[BOAI] Re: Is a Different OA Strategy Needed for Social Sciences and Humanities? (No)

[Jean-Claude Guédon]

Quickly, because I do not want to get involved in a marathon debate :

1. if it is a "great strategic mistake to conflate the exception-free
subset with the exception-ridden superset", it is also a great a
strategic mistake to present Open Access in such a way that humanists
and social scientists may feel unconcerned because their world works a
little differently. Books are the most prestigious publications in
history, literature, philosophy, etc. They are not written for
royalties, even though paltry royalties may be paid to authors
sometimes... But the idea that if it is a book, it means that an author
does not want to give the content for free is not right. 

Like Stevan, I would be very happy to see mandates extend to monographs,
albeit a closed archive for a large proportion of them. Why not simply
include this in mandates?

2. The issue of gold journals was not raised here.

3. I know Stevan prefers a narrowly focused target as a way to get the
whole situation moving, but I go back to strategic mistakes: let us not
lose SSH researchers, especially as they represent large proportions of
university faculties. They can be powerful allies if they feel their
needs are covered.

4. The quotation issue has never been understood by Stevan, and it is a
pity: most SSH journals would not accept the kind of referencing he
suggests. Most journals, in fact, impose their citation and quotation
referencing styles. As they now also accept electronic references, it
leads to what I said: references to repository articles are beginning to
appear in significant numbers. This raise a new question, that of
quality control of the versions in the repositories, but that can be
solved too. It is therefore true that the lack of reliable pagination is
probably a fading inconvenience.

6. About the "fair-dealing" button, thank you for this clarification:
this solution should indeed solve the problem with that issue.

Let us not be concerned about keeping the narrow focus of OA to the
point  that it begins to feel ill fitted to the needs of SSH
researchers. Broadening these categories a little will not slow down OA,
and it will bring in a much greater number of interested people.

Amitiés, indeed, Stevan,

Jean-Claude

-- 
Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal



Le dimanche 06 novembre 2011 à 16:06 -0500, Stevan Harnad a écrit :

> 
> On 2011-11-06, at 1:28 PM, Jean-Claude Guédon wrote:
> 
> 
>         The primary target information of the OA movement is refereed
>         research results in whatever form, articles, books, etc. They
>         are written for research uptake, and even though some research
>         monographs may entail symbolic royalties, they are not
>         published for this reason. As a result, they should not be
>         distinguished from the rest, especially because they
>         constitute the dominant symbolic currency of the humanities
>         and the social sciences. The OA movement also deals with the
>         humanities and the social sciences.
> 
> 
> A distinction can and must be made between what authors want to give
> away free for all and what they do not want to give away free for all.
> 
> 
> Underlying this is the all-important underlying distinction between
> what institutions and funders can mandate (require) to be made OA and
> what they cannot.
> 
> Books are always welcome as OA, of course, but only articles can be
> mandated to be made OA because they are the only ones that are,
> without exception, written by their authors solely for research
> uptake, usage and impact, not for royalty revenue.
> 
> It is a great strategic mistake to conflate the exception-free subset
> with the exception-ridden supraset,
>  
> 
>         The situation is not so rosily green (!!!) in the humanities
>         and social sciences, and it is far worse in the case of
>         monographs.
> 
> 
> For monographs, see above.
> 
> 
> Among the 60% of all journals that are already green on immediate
> green OA self-archiving by their authors, the only systematic
> discipline difference I know of for sure is chemistry, because of the
> ACS's regressive policy. All the large international,
> multidisciplinary green publishers (CUP, Elsevier, John Wiley, Kluwer,
> Springer) include social science and humanities (SSH) journals among
> their titles. 
> 
> 
> Is there evidence that among all SSH journals the proportion of green
> journals differs significantly from 60%? (This may be true for some
> national journals and non-English-language journals; I do not know,
> although one hears the reverse: that national and non-English language
> journals have a higher, not a lower proportion of gold journals (which
> are, a fortiori, also green), and even gold journals that do not
> charge pay-to-publish fees.)
> 
> 
> In any case, this matter is irrelevant for mandates, because what can
> be universally mandated, without exception, in all fields, is
> immediate deposit in the author's institutional repository, whether or
> not the journal is green (i.e., whether or not it endorses making
> deposits OA immediately, or instead insists on a Closed Access embargo
> period of various -- sometimes infinite -- length).
> 
> 
> In principle, one could also mandate deposit of all monographs too,
> allowing the option of Closed Access, exactly as with non-green
> journal articles -- and I personally think this would be a wonderful
> idea. 
> 
> 
> But, practically speaking, considering all the misunderstandings that
> abound, slowing the adoption even of journal-article mandates, I would
> again recommend accomplishing the latter first, without inviting
> trouble and opposition by over-reaching for books too. (They will all
> come once we have at long last had the sense to do the doable, which
> is to mandate green for all articles, first.)
> 
> 
>         This is important to avoid discriminating against the
>         humanities and the social sciences, once again.
> 
> 
> There is no discrimination against SSH! Authors are free to
> self-archive their books too. But it is their articles that they
> *must* self-archive.
> 
> 
>         [Regarding mandating the deposit of the author's refereed,
>         corrected, accepted final draft is the refereed journal
>         article]...
>         I agree with this, but must point out, once more, that the
>         humanities and social sciences do not limit themselves to
>         citing articles; they also quote from these articles, and this
>         requires page numbers. if the version made accessible in
>         a repository is not paginated in the same way as the final,
>         publisher's version, it can be read and cited, but not quoted
>         in the usual manner. This situation creates obstacles to
>         researchers. 
> 
> Please, please let us not air this all again! What is at issue is
> which version is within immediate reach, with minimal publisher
> constraints, and that version is the author's final draft. That is the
> one for which deposit can and must be mandated. And that is the one
> that means the difference between night and day for those who wish to
> access, read, cite *and quote* it, if otherwise their institutions
> cannot afford subscription access to the publisher's version of record
> at all.
> 
> 
> Yes, the absence of the pagination is a slight scholarly
> inconvenience. But what is the size of this inconvenience, compared to
> no access at all? And the locus of a quoted passage can be indicated
> in a perfectly rigorous, effective and scholarly way by citing the
> section name and paragraph number in place of the page number. (It's
> even more specific!)
> 
> 
> And what is the point? Since far more publishers are green on
> immediate OA for the author's final draft than for the publisher's
> paginated version of record, why are we talking about the need of page
> numbers to quote from the publisher's version of record when most
> institutions have not yet even mandated the self-archiving the
> author's final draft?
> 
> 
> Why even mention the unreachable "more," when we have not even
> bothered to grasp the vast benefits of the "less" that is fully within
> reach?
> 
> 
>         It is more like the difference between night and early dawn.
>         The "night and day" result happens when only citing is needed.
>         In cases where quoting is also needed, it is more difficult to
>         achieve (hence the dawn, rather the day). In poorer countries,
>         I suspect it is close to being impossible.
> 
> 
> Jean-Claude, I cannot see the point that is being made here. But I
> think it has been made, and answered, so many times in this Forum that
> there is nothing new to be learned.
> 
> 
> Yes, I myself keep repeating the mandating point too, but that is
> something that is practically feasible, and has been for some time.
> The idea is to get people to at least do that, at long last, rather
> than to continue dwelling on how it falls short of the ideal...
> 
> 
>         I agree with all of this, but I must point out that in some
>         countries, including the US, the "email eprint request" must
>         be designed very carefully so as not to run afoul of copyright
>         legislation. An automatic sending of the article by
>         the repository simultaneously with the sending of the email
>         request to the author, even though the author may have given a
>         blanket release on his article, may be assimilated to illegal
>         publishing in some jurisdictions, especially if the author has
>         signer all of her rights away to a publisher. The best way is
>         to have a letter go to the author and have the author send
>         directly the article to the person requesting. This will
>         protect the repository from possible litigations.
>         
> 
> 
> The latter, not the former, is precisely how the Button works. The IR
> does not send out copies automatically. What it does is relay eprint
> requests from would-be users (paste  name and email in a box and click
> once) to the author, who receives an email requesting the eprint and
> can authorize the emailing with one click.
> 
> 
> 
> Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S.
> (2012) Open Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing" Button. In: Dynamic
> Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online (Rosemary J. Coombe &
> Darren Wershler, Eds.) http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18511/
> 
> ABSTRACT: We describe the "Fair Dealing Button," a feature designed
> for authors who have deposited their papers in an Open Access
> Institutional Repository but have deposited them as "Closed
> Access" (meaning only the metadata are visible and retrievable, not
> the full eprint) rather than Open Access. The Button allows individual
> users to request and authors to provide a single eprint via
> semi-automated email. The purpose of the Button is to tide over
> research usage needs during any publisher embargo on Open Access and,
> more importantly, to make it possible for institutions to adopt the
> "Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access" Mandate, without exceptions or
> opt-outs, instead of a mandate that allows delayed deposit or deposit
> waivers, depending on publisher permissions or embargoes (or no
> mandate at all). This is only "Almost-Open Access," but in
> facilitating exception-free immediate-deposit mandates it will
> accelerate the advent of universal Open Access.
> 
> 
> Amitiés,
> Stevan
> 
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