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

[Stevan Harnad]

On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 5:14 AM, Graham Triggs <grahamtriggs at gmail.com>wrote:

On 16 March 2013 02:15, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:
>


> (2) The proposed REF mandate makes it very explicit that *REF submissions
>> are ineligible if they are not deposited immediately upon publication*.
>> (No waiting till near the end of the 6-year REF cycle to deposit.)
>>
>
> They said acceptance, not publication.
>

Even better! (That's the milestone I've always urged. It has a more
specific calendar date than publication-date which can lag by as much as a
year from its published date.)



> (3) Compliance is based on two objective, verifiable data-points:
>> publication date and IR deposit date.
>>
>
> Acceptance date, not publication date. And the question remains - where
> and when are these data points being obtained from?
>

The institution (more likely, the department) obtains them from the author,
as a condition and preparation for REF eligibility. (For years now, as soon
as another RAE/REF cycle starts, the institution/department already starts
its internal preparations and procedures. *Le roi est mort: Vive le roi!*)



> (5) If the publication date and the deposit date are not the same, the
>> article is ineligible for REF.
>>
>
> As I said, acceptance date. And stating that they have to be the same
> simply is not practical. Is an author meant to stand by their email every
> second of every day, just so that they can act on the deposit mandate when
> they get notification of acceptance? Acceptable limits need to be defined,
> and even then there should be allowances for exceptional circumstances.
>

Of course. This policy, and OA itself, is not for pedants and for police;
it is for research access!

The acceptance date is a documented, natural, identifiable signal for
deposit in the author's normal workflow. Practice will determine a
reasonable buffer period for actually doing the deposit. The advantage of
the acceptance date is that it effectively allows some lead time before the
published date of publication (which may itself not coincide with the
calendar date of appearance of the journal) .


(6) With deposit, the metadata are immediately accessible web wide (though
>> the full-text might be embargoed for the allowable interval).
>>
>
> That isn't stated as a requirement, and it isn't how all institutions
> handle embargo of content.
>

Please see the EPprints and DSpace software (e.g., use Southampton and
LIege as instances):

When a paper is deposited, the author tags whether it is to be made
immediately OA or embargoed (and if embargoed, there is an optional tag to
specify how long, after which the IR automatically makes the full-text OA).

But the metadata themselves (author, title, journal, year, etc.) are made
immediately OA: *That's what immediate-deposit means.** *

(The request-copy feature will be implemented by IRs as a natural matter of
>> course, once immediate-deposit is effectively mandated.)
>>
>
> That depends on whether there is any appetite to handle processing the
> requests for content. If there was, the chances are the institution would
> already have a strongly enforced Green mandate, and/or a high level of
> voluntary deposit amongst it's researchers.
>

 No. The the IR software automatically forwards each request to the author,
who decides (with one click) whether to fulfill it:

http://www.eprints.org/software/training/users/viewing.php#request
https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy



>  *It is the immediate-deposit that is crucial, Once that becomes
>>> universal, embargoes and re-use restrictions don't stand a chance and will
>>> soon crumble.*
>>>
>>
> That's one point of view. For there to be any threat to embargoes,
> request-copy will be necessary. Only when embargoes are effectively
> rendered meaningless, will they crumble. Otherwise if you mandate Green,
> then publishers have every reason to add to the restrictions on Green to
> either protect the subscription revenue or force authors to pay for Gold.
>

The request copy Button is available to tide over researcher-needs during
embargoes.

And currently about 60% of journals endorse immediate, un-embargoed Green
OA (though Finch/RCUK does perversely tempt them now to offer hybrid Gold
and lengthen their Green embargoes beyond allowable limits in order to
pressure authors to pick and pay for Gold).

But you underestimate the power of OA itself:

One of the main reasons few researchers are providing OA un-mandated today
is that they do not yet feel its value (in accessibility, download impact
and citation impact), either as users or as authors, because of the sparse
OA content that exists (an arbitrary 5%-40% in most fields -- much higher
only in high energy physics and astrophysics).

Tasting what it is like to have about 60% immediate-OA plus 40% Almost-OA
(via the Button) will greatly increase both the appetite and the
inclination to have 100% immediate-OA, in both users and authors. Users
will expect and seek it 100% OA, search engines will optimize to facilitate
discovery, and authors will tire of clicking the Button for every Button
request, and simply set access as OA sooner and sooner (as physicists and
astrophysicists have been successfully doing for over 20 years now).

 The license issue is a red herring, and premature. Get all the content in
>>> there, immediately on publication, reliably, and the rest will take care of
>>> itself of its own accord soon after. Fuss instead about the rest,
>>> pre-emptively, and you won't even get the content.
>>>
>>
> I can agree with that - the more requirements that need to be complied
> with, the less likely you are to get content. But it doesn't follow that
> the rest will take care of itself. Publishers that wish to protect their
> subscription revenue will still do so through embargoes and and re-use
> restrictions. It's only the commercial pressures of people choosing -
> voluntarily or mandated - to raise the bar that will either force greater
> Green rights or availability of Gold options. And there is no way to force
> publishers to give greater Green rights.
>

I think you underestimate the power of the author, researcher, institution
and funder community: They are too superstitious and timid to mandate 100%
zero-embargo immediate-Green OA today. But after they have successfully
mandated 100% immediate-deposit, with 60% immediate-OA and 40% Almost-OA
globally, the natural next steps will be taken without hesitation.

After all, immediate-deposit is the first N-1 keystrokes for OA. All that's
missing then is not IRs -- nor mandates, nor deposits, nor full-texts --
but just that Nth keystroke!

And keystrokes have always been *the sole barrier between the research
community and 100% OA to their own refereed research output in the online
era.*


 Having an IR (at a basic level) may be low cost, and voluntary deposit
>>> 'cost free'. But mandating Green OA, and in particular monitoring,
>>> enforcing and auditing compliance - especially when those requirements are
>>> as specific as the HEFCE proposals - does have a cost. And
>>> enforcement/auditing is something that will be needed - and will need to be
>>> effective - to achieve high compliance. Otherwise it may well fall short,
>>> regardless of the consequences.
>>>
>>
>> RAE and REF compliance has always entailed some cost to institutions, but
>> they have willingly undertaken it in order to maximise their chances of the
>> benefits of a high RAE/REF ranking and top-sliced funding as a reward.
>>
>
> My point isn't to say that institutions won't pay for it. But to say that
> to mandate Green and to effectively ensure compliance is not a "cost-free"
> option, as has been said.
>

Agreed. But Green's cost is incomparably cheaper than double-paying
(subscription plus Gold) for Fool's Gold today -- and worth every penny (as
well as being the fastest, surest, and probably the only way to induce the
eventual transition to Fair Gold, at an affordable, sustainable price, paid
out of subscription cancellation savings instead of double-paid out of
scarce research funds on top of un-cancelleablle subscriptions).



>   This is at least, one thing that can be said in favour of Finch, etc. -
>>> they are proposals that are easy to understand, easy to follow, and easy to
>>> audit.
>>>
>>
>> Not in the least! (I am astonished to hear you think that!) Finch
>> mandated Gold or Green. The mechanisms for auditing and dispensing Gold are
>> not yet worked out, and certainly not going to be simple or easy. The
>> mechanisms for auditing and ensuring Green are non-existent: HEFCE/REF
>> provides them, and they are easy to understand, easy to follow, and easy to
>> audit.
>>
>
> And I'm astonished to hear you think that!
>
> 1) It's very easy - at submission time - for an author to know that they
> will be paying (or granted a waiver) for immediate open access publication.
> It's much harder when you aren't paying for immediate open access to know:
> a) If the publisher allows you to IR deposit anything at all
>

Deposit it immediately and set access as Closed Access till you look it up
in SHERPA/Romeo. (Some IRs already provided the information, or the link,
automatically.)


> b) What version(s) of the paper you will be allowed to deposit
>

The refereed, revised, accepted final draft.


> c) What embargo period may be required
>

Check Romeo. Meanwhile: set as Closed Access if timid or in doubt -- but
deposit immediately.


> d) What rights you retain and licences you may grant on redistribution
>

Same question. Deposit immediately: check details you want, when you want.


Yet, if you are going to comply with an open access mandate, then you
> *have* to know the above - and to know it at the time of submission.
>

No. You just have to know how to do the N-1 keystrokes required for
immediate-deposit (as of the calendar date of acceptance).


2) By definition, everything that you require to audit Gold is open, baked
> into the publication process, and independent of who is being audited.  The
> same can not be said for Green.
>

But you are leaving out the two monumental deterrents on Gold:

*(1) Do you want to publish in a Gold journal at all? *(And this question
arises even before submission.)

*(2) If so, is there enough RCUK money left to pay for it (at acceptance
time) -- and if not, what?*


With Green, you pick your journal without constraint, pay nothing, and just
do the N-1 keystrokes immediately upon acceptance.

(And, by the way, immediate-deposit would still be required by HEFCE/REF,
irrespective of whether the journal is subscription or Gold.)

HEFCE/REF does not provide a mechanism for auditing Green. It only gives a
> requirement to do so, whilst the data may not be available openly, may not
> be available at all, and can not be sourced independently.


As I said. This is an internal institutional compliance matter --
systematically collecting two parameters: acceptance date and deposit date
-- and can and will be eagerly and assiduously and ingeniously attended to
by institutions, as with all other RAE/REF exigencies, for decades now.

Stevan Harnad
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