I think we are going somewhere here. Could we manage, with the help of some foundation, manage to bring together a number of top university administrators from all over the world (minimum 20) to hash out exactly what could be done in a coordinated fashion?
Moving en masse to a mandate would create a real momentum that could no longer be ignored. Who wants to work on this? I do! Jean-Claude Le jeudi 12 juillet 2012 à 10:15 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit : > On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 3:36 AM, Peter > Murray-Rust <[email protected]> wrote: > > Fairy Tale: > * The top 20 vice-chancellors (provosts, heads of > institutions) in the world meet for 2 days (obviously > somewhere nice). > * They bring along a few techies (I'd go). > * They agree that they will create copies of all the > papers their faculty have published. (this is trivial > as they are already collecting them for REF, etc. And > if they can't , then I can provide software). > * They reformat them to non-PDF. > * They put them up on their university website. > * They prepare to fight the challenge from the > publishers. > and > * they win the law suit. Because it's inconceivable that > a judge (except in Texas) will find for the > publishers. > * Other universities will take the model and do it. > > > > > Rather than asking universities, unrealistically, to risk a lawsuit, > needlessly (even though I agree completely with PM-R that it would be > lost), as in PM-R's "fairy tail," why not, realistically, do almost > the same thing: > > > > * The top 20 vice-chancellors (provosts, heads of > institutions) in the world meet for 2 days > * They agree that they will mandate that copies of all > the papers their faculty are deposited in their > institutional repositories immediately upon acceptance > for publication > * They adopt the optimal mandate: ID/OA, together with > the email-eprint-request "Almost-OA" Button for > embargoed deposits. > * Other universities will take the model and do it. > > This is called Green Gratis OA self-archiving. No one is proposing to > "forfeit" either Gold OA or Libre OA (re-use rights), just to accord > priority to the more important and urgent, and also easier and more > reachable goal of mandating Green Gratis OA first, because it is > within reach and already underway. > > > The Libre OA and Gold OA will follow the universal mandating of Green > Gratis OA as surely as the publishers' lawsuit would lose if PM-R's > fairy tale came true. > > > But next to nothing at all will happen if we keep on failing to reach > first for the reachable, and keep insisting instead on the > unreachable. > > > Stevan Harnad > > > On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 3:36 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I think JC identifies the key point: > > > On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 11:04 PM, Jean-Claude Guédon > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Gold OA will not get in the way of Green OA if it is > explained correctly; and forfeiting gold OA will do > more harm to the OA movement than the harm gold OA > could ever and putatively make to green OA. > > If, among OA advocates, we could get this behind us, > we could achieve four important results: > > 1. We would be far more united, and, therefore, more > powerful; > > > Yes. But JC does not go far enough. Here's my diagnosis and a > fairy-tale > > * The OA movement is fragmented, with no clear unified > objective. We (if I can count myself a member of > anything) resemble the People's Front of Judea and the > Judean People's Front (Monty Python). Every time I am > lectured on why one approach is the only one I lose > energy and the movement - if it is a movement - loses > credibility. Until we get a unified body that fights > for our rights we are ineffective. > * Most people (especially librarians) are scared stiff > of publishers and their lawyers. > * There is a huge pot of public money (tens of billions > in sciences) and it's easier to pay off the publishers > than standing against them. There is no price control > on publishing - publishers charge what they can get > away with. > * The contract between publishers and academics has > completely broken down. The Finch report, the > Hargreaves process have not thrown up a single > constructive suggestion from toll-access publishers > * senior people in universities don't care enough about > the problem to challenge publishers. It's easier to > put up student fees to pay the ransom. And many have > accepted the Faustian bargain. (Here's an awful > example of an LSE academic who "published" a paper > > http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/07/11/scholarly-publishing-broken-guerrilla-self-publishing/ > only to have to wait TWO YEARS while th epubklishers typeset it. And her > boss would rather NO ONE read it as long as LSE got the glory. > * Young people are disillusioned and frightened. > > So here's my fairy tale. It more likely to happen than > universal green OA mandates. It's more likely to happen than a > useful amount of Gold OA. It is technically trivial (My > software can do it). > > Fairy Tale: > > * The top 20 vice-chancellors (provosts, heads of > institutions) in the world meet for 2 days (obviously > somewhere nice). > * They bring along a few techies (I'd go). > * They agree that they will create copies of all the > papers their faculty have published. (this is trivial > as they are already collecting them for REF, etc. And > if they can't , then I can provide software). > * They reformat them to non-PDF. > * They put them up on their university website. > * They prepare to fight the challenge from the > publishers. > > and > > * they win the law suit. Because it's inconceivable that > a judge (except in Texas) will find for the > publishers. > * Other universities will take the model and do it. > > Total cost perhaps 1 million per university. It's cheaper than > running our currently empty repositories. It's cheaper than > hybrid fees. > > > There's only one thing missing: > > COURAGE. > > > > > > -- > Peter Murray-Rust > Reader in Molecular Informatics > Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry > University of Cambridge > CB2 1EW, UK > +44-1223-763069 > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
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