If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It
http://www.text-e.org/debats/
Stevan Harnad
LORRE SMITH: "What about the role of editors and scholarly societies
in enforcing (1) appropriate copyright agreements"
Editors of refereed journals are usually researchers, like the authors
and the referees, appointed to serve for a period. They could have a
good deal of influence, with some exceptions, they have rarely used it
so far:
Entire Editorial Board Resigns En Masse
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1573.html
And occasionally, editors can even become part of the problem rather
than the solution:
Science 4 September on Copyright
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0085.html
Harnad, S. (2000) E-Knowledge: Freeing the Refereed Journal Corpus
Online. Computer Law & Security Report 16(2) 78-87. [Rebuttal to
Bloom Editorial in Science and Relman Editorial in New England Journal
of Medicine]
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.scinejm.htm
But they can also help, as the very progressive copyright policy of
the American Physical Society under the Editorship of Marty Blume has
shown. It has provided the model for all other publishers to follow:
Revised APS copyright form
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0746.html
LORRE SMITH: "and [in] (2) refereeing and distribution services?"
Here it's not clear what you mean. It's important not to mix the
face-valid objective of freeing online access to the refereed journal
literature, such as it is, with the much more speculative objective of
reforming or replacing the refereeing system (peer LORRE SMITH: "What
about the role of editors and scholarly societies in enforcing (1)
appropriate copyright agreements"
Editors of refereed journals are usually researchers, like the authors
and the referees, appointed to serve for a period. They could have a
good deal of influence, with some exceptions, they have rarely used it
so far:
Entire Editorial Board Resigns En Masse
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1573.html
And occasionally, editors can even become part of the problem rather
than the solution:
Science 4 September on Copyright
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0085.html
Harnad, S. (2000) E-Knowledge: Freeing the Refereed Journal Corpus
Online. Computer Law & Security Report 16(2) 78-87. [Rebuttal to
Bloom Editorial in Science and Relman Editorial in New England Journal
of Medicine]
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad00.scinejm.htm
But they can also help, as the very progressive copyright policy of
the American Physical Society under the Editorship of Marty Blume has
shown. It has provided the model for all other publishers to follow:
Revised APS copyright form
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0746.html
LORRE SMITH: "and [in] (2) refereeing and distribution services?"
Here it's not clear what you mean. It's important not to mix the
face-valid objective of freeing online access to the refereed journal
literature, such as it is, with the much more speculative objective of
reforming or replacing the refereeing system (peer
A Note of Caution About "Reforming the System"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1170.html
And distribution is another matter again, one that is now better
handled by OAI-compliant Eprint Archives, online at least:
http://www.openarchives.org
http://www.eprints.org
LORRE SMITH: "editors might exert considerable influence in regard to
the role of publishers"
But what influence? Making sure that publishers' copyright policy does
not attempt to prevent self-archiving is the only influence that is
really needed right now.
(I know librarians are troubled by high subscription prices, but
lowering those it not the goal here: freeing online access to the
entire literature is. And apart from copyright transfer policy, there
is not much that editors can do about that now: It is up to
researchers.)
LORRE SMITH: "scholarly societies... may exert even more by
scrutinizing contracts or composing contracts that enforce more
appropriate policies"
But (apart from copyright), more appropriate in what way?
LORRE SMITH: "senior scholars [could] encourage mentees by introducing
and encouraging new ways of quality control"
Is this about reforming peer review again? Wouldn't it be better to
study what's wrong with it first, and what will fix it? The way to
free online access to the refereed literature is not to free it from
refereeing, nor even to free refereeing from the established journals.
It is to self-archive the literature!
Harnad, S. (1998/2000) The invisible hand of peer review. Nature
[online] (5 Nov. 1998)
http://helix.nature.com/webmatters/invisible/invisible.html Longer
version in Exploit Interactive 5 (2000):
http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue5/peer-review/
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature2.html
LORRE SMITH: "recognize and reward publication through new and
changing venues"
Why new venues? Aren't there enough journals already? The only change
that's needed is author self-archiving, to free what's in there
already!
LORRE SMITH: "understand and advise junior scholars concerning
appropriate publication"
Appropriate publication is to publish in the highest quality, highest
impact refereed journal one can. It is not about switching to
give-away journals, because of their giveaway policy instead of their
quality and reputation. The giveaway can be done without any sacrifice
by the authors themselves. That's what senior scholars should advise
junior ones to do (and do themselves too!).
LORRE SMITH: "can afford to take the risks of publishing in the new
venues so that new venues achieve elite status."
To try to free the literature of 20,000 refereed journals by
establishing 20,000 now, free ones would be an uphill road and might
take forever!
LORRE SMITH: "Public Library of Science"
The same is true for boycotting existing journals if they refuse to
become online giveaways, and to try to establish new ones for those
that refuse:
Harnad, S. (2001) Six Proposals for Freeing the Refereed Literature
Ariadne28 June 2001.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/minotaur/#1
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/ariadne.htm
LORRE SMITH: "Harnad has neglected to consider carefully (in his
article) the full costs of self-archiving and institutional costs for
electronic archives. These facilities are not inexpensive. Building
and maintaining appropriate interfaces and search engines are not cost
free. While it is true that institutions will be free of subscription
costs in the hundreds and thousands of dollars, those dollars may go
quickly to information systems that will provide access to archives."
Nothing of the sort. The Eprints archive-creating software, and all
the software it draws on, are free. A linux server costs about $1000.
Space on one that's already up costs even less. Reckon in some sysad
start-up time (not much: see
http://www.arl.org/sparc/pubs/enews/aug01.html#6 )
and you have an
archive ready to take a LOT of papers. The challenge is not getting
the money, but having led the research cavalry to the waters of
self-archiving, to actually get them to drink (by which I means
self-archive: they have much less sluggishness as users than as
providers):
http://www.eprints.org/users.php
7. What you can do now to free the refereed literature online
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Tp/resolution.htm#7
Stevan Harnad
Stevan Harnad, mercredi 21 novembre 01:05 (heure de Paris)
http://www.text-e.org/debats/
Received on Thu Nov 22 2001 - 04:39:54 GMT