Re: Is ESA first?
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Thomas J. Walker wrote: sh The market can then decide whether authors think this is worth the sh price -- as long as they are allowed the self-archiving option, hence sh the choice... tjw Free Web access as offered by ESA includes the right to self archive tjw and specifically to post the PDF file on any Web server that will have tjw it. The one aspect of this service yet to be implemented is the posting tjw of the articles on PubMed Central. ESA is currently trying to arrange tjw this. A bit of a misunderstanding here: The choice I meant was the choice between ESA-archiving of the PDF for a fee versus self-archiving one's own version of the refereed final draft for free. Not the a posteriori right to self-archive the PDF once one has paid the ESA fee... Stevan
Re: Legal ways around copyright for one's own giveaway texts
This is a response to Stevan's message (below) as well as posts from Christopher Green (of York U.) and Marvin Margoshes. I concentrates primarily on some access and political and economic issues. 1. It may well be that securing paper copies for teachers and students is not the focus of this Forum. Fine. But if those who have initiated this list and support the self-archiving proposal ( and I think, as well, that it has a number of merits) wish self archiving to have a practical future outside the confines of this list, I think that you do need to provide some answers to the type of questions that I and others have asked. In other words, what I assume to be central to the self-archiving proposal is the creation of a non-tollgated public domain of academic writing...or, in property terms,making such material, in part, common property (though reserving and preserving the important right of attribution, the right to include where this material came fromor who created it and how it became common property.) This right of attribution is much more important than the infringement questions I raised; I take some of Stevan's points on this matter. I raised them because traditionally infringement questions have been much more central to IP and copyright in Anglo-US IP law (where moral rights/right of attribution have had a decidedly second place.)What you are seeking, I take it, is the creation of common property that is not fenced in and not commodified ( giveaway texts) and that is freely accessible to all. 2. So the first question is, who makes up this all? From my reading of list, I take it your first priority is online access by researchers,those who produce for archives and those who wish to use archives in their own research. (call them Group A) Again fine. But what about others? That is, teachers who want to use such material for teaching purposes, students, those who want to make paper copies, those without personal online access, those in GROUP A who are also teachers(call them Group B). Unless A can convince B that this proposal is a good one, that is, also in their interest, and unite A B to oppose the opponents of self-archiving (and your forum has contained plenty of details on these baddies), this proposal will have a short shelf life and never catch on,I suggest, beyond A. 3. In this regard, C. Green statement that soon we'll simply expect students to have hand-held devices that access the web remotely e.g. from the classroom is interesting. I ask: who will pay for them? individuals? the state (that is, taxpayers)? And where? In affluent 1st world countries? In poorer 3rd world countries? This is a question this list needs to address, I think. And if you don't and do not take into account the trends in higher education finance in the UK, the US and elsewhere, you face the danger of creating a further information rich / information poor divide. I assume, in other words, that you actually do want to create an information democracy and not reproduce the current and unjust market-based and property-based (that is, private property based) system in information. And although hard copy is already on the decline, it still will be around for some time I suggest and in some places, for much longer than others. It will be a very long time before university students in Zimbabwe (Group B) have hand-held web access devices. Will Group A simply be researcher + the richest students in 1st world countries? So such access issues must be examined. 4. Marvin writes UK law may differ, but in the US it is okay to make copies of copyright material for teaching. They certainly do differ; Charles Oppenheim and others in the UK lis-copyseek discussion group spend literally hundreds of hours trying to work through the interpretative ins and outs of the UK's nightmarish Higher Education Copying Accord (HECA).And I am a member of another group, the Copyright in Higher Education Workgroup (CHEW) that is working for the dramatic overhauling/repeal of HECA. So the copyright issue for teaching purposes (e.g. student study packs), for libraries ( e.g. short loan or reserve collections) is a very real one here. Which is exactly one of the main reasons why I am interested in seeing what self-archiving proposal. And even in the US, Marvin, copyright IS AN ISSUE for teaching purposes. 5. Marvin, yes I understand that copyright is property. I have taught IP for 5 years and have written extensively on property law ( Modern Law Review, Journal of Political Philosophy.) This was the particularly non-collegial comment that got up my nose. 6. I want to applaud a number of comments in Stevan's first response to my original note. A good spirit, I think. At the same time, some of the legal issues are, in my opinion, somewhat more complex than you suggest. If I had more time, I would respond in more detail. Cheers Alan Story On Fri, 10 Mar 2000 23:18:02 + Stevan Harnad har...@coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote: On Fri, 10 Mar
Re: Peer Review Reform Hypothesis-Testing
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000, Andrew Kenneth Fletcher wrote: I have a real problem with the current Peer Review System. It is biased towards in-house publications and outsiders are ignored. I had an idea to set up a new newsgroup titled Peer Review Sci I am certain that it would attract many professional contributors, who would normally have been ignored by publishers and therefore provide independent researchers with an unbiased review of their work. It would also be a far better way to make sure that nothing false arrives in print, because it would be an open peer review system and anyone contributing either a paper or a review of a paper would be open to comment from other reviewers. This would generate a tremendous amount of new science and encourage the people with the ideas to come forward. What say ye to this? The notion of replacing peer review by some form of open commentary has been proposed many times, in this Forum and elsewhere (and it is being experimented with by several sites on the Web). See the other threads on this in this Forum (1999, 1999, 2000) and: Harnad, S. (1998) The invisible hand of peer review. Nature [online] (c. 5 Nov. 1998) http://helix.nature.com/webmatters/invisible/invisible.html Longer version below to appear in Exploit Interactive http://www.exploit-lib.org/: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature2.html Here are some relevant excerpts from the above: Self Policing? Alternatives have of course been proposed, but to propose is not to demonstrate viability. Most proposals have envisioned weakening the constraints of classical peer review in some way or other. the most radical way being to do away with it altogether: Let authors police themselves; let every submission be published, and let the reader decide what is to be taken seriously. This would amount to discarding the current hierarchical filter -- both its active influence, in directing revision, and its ranking of quality and reliability to guide the reader trying to navigate the ever-swelling literature (Hitchcock et al. 2000). There is a way to test our intuitions about the merits of this sort of proposal a priori, using a specialist domain that is somewhat more urgent and immediate than abstract learned inquiry; then if we are not prepared to generalise this intuitive test's verdict to scholarly/scientific research in general, we really need to ask ourselves how seriously we take the acquisition of knowledge: If someone near and dear to you were ill with a serious but potentially treatable disease, would you prefer to have them treated on the basis of the refereed medical literature or on the basis of an unfiltered free-for-all where the distinction between reliable expertise and ignorance, incompetence or charlatanism is left entirely to the reader, on a paper by paper basis? A variant on this scenario is currently being tested by the British Medical Journal http://www.bmj.com/cgi/shtml/misc/peer/index.shtml, but instead of entrusting entirely to the reader the quality control function performed by the referee in classical peer review, this variant, taking a cue from some of the developments and goings-on on both the Internet and Network TV chat-shows, plans to publicly post submitted papers unrefereed on the Web and to invite any reader to submit a commentary; these commentaries will then be used in lieu of referee reports as a basis for deciding on formal publication. Expert Opinion or Opinion Poll? Is this peer review? Well, it is not clear whether the self-appointed commentators will be qualified specialists (or how that is to be ascertained). The expert population in any given speciality is a scarce resource, already overharvested by classical peer review, so one wonders who would have the time or inclination to add journeyman commentary services to this load on their own initiative, particularly once it is no longer a rare novelty, and the entire raw, unpoliced literature is routinely appearing in this form first. Are those who have nothing more pressing to do with their time than this really the ones we want to trust to perform such a critical QC/C function for us all? And is the remedy for the possibility of bias or incompetence in referee-selection on the part of editors really to throw selectivity to the winds, and let referees pick themselves? Considering all that hangs on being published in refereed journals, it does not take much imagination to think of ways authors could manipulate such a public-polling system to their
Re: Legal ways around copyright for one's own giveaway texts
Stevan Harnad wrote: On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, Alan Story wrote: 3. In this regard, C. Green statement that soon we'll simply expect students to have hand-held devices that access the web remotely e.g. from the classroom is interesting. I ask: who will pay for them? individuals? the state (that is, taxpayers)? And where? In affluent 1st world countries? In poorer 3rd world countries? This is a question this list needs to address, I think. [...] The fact is that the researcher's case for freeing his own research reports is NOT contingent IN ANY WAY on who pays for hand-held classroom devices, and whether or not they ought to be free. Not should it be. And if you don't and do not take into account the trends in higher education finance in the UK, the US and elsewhere, you face the danger of creating a further information rich / information poor divide. Nothing of the sort. Freeing the research literature online now will have all the spinoff effects you desire, including the (secondary) DRIVING of demand for and provision of the means to access it (for teachers, students, 3rd world). Indeed, just the online freeing of the research literature will be an enormous boon for the disenfranchised 3rd world researcher right now: [...] I assume, in other words, that you actually do want to create an information democracy and not reproduce the current and unjust market-based and property-based (that is, private property based) system in information. I happen to be a socialist; but the research self-archiving movement, its rationale and its objectives, have absolutely nothing to do with that. We do not need to take on capitalism in order to achieve those face-valid objectives! Golly there's an awful lots of idealism and optimism at play here. I hardly know where to start. First, contrary to Stevan, I suspect that much of the third word will indeed be left behind by the increasing computerization of the first world. Although this may drive demand for electronics in the third world (note, however, I suspect the third world has far more pressing demands at present), it certainly won't provide the funds necessary to satisfy that demand. I don't see any obvious solution to that problem, however. Are we (scientists in the first world), REALLY, as Alan seems to suggest, supposed to continue to labor under the yoke of increasingly voracious publishing companies simply in order to satisfy the needs of that tiny fraction of the scientific community that resides in the third world? (Before someone righteously points out to me that the third world is a huge proportion of the earth's population, note that India and China are already making great strides toward computerization, and their best scientists and students won't be left behind. Countries like Zimbabwe, however -- the case Alan mentions specifically -- are of a different order, I think.) In any case, I suspect that *in the broader context,* it would be difficult could than Alan suggests to make a strong ethical case for this (viz. holding back so the third world can catch up). Consider: faster dissemination of scientific literature to scientists means, among other things, more rapid scientific progress (including improved treatment for disease in the third world, better food production and management, better water management, etc.). Is that to be traded away, or should, instead, those who are best off do the everything they can to help solve the problems of the world as a whole? Even if you could make a strong ethical case, do you really think that such an argument would really lead first world scientists to abstain from using one of their most powerful tools (computerized distribution of scientific results) or, do you, like I, expect that those scientists who did would rapidly become second-rate first worlds scientists)? Regards, -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3 e-mail: chri...@yorku.ca phone: (416) 736-5115 ext. 66164 fax:(416) 736-5814 http://www.yorku.ca/christo
Re: Is ESA first?
On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, Thomas J. Walker wrote: sh The market can then decide whether authors think this is worth the sh price -- as long as they are allowed the self-archiving option, hence sh the choice... ESA requires authors to sign a copyright release that has no provision for self-archiving. members of all the remaining scientific societies that publish journals should see to it that their societies adopt these two policies: 1. Authors are specifically permitted to self-archive their own versions of the paper-archived version of their articles. 2. Authors are permitted to buy, at a fair price, immediate free Web access to their articles. The first is important because it will demonstrate that the society is not trying to control the distribution of content. The second is important because it offers a market-driven, nondisruptive transition to free Web access to all journal articles. Thomas, maybe it's just me, but I still can't determine from the above: Does or does not ESA allow author self-archiving (of their own final, accepted draft), without having to pay ESA anything extra? If it does, then this is a true, benign option, and the most progressive one I've seen to date, completely in harmony with the mission of a learned society and the possibilities opened up by the new medium. Sorry to keep asking you to spell it out, but no provision still sounds abmbiguous to me... Stevan
Re: Is ESA first?
Tom, I believe there are a few scientific societies that already offere free online access on HighWire Press at Stanford. It looks like they are Journal of Clinical Investigation, BMJ (British Medical Journal), Clinical Medicine NetPrints, and Advances in Physiology Education. They all offer a free site through HighWire. Alan Kahan Director of Communications Entomological Society of America 9301 Annapolis Road Lanham, MD 20706 301-731-4535 ext.3020 301-731-4538 fax a...@entsoc.org - Original Message - From: Thomas J. Walker t...@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu To: September 1998 American Scientist Forum american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Cc: lhigl...@unl.edu; george_kenn...@ncsu.edu; a...@entsoc.org Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2000 12:47 PM Subject: Is ESA first? In June 1999, the Entomological Society of America starting offering authors in its journals immediate free Web access for their articles (a.k.a. electronic reprints). [It accomplishes this by making the PDF files of the articles freely accessible on its server.] In December, it lowered the price to 75% of the price of 100 paper reprints. ESA will soon announce to its members this new price and relatively new service. Would it be correct to state in the announcement that ESA is the first scientific society to offer its authors immediate free Web access for a (modest) price? If not, what scientific societies preceded ESA? [The Florida Entomological Society has been giving immediate free Web access to its authors since 1994, but will start charging for it when subscriptions decline.] Tom Walker == Thomas J. Walker Department of Entomology Nematology University of Florida, PO Box 110620, Gainesville, FL 32611-0620 E-mail: t...@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu FAX: (352)392-0190 Web: http://csssrvr.entnem.ufl.edu/~walker/tjwbib/walker.htm ==
Published Rebuttal to Bloom (1999) and Relman (1999)
This is a published rebuttal to: Bloom (1999) Editorial in Science and Relman (1999) Editorial in New England Journal of Medicine Harnad, S. (2000) E-Knowledge Computer Law Security Report 16(2) 78-87. http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.scinejm.htm
Re: Is ESA first?
At 02:58 PM 3/13/00 +, you wrote: On Mon, 13 Mar 2000, Thomas J. Walker wrote: sh The market can then decide whether authors think this is worth the sh price -- as long as they are allowed the self-archiving option, hence sh the choice... ESA requires authors to sign a copyright release that has no provision for self-archiving. members of all the remaining scientific societies that publish journals should see to it that their societies adopt these two policies: 1. Authors are specifically permitted to self-archive their own versions of the paper-archived version of their articles. 2. Authors are permitted to buy, at a fair price, immediate free Web access to their articles. The first is important because it will demonstrate that the society is not trying to control the distribution of content. The second is important because it offers a market-driven, nondisruptive transition to free Web access to all journal articles. Thomas, maybe it's just me, but I still can't determine from the above: Does or does not ESA allow author self-archiving (of their own final, accepted draft), without having to pay ESA anything extra? If it does, then this is a true, benign option, and the most progressive one I've seen to date, completely in harmony with the mission of a learned society and the possibilities opened up by the new medium. Sorry to keep asking you to spell it out, but no provision still sounds abmbiguous to me... To spell it out, ESA requires its authors to sign away _all_ their rights to their articles. It _should_ do what APS has done and specifically permit self-archiving of the content of the refereed version. In ESA's defense, I am sure ESA's GB would never authorize taking action against an author who self-archived content. In fact I was told that in a straw vote in June 1999, ESA's GB voted unanimously that ESA could not expect to continue to make money selling content. [This vote was not recorded in the minutes.] [Could you be confusing ESA with the Florida Entomological Society, which I told you earlier does not require authors to transfer copyright?] Tom Walker = Thomas J. Walker Department of Entomology Nematology University of Florida, PO Box 110620, Gainesville, FL 32611-0620 E-mail: t...@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu FAX: (352)392-0190 Web: http://csssrvr.entnem.ufl.edu/~walker/tjwbib/walker.htm =
Information Exchange Groups (IEGs)
Two key objections to IEGs at the time were: 1. Their exclusive nature. They were available only to a small group of laboratories. 2. The extremely cumbersome method of distribution and inconvenient format of the material. (They were one-sided photocopies of typescript.) The current self-archiving and related proposals, in any of their variants, are obviously free of both these objections. In the group that I remember (I was just beginning as a graduate student at the time), essentially all of the papers were fairly soon published in essentially unaltered form. This is not surprising when it is remembered that membership was limited to senior investigators at major institutions. The objections of journal publishers were taken perhaps a little more seriously at a time when major libraries could afford all necessary journals, and individual scientists the key titles. In retrospect, they certainly seem self-serving. Incidentally, has anyone kept an archive of any of the groups? A few items from them were (improperly, of course) cited in the literature and are sometimes requested, and I know of no source. With any of the current proposals, this subsequent loss of access would not recur. -- Dr. David Goodman Biology Librarian, and Co-Chair, Electronic Journals Task Force Princeton University Library dgood...@princeton.edu http://www.princeton.edu/~biolib/ phone: 609-258-3235fax: 609-258-2627
