I will comment on JV and then SH<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 7:34 AM, Jan Velterop <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:velterop@gmail.com" target="_blank">velterop@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">So the definition of Open Access as formulated in the BOAI is now no more than 'mortal improvisation', according to Harnad. <div>
<br></div><div>What's happening is that for reasons of expediency, the definition of OA (which didn't represent 'Holy Writ', but an ambitious goal, for the benefit of science) is being changed, quite arbitrarily, instead of any OA achievements being measured against the goal that has been set.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br>I agree with this. The "definitions" have been continually and continuously changed over the last 10 years since BOAI with *no public process*. It is now left to one (SH) or possibly two (PS) individuals to state what OA is. This has led to the totally emasculated definition of Open Access which we have just seen.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><br><div>Changing the definition – the goal – only serves to promote confusion and ambiguity. Tampering with the definition makes the term Open Access so ambiguous as to be meaningless. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br>Yes. "Open Access" is now meaningless. It means as much as "healthy", "democracy" or "freedom".<br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>Anybody can now call just about any publishing or repository offering Open Access, removing all clarity of purpose contained in the original definition. <br></div></div></blockquote>
<div><br>Yes. <br></div><div> <br><div><div>On 28 Aug 2012, at 15:00, Stevan Harnad wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div>
<div>On 2012-08-28, at 4:26 AM, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:</div><br>
<blockquote type="cite" class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Warning: I shall get shouted down for this post.<blockquote>
On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Stevan Harnad <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk" target="_blank">harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote: </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">"OA means free online access." </blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><blockquote>When and where and by whom was this decided? It is incompatible with the BBB definitions.<br>
One of the problems of "Open Access" as a movement is that the terms used (in the period after BBB) are so poorly defined as to be essentially meaningless - Humpty-Dumpty (" "When <i>I</i> use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."). </blockquote>
</blockquote>Peter, you will not get shouted down -- but it would be a great help if you were to listen, because you have asked and been given this information now countless times. <br><br>I do listen. I have been asking several times for definitions of "Open Access". I get no answers but am flooded with political slogans such as "Reach for the Reachable and Grasp for the Graspable". I am told ex cathedra that defining OA must wait until 100% Green access has been achieved. This is not constructive argued debate - in many cases it is proof-by-repeated-assertion, which at least in science is not acceptable as a form of discourse unless supported by evidence. Many of your (SH) answers are opinions without evidence stated as fact.<br>
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<br></div><div>>>>There have been updates of the BBB definition of OA, which was drafted in early days and has since seen a decade of developments not envisioned or anticipated in 2002:</div><div>
<a href="http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/newsletter/08-02-08.htm#gratis-libre" target="_blank">http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-08.htm#gratis-libre</a></div><div><br>I have read this carefully several times - I *do* listen. It is one person's (PS) analysis of the situation, not an agreed communal view. It may be than many of the community agree it, but it is still one person's view.<br>
It is not "an update of the BBB definition" - this cannot be unilaterally decided by one-and-a-half signatories on a rolling basis. If there were a community process rather than individual pronouncements I would probably feel more comfortable. <br>
<br>I am criticized on this list for being ignorant, sterile, obstructive, stupid. If I get clear definitive answers to these questions I will stop asking. I would like community agreed answers, not the SH answer-of-the-day. Definitions are critically important as people are paying for "Open Access" and arguing politically for it and there is no public agreement as to what it is. "Green" and "Gold" are not definitions of the state of Open Access, they are - at best - definitions of a process.<br>
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<span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div>>>1. Free online access is Gratis OA.<br><br>Where is "free online access" defined? It is not a simple concept. (a) is it permanent or temporary? (b) how is it recognised? (c) is it a property of (i) a document or (ii) a location or (iii) a process? Or some combination?<br>
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<br></div></span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div>2. Free online access plus (some) re-use rights is Libre OA.<br><br>(i) What are the "some" re-use rights? (ii) Where are they listed and defined? (iii) How are they recognised? Although I am personally saddened by "libreOA" being different from "libre" in software and libre for data (as in the Panton Principles) I might be prepared to work with "libreOA" if I knew what it was. For example is "permission to deposit in a University repository" could be claimed as a re-use right, in which case all Green University OA was by definition libre. <br>
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3. Gratis OA is a necessary condition for Libre OA.<br><br>I would agree, although without operational definitions I cannot be sure<br></div></span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div>
<br></div></span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div><div>4. 5.<br><br>>> Political and irrelevant to a definition.<br></div>
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</span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div><div><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"></span>.6. Global Gratis Green OA is within reach of Green OA mandates (ID/OA + "Almost-OA" Button)<br>
<br>We now have another concept "Almost OA" which again is not defined. And I assume that the "OA" in ID/OA is not "Open Access" but "Optional something-or-other".<br></div></div></span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"></span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div>
<br></div></span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div>7. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Irrelevant (a mixture of political assertions and opinions-stated-as-facts).<br>
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<div>15. The reason you get shouted down is that you keep putting the particular additional needs of your discipline ahead of the generic access needs of all disciplines.<br><br>No. I get shouted down because asking factual questions is uncomfortable.<br>
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</span><span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Helvetica;border-spacing:0px;font-size:medium"><div><div>16. The "A" in OA stands for access; <br><br>Agreed. Though "access" is not defined. The O is almost completely undefined.<br>
<br>>>>the OA movement is not the Open License movement<br><br>I have never argued that it was. I am arguing that unless Open Access is clearly defined then huge amounts of energy and money are wasted and great confusion ensues. The confusion is not of my making - I am trying to resolve it by asking questions. <br>
<br><div><br>>>Peter Murray-Rust, at least, has a discipline-specific reason for his impatience for Libre OA. <br><br>No. This is science-wide at least. I am also arguing on behalf of people outside academia. I am arguing that many beneficial developments are stalled unless we have BOAI-compliant OA. For example the next generation of search engines depend on unrestricted access to full-text. (I will not use the term LibreOA until I get a clear answer as to what it is in practice.<br>
<br>Here are some more questions. They should have a simple YES/NO/factual answer:<br><br>* many repositories consist largely of metadata-only. Is metadata-only counted as Open Access?<br>* some repositories have "ID/OA". (a) what does the O stand for? (b) where is ID/OA defined? (c) is ID/OA counted as Open Access? (d) is this concept defined by a community process?<br>
* Under what circumstances can a "green-created" document be copied from a repository? Or is it "Open Access" only when the reader has access to the Internet?<br>* If only part of the community has access to a document in a repository (as in Ghent and many other repositories) is this document counted as Open Access?<br>
<br>I have more questions, but I'll wait to see whether I get answers. I hope the questions are clear. Some may have complicated answers and for some the answers may be unknown, in which case <br>pleaes say so clearly.<br>
<br>The questions are simple enough to be part of acceptable academic and other discourse. If this list has any purpose other than as a political arena then I hope they can be addressed.<br></div></div></div></span></blockquote>
</blockquote></div><br></div><br></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Peter Murray-Rust<br>Reader in Molecular Informatics<br>Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry<br>University of Cambridge<br>CB2 1EW, UK<br>+44-1223-763069<br>