I agree with Peter that the differences under discussion are about untested empirical predictions, and that no one can know for sure in advance how they will come out. So we are discussing a priori probabilities.
On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, Peter Suber wrote: > Some of the content that CIC institutions share freely among themselves is > in the give-away category (ejournals) and some is not (ebooks). But the give-away/non-give-away distinction is NOT co-extensive with the ejournal/ebook distinction! Both ejournals and ebooks are PUBLISHER products (and, of course, universities can be publishers too, which contributes to the ambiguity here); and, in general, neither ejournals nor journals are give-aways today (just as neither books nor ebooks are). The relevant distinction is hence between non-give-away journals/ejournals/books/ebooks, on the one hand, and give-away refereed-journal ARTICLES, on the other. It is the latter that are author give-aways. Hence "ejournals" vs. "ebooks" is not the issue, at the institutional level (unless we are merely talking about a consortial site-license between epublishers, for their published titles, rather than between universities, for their refereed research output!). The relevant distinction for universities is hence that between their own authors' journal-article output (all give-away) and their own authors' book output (mostly non-give-away). (I think there is a wide-spread systematic ambiguity -- if not an ambivalence -- about this fundamental distinction in all current discussions and thought about this subject.) > It's true > that I wasn't tracking this distinction when I made my suggestion. But I > haven't changed my position on the importance of author consent (hence, on > the distinction between give-away and non-give-away content). I should > have said that CIC could put the give-away portion of its content into > open-access archives. Thanks for the clarification, and I didn't doubt that the distinction was clear in Peter's own mind and intentions. What is more important is that it should also be clear in CIC's mind, and the minds of like-minded institutions that might follow suit, or might be thinking along similar lines. I must also note an element of complication that arises from this, however. (And this has nothing to do with the specific point about the preferability of making all give-away content open-access rather than consortial-access.) If an open-treaty consortium is intended for its own outgoing content (both author non-give-away books [the majority] and author give-away books [the minority], plus refereed journal papers [all give-away]), and it is accessible only to those who join the consortium, then it makes the criterion for consortium membership rather vague, if not arbitrary: "Join, and then contribute whatever you decide is give-away?" (If there are no fees for joining, this simply reduces to open-access, with the consortial-joining a mere formality.) "Join, and you must contribute everything, give-away and non-give-away?" (This will be a deterrent to joining, and hence a needless deterrent to the give-away of give-away content, simply because it is co-bundled with non-give-away content.) "Join, for a consortial joining fee." (This is basically a consortial site-license, which is a form of negotiated toll-access. For non-give-away content, it might be a valid new source of revenue and perhaps the stable PostGutenberg business model. But for give-away content, it is merely a new source of unwanted and unneeded chains. Hence again a pity to try to co-bundle the two profoundly disparate forms of content. The right solution for the one is the wrong solution for the other.) > But I still like the open treaty idea to enlarge the CIC consortium and I > still believe that including give-away content in the consortial sharing > can be a step forward. Stevan and I agree that if an institution does not > provide open access to the journal articles of its faculty, then it should > do so. But here I'm adding that if it provides open access only to > reciprocating universities, then that is better than not providing open > access to anyone. By calling it a "huge mistake", Stevan implies that it > should be avoided at all costs. Perhaps a "huge mistake" is an exaggeration: I should have said that it was vague and ill thought-through, and that if one thinks it through, one will find that it is either (1) incoherent (applying incompatible solutions to disparate kinds of content) or (2) merely a form of site-license, effectively perpetuating access-denial to the give-away literature, or (3) an arbitrary access restriction, merely decorative, yet dysfunctional. Note that providing access only to reciprocating universities already has a name, and that name certainly isn't "open access": It is a consortial site license (or interlibrary-loan agreement). The terms could in principle be worked out with the participating publishers, and the whole thing could just turn into another Trojan Horse like the Big Deal. "Journal Publisher Click-Through Monopoly: A Trojan Horse" http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0436.html How much simpler it is to call a spade a spade: Each university has its own give-away content, written not for the sake of royalty income but for the sake of research impact. If the university finds its way to self-archiving that so as to increase its access and impact, what is the point of restricting that access (and impact) to participating consortial universities? To summarize: My guess is that the give-away/non-give-away aspects and the site-license aspects have not been thought through, and if/when they are, open-treaty consortial-access to give-away content will be found to be (3) decorative/dysfunctional. Of course Peter is right that if, despite this, open-treaty consortial-access proves to be the magic bullet, or, to switch metaphors, the polydipsic agent that at last succeeeds in inducing the academic cavalry and their hosts to drink from the waters of self-archiving for the sake of their give-away content and its lost impact, then it is certainly welcome. For, once the benefits of this partially increased access become apparent, the scales will fall from researchers' eyes (and so will the remaining arbitrary access barriers). >From the standpoint of probability, however, and parsimony, it does seem like a rather Rube-Goldbergish way for the token to fall, at last. But who knows?... > In the context of my original message, I was replying to the question how > CIC could do more than it is already doing to help the cause of open > access. One way to restate my answer is that putting its content into > open-access archives would be best, and that moving from a dozen members to > an "open treaty" would be second-best. Agreed. But let us remember that at the moment the CIC have a consortium and the notion of "open treaty," but no content! (The current horse/water status quo; a stand-off.) Hence the right way to state the probabilities is: What is more likely to draw their researchers' refereed research papers into university Eprint Archives at last? The lure of consortial-access or the lure of open-access? If it is the former, then more power to it, of course, be it ever so Rube-Goldbergish! > Here's another way to put this. Compared to open access, consortial > restrictions on give-away content are unjustified. But compared to priced > access, open access to consortial members is a step in the right direction. But in the absence of archive content in the first place, one must ask whether that content is more likely to be attracted by the siren call of consortial access or open access? Particularly when the siren call of consortial access sounds suspiciously like the siren call of consortial site licensing (the Trojan Horse mentioned earlier)... > sh> One size does not fit all. > > It's one thing to argue that restrictions on access should be lifted. But > here Stevan is also arguing that unrestricted access should be the "only > objective". If this means that recognizing a second-best path negates the > value of the best path, then I believe it is mistaken. This is rather like talking about being "a little bit pregnant." Here are ways in which access (not OPEN access, which is clearly defined in the BOAI http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml as "free and unrestricted online availability, which we will call open access") can be increased: (1) make it accessible online (even if not toll-free) (2) make it accessible online to more users (site license) (3) make it accessible online at a lower access-toll (4) make it accessible online toll-free, but at a later date These are all ways of making research MORE accessible (probably there are other ways too). We are all in favor of more access (who would be opposed to increasing research access/impact?) -- except perhaps if it is at odds with open access, i.e., if partial access is increased at the cost of decreasing or slowing the likelihood of open access. Some of these trade-offs are unavoidable: Libraries must survive from day to day, so they must seek and take advantage of lower prices and site-license deals. But that is happening in any case. And that is not the BOAI. The BOAI is concerned specifically with open access, and should be careful to support partial-access solutions only if they increase, rather than decrease the probability of open access. > If the second-best path diverts anyone from the best, then it is a snare > and distraction. But if it is a step up from the third-best, then it is an > advance. It's a bit more complicated than that, as I've suggested above, if you substitute "open access" for "best." > If it could be shown that providing open access for give-away content only > to reciprocating institutions delays the day that an institution provides > open access to everyone, then I might join Stevan in discouraging > institutions from considering it. But this is an empirical question on > which I'd like to see some evidence. I'd say the same, but with the other default hypothesis: "If it could be shown that restricting access to reciprocating institutions DOES NOT delay open access," then BOAI should encourage it. But BOAI should certainly encourage institutional self-archiving, for the sake of hastening the growth of institutional give-away content. BOAI should perhaps simply not be involved in the formal details of the accessing. In the end, institutional self-archived content, guided by the benefits of maximizing access and impact, will find its own way, regardless of what formal plans the institutions may have made as a first approximation (e.g., consortial access) to the inevitable and optimal endstate: open access. So I'd say, if it successfully draws content, consortial-access is a harmless formality; without content, it is meaningless; but if it discourages content (by advocating new forms of restricted access instead of open access), it may become part of the problem rather than the solution -- and especially if it perpetuates the conflation of give-away contents with non-give-away contents, and of university access/impact issues with university intellectual-property-revenue issues. > Perhaps limiting an institution's > open-access options to "all or nothing" will eventually lead it to choose > all. But perhaps opening up degrees or stages of widened access, or open > access to progressively larger audiences, will start to change author and > reader expectations, and exert competitive pressure on priced providers, > that will eventually bring us to open access more quickly. I really don't > know, but this is the question I think we need to answer. There is an unstated premise in the way you are imagining it: You are imagining the content already there, and the only variable being the degree of access to it, from none to all. This might apply to journals -- along a hypothetical price and usage continuum that stretches from toll-access to open access -- for most journal publishers already have their full-text contents online. But it does not apply to universities until and unless they have their own authors' refereed-article content archived online. And their likelihood of getting their own authors' content online could depend on their formal plans and rationale for getting it online. But I agree that these are all very hypothetical questions, and can only be settled empirically. I would suggest only that CIC should uncouple completely its strategy for non-give-away and give-away content, treating the two completely independently. And then if they have a better incentive for getting their own give-away content self-archived online than the incentive of impact maximazation through open access, then BOAI should certainly support that better incentive. (But then what IS that incentive for consortial access rather than open access, for give-away content?) Stevan NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html or http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html Discussion can be posted to: [email protected] See also the Budapest Open Access Initiative: http://www.soros.org/openaccess and the Free Online Scholarship Movement: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
