[BOAI] Re: The affordability problem vs. the accessibility problem

[Stevan Harnad]

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 4:27 AM, CHARLES OPPENHEIM <
c.oppenheim at btinternet.com> wrote:

The solution for a young researcher needing publications is to submit their
> article to a prestigious Green-friendly journal, and post in a repository,
> OR submit the article to a prestigious OA journal like PLoS.


Almost exactly the right advice! -- but not quite:

The solution for a young researcher needing publications is to submit their
article to the most appropriate journal, with the highest quality standards
the research can meet -- *and always deposit the final draft in their
repository immediately upon acceptance for publication.*


If the journal is Green-OA-friendly (or Gold-OA), make the deposit OA
immediately.

If the journal is anti-Green-OA (i.e., if it embargoes OA), make the
deposit *Closed Access* instead of OA (and, with the help of the
repository's automated *"email eprint request" button*, provide a single
copy for research purposes with one button press to any would-be user who,
with one button press, requests a copy for research purposes).

Obviously, if there are two journals of equal appropriateness and equal
quality standards, pick the Green-friendly or Gold one over the anti-Green
one.

All of the above is the rationale for the Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access
Mandate, which is the one that all universities, research institutions and
research funders should adopt, worldwide.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html

Stevan Harnad
EnablingOpenAcholarship (EOS)
http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/c_6226/open-access-policies-for-universities-and-research-institutions?hlText=policie

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 4:27 AM, CHARLES OPPENHEIM <
c.oppenheim at btinternet.com> wrote:

> I agree with what Stevan and Andrew have said.  The idea that someone who
> has an access problem goes to a colleague in a different institution to get
> them to help out would be a breach of the e journal licence by that
> colleague.  I know of cases where the e journal publisher has cut off an
> entire university from access to its suite of journal for a lengthy period
> because it discovered that an academic was forwarding full text to people
> outside the institution.
>
> The solution for a young researcher needing publications is to submit
> their article to a prestigious Green-friendly journal, and post in a
> repository, OR submit the article to a prestigious OA journal like PLoS.
>
> Charles
>
> Professor Charles Oppenheim
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Andrew A. Adams <aaa at MEIJI.AC.JP>
> *To:* AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM at LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> *Sent:* Friday, 4 November 2011, 0:51
> *Subject:* Re: The affordability problem vs. the accessibility problem
>
> > I think there is a tendency to overly generalize the access problem
> which, =
> > in my mind, is primarily a problem with the biomedical literature.
> >
> > Lack of access, by members of the general public who need to go from
> PubMed=
> >  to the full text, is obviously very frustrating.
> >
> > My sense, however,  is that few serious researchers or students are
> truly h=
> > aving a problem with access to the scientific literature.
>
> I disagree completely. There is a serious access problem. It is
> particularly
> bad for researchers at mid-level/mid-size research universities who don't
> have the library resources that the larger top-level research universities
> have. I would put CalTech in that latter group, I think. It is also much
> more
> of a problem for inter/multidisciplinary researchers (*). I estimate that
> around half of the articles I wish to access are behind toll gates for
> which
> the individual article charge is usually $35. A colleague of mine from the
> University of Reading is currently on sabbatical and attached to University
> College London in a visiting position and is delighted with the extra
> access
> to the journal literature (primarily electronic via their VPN) that their
> library is able to afford over that which Reading is able to do so.
>
> (*) The reason that this is more of a problem for them (us, I should say
> since it includes myself) is that they eed access to a wider range of
> literature and not just a small set of core journals. My own work has
> referenced (only what I can access) journals from fields including history,
> sociology, computer science, politics, regional studies, psychology, law,
> and
> others. Neither my previous nor my current university has groups studying
> all
> these in the particular subfields that I want and therefore has no group
> pushing for access to all the different journals I need access to
> (typically
> I want access to one specific article in each journal, occasionally a whole
> special issue) and hence they are not on either university's subscription
> list and I have to scratch around or wait for paper ILL (which still
> costs).
> Typically I will contact the author if I can find their details and ask for
> an eprint, which sometimes works, but which sometimes leads an author who
> has
> the same attitude as you to simply point me at the publisher's website to
> pay
> their toll access fee (I try not to get angry when this happens in response
> to a request for an Open Access version or an emailed eprint).
>
> --
> Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
> Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
> Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
> Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan      http://www.a-cubed.info/
>
>
>
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