Graphic needed to illustrate the effect of access on impact

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 19:51:04 +0000

Dear Colleagues:

In case there are any who are graphically gifted among you, I'd like to
solicit an illustration (for educational purposes) of the
effect of self-archiving and open-access on the research impact cycle:

The idea is to illustrate the difference between doing things the old
toll-access way:

(1) Doing the research (res) then submitting (sub) the preprint to a
journal, refereeing (ref), revision (rev), acceptance (acc), eventual
publication and arrival in a library (lib), and then the (limited) access
for those whose libraries can afford the access tolls

VERSUS

doing it the new open-access way (by self-archiving the preprint and the
postprint in the "sky," for all poetntial users to access):

(2) Doing the research (res), self-archiving the preprint (PRE) -- then
submitting (sub) the preprint to a journal, refereeing (ref), revision
(rev), acceptance (acc) -- self-archiving the refereed postprint (POST)
-- and eventual publication and arrival in a library (lib)

The time-line the for old toll-access sequence looks like this:

res-sub-ref-rev-acc-lib

The time-line the new open-access sequence looks like this:

res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib

But the revolutionary difference is *not* just that PRE comes earlier,
but that POST (and also PRE, but POST is much more important, as *that*
is the refereed, validated research) also appears up in the sky, for
free, for all potential users to access, whereas "lib" goes only to
that small minority of all potential users whose libraries can afford
the access-tolls.

So the point is not just the faster time, but the universal accessibility,
and how it both accelerates and increases research impact. That is what
the picture has to illustrate graphically.

In my own (graphically handipcapped!) head, the way to illustrate this
would be to show it as a "research impact cycle": One paper's impact
cycle ends with another researcher reading it and using it to start the
next impact cycle (that's research use, citation, etc.).

So the old, toll-access impact cycle is both slow and limited (by
toll-access):
                                        ...
                    res-sub-ref-rev-acc-lib...
res-sub-ref-rev-acc-lib...
                    res-sub-ref-rev-acc-lib...
                                        ...

The new open-access impact cycle is not only *faster,* because it starts
research impact propagating earlier (already from the PRE):

               ...
            ...
        res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
    res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
    res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
        res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
            ...
                ...

but, even more important, much *more* research impact is propagated,
because there is much more access to the POST (because it is all toll-free
in the sky):

                         ...
                     ... ...
                ... ...
            ... res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
        ... res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
    ... res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
    ... res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
        ... res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
            ... res-PRE-sub-ref-rev-acc-POST-lib...
                ... ...
                    ... ...
                         ...

And *more* research impact is even more important than *faster* research
impact (although both are the spin-offs of open-access).

Maybe someone in this Forum can create an iconic version of this,
with self-explanatory icons replacing "PRE", "sub," "ref" etc.?

Cheers, Stevan
Received on Fri Jan 10 2003 - 19:51:04 GMT