[GOAL] Re: RCUK & EC Did Not Follow Finch/Willets

[Stevan Harnad]

On 2012-07-25, at 1:40 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote:

> From: Ari Belenkiy <ari.belenkiy at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:50:34 -0700
> 
> Despite his valuable personal recollections, Steven Harnad  so far
> failed to answer  two my questions:
> 
> 1. Why the EU research must be immediately open for the non-EU
> researchers (who are not, in particularly, EU-taxpayers)?

Because research is done and reported in order to be used, applied 
and built upon by other researchers -- not just those who can
subscribe to the journal in which it appeared, or who live in the same
country as the researcher.

> 2. Why the EU taxpayers, who contribute different amounts in tax, must
> have equal opportunities to access the results of the EU research?

The primary purpose of providing OA is so that the primary intended
users of the research (researchers worldwide) can use, apply and
build upon it. Access by the interested public is a secondary bonus.

> [Of course, EU could be substituted here for Britain or the US or
> Russia or China or etc.]

If you want your research findings to be confidential and 
restricted, you don't publish them at all.

OA is for research published in peer-reviewed journals, for all
potential users. The journal price-tag is an access-restrictor.

Stevan Harnad

> On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 5:56 PM, LIBLICENSE <liblicense at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> From: Stevan Harnad <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
>> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 01:26:01 -0400
>> 
>> I am flattered that Dr. Watkinson feels I had special influence on Ian
>> Gibson and his Select Committee. I wish I had had. But alas the truth
>> is as I have already written: I was not one of the 23 witnesses invited
>> to give oral evidence (several publishers were).  Ian's parliamentary
>> assistant Sarah Revell pencilled me in for a personal appointment on
>> Wednesday October 13 2004 if Ian's jury duty ended in time (it did) but
>> my recall of that breathless brief audience was that it was too
>> compressed for me to be able to stutter out much that made sense,
>> and I left it pretty pessimistic. And my over-zealous attempts to
>> compensate for it via email were very politely but firmly discouraged
>> by  the committee's very able clerk, Emily Commander. So my input
>> amounted  to being one of the 127 who submitted written evidence,
>> plus that tachylalic audience on the 13th. The rest of the influence
>> on the committee was from written reasons, not personal charisma.
>> 
>> As to publishers, and learned-society publishers: they are pretty
>> much of a muchness in their fealty to their bottom lines. The only
>> learned societies that could testify with a disinterested voice (let
>> alone one that represented the interests of learned research
>> rather than earned revenues) were the learned societies that
>> that were not also publishers.
>> 
>> Stevan Harnad
>> 
>> On 2012-07-22, at 10:42 PM, LIBLICENSE wrote:
>> 
>>> From: ANTHONY WATKINSON <anthony.watkinson at btinternet.com>
>>> Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:44:48 +0100
>>> 
>>> Of course publishers are going to lobby against the green route to
>>> open access: the arguments from publishers are well known and in no
>>> way hidden and whether or not the lobbying is aggressive is a matter
>>> of one's own perceptions surely.
>>> 
>>> Going back to 2003/2004 I was asked to be the expert adviser to the
>>> committee that we both referred to and had a pleasant conversation
>>> with Ian Gibson, the member of parliament who was the committee chair.
>>> It seemed to me in our conversation that Dr. Gibson had already been
>>> lobbied by Professor Harnad or his disciplines and that his mind was
>>> already made up. I cannot remember now whether or not Dr. Gibson said
>>> that he had met Professor Harnad but it was definitely the impression
>>> I had.
>>> 
>>> Anyway I refused the opportunity of influence because I did not think
>>> I could be dispassionate. I did propose working with someone closer to
>>> Professor Harnad's views (whom I named) and recommended other people
>>> who were neutral and could do the job. In the end Dr. Gibson plumped
>>> for David Worlock, who was an excellent choice.
>>> 
>>> I just do not believe on the basis of what others have told me - I
>>> have no direct knowledge and nor clearly has Professor Harnad - that
>>> the decisions of the Finch committee were pre-determined. Members of
>>> the committee I have spoken to do not confirm Professor Harnad's
>>> statements.
>>> 
>>> I find this statement fascinating:
>>> 
>>> "There were more -- Learned Societies are publishers too -- but three
>>> publishers would already be three too many in a committee on providing
>>> open access to publicly funded research".
>>> 
>>> I am impressed by the suggestion that Professor Harnad actually thinks
>>> that learned societies, organisations that represent the academic
>>> communities, should not be involved in decisions which will have such
>>> an impact on the said academic communities!
>>> 
>>> Anthony Watkinson