It can be very good to convene a fresh set of minds to tackle the ways to get to open access. However, the most important point is to avoid —and reverse — the watering down of what open access is and why it is important. The simple message that open access means that one can do anything one likes with scholarly publications as long as the author is acknowledged has been lost in the, at times revisionist, discussions about expediency, concessions to the concept of open access, re-labelling and proliferation of qualifiers, etc. "Back to basics" is my device.
Some disambiguation and comments interleaved in the message to the 'perplexed reader' below. On 13 Jul 2012, at 15:21, Stevan Harnad wrote: > FOR THE PERPLEXED GOAL READER: > > For the perplexed reader who is wondering what on earth all this to and fro > on GOAL is about: > > 1. Gratis Open Access (OA) means free online access to peer-reviewed journal > articles. At the BOAI in 2001, the term "open" was deliberately chosen to avoid the impression that 'free' (= gratis) is enough. The Initiative (http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read) says: "By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited." The "crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose" seems subsequently to have fallen out of the equation. However, it is essential for academic literature to be called "Open Access". The term Open Access now appears to have been reduced to essentially 'free' (gratis) access, exactly what we sought to avoid at the BOAI meeting in 2001. > > 2. Libre OA means free online access to peer-reviewed journal articles + > certain re-use rights (often CC-BY). 'Libre OA' is tautological, as 'open' is already 'libre'. The perceived need for a term like 'libre access' has only come about because of the adulteration of the originally intended meaning of 'open access'. > > 3. Green OA means OA provided by authors self-archiving their peer-reviewed > final drafts free for all online (either in the author's institutional > repository or website or in an institution-external central repository) Green OA doesn't exist. Gold OA neither. OA is (should be, and was, before it was tampered with) unambiguous. 'Green' and 'gold' are just ways that lead to OA. Tactics, if you wish. Confusion about the goal and the means to reach the goal has reigned for almost a decade now, to the detriment of a clear vision of the goal. The way to the goal has become far more important in the discussions than the goal itself. That has to be remedied. > > 4. Gold OA means OA provided by authors publishing in OA journals that > provide free online access to their articles (Gratis or Libre), often at the > cost of an author publication fee. To repeat: gold OA doesn't exist, and green OA neither. Gold is one of the means to reach the goal and it mainly involves a shift away from financing publishing with subscriptions and replacing it by financing with subsidies, either 'by the drink' via author-side article processing fees or directly to the journals by institutional, governmental, or funding agency subsidies of some kind. > > 5. Global OA today stands at about 20% of yearly journal article output, > though this varies by discipline, with some higher (particle physics near > 100%) and some lower (chemistry among the lowest). > > 6. About two thirds of the global 20% OA is Green and one third is Gold. > Almost all of it is Gratis rather than Libre. Apart from the fact that gold OA doesn't exist, the so-called gold method to achieve OA is almost all real OA, i.e. 'libre', and not just free (gratis). The output of PLoS, BMC, Hindawi, Springer Open and hybrid, OUP open and hybrid, is all true OA ('libre'), so the statement that "almost all gold OA is gratis rather than libre" needs serious substantiation to say the least. > > 7. Institutions and funders that mandate Green OA have much higher Green OA > rates (70%+), but only if they have effective Green OA mandates -- and only a > tiny proportion of the world's institutions and funders mandate OA as yet > have Green OA mandates at all. > > 8. Ineffective Green OA mandates are the ones that require self-archiving > only if and when the publisher endorses self-archiving: 60% of journals > endorse immediate Green OA self-archiving; 40% ask for embargoes of varying > in length from 6-12 months to 5 years or indefinitely. "(Reluctantly) allowing" is not the same as "endorsing". As for embargoes, the biggest mistake made in the original BOAI statement is to leave out the word 'immediate'. > > 9. Effective Green OA mandates (ID/OA: Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access) are > the ones that require immediate deposit of all articles, but if the publisher > has an OA embargo, access to the deposit can be set as "Closed Access" during > the allowable embargo period (preferably no more than 6 months). Another confusing acronym introduced here, in which even OA means something other than Open Access. It almost appears as if confusing researchers has become the goal. What is needed is a dramatically simplified message: "Open Access means that you can do anything with an article as long as you acknowledge the original author". > > 10. During any embargo, the institutional repository has an automated > email-eprint-request button that allows users to request a copy for research > purposes with one click, and allows the author to comply with one click. > (This is not OA but "Almost-OA".) Well, why not. "Almost-OA", "Gold OA", "Green OA", "ID/OA", "Gratis OA", "Libre OA" — not seeing the forest for the trees. > > 11. The rationale for ID/OA + the Almost-OA button is to ensure that 100% of > papers are immediately deposited and accessible for research purposes, not > just the 60% that have publisher endorsement. > > 12. The expectation is that once ID/OA is mandated globally by 100% of > institutions and funders, not only will it provide 60% immediate-OA plus 40% > Almost-OA, but it will hasten the end of OA embargoes, as the power and > utility of OA become evident, familiar and indispensable to all researchers, > as authors and users. > > There are additional details about optimal mandates. (Deposit should be > designated the sole procedure for submitting publications for institutional > performance review, and funders should mandate convergent institutional > deposit rather than divergent institution-external deposit.) > > And the further expectation is that once Gratis Green OA is mandated by > institutions and funders globally, it will hasten the advent of Libre OA > (CC-BY) and Gold OA. This may well be the case, or it may not. In any event, it makes sense to prepare for the golden way to support OA. > > All the frustration and complaints being vented in the recent GOAL postings > are with the lack of OA. But frustration will not bring OA. Only mandates > will. And the optimal mandate is ID/OA, even if it does not confer instant > global OA. Much of the frustration is self-inflicted by muddying the waters, where crystal clear water is needed. > > First things first. Don't let the unreachable best get in the way of the > reachable better. Grasp what is already within reach. > > Stevan Harnad > > > On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 3:48 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 8:08 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > > > On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Jan Velterop <velte...@gmail.com> wrote: > Stevan may well be right that the repository of the U of Liege (ORBi) > contains 3,620 chemistry papers. But apart from posters, most deposits of > articles published in peer-reviewed journals, and even theses, are marked > "restricted access" and not accessible to me, and 'libre' access seems > completely out of scope. So if this is the best example of a successful OA > repository, Peter Murray-Rust can be forgiven for getting the impression that > compliance is essentially zero, in terms of Open Access. > > > I am generalizing from a sample of one in Liege (ORBIS) . This says: > > > Reference: Ivanova, T. et al - (2012) - Preparation and characterisation of > Ag incorporated Al2O3 nanocomposite films obtained by sol-gel method [ > handle:2268/127219 ] > > Document(s) requested: > Tanya-CRT47-579.pdf - Publisher postprint > > The desired document is not currently available on open access. Nevertheless > you can request an offprint from the author(s) through the form below. If > your request is accepted you will receive by email a link allowing you access > to the document for 5 days, 5 download attempts maximum. > > ... > > The University expressly draws your attention to the fact that the electronic > copy can only be used for the strict purposes of illustration and teaching > and academic and scientific research, as long as it is not for the purposes > of financial gain, and that the source, including the author’s name is > indicated. > > So If I am a small business creating science-based work I am not allowed the > "Open Access" from Liege. If I represent a patient group I am not allowed > this material. If I am in government making eveidence-based policy I am not > allowed it. It is the pernicious model that only academics need and can have > access to the results of scholarship. > > As I have said before University repositories seem to delight in the process > of restricting access. > > No wonder that no-one will use this repo. All it seems to do is mail the > author and I can do that anyway (presumably if the author leaves the uni then > the email goes nowhere). > > In today's market any young reseacher will use #icanhazpdf instead. I am not > condoning #icanhazpdf but I am far more sympathetic to it than repos. > > But I have been told to shut up and I will. I'm slightly disappointed that > no-one is prepared to consider the possibility we should do something > different. > > > > -- > Peter Murray-Rust > Reader in Molecular Informatics > Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry > University of Cambridge > CB2 1EW, UK > +44-1223-763069 > > _______________________________________________ > 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
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