the website metadata, but for rigorous compliance the institution needs to be able to download the VoR for comparison (ie have a subscription or equivalent database access). [In Australia we do spot checks, as adequate to minimize fraud. Somewhat like a police radar speed gun.] [Google Scholar does similar checks on pdfs it finds.] EPrints probably can't help. 2) Make it public after embargo. In other words enforce a compulsory upper limit on embargos, starting from the date of upload of uncertain provenance (see 3). EPrints can do this. 3) Depending on the importance of dates, check that the upload date of the file is no later than the publication date. The acceptance date is unknowable by the institution (usually printed on publication in the VoR, but not always), and then requires step 1C to determine after the event. Doubtful that EPrints can do this. 4) Require every potential author to certify that they have uploaded every REF-relevant publication they have produced. Outside EPrints responsibility, apart from producing lists on demand for certification. I
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On Sat, 2013-03-16 at 08:05 -0400, Stevan Harnad wrote: On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 5:14 AM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.com wrote: 2) By definition, everything that you require to audit Gold is open, baked into the publication process, and independent of who is being audited. The same can not be said for Green. RCUK and HEFCE will require institutions to report on, respectively, the APC fund and REF return. For gold, an institution needs to: 1) Determine whether the journal policy complies with the funder policy. 2) Run an internal financial process to budget for and pay out the APC. 3) Check whether the item was (i) published (ii) published under the correct license. 4) (For REF) take a copy of the published version. For green, an institution needs to: 1) Require the author uploads a version. 2) Make it public after embargo. So, actually I think green is easier to audit than gold. Even if it were as you say, it will still be the institution that is tasked with auditing. For most institutions that will be done through their repository (or cris-equivalent). It therefore follows that green (Do I have a public copy?) will be no more difficult than gold (Do I have a publisher CC-BY copy?). (Commercial interest - as EPrints we have built tools to make the REF return and are working on systems to audit gold and green for RCUK compliance.) -- All the best, Tim signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:56 AM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.comwrote: On 14 March 2013 22:14, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote: Why is it an absurd requirement to deposit immediately in the author's IR, regardless of whether the journal is subscription or OA and of whether the deposit is embargoed or immediate OA? That simple, natural, uniform local deposit procedure is precisely what makes it easy for an institution to monitor compliance. imho, there are some significant unanswered questions regarding the HEFCE/REF proposals, which ultimately boil down to a couple of points. The main one actually being covered by what you've said above. Sure, an institution can monitor compliance. In fact, as they run the repository, they are the only ones that can effectively monitor compliance. So how exactly are the requirements going to be audited and enforced? There is no requirement to make the metadata public. There is no requirement to have the metadata harvested (whether public or not). There isn't even a requirement to have a request a copy feature (without which, the usefulness of immediate deposit is rather lost). And nor can there be in any useful time period for the first post-2014 REF. These things will take time to build and/or implement. So there isn't any effective way to audit that deposits were made, much beyond actually being fully open access when the embargo ends at best, and possibly even only at the time of the return at worst. I think you are mistaken -- and that you are vastly under-estimating the reach of this simple REF/HEFCE policy: (1) It is *institutions* that have always shown intense eagerness and initiative in ensuring that their researchers comply with all RAE and REF conditions. (2) The proposed REF mandate makes it very explicit that *REF submissions are ineligible if they are not deposited immediately upon publication*. (No waiting till near the end of the 6-year REF cycle to deposit.) (3) Compliance is based on two objective, verifiable data-points: publication date and IR deposit date. (4) Institutions, in monitoring and ensuring compliance will simply require -- at least annually -- a list of articles published, together with publication date and deposit date. (5) If the publication date and the deposit date are not the same, the article is ineligible for REF. (6) With deposit, the metadata are immediately accessible web wide (though the full-text might be embargoed for the allowable interval). (The request-copy feature will be implemented by IRs as a natural matter of course, once immediate-deposit is effectively mandated.) The second issue comes from the requirements on what must be deposited - namely, the final post peer-review material, and under a licence that allows text-mining, etc. This has two implications - the first on authors, as far from being unrestricted in the journal choice, they will need to ensure that the journal policies will allow them to fulfil their HEFCE requirements. Understanding this is not straightforward with the resources currently available to authors. You are right about this, and I have recommended to HEFCE not to press the re-use rights too hard in order not to constrain journal choice with non-quality constraints. Re-use rights should be treated the same as the embargo: Zero embargo and full re-use rights preferable, but some embargo and some re-use restrictions are allowable, if necessary. *It is the immediate-deposit that is crucial, Once that becomes universal, embargoes and re-use restrictions don't stand a chance and will soon crumble.* * * The other implication is on the repositories themselves. The proposals will create another class of material in repositories. Deposits for REF will have 'liberal' licences - but what about existing content, which won't have the same licences attached to them? How will the licences be communicated? How will users be aware of the rights? This mix of licences will either diminish the value of the HEFCE requirements, or increase the costs of fulfilling them, or both. The license issue is a red herring, and premature. Get all the content in there, immediately on publication, reliably, and the rest will take care of itself of its own accord soon after. Fuss instead about the rest, pre-emptively, and you won't even get the content. Having an IR (at a basic level) may be low cost, and voluntary deposit 'cost free'. But mandating Green OA, and in particular monitoring, enforcing and auditing compliance - especially when those requirements are as specific as the HEFCE proposals - does have a cost. And enforcement/auditing is something that will be needed - and will need to be effective - to achieve high compliance. Otherwise it may well fall short, regardless of the consequences. RAE and REF compliance has always entailed some cost to institutions, but they have willingly undertaken it in order to maximise their chances of the
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
The Australian situation is interspersed - nothing to do with REF and HEFCE, but our equivalent research evaluation process. I provide this for comparison. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania, Australia From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:jisc-repositor...@jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Saturday, 16 March 2013 1:15 PM To: jisc-repositor...@jiscmail.ac.uk Subject: Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 11:56 AM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.com wrote: On 14 March 2013 22:14, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote: Why is it an absurd requirement to deposit immediately in the author's IR, regardless of whether the journal is subscription or OA and of whether the deposit is embargoed or immediate OA? That simple, natural, uniform local deposit procedure is precisely what makes it easy for an institution to monitor compliance. [Arthur] But of course it is totally irrelevant. Compliance has no link with deposit in the case of already OA articles, and indeed is not even easy to determine. Any senior manager (I was one) would want much better compliance certification than a deposit! Some IRs have so low visibility on the Internet as to be below the radar. I don't want to publicise them, because they are incompetent. imho, there are some significant unanswered questions regarding the HEFCE/REF proposals, which ultimately boil down to a couple of points. The main one actually being covered by what you've said above. Sure, an institution can monitor compliance. In fact, as they run the repository, they are the only ones that can effectively monitor compliance. So how exactly are the requirements going to be audited and enforced? There is no requirement to make the metadata public. There is no requirement to have the metadata harvested (whether public or not). There isn't even a requirement to have a request a copy feature (without which, the usefulness of immediate deposit is rather lost). And nor can there be in any useful time period for the first post-2014 REF. These things will take time to build and/or implement. So there isn't any effective way to audit that deposits were made, much beyond actually being fully open access when the embargo ends at best, and possibly even only at the time of the return at worst. I think you are mistaken -- and that you are vastly under-estimating the reach of this simple REF/HEFCE policy: (1) It is institutions that have always shown intense eagerness and initiative in ensuring that their researchers comply with all RAE and REF conditions. [Arthur] Australian institutions have shown zero eagerness, but respond to compulsion. Otherwise they would not get grants. Strong incentive. Low initiative. (2) The proposed REF mandate makes it very explicit that REF submissions are ineligible if they are not deposited immediately upon publication. (No waiting till near the end of the 6-year REF cycle to deposit.) [Arthur] Australian universities have sent annual publication data to the Australian Government for well over 20 years. Not full-texts sure, but the reporting cycle is entrenched in HERDC. Compulsory. (3) Compliance is based on two objective, verifiable data-points: publication date and IR deposit date. [Arthur] No comment. A REF issue. Not relevant to Australia. In our case, publication in a freely chosen OA outlet = OA. An IR deposit date is not needed and indeed completely irrelevant. I have pointed out that IR deposit is equivalent to double work in such cases. (4) Institutions, in monitoring and ensuring compliance will simply require -- at least annually -- a list of articles published, together with publication date and deposit date. [Arthur] As I said we've done this for 20+ years, without the deposit. The returns are provided to Canberra each March or thereabouts. (5) If the publication date and the deposit date are not the same, the article is ineligible for REF. [Arthur] An arcane REF rubric. Clumsy and simplistic, like smoke from the Sistine Chapel. An author publishing in an OA journal (if ignored) might be able to sue REF/HEFCE as their article was OA immediately on publication, or otherwise if they deposited before publication or a day or two after. The author could even be temporarily on the other side of the world, and living in a different day! (It happens to me every day as I am currently 11h ahead of GMT.) (6) With deposit, the metadata are immediately accessible web wide (though the full-text might be embargoed for the allowable interval). [Arthur] Even without deposit, this could be true. Though I concede, unlikely to be actioned very often. However I routinely put drafts on OA even before publication, updating them later. ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 5:14 AM, Graham Triggs grahamtri...@gmail.comwrote: On 16 March 2013 02:15, Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com wrote: (2) The proposed REF mandate makes it very explicit that *REF submissions are ineligible if they are not deposited immediately upon publication*. (No waiting till near the end of the 6-year REF cycle to deposit.) They said acceptance, not publication. Even better! (That's the milestone I've always urged. It has a more specific calendar date than publication-date which can lag by as much as a year from its published date.) (3) Compliance is based on two objective, verifiable data-points: publication date and IR deposit date. Acceptance date, not publication date. And the question remains - where and when are these data points being obtained from? The institution (more likely, the department) obtains them from the author, as a condition and preparation for REF eligibility. (For years now, as soon as another RAE/REF cycle starts, the institution/department already starts its internal preparations and procedures. *Le roi est mort: Vive le roi!*) (5) If the publication date and the deposit date are not the same, the article is ineligible for REF. As I said, acceptance date. And stating that they have to be the same simply is not practical. Is an author meant to stand by their email every second of every day, just so that they can act on the deposit mandate when they get notification of acceptance? Acceptable limits need to be defined, and even then there should be allowances for exceptional circumstances. Of course. This policy, and OA itself, is not for pedants and for police; it is for research access! The acceptance date is a documented, natural, identifiable signal for deposit in the author's normal workflow. Practice will determine a reasonable buffer period for actually doing the deposit. The advantage of the acceptance date is that it effectively allows some lead time before the published date of publication (which may itself not coincide with the calendar date of appearance of the journal) . (6) With deposit, the metadata are immediately accessible web wide (though the full-text might be embargoed for the allowable interval). That isn't stated as a requirement, and it isn't how all institutions handle embargo of content. Please see the EPprints and DSpace software (e.g., use Southampton and LIege as instances): When a paper is deposited, the author tags whether it is to be made immediately OA or embargoed (and if embargoed, there is an optional tag to specify how long, after which the IR automatically makes the full-text OA). But the metadata themselves (author, title, journal, year, etc.) are made immediately OA: *That's what immediate-deposit means.** * (The request-copy feature will be implemented by IRs as a natural matter of course, once immediate-deposit is effectively mandated.) That depends on whether there is any appetite to handle processing the requests for content. If there was, the chances are the institution would already have a strongly enforced Green mandate, and/or a high level of voluntary deposit amongst it's researchers. No. The the IR software automatically forwards each request to the author, who decides (with one click) whether to fulfill it: http://www.eprints.org/software/training/users/viewing.php#request https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy *It is the immediate-deposit that is crucial, Once that becomes universal, embargoes and re-use restrictions don't stand a chance and will soon crumble.* That's one point of view. For there to be any threat to embargoes, request-copy will be necessary. Only when embargoes are effectively rendered meaningless, will they crumble. Otherwise if you mandate Green, then publishers have every reason to add to the restrictions on Green to either protect the subscription revenue or force authors to pay for Gold. The request copy Button is available to tide over researcher-needs during embargoes. And currently about 60% of journals endorse immediate, un-embargoed Green OA (though Finch/RCUK does perversely tempt them now to offer hybrid Gold and lengthen their Green embargoes beyond allowable limits in order to pressure authors to pick and pay for Gold). But you underestimate the power of OA itself: One of the main reasons few researchers are providing OA un-mandated today is that they do not yet feel its value (in accessibility, download impact and citation impact), either as users or as authors, because of the sparse OA content that exists (an arbitrary 5%-40% in most fields -- much higher only in high energy physics and astrophysics). Tasting what it is like to have about 60% immediate-OA plus 40% Almost-OA (via the Button) will greatly increase both the appetite and the inclination to have 100% immediate-OA, in both users and authors. Users will expect and seek it 100% OA, search engines will optimize to
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Thanks to Steven Harnad for giving us his enthusiastic view on the HEFCE prooposd policy for REF and OA. Among my concerns that he doesn't address, however, is one that will be shared by many/all in the Humanities (almost always the Cinderella at the OA ball): What about books? Though scientists especially use journal articles as THE mode of publication of original research, the nature of work in the Humanities (which is often more integrative and discoursive, involving/requiring extended analysis and argumentation) often requires a book-length treatment. Indeed, in Humanities field, typically the most high-impact work appears as/in single-author books. Moreover, these include often (perhaps dominantly), not only technical monographs (which are often revised PhD theses), but (especially among more seasoned scholars) free-standing books, and these published by various university presses but also trade publishers. Many of these aren't based in the UK. It will be difficult (and unlikely) to get all these publishers to allow the immediate deposit of the page-proofs in an OA desository. So, will this mean that what has been heretofore the most respected form of research-publication in the Humanities will be disallowed in the next REF? There is a short paragraph on monographs in the HEFCE consultation paper, but it only reflects the inadequate understanding of the place of *books* in the Humanities. We urgently need HEFCE to bring Humanities scholars more into the magic circle of policy/practice makers. Larry Hurtado Quoting Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com on Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:40:12 -0400: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 5:12 AM, Andy Powell andy.pow...@eduserv.org.ukwrote: Supposing this Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate leads to a situation where we achieve 100% immediate deposit of the final peer-reviewed draft of journal articles to an institutional repository but where we also see a ?publisher norm? emerging of a 12-month embargo period? ** ** Firstly, is that an unrealistic expectation of where this policy might get us? ** ** If so, would we consider this situation to have significantly advanced the OA cause? ** ** I agree that the separation of ?immediate deposit? from ?embargo period? is important but I also worry that doing so effectively becomes a way for publishers to stifle progress towards true OA but setting lengthy embargo periods? Further, there seems to be nothing in this policy that mitigates against this happening? ** ** Or am I misunderstanding the situation? Please read the comments, not just the Executive Summary, as they explicitly answer your question. Meanwhile, here is the answer to your question, put in a different way, in response to: *RCUK fails to end ?green? embargo confusion*http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/rcuk-fails-to-end-green-embargo-confusion/2002538.article *THE* 14 March 2013: * KEYSTROKE MANDATES * What a mess! With publishers eagerly pawing at the Golden Door, and RCUK hopelessly waffling at Green embargo limits and their enforcement. But relief is on the way! HEFCE has meanwhile quietly and gently proposed a solution that will moot all this relentless cupidity and stupidity. HEFCE has proposed to mandate that in order to be eligible for the Research Excellence Framework (REF)http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/news/news/2013/open_access_letter.pdf, the final, peer-reviewed drafts of all papers published as of 2014 will have to be deposited in the author's institutional repositoryhttp://roar.eprints.org/ immediately upon publication: no delays, no embargoes, no exceptions -- irrespective of whether the paper is published in a Gold OA journal or a subscription journal, and irrespective of the allowable length of the embargo on making the deposit OA: The deposit itself must be immediate. This has the immense benefit that while the haggling continues about how much will be paid for Gold OA and how long Green OA may be embargoed, all papers will be faithfully deposited -- and deposited in institutional repositories, which means that all UK universities will thereby be recruited, as of 2014, to monitor and ensure that the deposits are made, and made immediately. (Institutions have an excellent track record for making sure that everything necessary for REF is done, and done reliably, because a lot of money and prestige is at stake for them.) And one of the ingenious features of the proposed HEFCE/REF Green OA mandate is the stipulation that deposit may not be delayed: Authors cannot wait till just before the next REF, six years later, to do it. If the deposit was not immediate, the paper is ineligible for REF. And, most brilliant stroke of all, this ensures that it is not just the 4 papers that are ultimately chosen for submission to REF that are deposited immediately -- for that choice is always a
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
Dear Larry, I agree with you. HEFCE/REF should not not make OA mandatory for books/monographs. Even deposit need not be mandatory: Merely urged, wherever possible. (I doubt that there would be many objections to Dark Deposit.) Insisting on book deposit would, again, be needless over-reaching, and gratuitously inviting author resistance. As much book OA as scholars and scientists want and need will come -- but only after Green OA for articles has prevailed. Stevan On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 9:48 AM, l.hurt...@ed.ac.uk wrote: Thanks to Steven Harnad for giving us his enthusiastic view on the HEFCE prooposd policy for REF and OA. Among my concerns that he doesn't address, however, is one that will be shared by many/all in the Humanities (almost always the Cinderella at the OA ball): What about books? Though scientists especially use journal articles as THE mode of publication of original research, the nature of work in the Humanities (which is often more integrative and discoursive, involving/requiring extended analysis and argumentation) often requires a book-length treatment. Indeed, in Humanities field, typically the most high-impact work appears as/in single-author books. Moreover, these include often (perhaps dominantly), not only technical monographs (which are often revised PhD theses), but (especially among more seasoned scholars) free-standing books, and these published by various university presses but also trade publishers. Many of these aren't based in the UK. It will be difficult (and unlikely) to get all these publishers to allow the immediate deposit of the page-proofs in an OA desository. So, will this mean that what has been heretofore the most respected form of research-publication in the Humanities will be disallowed in the next REF? There is a short paragraph on monographs in the HEFCE consultation paper, but it only reflects the inadequate understanding of the place of *books* in the Humanities. We urgently need HEFCE to bring Humanities scholars more into the magic circle of policy/practice makers. Larry Hurtado Quoting Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com on Thu, 14 Mar 2013 08:40:12 -0400: On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 5:12 AM, Andy Powell andy.pow...@eduserv.org.ukwrote: Supposing this Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate leads to a situation where we achieve 100% immediate deposit of the final peer-reviewed draft of journal articles to an institutional repository but where we also see a ?publisher norm? emerging of a 12-month embargo period? ** ** Firstly, is that an unrealistic expectation of where this policy might get us? ** ** If so, would we consider this situation to have significantly advanced the OA cause? ** ** I agree that the separation of ?immediate deposit? from ?embargo period? is important but I also worry that doing so effectively becomes a way for publishers to stifle progress towards true OA but setting lengthy embargo periods? Further, there seems to be nothing in this policy that mitigates against this happening? ** ** Or am I misunderstanding the situation? Please read the comments, not just the Executive Summary, as they explicitly answer your question. Meanwhile, here is the answer to your question, put in a different way, in response to: *RCUK fails to end ?green? embargo confusion* http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/rcuk-fails-to-end-green-embargo-confusion/2002538.article *THE* 14 March 2013: * KEYSTROKE MANDATES * What a mess! With publishers eagerly pawing at the Golden Door, and RCUK hopelessly waffling at Green embargo limits and their enforcement. But relief is on the way! HEFCE has meanwhile quietly and gently proposed a solution that will moot all this relentless cupidity and stupidity. HEFCE has proposed to mandate that in order to be eligible for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/news/news/2013/open_access_letter.pdf , the final, peer-reviewed drafts of all papers published as of 2014 will have to be deposited in the author's institutional repositoryhttp://roar.eprints.org/ immediately upon publication: no delays, no embargoes, no exceptions -- irrespective of whether the paper is published in a Gold OA journal or a subscription journal, and irrespective of the allowable length of the embargo on making the deposit OA: The deposit itself must be immediate. This has the immense benefit that while the haggling continues about how much will be paid for Gold OA and how long Green OA may be embargoed, all papers will be faithfully deposited -- and deposited in institutional repositories, which means that all UK universities will thereby be recruited, as of 2014, to monitor and ensure that the deposits are made, and made immediately. (Institutions have an excellent track record for
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On 2013-03-14, at 1:13 AM, Nick Thieberger th...@unimelb.edu.au wrote: But what if the article is in an OA journal that would like to have the hit count for downloads from its site? Is there scope for the mandate to cover only non-OA journal articles perhaps? That would be an exceedingly bad solution, for authors, for their institutions for their research and for OA. And institutions would lose a simple, natural, powerful and uniform way to monitor mandate compliance by their authors. And what's more important: hit/download counts for authors, for their own articles, and for their institutions, or hit/download counts for publishers' sites? But in any case there's a simple (though silly) compromise: All articles (whether subscription or Gold, emargoed or not) must be immediately deposited in the author's institutional repository. Where the author either wishes to comply with a non-OA publisher's embargo on Green OA, or with a Gold-OA publisher's desire to have hit/download counts for its site, access to the deposit need not be made OA (until the embargo elapses or until the author tires of accommodating publishers' importunate nonsense). Stevan Harnad Nick Thieberger Editor Language Documentation Conservation Journal http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/ On 14 March 2013 11:16, Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com wrote: Full Text: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/994-.html Executive Summary: The proposed HEFCE/REF Open Access [OA] mandate -- that in order to be eligible for REF, the peer-reviewed final draft of all journal articles must be deposited in the author’s institutional repository immediately upon publication, with embargoes applicable only to the date at which the article must be made OA – is excellent, and provides exactly the sort of complement required by the RCUK OA mandate. It ensures that authors deposit immediately and institutionally and it recruits their institutions to monitor and ensure compliance. For journal articles, no individual or disciplinary exceptions or exemptions to the immediate-deposit are needed, but embargo length can be adapted to the discipline or even to exceptional individual cases. Embargo length is even more important for open data, and should be carefully and flexibly adapted to the needs not only of disciplines and individuals, but of each individual research project. Requiring monograph OA if the author does not wish to provide it is not reasonable, but perhaps many or most monograph authors would not mind depositing their texts as Closed Access. -- To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml?f -- To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml?f ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On 2013-03-14, at 6:00 PM, Arthur Sale a...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Unfortunately Stevan, Nick was asking you about the Australian Research Council’s policy. Thanks, Arthur, for pointing out that I had mistaken an ACT policy query for a HEFCE/REF policy query (since it was on the HEFCE/REF thread). Some queries below: The metadata must always be deposited in the IR, but the AM or VoR (either is ok) need only be deposited if one of them is not otherwise OA. If they are, then a link to the OA version suffices (URL, DOI, etc). In all relevant cases an immediate deposit, OA when possible but max 12 months applies, so that’ll make you a bit happier. Of course this does not compel people to do that, but that is what the policy allows, and what most Australian researchers will follow. Note that ‘otherwise OA’ covers a broader field than Gold journals, for example a subject repository, a personal website, the cloud, etc. The intention is clear: the ARC wants open access, and it is happy to prescribe that. It is not concerned with how compliance might be monitored. Compliance with the ARC policy is however not difficult to determine for the institution. How so? If authors might be depositing anywhere? The issue that now concerns Australian open access advocates is ‘What approach do we take to get our institutions to adopt institutional mandates?’ There are very few of these in Australia, though now both our research councils have similar funder mandates. Left to themselves, universities are likely to just implement those policies, which affect only a fraction of the academics (albeit an active group). I believe the only strategy for us that makes sense is to try to get universities to adopt a union of the two funder mandate policies, to apply to all academics in the institution. That might work. Trying for a much more expansive institutional mandate (like your deposit even if already in a Gold journal) seems likely to fail, as an absurd requirement. Why is it an absurd requirement to deposit immediately in the author's IR, regardless of whether the journal is subscription or OA and of whether the deposit is embargoed or immediate OA? That simple, natural, uniform local deposit procedure is precisely what makes it easy for an institution to monitor compliance. And that's part of the reason why HEFCE/REF proposed it. Maybe if it is actually adopted by HEFCE/REF, ARC will eventually see fit to follow suit? BTW, the ARC mandate appears to apply to monographs (books) arising from research grants as well as journal articles, but that is another thread… Lot's of luck. But my hands are full trying to first get what is already fully doable, and long overdue, done, at long last… Stevan Arthur Sale Tasmania, Australia From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:jisc-repositor...@jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Friday, 15 March 2013 8:01 AM To: jisc-repositor...@jiscmail.ac.uk Subject: Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate On 2013-03-14, at 1:13 AM, Nick Thieberger th...@unimelb.edu.au wrote: But what if the article is in an OA journal that would like to have the hit count for downloads from its site? Is there scope for the mandate to cover only non-OA journal articles perhaps? That would be an exceedingly bad solution, for authors, for their institutions for their research and for OA. And institutions would lose a simple, natural, powerful and uniform way to monitor mandate compliance by their authors. And what's more important: hit/download counts for authors, for their own articles, and for their institutions, or hit/download counts for publishers' sites? But in any case there's a simple (though silly) compromise: All articles (whether subscription or Gold, emargoed or not) must be immediately deposited in the author's institutional repository. Where the author either wishes to comply with a non-OA publisher's embargo on Green OA, or with a Gold-OA publisher's desire to have hit/download counts for its site, access to the deposit need not be made OA (until the embargo elapses or until the author tires of accommodating publishers' importunate nonsense). Stevan Harnad Nick Thieberger Editor Language Documentation Conservation Journal http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/ On 14 March 2013 11:16, Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.com wrote: Full Text: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/994-.html Executive Summary: The proposed HEFCE/REF Open Access [OA] mandate -- that in order to be eligible for REF, the peer-reviewed final draft of all journal articles must be deposited in the author’s institutional repository immediately upon publication, with embargoes applicable only to the date at which the article must be made OA – is excellent, and provides exactly the sort of complement
[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 5:23 PM, Leslie Carr l...@ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote: There have already been joint publisher/repository initiatives such as PIRUS/COUNTER that deal with this situation. See http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/pals3/pirus.aspx The aim of this project is to develop COUNTER-compliant usage reports at the individual article level that can be implemented by any entity (publisher, aggregator, IR, etc.,) that hosts online journal articles and will enable the usage of research outputs to be recorded, reported and consolidated at a global level in a standard way. On 14 Mar 2013, at 21:19, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.ukmailto: har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote: On 2013-03-14, at 1:13 AM, Nick Thieberger th...@unimelb.edu.aumailto: th...@unimelb.edu.au wrote: But what if the article is in an OA journal that would like to have the hit count for downloads from its site? Is there scope for the mandate to cover only non-OA journal articles perhaps? That would be an exceedingly bad solution, for authors, for their institutions for their research and for OA. And institutions would lose a simple, natural, powerful and uniform way to monitor mandate compliance by their authors. And what's more important: hit/download counts for authors, for their own articles, and for their institutions, or hit/download counts for publishers' sites? But in any case there's a simple (though silly) compromise: All articles (whether subscription or Gold, emargoed or not) must be immediately deposited in the author's institutional repository. Where the author either wishes to comply with a non-OA publisher's embargo on Green OA, or with a Gold-OA publisher's desire to have hit/download counts for its site, access to the deposit need not be made OA (until the embargo elapses or until the author tires of accommodating publishers' importunate nonsense). Stevan Harnad Nick Thieberger Editor Language Documentation Conservation Journal http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/ On 14 March 2013 11:16, Stevan Harnad amscifo...@gmail.commailto: amscifo...@gmail.com wrote: Full Text: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/994-.html Executive Summary: The proposed HEFCE/REF Open Access [OA] mandate http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/news/news/2013/open_access_letter.pdf -- that in order to be eligible for REF, the peer-reviewed final draft of all journal articles must be deposited in the author’s institutional repository immediately upon publication, with embargoes applicable only to the date at which the article must be made OA – is excellent, and provides exactly the sort of complement required by the RCUK OA mandate. It ensures that authors deposit immediately and institutionally and it recruits their institutions to monitor and ensure compliance. For journal articles, no individual or disciplinary exceptions or exemptions to the immediate-deposit are needed, but embargo length can be adapted to the discipline or even to exceptional individual cases. Embargo length is even more important for open data, and should be carefully and flexibly adapted to the needs not only of disciplines and individuals, but of each individual research project. Requiring monograph OA if the author does not wish to provide it is not reasonable, but perhaps many or most monograph authors would not mind depositing their texts as Closed Access. -- To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml?f -- To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/forum.shtml?f ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
