[GOAL] Re: The bibliometrics of OA
European Commission has adopted the BOAI definition for years now (at least in 2007) see for example http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/open-access-pilot-in-ec-ppt_en.pdf In a recent document http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.topicid=1294lang=1 , the definition of Open Access is the following : 'Open Access' refers to the practice of granting free Internet access to research articles Hélène Bosc Open Access to Scientific Communication http://open-access.infodocs.eu/ - Original Message - From: Peter Murray-Rust To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2012 10:26 AM Subject: [GOAL] Re: The bibliometrics of OA Warning: I shall get shouted down for this post. On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Stevan Harnad har...@ecs.soton.ac.uk wrote: OA means free online access. When and where and by whom was this decided? It is incompatible with the BBB definitions. One of the problems of Open Access as a movement is that the terms used (in the period after BBB) are so poorly defined as to be essentially meaningless - Humpty-Dumpty ( When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.). P. -- 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
[GOAL] Open access Journal of Southern Religion adopts Creative Commons Attribution license
Open access Journal of Southern Religion adopts Creative Commons Attribution license http://wp.me/p20y83-q5 Earlier this month, the long-time online open access Journal of Southern Religion (ISSN: 1094-5253) began releasing its content under a Creative Commons Attribution license. The announcement can be found on the JSR blog here. If JSR was already an open access journal, what is the significance of this development? Gratis and libre open access The JSR announcement gives me an opportunity to distinguish between two general concepts of open or free access to online academic literature. The distinguishing terms usually applied in this discussion are gratis and libre. Gratis is related to the word grace, often connoting the idea of something given as a gift, and meaning a good or service that is provided without price or requirement of compensation. From the recipient’s point of view, the good or service is provided without charge. It’s free! Gratis open access allows reader access to online scholarly content without a subscription or article paywall barrier. (Access to a browser-equipped computer with an Internet connection, which may not be free, is assumed.) … Gary F. Daught Omega Alpha | Open Access Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com oa.openaccess @ gmail.com | @OAopenaccess ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Clarification of the new OA policy from the RCUK
Tomasz is certainly right in his reading of researchers needs and wants: Most researchers neither need nor want more than that their refereed articles should be free for all users online (Gratis OA). The BBB definition of OA has been considerably refined in the 10 years since we first improvised (sic) it in the BOAI. Gratis OA means free online access. Libre OA means free online access plus various re-use rights (on which not everyone is agreed, but could go up to CC-BY). Christoph Bruch wrote: Dear Tomasz, your understanding of OA is not in line with the Berlin Declaration: Open access contributions must satisfy two conditions: 1. The author(s) and right holder(s) of such contributions grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship (community standards, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now), as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use. To repeat: The original text is not Holy Writ: It is a provisional, fallible text that a number of us drafted and signed off on in the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002. Based on subsequent developments and experience, has since been further refined into two components: Gratis OA and Libre OA (2008). Gratis OA is much easier to reach, and it is a necessary condition for Libre OA. And it can be mandated by institutions and funders. In addition, all researchers need and want Gratis OA (online access, free for all), whereas not all need, want, or even know about Libre OA. Also, this conversation is about the Government / RUCK OA policy in UK, especially about the payment of OA fees. Indeed it is. And the point is that it is unnecessary and extremely counterproductive for RCUK (1) to dictate UK researchers' journal choice, (2) force UK researchers to pay for Libre (CC-BY) Gold OA when a hybrid Gold publisher offers *both* Gold and Green, (3) forbid UK researchers to publish in a journal that offers *neither* Gold nor Green within the allowable 6-12 month embargo period, and (4) to divert scarce research funds to pay subscription publishers even more for Gold OA instead of just strengthening the compliance mechanisms for a cost-free Gratis Green OA mandate. One may have to accept limited degrees of access when following the green road. Gratis Green is sufficient for most refereed research and researchers. Libre OA and Gold OA will come after Gratis Green is mandated globally. There are work-arounds even for publisher embargoes on Green OA (ID/OA + Almost-OA Button). Paying extra pre-emptively for hybrid Gold (and thereby encouraging publishers to extend Green OA embargoes to make sure the UK author must choose to pay for Gold) is an extremely bad idea, and will be strongly resisted by UK researchers and OA advocates if the RCUK policy is not revised. The UK incentive to publishers to offer hybrid Gold and lengthen Green embargoes is also deleterious to worldwide OA and Green OA mandates (and that -- aside from the prospect of a 6% increase over and above subscription income -- is why publishers are so laudatory about the new RCUK policy: they have been lobbying for just that for years). Funders have to define clearly what they are willing to spend money for when talking about the golden road. Until further notice, we are not just talking about spending scarce research money, but about *wasting* it, if RCUK authors are forced to pay for hybrid Gold *instead of* providing cost-free Green (irrespective of embargo length). From my perspective the goal is to make OA gold publications freely available for all legitimate uses with a one-off payment. From the perspective or research and researchers the goal is to make all research accessible online to all users, not just subscribers (Gratis OA); and once at least that necessary and long overdue condition is met, by mandating Green OA universally, the secondary and tertiary goals will follow as a natural matter of course: Libre OA and Gold OA -- and paid for, at as much lower price, out of subscription cancellation savings made possible by universal Green OA, rather than, as now being proposed, out of needlessly diverted research funds. This would certainly include data mining. Plenty of data-mining is possible via cost-free Gratis OA. The rest will come after Green Gratis OA has prevailed globally. *Note:* If a funder or institution has the spare cash, there is nothing wrong with their making it available to researchers to pay for Gold OA now, if they wish to -- *but only after the funder or institution has adopted Green OA mandate*, with an effective mechanism for monitoring
[GOAL] Re: [sparc-oaforum] Re: Clarification of the new OA policy from the RCUK
Dear Tomasz, your understanding of OA is not in line with the Berlin Declaration: Open access contributions must satisfy two conditions: 1. The author(s) and right holder(s) of such contributions grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship (community standards, will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now), as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use. Also, this conversation is about the Government / RUCK OA policy in UK, especially about the payment of OA fees. One may have to accept limited degrees of access when following the green road. Funders have to define clearly what they are willing to spend money for when talking about the golden road. From my perspective the goal is to make OA gold publications freely available for all legitimate uses with a one-off payment. This would certainly include data mining. Regards, Christoph Von: Tomasz Neugebauer [mailto:tomasz.neugeba...@concordia.ca] Gesendet: Freitag, 24. August 2012 23:43 An: Stevan Harnad; Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: BOAI Forum; SPARC Open Access Forum Betreff: RE: [sparc-oaforum] Re: Clarification of the new OA policy from the RCUK I have always thought that using text-minability and thus the potential development of web AI technologies as an argument for the benefits of open access was not appropriate. For many researchers, it is not an effective/convincing argument simply because the assumed benefits of this automation are too speculative. The following exchange demonstrates the confusion w.r.t. the purpose of open access: Mark Thorley argues as follows: We not only want research papers to be 'free to read' but also to be 'free to exploit' - not only for text and data mining to advance scholarship. but also to drive innovation in the scholarly communications market itself. Stevan Harnad responds: All OA advocates are in favour of text-minability, innovation potential, and as much CC-BY as each author needs and wants for their research output, over and above free online access to all research output -- but certainly not just for *some* research output, and certainly not at the expense (in both senses) of free online access to *all* research output I submit that part of the problem here is that not all researchers are in fact concerned with what is implied in text-minability, innovation potential, whereas many OA advocates have indeed implied that this is a key purpose of OA. The assumed purpose of a systemic change drives policy. I think that it was always a mistake to confuse the purpose of open access with text-minability and progress in the development of the semantic web. The purpose of the open access movement is to increase the access for *people* to the published results of research. I think that many OA advocates made the mistake to try to market OA as a stepping stone towards artificial intelligence on the web, and this was a mistake that has now found its way to RCUK policy. The benefits of text mining are much too speculative compared to the very tangible and fundamenetal benefits of people having free access to the published results of publicly funded research. Tomasz Neugebauer _ From: Stevan Harnad [amscifo...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 11:24 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: BOAI Forum; SPARC Open Access Forum Subject: [sparc-oaforum] Re: Clarification of the new OA policy from the RCUK Mark Thorley's response is very disappointing: -- MT: the 'corrections' [Harnad] proposes would dilute our policy so that it was no longer able to deliver the level of open access which the Research Councils require. http://blogs.rcuk.ac.uk/2012/08/10/the-benefits-of-open-access/#comment-81 The proposed corrections very explicitly *include* a correction to the level of open access the Research Councils require. To reply that this level is incorrigible and nonnegotiable is tantamount to saying our minds are made up, don't trouble us with further information. The points requiring correction are very specifically those concerning the level of open access (Gratis or Libre; immediate or embargoed) that is actually needed by UK researchers today, and at what price, both in terms of price paid, out of scarce research funds, and, far more important, in terms of Green OA lost, in the UK as well as in the rest of the world (to whose research, RCUK needs to remind itself, UK researchers require open access too). These matters are not resolved by asserting that Finch/RCUK has already made up its mind a-priori about the level of
[GOAL] Re: Springer now publishing Open Access books
Unless I am missing it, the SpringerOpen web site does not have any specific information on the publication fee for OA books. All I could find was, SpringerOpen books charge a publication fee at the beginning of the publication process. This fee varies depending on the number of pages per book. Perhaps someone from Springer could provide further pricing information for members of the GOAL mailing list? If there is no published price list, perhaps a few examples could be given, or a pricing formula? Richard Poynder PRESS RELEASE Springer now publishing Open Access books SpringerOpen Books launched at Beijing International Book Fair Beijing/New York, 29 August 2012 Springer is expanding its open access (OA) program by offering a fully open access option for books, which will extend Springer's established SpringerOpen and BioMed Central journal portfolio, and its Springer Open Choice option. Any electronic version of a SpringerOpen book is fully and immediately OA, and thus freely accessible on SpringerLink for anyone in the world with access to the internet. SpringerOpen books give authors and editors in all areas of science the opportunity to publish open access with the same high standards they are used to at Springer. Many of our authors, editors and societies have asked us for an open access option for books , said Bettina Goerner, Manager Open Access at Springer. The increasing interest in publishing open access books in the community led us to expand the SpringerOpen family by developing an open access option for books across all disciplines. The copyright for the entire open access book including every chapter remains with the editor/author. SpringerOpen books are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC) license. This facilitates the open distribution and the free re-use and sharing of the work for non-commercial purposes, as long as the authors/editors are properly attributed. SpringerOpen Book titles will be listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), the discovery service for OA books which increases visibility and findability of Springer's OA books. Books are the next logical focus in the progression of open access, and this initiative from Springer helps to establish open access as a viable publishing model for scholarly books, said Eelco Ferwerda, Director of the Directory of Open Access Books and the OAPEN Foundation. Springer began publishing individual open access papers through its Springer Open Choice model in 2004. Since then, the publishing group has refined and extended this publication model. In 2008 Springer acquired BioMed Central, making it one of the world's largest open access publishers. In 2010 Springer launched a new open access portfolio which now contains more than 90 open access journals focusing on specific research areas. In January 2012 the SpringerOpen journal portfolio was joined by SpringerPlus, an interdisciplinary open access journal, publishing research in all STM disciplines. Springer Science+Business Media ( http://www.springer.com www.springer.com) is a leading global scientific publisher, providing researchers in academia, scientific institutions and corporate RD departments with quality content via innovative information products and services. Springer is also a trusted local-language publisher in Europe - especially in Germany and the Netherlands - primarily for physicians and professionals working in the automotive, transport and healthcare sectors. Roughly 2,000 journals and more than 7,000 new books are published by Springer each year, and the group is home to the world's largest STM eBook collection, as well as the most comprehensive portfolio of open access journals. Springer employs nearly 6,200 individuals across the globe and in 2011 generated sales of approximately EUR 875 million. For more information visit: http://www.springeropen.com/books www.springeropen.com/books Contact: Eric Merkel-Sobotta | tel.: +49 30 827 87 54 34 | mailto:eric.merkel-sobo...@springer.com eric.merkel-sobo...@springer.com ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
