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

[Arthur Sale]

Tim, you oversimplify the auditing of green. Try this instead, which is more realistic.
For green, an institution needs to:

1) Require the author uploads a file. Timestamp the instant of upload.

(1A) Check that the file gives a citation of a journal or conference published article, and that the author is indeed listed as a co-author. You might assume this, but not for auditing. EPrints can check this.

(1B) Check that the refereeing policy of the journal or conference complies with the funder policy. This is absolutely essential. There are non-compliant examples of journals and conferences. More difficult to do with EPrints, but possible for most.

(1C) Check that the file is a version (AM or VoR) of the cited published article. This requires as a bare minimum checking the author list and the title from the website metadata, but for rigorous compliance the institution needs to be able to download the VoR for comparison (ie have a subscription or equivalent database access). [In Australia we do spot checks, as adequate to minimize fraud. Somewhat like a police radar speed gun.] [Google Scholar does similar checks on pdfs it finds.] EPrints probably can't help.

2) Make it public after embargo. In other words enforce a compulsory upper limit on embargos, starting from the date of upload of uncertain provenance (see 3). EPrints can do this.

3) Depending on the importance of dates, check that the upload date of the file is no later than the publication date. The acceptance date is unknowable by the institution (usually printed on publication in the VoR, but not always), and then requires step 1C to determine after the event. Doubtful that EPrints can do this.

4) Require every potential author to certify that they have uploaded every REF-relevant publication they have produced. Outside EPrints responsibility, apart from producing lists on demand for certification.

I just adapted this from your constraints on gold, and common Australian practice in the ERA and HERDC, which have long been audited.

Arthur Sale

-----Original Message-----
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Tim Brody
Sent: Monday, 18 March 2013 8:45 PM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate

On Sat, 2013-03-16 at 08:05 -0400, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 5:14 AM, Graham Triggs 
> <grahamtriggs at gmail.com> wrote:
> 

> 
>         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.

RCUK and HEFCE will require institutions to report on, respectively, the APC fund and REF return.

For gold, an institution needs to:

1) Determine whether the journal policy complies with the funder policy.

2) Run an internal financial process to budget for and pay out the APC.

3) Check whether the item was (i) published (ii) published under the correct license.

4) (For REF) take a copy of the published version.

For green, an institution needs to:

1) Require the author uploads a version.

2) Make it public after embargo.


So, actually I think green is easier to audit than gold. Even if it were as you say, it will still be the institution that is tasked with auditing. For most institutions that will be done through their repository (or cris-equivalent). It therefore follows that green (Do I have a public copy?) will be no more difficult than gold (Do I have a publisher CC-BY copy?).

(Commercial interest - as EPrints we have built tools to make the REF return and are working on systems to audit gold and green for RCUK
compliance.)

--
All the best,
Tim