[GOAL] Re: Reaching for the Reachable

[Stevan Harnad]

FOR THE PERPLEXED GOAL READER:

For the perplexed reader who is wondering what on earth all this to and fro
on GOAL is about:

1. Gratis Open Access (OA) means free online access to peer-reviewed
journal articles.

2. Libre OA means free online access to peer-reviewed journal articles +
certain re-use rights (often CC-BY).

3. Green OA means OA provided by authors self-archiving their peer-reviewed
final drafts free for all online (either in the author's institutional
repository or website or in an institution-external central repository)

4. Gold OA means OA provided by authors publishing in OA journals that
provide free online access to their articles (Gratis or Libre), often at
the cost of an author publication fee.

5. Global OA today stands at about 20% of yearly journal article output,
though this varies by discipline, with some higher (particle physics near
100%) and some lower (chemistry among the lowest).

6. About two thirds of the global 20% OA is Green and one third is Gold.
Almost all of it is Gratis rather than Libre.

7. Institutions and funders that mandate Green OA have much higher Green OA
rates (70%+), but only if they have effective Green OA mandates -- and only
a tiny proportion of the world's institutions and funders mandate OA as yet
have Green OA mandates at all.

8. Ineffective Green OA mandates are the ones that require self-archiving
only if and when the publisher endorses self-archiving: 60% of journals
endorse immediate Green OA self-archiving; 40% ask for embargoes of varying
in length from 6-12 months to 5 years or indefinitely.

9. Effective Green OA mandates (ID/OA: Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access)
are the ones that require immediate deposit of all articles, but if the
publisher has an OA embargo, access to the deposit can be set as "Closed
Access" during the allowable embargo period (preferably no more than 6
months).

10. During any embargo, the institutional repository has an automated
email-eprint-request button that allows users to request a copy for
research purposes with one click, and allows the author to comply with one
click. (This is not OA but "Almost-OA".)

11. The rationale for ID/OA + the Almost-OA button is to ensure that 100%
of papers are immediately deposited and accessible for research purposes,
not just the 60% that have publisher endorsement.

12. The expectation is that once ID/OA is mandated globally by 100% of
institutions and funders, not only will it provide 60% immediate-OA plus
40% Almost-OA, but it will hasten the end of OA embargoes, as the power and
utility of OA become evident, familiar and indispensable to all
researchers, as authors and users.

There are additional details about optimal mandates. (Deposit should be
designated the sole procedure for submitting publications for institutional
performance review, and funders should mandate convergent institutional
deposit rather than divergent institution-external deposit.)

And the further expectation is that once Gratis Green OA is mandated by
institutions and funders globally, it will hasten the advent of Libre OA
(CC-BY) and Gold OA.

All the frustration and complaints being vented in the recent GOAL postings
are with the lack of OA. But frustration will not bring OA. Only mandates
will. And the optimal mandate is ID/OA, even if it does not confer instant
global OA.

First things first. Don't let the unreachable best get in the way of the
reachable better. Grasp what is already within reach.

Stevan Harnad


On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 3:48 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 8:08 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Jan Velterop <velterop at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Stevan may well be right that the repository of the U of Liege (ORBi)
>>> contains 3,620 chemistry papers. But apart from posters, most deposits of
>>> articles published in peer-reviewed journals, and even theses, are marked
>>> "restricted access" and not accessible to me, and 'libre' access seems
>>> completely out of scope. So if this is the best example of a successful OA
>>> repository, Peter Murray-Rust can be forgiven for getting the impression
>>> that compliance is essentially zero, in terms of Open Access.
>>>
>>
>>
> I am generalizing from a sample of one in Liege (ORBIS) . This says:
>
>
> *Reference: Ivanova, T. et al - (2012) - Preparation and characterisation
> of Ag incorporated Al2O3 nanocomposite films obtained by sol-gel method [
> handle:2268/127219 <http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/127219> ]*
>
> *Document(s) requested:*
>  *Tanya-CRT47-579.pdf - Publisher postprint *
>
> *The desired document is not currently available on open access.
> Nevertheless you can request an offprint from the author(s) through the
> form below. If your request is accepted you will receive by email a link
> allowing you access to the document for 5 days, 5 download attempts
> maximum.*
>
> *...
> *
> *The University expressly draws your attention to the fact that the
> electronic copy can only be used for the strict purposes of illustration
> and teaching and academic and scientific research, as long as it is not for
> the purposes of financial gain, and that the source, including the
> author’s name is indicated.
> *
>
> So If I am a small business creating science-based work I am not allowed
> the "Open Access" from Liege. If I represent a patient group I am not
> allowed this material. If I am in government making eveidence-based policy
> I am not allowed it. It is the pernicious model that only academics need
> and can have access to the results of scholarship.
>
> As I have said before University repositories seem to delight in the
> process of restricting access.
>
> No wonder that no-one will use this repo. All it seems to do is mail the
> author and I can do that anyway (presumably if the author leaves the uni
> then the email goes nowhere).
>
> In today's market any young reseacher will use #icanhazpdf instead. I am
> not condoning #icanhazpdf but I am far more sympathetic to it than repos.
>
> But I have been told to shut up and I will. I'm slightly disappointed that
> no-one is prepared to consider the possibility we should do something
> different.
>
>
>
> --
> 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 at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>
>
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