[GOAL] Re: Open Access Priorities: Peer Access and Public Access

[Stevan Harnad]

On 2012-04-28, at 9:25 PM, Arthur Sale wrote:

>  1    the Australian NH&MRC funder mandate that is proposed
> was strongly influenced by general public pressure to access
> biomedical research. It was not as strongly influenced by researcher
> pressure for access. I suspect the same is true of the NIH mandate 

I've always agreed that pressure for biomedical OA mandates is a 
indeed a special case, strengthened by pressure for public access. 

But that it is not  representative of all or most of research, 
whereas researcher need for  researcher access ("peer
access") is.

Researcher pressure does not induce mandates: 
mandates induce researchers to provide OA.

Researchers' (and research's) need for peer access is 
universal: it's a rationale for mandating OA to *all* research.

>  2    Industrial and commercial developers and exploiters are not researchers. 

Industrial and commercial developers and exploiters are not the general
public but appliers of research. Evidence of their uptake and usage can be as
useful a contributor to the research impact of research and researchers as
citations can be. 

But industrial applicability is not representative of all or most of research, 
whereas researchers' need for researcher access is.

>   3    I challenge the group to nominate an area of science or social science
> in which there is not public interest. 

The (undoubted) existence of *some* public interest in *some* research does
not provide a rationale for making *all* research OA, whereas researchers' 
need for researcher access does.

That is why peer access must be given priority over public access.

There is no disagreement at all about the usefulness of supplementary
rationales for providing and mandating OA, such as public access.

The substantive point is about *priorities* (and universality).

>  Let’s ditch Stevan’s Points 8 and 9 and replace them by:
> 
> X8. All peer-reviewed research outputs are of direct interest to differing
> subsets of the general public. Some have small subsets; others large.
>  
> X9. Hence, for all research, "public access to publicly funded research"
> is good reason for providing OA, or for mandating that OA be provided,
> while noting that this argument is more persuasive to managers and
> politicians than to researchers who rely on peer assessment for
> financial rewards.”

Public access is a credible supplementary rationale, for some research. 
It is not credible as the primary rationale for providing or mandating OA.

I suggest leaving the original points 8 and 9 intact, and instead treating
X8 and X9 as supplementary rationales for providing and mandating 
OA --  relevant to some but not all research output.

> For reference, the original was:
>  
> 8. But most peer-reviewed research reports themselves are neither 
> understandable nor of direct interest to the general public as reading matter.
>  
> 9. Hence, for most research, "public access to publicly funded research," 
> is not reason enough for providing OA, nor for mandating that OA be provided.”

Stevan Harnad