Re: Draft Policy for Self-Archiving University Research Output

what is open archiving?

On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, Picciotto, Sol wrote:
>
> > A response to Stevan Harnad's reply.
> >
> > Unless I have seriously misunderstood Open Archiving, it entails making
> > a separate copy of a work available for access without charge, and not
> > merely providing a google-type link to the article on the commercial
> > publisher's website (which would be subject to access tolls).
>
> Correct. (But what you mean is "Open Access Archiving," not "Open
> Archiving," which refers only to a metadata harvesting and
> interoperability standard).
>
> > It is therefore a form of publication, both legally and in practical
> > terms. That is why commercial publishers are reluctant to allow authors
> > to retain the right to self-archive, especially in an eprint archive
> > which would be fully searchable, and hence would directly compete with
> > their journal. That is why Nature says it would be a breach of their
> > licence (i.e. the rights they require authors to transfer to them)
> > to publish/archive a paper in an institutional eprints archive.
>
> The formal legal definition of "publication" is hardly relevant here,
> because according to that definition, any nonsense I scrawl on paper
> and make public is a publication. That sort of thing has no CV value,
> so it is definitely not "publishing" in the (relevant) publish-or-perish
> sense of the word, as it is used by academics. Nor is it of any relevance
> to the publisher's commercial sense of publication either. Publicizing
> my doodles, in other words, is a sense of "publication" that may be of
> (theoretical) interest only to copyright attorneys!
>
> This theme was last discussed in this Forum on this thread:
>
> Garfield: "Acknowledged Self-Archiving is Not Prior Publication"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2239.html
>
> As to why Nature is saying what it's saying: By the above (irrelevant)
> definition of "publication," self-archiving on one's own website is
> already "publication," and that is precisely what Nature is saying
> would *not* be a breach of their license. So that can't be the point
> either!
>
> (In my recent open letter to the Editor of Nature
> inquiring about the new Nature Licensing policy --
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2601.html -- I have
> described, informally, what it is that I believe Nature is concerned
> about, in trying to specify as explicitly as possible what does and does
> not count as self-archiving under its new license: And placing a paper
> (for which the exclusive right to publish has been licensed by the
> author to Nature) into a commercial website that is gathering Nature's
> contents together so as to sell or otherwise derive profit from them
> would not count as self-archiving by the author. Nature wants to reserve
> its right to go after such a re-publisher [sic] of Nature's contents in
> court by making it clear that that would not count as the kind of author
> self-archiving right that the license returns to Nature authors. This
> does not apply, however, to the author's own institutional eprint
> archive, which is not gathering Nature's contents so as to re-sell them,
> but gathering only its own institutional research output, so as to make
> it openly accessible and thereby maximize its research impact.)
>
> > That is why open [access] archiving inevitably comes into conflict with
> > existing commercial publishing models, and there is a debate here and
> > elsewhere about alternative business models. I think a good case can be
> > made that open archiving would not seriously damage commercial publishing,
> > but I can see why commercial publishers are reluctant to take the risk.
>
> No one knows for sure what the long-term effects of open-access through
> author/institution self-archiving will be on the market for the
> toll-access version, but what is certain is that the online era and the
> new possibilities it has opened for maximizing research impact have given
> rise to an unprecedented conflict of interest between what is best for
> minimizing potential risk to publishers' future revenues and what is
> best for maximizing potential research impact.
>
> It is also very clear in what direction this conflict of interest
> must be resolved (namely, in favor of maximizing potential research
> impact rather than minimizing potential risk to publishers' future
> revenues). The reason it must be resolved in that direction is not
> only that research impact (and not royalty revenue) is the sole reason
> researchers (anomalous among all other authors) publish (refereed
> research) at all, but, equally important, it is also simply because open
> access is indeed within their reach.
>
> It is no longer possible to close that door. For where journal
> publishers explicitly refuse to allow self-archiving, thereby
> broadcacting that they do not share their authors' goal of maximizing
> their research impact, the preprint-plus-corrigenda strategy --
> http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#publisher-forbids -- is still
> available to all authors for attaining almost exactly the same end --
> while implicitly naming-and-shaming, each time that strategy needs to be
> used, those publishers who thereby advertise that for them maximizing
> their potential revenue streams is more important than maximizing the
> potential impact of the research they publish.
>
> It is in order to confirm that they stand with the angels on this
> that Nature has adopted its new self-archiving policy.
>
> > It is no doubt easier to make a case for open archiving of works for which
> > the author receives no payment, which Stevan characterises as Giveaway,
> > but the publishers merely respond that they bear all the remaining costs,
> > which are substantial.
>
> As long as toll-access revenues are covering those costs, that is no
> reason for trying to prevent self-archiving. If and when toll-revenues
> fall, because of competition from the open-access versions, to levels
> where they can no longer cover all essential costs [and please note
> that it is not at all clear when or whether this will ever happen]
> there are ways that costs can be cut and cost-recovery models changed:
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#4.2
>
> The issue now is whether or not it is good public relations for publishers
> to protect themselves against such a possibility by trying to prevent
> self-archiving (i.e., protect themselves at the expense of their authors'
> impact). It seems it is bad public relations in any case, because forcing
> authors to resort to the preprints-plus-corrigenda strategy leads to the
> same outcome (open access) and only leaves those publishers with egg on
> their face.
>
> Lawrence, S. (2001a) Online or Invisible? Nature 411 (6837): 521.
> http://www.neci.nec.com/~lawrence/papers/online-nature01/
>
> Lawrence, S. (2001b) Free online availability substantially increases
> a paper's impact. Nature Web Debates.
> http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawrence.html
>
> > Stevan is wrong to characterise some authors as
> > giveaway and others as non-giveaway. Many academic authors in many fields
> > list among their research publications items for which they have received
> > some form of payment, as well as others where this is not so (both in
> > journals and not infrequently books). I assume we support moves such as
> > the decision by UC Press to make many of its books available online?
>
> But what is the problem here? What I am saying is not only
> true but tautological: The Budapest Open Access Initiative --
> http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml -- is targeting only those
> writings that really are author give-aways. This is true, without
> exception, of the refereed journal literature. And it is almost without
> exception UNtrue of (say) the royalty-bearing book literature (though the
> occasional author or publisher sometimes chooses to make a give-away, or
> a partial give-away, of some books, for various reasons, including that
> they have no market). No one is trying to get authors to self-archive
> and place into open-access writings from which they wish to make royalty
> or fee revenue.
>
> Harnad, S., Varian, H. & Parks, R. (2000) Academic publishing in the
> online era: What Will Be For-Fee And What Will Be For-Free? Culture
> Machine 2 http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/frm_f1.htm
>
> One size does not fit all. Self-archiving and open access are not the
> solution for the non-give-away literature. (I do predict, though, that
> once the quantitative evidence of the causal link between access and
> impact begins to be reckoned for scholarly monographs too, many of them
> will prefer to forego royalty revenues in favor of maximizing impact,
> just as refereed-journal authors do. Impact, after all, translates
> into revenue, in the publish-or-perish academic world.)
>
> > An important reason open archiving has been slow to take off is that
> > academic authors are generally reluctant to oppose publishers who ask for
> > exclusive publication rights.
>
> That is true, and that is why we have been actively informing authors
> about the preprint-plus-corrigenda option when all else fails. As more
> journals emulate Nature's progressive policy, this option will become
> less and less necessary.
> http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/index.html
>
> > It would be easier to do this collectively
> > and with institutional support or leadership. That is the importance
> > of the claim by universities to retain the right to authorise free
> > publication in archives. I'm glad that Stevan accepts that this can be
> > done in parallel, but sorry he is so reluctant to concede that it is an
> > important complementary step.
>
> I not only concede but loudly proclaim that if/when it succeeds, it
> will be an important complementary step (as welcome as news that the
> rest of the journals have followed Nature's lead -- though that would
> also make it somewhat supererogatory!).
>
> But any implication that it is necessary in advance, or indeed necessary
> at all, would simply be another reinforcement of researchers' (groundless)
> worries about whether or not they can safely self-archive NOW. My own
> reluctance is hence entirely based on researchers' current reluctance
> to self-archive because they incorrectly believe that it would be illegal.
> http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#10.Copyright
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
>
Received on Mon Jan 27 2003 - 19:18:48 GMT