[GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme

[CHARLES OPPENHEIM]

Jimmy Wales may well have founded Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean he does not understand the differences between it and OA scholarly materials.  He is a smart cookie and a fast learner.
It would make more sense to contact him and give him some background than simply criticising and  muttering darkly amongst ourselves.
Charles

Professor Charles Oppenheim

--- On Wed, 2/5/12, Stevan Harnad <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad at ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme
To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal at eprints.org>
Date: Wednesday, 2 May, 2012, 13:32

On 2012-05-02, at 6:00 AM, Andrew A. Adams wrote:

>>   "The [UK] government has drafted in the Wikipedia founder Jimmy
>>    Wales to help make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain
>>    available online to anyone who wants to read or use it."
> 
> I was hoping that the new government might be less star-struck than the 
> previous one. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose, it would seem. We really 
> don't need Jimmy Wales advising on this. The team behind eprints has been 
> (with minimal funding) developing the technology needed for many years and 
> there are many academics in the UK much better versed in the intricacies of 
> UK academic work and life than Mr Wales. Sigh. I foresee another lost couple 
> of years wasted on this instead of getting to grips with the known problem 
> and the known solution (including providing better funding for eprints 
> development to the team that created it and still does the software 
> engineering for it).

Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good 
sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM).

Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make
sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to
help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all.

The way to make all taxpayer-funded academic research in Britain available 
online to all is already known: Make it a mandatory condition of funding 
that the fundees make it available online to all (OA). 

Britain (RCUK) has already gone a long way toward toward doing just 
that -- a much longer way than any other country so far. But there are still 
some crucial implementational details that need tweaking in order to make 
those mandates work:

1. The requirement has to be to deposit in the fundee's institutional repository.

2. The deposit must be immediately upon acceptance for publication.

That way the fundee's institution will be empowered to monitor and ensure
compliance with the mandate. In addition, when there is an embargo on 
making the immediate-deposit OA immediately, the institution's email-eprint-request
Button can tide over immediate research usage needs during the embargo on
an automated, accelerated individual-request basis. Institutional deposit will
also motivate institutions to mandate OA for all of their research output, not
just the RCUK-funded portion.

But these are all implementational details that could be fixed by just 
updating the language of the mandates -- making it explicit that research
that is not institutionally deposited immediately loses its funding. Each 
institution's research grant support office, already so solicitous about
complying with all conditions for applying for, receiving and retaining grants 
will assiduously see to it that institutional fundees understand and comply.

But JW does not know any of this. And if he did, he would be no better
able to implement it than anyone else. It's the *implementation* that's 
needed, to make the broth edible and available to all -- not more cooks
(and especially not from McDonalds' kitchens)!

Stevan Harnad
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