[GOAL] Academia Bound?

[Stevan Harnad]

Commentary on "*Open Access and Academic
Freedom*<http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/11/15/essay-impact-open-access-requirements-academic-freedom>"
in Inside Higher Ed <http://www.insidehighered.com/> 15 November 2013, by Cary
Nelson <http://www.aaup.org/import-tags/cary-nelson>, former national
president of the American Association of University
Professors<http://www.aaup.org/>
------------------------------

If, in the print-on-paper era, it was not a constraint on academic freedom
that universities and research funders required, as a condition of funding
or employment, that researchers conduct and publish research -- rather than
put it in a desk drawer -- so it could be read, used, applied and built
upon by all users whose institutions could afford to subscribe to the
journal in which it was published ("publish or
perish<https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#c2coff=1&hl=en&lr=&q=perish+blogurl:http%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&safe=active&tbm=blg>"),
then it is not a constraint on academic freedom in the online era that
universities and research funders require, as a condition of funding or
employment, that researchers make their research accessible online to all
its potential users rather than just those whose institutions could afford
to subscribe to the journal in which it was published ("self-archive to
flourish<https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr&ei=nCiGUumJI4qIygH8u4GABA#q=%22publish+or+perish%22+%22self-archive+to+flourish%22>
").

However, two kinds of Open Access (OA) mandates are indeed constraints on
academic freedom:

*1.*
*any mandate that constrains the researcher's choice of which journal to
publish in -- other than to require that it be of the highest quality whose
peer-review standards the research can meet*
*2.* *any mandate that requires the researcher to pay to publish (if the
author does not wish to, or does not have the funds)*

The immediate-deposit/optional-access (ID/OA)
mandate<https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr&ei=nCiGUumJI4qIygH8u4GABA#q=%22immediate-deposit%22+mandate>
requires
authors to deposit their final refereed draft in their institutional
repository <http://roar.eprints.org/> immediately upon acceptance for
publication, regardless of which journal they choose to publish in, and
regardless of whether they choose to comply with an OA embargo (if any) on
the part of the journal. (If so, the access to the deposit can be set as
Closed Access rather than Open Access during the embargo, and the
repository software has a facilitated copy-request
Button<https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#c2coff=1&hl=en&lr=&q=Button+blogurl%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&safe=active&tbas=0&tbm=blg>,
allowing would-be users to request a copy for research purposes with one
click, and allowing the author the free choice to comply or not comply,
likewise with one click.)

Since OA is beneficial to researchers -- because it maximizes research
downloads and citations <http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html>,
which universities and funders now count, along with publications, in
evaluating and rewarding research output -- why do researchers need
mandates at all? Because they are afraid of
publishers<http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#38-worries> --
afraid their publisher will not publish their research if they make it OA,
or even afraid they will be prosecuted for copyright infringement.

So OA mandates <http://roarmap.eprints.org/> are needed to embolden authors
to provide OA, knowing they have the support of their institutions and
funders. And the ID/OA mandate is immune to publisher embargoes. Over ten
years of experience<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october00/10inbrief.html#HARNAD>
(of
"performing a useful service by giving faculty a vehicle for voluntary
self-archiving") have by now shown definitively that most researchers will
not self-archive <http://www.infotoday.com/it/oct04/poynder.shtml> unless
it is mandatory. (The only exceptions are some fields of physics and
computer science where researchers provide OA spontaneously, unmandated.)
So what is needed is a no-option immediate-self-archiving mandate, but with
leeway on when to make the deposit OA. This is indeed in a sense "optional
Green OA," but the crucial component is that the deposit itself is
mandatory.

Funding is a red herring. Most universities have already invested in
creating and maintaining institutional repositories, for multiple purposes,
OA being only one of them, and the OA sectors are vastly under-utilized --
except if mandated (at no extra cost).

The ID/OA mandate requires no change in copyright law, licensing or
ownership of research output. Another red herring.

There are no relevant discipline differences for ID/OA either. Another red
herring. And the need for and benefits of OA do not apply only to rare
exceptions, but to all refereed research journal articles.

OA mandates apply only to refereed journal articles, not books. Another red
herring (covering half of Cary Nelson's article!).

As OA mandates are now growing globally, across all disciplines and
institutions, it is nonsense to imagine that researchers will decide where
to work on the basis of trying to escape an OA mandate -- and with ID/OA
there isn't even anything for them to want to escape from.

The ID/OA mandate also moots the difference between journal articles and
book chapters. And it applies to all disciplines, and publishers, whether
commercial, learned-society, or university.

Refereed journal publishing will adapt, quite naturally to Green OA. For
now, some publishers are trying to forestall having to adapt to the OA era,
by embargoing OA. Let them try. ID/OA mandates are immune to publisher OA
embargoes, but publishers are not immune to the rising demand for OA:

Paying for Gold OA today is paying for Fool's
Gold<https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr&ei=nyyGUseBCsbhyQHdtYDIAQ#q=%22fool's+gold%22+harnad+>:
Research funds are already scarce. Institutions cannot cancel must-have
journal subscriptions. So Gold OA payment is double-payment, over and above
subscriptions. And hybrid (subscription + Gold) publishers can even
double-dip. If and
when<http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/258705/1/resolution.htm#4.2> global
Green OA makes journal subscriptions unsustainable, journals will downsize,
jettisoning products and services (print edition, online edition,
access-provision, archiving) rendered obsolete by the worldwide network of
Green OA repositories) and they will
convert<http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/13309/>
 to Fair Gold<https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr&ei=nyyGUseBCsbhyQHdtYDIAQ#q=%22fair+gold%22+harnad+>,
paid for peer review
alone<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july10/harnad/07harnad.html>,
out of a fraction of the institutions windfall subscription cancellation
savings.

It is not for the research community to continue depriving itself of OA
while trying to 2nd-guess how publishers will adapt. That -- and not OA
mandates -- would be a real constraint on academic freedom: The publishing
tail must not be allowed to continue to wag the research
dog<https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#c2coff=1&hl=en&lr=&q=tail+wag+dog+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&safe=active&tbas=0&tbm=blg>
.
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