<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=iso-8859-1"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On 2013-11-11, at 8:01 PM, LIBLICENSE <<a href="mailto:liblicense@GMAIL.COM">liblicense@GMAIL.COM</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">From: Sandy Thatcher <<a href="mailto:sgt3@psu.edu">sgt3@psu.edu</a>><br>Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 13:21:45 -0600<br><br>What strikes me about Allington's post is that it argues for just what<br>the AAP has been arguing for in the U.S. for a long time, viz., that<br>the most efficient and logical way to make the results of<br>government-funded research available to the public is to make better<br>use of the system that already exists whereby government agencies<br>require reports on research to be submitted (and, in the UK's case,<br>written in language the public can understand), which then can be<br>posted immediately to the web with no embargo period involved at all.<br>His point about the OA system relying on articles written for journals<br>instead underlines this recommendation because, in his view (which I<br>share), most of the technical literature is written in a way that<br>makes it NOT accessible to the general public and devotes space to<br>discussions of theories, literature reviews, and the like that most of<br>the public could care less about, since it is the results themselves<br>that they want to be told about. <br></blockquote><div><br></div>The notion that <i>instead</i> of making their peer-reviewed</div><div>journal articles OA, researchers should summarize their research in </div><div>publcly complrehensible terms and post it online, is a wolf in sheep's</div><div>clothing.</div><div><br></div><div>The slogan "public access to publicly funded research" has proved</div><div>to be a support- and vote-getter for OA, but it is <i>not</i> the core rationale for</div><div>OA, which is "research access for all its would-be users." These</div><div>consist mainly of the scientists and scholars for whom the "discussions of theories, </div><div>literature reviews, and the like that most of the public could care less about"</div><div>-- and the often technical content -- are written for. The status quo is that</div><div>this research is accessible only to those whose institutions can afford</div><div>subscriptions access to the journals in which they were published. OA is</div><div>meant to remedy that.</div><div><br></div><div>Mistaking public access to be the core rationale for OA (and swapping</div><div>publicly accessible summaries for it) disserves the public who fund the </div><div>research, whose main benefit comes from having that research used, </div><div>applied and built upon by its primary intended users -- all researchers 00</div><div>rather than just subscribers, as now.</div><div><br></div><div><div>Of course public access too comes with the OA territory, and is a welcome bonus.</div><div><br></div><div>Publicly accessible summaries would likewise be welcome -- but</div><div>they would certainly not be a substitute for researcher access to the articles</div><div>themselves -- and they have nothing to do with OA.</div><div><br></div><div>Stevan Harnad</div><div><br></div></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br><blockquote type="cite">From: "Friend, Fred" <<a href="mailto:f.friend@ucl.ac.uk">f.friend@ucl.ac.uk</a>><br>Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 12:34:41 +0000<br><br>I welcome Daniel Allington's contribution to discussions about open<br>access. Having read all through his article, I find it difficult to<br>understand Kent Anderson's response to the article. In the points<br>Daniel Allington makes there is much to support the development of<br>open access as a good way forward for research communication. The<br>thrust of Daniel's argument is partly about the current situation in<br>the UK, which is of the UK Government's making, and partly about the<br>role of open access in solving perceived problems in the research<br>communication infrastructure.<br><br>On the current UK situation it is the UK Government and not open<br>access supporters who have attempted to impose one particular model<br>upon a complex academic environment. The rest of the world - and until<br>recently the UK - has been careful to follow various routes to open<br>access and has avoided the rushed implementation of one particular<br>open access model (see my article "How did the UK Government manage to<br>spoil something as good as open access?"<br><a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/10/17/uk-government-manage-to-spoil-open-access/">http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/10/17/uk-government-manage-to-spoil-open-access/</a>).<br>Daniel Allington recognises the UK Government's wish to protect the<br>publishing industry but fails to recognise the impact of that<br>motivation upon the rest of the research communication infrastructure.<br><br>On the many problems in the current research communication<br>infrastructure, it is quite true that open access has been - and still<br>is by many commentators across the world - seen as a more effective<br>model than the toll-access model which has dominated research<br>communication for many years. It is not that open access is presented<br>as a solution to problems but as an alternative way forward arguably<br>more cost-effective than the present infrastructure. Again open access<br>supporters recognise the complexity of the research communication<br>process. The open access principle is sufficiently flexible to be<br>applied in different ways, using different forms of the model for<br>different forms of publication, in different cultural environments and<br>within different research funding structures.<br><br>This is the point at which ordinarily I might embark upon a detailed<br>critique of Daniel Allington's paper, but if I were to do so our<br>respected Moderator would remind me of the understandable Liblicense<br>restriction upon length of submissions to the list. Daniel Allington's<br>points deserve to be taken seriously, and the force of the emotion<br>which lies behind them is fully understandable. Yet his article cannot<br>be used to condemn the entire development of open access as a viable<br>alternative to the flawed research communication system we have had to<br>live with for many years. It is important for researchers to feel that<br>they are involved in the solutions to the problems Daniel Allington<br>identifies.<br><br>Fred Friend<br>Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL<br>________________________________________<br><br>From: Jim O'Donnell <<a href="mailto:cassiodorus@gmail.com">cassiodorus@gmail.com</a>><br>Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 19:04:49 -0500<br><br>Kent Anderson in the Scholarly Kitchen<br>(<a href="http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/11/05/not-the-answer-an-academic-carefully-assesses-the-arguments-for-open-access/">http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/11/05/not-the-answer-an-academic-carefully-assesses-the-arguments-for-open-access/</a>)<br>points to an interesting essay by UK sociologist Daniel Allington, who<br>takes it for granted that mandated gold OA will prevail in the UK, but<br>has now had second thoughts about the process and offers an extensive<br>analysis:<br><br><a href="http://www.danielallington.net/2013/10/open-access-why-not-answer/#sthash.643dajcu.dpbs">http://www.danielallington.net/2013/10/open-access-why-not-answer/#sthash.643dajcu.dpbs</a><br><br>Jim O'Donnell<br>Georgetown U.<br></blockquote></blockquote></div><br></body></html>