[GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate

Thu Mar 14 14:46:46 GMT 2013

Dear Larry,

I agree with you.

HEFCE/REF should not not make OA mandatory for books/monographs.

Even deposit need not be mandatory: Merely urged, wherever possible. (I
doubt that there would be many objections to Dark Deposit.)

Insisting on book deposit would, again, be needless over-reaching, and
gratuitously inviting author resistance.

As much book OA as scholars and scientists want and need will come -- but
only after Green OA for articles has prevailed.

Stevan

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 9:48 AM, <l.hurtado at ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Thanks to Steven Harnad for giving us his enthusiastic view on the
> HEFCE prooposd policy for REF and OA.  Among my concerns that he
> doesn't address, however, is one that will be shared by many/all in
> the Humanities (almost always the Cinderella at the OA ball):  What
> about books?
> Though scientists especially use journal articles as THE mode of
> publication of original research, the nature of work in the Humanities
> (which is often more integrative and discoursive, involving/requiring
> extended analysis and argumentation) often requires a book-length
> treatment.  Indeed, in Humanities field, typically the most
> high-impact work appears as/in single-author books.
>
> Moreover, these include often (perhaps dominantly), not only technical
> "monographs" (which are often revised PhD theses), but (especially
> among more seasoned scholars) "free-standing" books, and these
> published by various university presses but also "trade" publishers.
> Many of these aren't based in the UK.
>
> It will be difficult (and unlikely) to get all these publishers to
> allow the immediate deposit of the page-proofs in an OA desository.
> So, will this mean that what has been heretofore the most respected
> form of research-publication in the Humanities will be disallowed in
> the next REF?  There is a short paragraph on "monographs" in the HEFCE
> consultation paper, but it only reflects the inadequate understanding
> of the place of *books* in the Humanities.
>
> We urgently need HEFCE to bring Humanities scholars more into the
> magic circle of policy/practice makers.
>
> Larry Hurtado
>
> Quoting Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> on Thu, 14 Mar 2013
> 08:40:12 -0400:
>
> > On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 5:12 AM, Andy Powell
> > <andy.powell at eduserv.org.uk>wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Supposing this Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate leads to a
> >> situation where we achieve 100% immediate deposit of the final
> >> peer-reviewed draft of journal articles to an institutional repository
> but
> >> where we also see a ?publisher norm? emerging of a 12-month embargo
> period?
> >> ****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> Firstly, is that an unrealistic expectation of where this policy might
> get
> >> us?****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> If so, would we consider this situation to have significantly advanced
> the
> >> OA cause?****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> I agree that the separation of ?immediate deposit? from ?embargo period?
> >> is important but I also worry that doing so effectively becomes a way
> for
> >> publishers to stifle progress towards true OA but setting lengthy
> embargo
> >> periods? Further, there seems to be nothing in this policy that
> mitigates
> >> against this happening?****
> >>
> >> ** **
> >>
> >> Or am I misunderstanding the situation?
> >>
> >
> > Please read the comments, not just the Executive Summary, as they
> > explicitly answer your question.
> >
> > Meanwhile, here is the answer to your question, put in a different way,
> in
> > response to: *RCUK fails to end ?green? embargo
> > confusion*<
> http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/rcuk-fails-to-end-green-embargo-confusion/2002538.article
> >
> > " *THE* 14 March 2013:
> >
> > *
> > KEYSTROKE MANDATES
> > *
> >
> > What a mess! With publishers eagerly pawing at the Golden Door, and RCUK
> > hopelessly waffling at Green embargo limits and their enforcement.
> >
> > But relief is on the way! HEFCE has meanwhile quietly and gently
> proposed a
> > solution that will moot all this relentless cupidity and stupidity.
> >
> > HEFCE has proposed to mandate that in order to be eligible for the
> Research
> > Excellence Framework
> > (REF)<
> http://www.hefce.ac.uk/media/hefce/content/news/news/2013/open_access_letter.pdf
> >,
> > the final, peer-reviewed drafts of all papers published as of 2014 will
> > have to be deposited in the author's institutional
> > repository<http://roar.eprints.org/> immediately
> > upon publication: no delays, no embargoes, no exceptions -- irrespective
> of
> > whether the paper is published in a Gold OA journal or a subscription
> > journal, and irrespective of the allowable length of the embargo on
> making
> > the deposit OA: The deposit itself must be immediate.
> >
> > This has the immense benefit that while the haggling continues about how
> > much will be paid for Gold OA and how long Green OA may be embargoed, all
> > papers will be faithfully deposited -- and deposited in institutional
> > repositories, which means that all UK universities will thereby be
> > recruited, as of 2014, to monitor and ensure that the deposits are made,
> > and made immediately. (Institutions have an excellent track record for
> > making sure that everything necessary for REF is done, and done reliably,
> > because a lot of money and prestige is at stake for them.)
> >
> > And one of the ingenious features of the proposed HEFCE/REF Green OA
> > mandate is the stipulation that deposit may not be delayed: Authors
> cannot
> > wait till just before the next REF, six years later, to do it. If the
> > deposit was not immediate, the paper is ineligible for REF.
> >
> > And, most brilliant stroke of all, this ensures that it is not just the 4
> > papers that are ultimately chosen for submission to REF that are
> deposited
> > immediately -- for that choice is always a retrospective one, made after
> > looking over the past 6 years' work, to pick the four best papers. Rarely
> > will this be known in advance. So the safest policy will be to deposit
> all
> > papers immediately, just in case.
> >
> > This is precisely the compliance assurance mechanism the RCUK mandate so
> > desperately needs in order to succeed, but the RCUK policy-makers have
> not
> > yet had the wit to conceive and adopt. Well, HEFCE/REF have done it for
> > them, bless them.
> >
> > But immediate-deposit is not immediate-OA you say? Indeed it is not. It
> > does, however, overcome OA's most formidable hurdle, which is getting all
> > those papers into the institutional repositories, and right away:
> > keystrokes. It is just those keystrokes that have stood between the
> > research world and OA for over over two decades now.
> >
> > Once the institutional repositories are reliably being filled to 100%,
> does
> > anyone with the slightest imagination doubt what will follow, as nature
> > (and human nature) takes its course?
> >
> > First, the repositories will facilitate sending reprints to those who
> > request a single copy for research purposes, with one click each. Sending
> > reprints is not OA; researchers have been doing it for a half century.
> But
> > they used to have to do it by reading *Current Contents* or scanning
> > journals' contents lists, mailing reprint requests, and then waiting and
> > hoping that authors would take the time and trouble and expense to mail
> > them a reprint, as requested (and many did). But now the whole
> transaction
> > is just one click each, and almost immediate, if the papers have been
> > deposited and both parties are at the wheel.
> >
> > But that's still just Almost-OA. Once immediate-deposit is mandated,
> > however, about 60% of those deposits can be made immediately OA, because
> > about 60% of journals already endorse immediate, unembargoed Green OA.
> > (RCUK has already succeeded is dragging down that figure to somewhat
> closer
> > to 50/50 with its perverse preference for Gold, inspiring hybrid Gold
> > publishers to offer Gold and increase Green embargo lengths to try to
> force
> > UK authors to pick paid Gold over cost-free Green).
> >
> > Now that's about half immediate-OA plus half Almost-OA to tide over
> > researcher needs during the embargo. But does anyone have any doubt about
> > what will happen next? As OA and Almost-OA grow, and the research
> community
> > tastes more and more of what it's like to have half immediate-OA and half
> > Almost-OA, all the disciplines that have not yet had the sense to do it
> > will begin to do what almost 100% of physicists have already been doing
> for
> > 20 years now without so much as a moment's hesitation or a "by your
> leave":
> >
> > That last remaining keystroke, once a paper is written, revised, accepted
> > and deposited -- the keystroke that makes the paper OA -- will be done
> > sooner and sooner, more and more, until the embargoes with which
> publishers
> > are trying to hold research hostage will all die their natural and
> > well-deserved deaths as the research community learns to do the obvious,
> > optimal and inevitable, in the online era.
> >
> > (Nor will peer-reviewed journal publishing die, as publishers keep
> warning
> > menacingly: It will simply convert to Gold OA -- but only after the
> > pressure from Green OA has forced journals to phase out all obsolete
> > products and services and their costs: that means phasing out the print
> > version and the online version, and offloading all access-providing and
> > archiving onto the global network of Green OA institutional repositories.
> > Then, instead of double-paying for Gold OA, as Finch folly and RCUK
> > recklessness would have us do -- subscriptions plus Gold OA fees --
> > post-Green Gold OA will just be a fee for the peer review service, at a
> > fair, affordable and sustainable price, paid for out of a fraction of
> > institutions' annual savings from subscription cancellations instead of
> out
> > of scarce research funds, over and above subscriptions, as now. Pre-Green
> > Gold is Fool's Gold: Post-Green Gold is Fair Gold.)
> >
>
>
>
> L. W. Hurtado, PhD, FRSE
> Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature & Theology
> Honorary Professorial Fellow
> New College (School of Divinity)
> University of Edinburgh
> Mound Place
> Edinburgh, UK. EH1 2LX
> Office Phone:  (0)131 650 8920. FAX:  (0)131 650 7952
> http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/divinity/staff-profiles/hurtado
> www.larryhurtado.wordpress.com
>
> --
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>
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