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

[Jean-Claude Guédon]

I have read with great interest this debate because, in essence, it
summarizes a great deal of the disagreements I have had with Stevan over
the years. 

We all share a common goal -- namely OA -- but we do not construe the
function, situation and purpose of research in the same manner.

There is an interesting contradiction in Stevan's argument: while he
wants to have researchers provide access to their research results,
these researchers do not find it in themselves to do so, at least not at
a level that exceeds 20% of the lot. Hence the need for a mandate.
However, the mandate, in the majority of cases, does not come from
researchers. It comes from funders, administrators, etc., who see the
importance of OA for reasons that may be the same as Stevan's, but that
will also involve their institutions, and their position within it.
These administrators, funders, etc., have to deal with public image,
political problems, etc. and they modulate their arguments accordingly.
At that level, the relationship with the general public, with lower
levels of education, with civil servants in need of up-to-date
information, with SME's, etc., comes into play. The total process is not
logical, but rather discursive ("discourse" here is taken in the sense
developed by Michel Foucault). Logic is not absent from this process,
but it is only a part of it, and not always a dominant part. To map a
strategy that is realistic, one needs to recognize this point.

There is one situation where Stevan's attitude would retain a modicum of
coherence, and that is the Harvard case where the faculty slapped a
mandate on itself. In this case, the whole OA issue was handled by
researchers alone, and one could imagine that the internal debate was
conducted according to research values. However, any discussion with
Stuart Shieber about the kind of footwork needed to achieve this result
shows that it encompassed far more than "pure research" values. Even
"pure" researchers, whoever they may be, have to stretch their arguments
beyond pure science to convince each other about an OA mandate. Nothing
surprising here!

Jean-Claude

Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal



Le lundi 30 avril 2012 à 12:16 +0100, Peter Murray-Rust a écrit :

> I feel I have to speak out against the opinions voiced by Stevan - I
> don't like to do this as there is - possibly - a common goal. But they
> are so exclusionary that they must be challenged, if only for those
> people people on the list and more widely who are looking for
> guidance.
> 
> The idea that there is a set of "researchers" in Universities who
> deserve special consideration and for whom public funds must be spent
> is offensive. I fall directly into SH's category of "the general
> public", whom he now identifies as of peripheral importance and
> thankful for the crumbs that fall from his approach.. I have worked in
> industry, work with industry and although I have been an academic am
> not now paid as one. The idea that I am de facto second-class is
> unacceptable, even if you accept the convoluted logic that this is
> necessary to achieve Green Open Access.
>  
> There are no areas of science and more generally scholarship which are
> not in principle highly valuable to "the general public". I am, for
> example, at present working in phylogenetics - not a discipline I have
> been trained in - and I and my software wishes to read 10,000 papers
> per year. Most of these papers could be of great interest to some
> people - they detail the speciation of organisms and are fully
> understandable by, say, those whose hobby is natural history or those
> with responsibility for decision making. 
> 
> SH's pronouncements do considerable damage to the OA movement. I am a
> supporter of publicly funded Gold OA and of domain repositories. I am
> not prepared for these to be dismissed ex cathedra. Both work well in
> the areas I am acquainted with - I am on the board of UK PubMedCentral
> and also on the board of a BOIA-compliant Open Access journal (where,
> by the way, half the papers come from outside academia and are every
> bit as competent and valuable). I have personally not many any
> scientists who are highly committed to Green OA and before stating
> their position as "facts" it would be useful to hear from them and
> listen.
> 
> There is an increasing amount of scholarship taking place outside
> Universities and without the public purse. Wikipedia is, perhaps, the
> best example of this and could - if minds were open - act as an
> interesting approach to respositories. It's notable that uptake of
> publication-related tools such as WP, Figshare, Dryad, Mendeley, etc.
> is high, because people actually want them. I would like to see effort
> on information-saving and sharing tools that people need and community
> repositories.
> 
> I'll stop there - I sincerely hope that SH's list does not get wider
> traction.
> 
> -- 
> Peter Murray-Rust
> emeritus Reader in Molecular Informatics
> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> University of Cambridge
> CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069
> 
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