Dear Professor Spurrett,
Many thanks for the permission to post your message.
I might add, by way of a subtle strategic point, that if we are to have
open access to all refereed research, researchers have to be persuaded (or
obliged) to provide it. They will not be persuaded to provide open access
to their research output in order to solve their library's serials budget
problems, nor in order to punish the venal publishers, nor for the sake of
charity to the developing world -- nor even so that teachers, students and
the general public should have access to their work! Those are all worthy
reasons; moreover, they are among the likely side-effects of open access;
but they are definitely not what will persuade researchers to *provide*
the open access in the first place.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0008.gif
The only thing that will persuade researchers to provide open access is
a powerful and irrefutable empirical demonstration of the fact that doing
so is in their own interests -- indeed, a demonstration of *how much*
it is in their own interests, and how much they (and their institutions)
are losing, daily, monthly, yearly, until they do provide open access
to their refereed research output.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0009.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0025.gif
That is the empirical demonstration -- of the direct causal connection
between research access and research impact, and the substantial size of
the benefits -- that we are working on producing now, to persuade not
only the researchers to provide open access, but their employers and
funders to extend their existing publish-or-perish policies to mandate
that their researchers provide it.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0006.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0007.gif
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue35/harnad/
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html
Best wishes,
Stevan Harnad
Chaire de Recherche du Canada
Centre de Neuroscience de la Cognition (CNC)
Universite du Quebec a Montreal
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3P8
tel: 1-514-987-3000 2461#
fax: 1-514-987-8952
harnad_at_uqam.ca
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, David Spurrett wrote:
> You are welcome to make whatever use you see fit of the message I
> sent you. I add, in the same spirit, that my own teaching in cogsci in
> a developing country (South Africa) has benefitted a great deal from
> open access versions of scholarly publications. Our Gutenberg style
> library here isn't terrible, but it sure isn't great either. My students get
> to take seriously, and learn from, the ideas and results of people
> whose research is available though open access much more readily
> than that of those whose work is not.
>
> Regards,
>
> David
>
> >>> Stevan Harnad 11/25/03 08:31pm >>>
> Dear Professor Spurrett,
>
> Many thanks for the kind words. Redirected at the files (the self-faq
> and the openaccess-powerpoints, rather than me personally!) they would
> be very helpful in encouraging others to do likewise! I have added your
> name to the American Scientist Forum. (Let me know if you would prefer
> not.) If you were willing, an object-oriented version of what you wrote
> below, posted to the AmSci discussion thread that is the subject of this
> email, may do a good deal of good...
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, David Spurrett wrote:
>
> > Dear Professor Harnad,
> >
> > I'd like, briefly, to register my appreciation as a teacher and
> > researcher for your energetic and judicious championing of open
> > access. Given my interests, your efforts are those I encounter most
> > often, and they've substantially changed the ways I work as well as
> > arming me for attempts to influence others, and also to put pressure on
> > the policies of my university.
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > David Spurrett
> > Programme Director
> > Philosophy, University of Natal,
> > Durban, 4041, South Africa.
> > T: +27 (31) 260 2309 / 260 2292
> > F: +27 (31) 260 3031
> > E: spurrett_at_nu.ac.za
> > W: http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/spurrett/
> >
> > >>> Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK> 11/25/03 01:52pm >>>
> > On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, [identity deleted] wrote:
> >
> > > Dear Prof. Harnad,
> > >
> > > Do you have any notes that go with your Open Access PowerPoint presentation
> > > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/openaccess.ppt
> > > - specifically in the slide 25/52 (Quo usque tandem
> > > patientia nostra?) where does the data come from for the 2 graphs -
> > > "What we stand to gain" and "Yearly, Monthly, Daily Impact Losses" come
> > > from and how has it been calculated?
> > > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0025.gif
> > > It is based on the 336% impact-loss estimate from the Lawrence study
> > (bottom-left corner). It simply cumulates that impact-loss to show how
> > big it really is, and how it is growing with time.
> >
> > With collaborators at UQaM, Southampton, Oldenburg and Loughborough
> > we are now extending the Lawrence study (which was on a sample from
> > computer science) to the entire 10-year ISI database from 1992-2002
> > (about ten million articles) across all disciplines, in order (1) to
> > show the relative growth of open access across time, by discipline, and
> > (2) to estimate the relative impact advantage (in terms of citation counts)
> > that open access provides, across time, by discipline.
> >
> > Our method is first to compute the citation count for each of the
> > ten million articles indexed in the ISI database (using an algorithm
> > that takes each indexed article's reference list and fuzzy-matches
> > each cited article to the article it cites, whenever that too is in
> > the database). Then we send a software agent to the web to check, for
> > each of those ten million articles (again by fuzzy-matching), whether
> > a full-text of it is accessible toll-free on the web.
> >
> > We then compare, display and extrapolate, year by year, field by field,
> > journal by journal, (1) the number and (2) citation counts for articles
> > that are and are not openly accessible.
> >
> > These will be the actual data, replacing the Lawrence estimate in that
> > slide. We will then convert those impact losses into research income
> > losses for universities and research institutions, and use those data
> > to show university administrators, quantitatively, why it is that they
> > need to extend existing "publish or perish" policy to "publish *and*
> > provide open access to your publications" (in order to maximize research
> > impact -- and income).
> >
> > The hypothesis is that the only thing holding back immediate universal
> > open-access provision by researchers and their institutions today is
> > ignorance about (1) the magnitude of the needless accumulating impact
> > losses, and about (2) the simple, legal, and virtually cost-free way that
> > those losses can be immediately reversed through the dual open-access
> > strategy of (i) publishing in an open-access journal wherever a suitable
> > one exists (5%), and (ii) self-archiving all toll-access publications
> > otherwise (95%).
> >
> > Meanwhile, keep using those powerpoints to encourage open-access provision!
> >
> > Stevan Harnad
> >
> > NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
> > access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at
> > the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03):
> > http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
> > Post discussion to: american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
> >
> > Dual Open-Access Strategy:
> > BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a suitable open-access
> > journal whenever one exists.
> > BOAI-1 ("green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable
> > toll-access journal and also self-archive it.
> > http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
> > http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0026.gif
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0021.gif
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0024.gif
> > http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0028.gif
Received on Tue Nov 25 2003 - 20:51:49 GMT
