Working with ICT and development, and specifically with refereed
research literature, we strongly support Stevan's message regarding the
imbalance between OAPub ["gold"] and OAArch ["green"], both in the
debates in this list and in the general media coverage of OA.
[BOAI-2 ("OAPub" "gold"): Publish your article in a suitable
open-access journal whenever one exists.
BOAI-1 ("OAArch" "green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a
suitable toll-access journal and also self-archive it.]
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0026.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0027.gif
Of course, ALL OA support is greatly welcomed, but OAPub will take some
time to achieve. For those in the developing world who cannot wait, we
are doing all we can to raise awareness about the opportunities offered
by OAArch, by writing, talking, organising workshops for establishing
archives .... Bioline International is doing sterling work showing the
way by archiving all the 24 developing country journals it currently
distributes --
http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca --. But more help is needed
from the international scientific community.
We would like to call on all those commited to the OA movement to
redress the balance in your promotional activities by explaining to all
that with OAArch nothing else need change. All organisations, including
developing country institutes, can archive their refereed published
research as soon as they have set up their own archives or, even easier,
can use one of the other interoperable archives already established. At
a stroke, the S to N, N to S and S to S knowledge gaps can begin to
close. No need to worry about the fate of established journals, no need
to worry about economic models, no need to worry about
costs/workload/quality/ - no need to change anything else atall.
Scholarly publishing continues in its well known and reliable path.
Perhaps the other argument that will most pursuade researchers in the
developed world is that the 'missing' research is essential for their
own research too. They think they know it all, but search for 'gene',
say, through the yet embryonic Bioline archive and the results will
show that they do not. Search for 'malaria' in the main Bioline
site --
http://www.bioline.org.br -- and a wealth of important data
emerges. Developing country knowledge is essential for us all. The other
most pursuasive argument to encourage archiving by scientists and their
institutes in the developed world is the greatly increased impact of
everyone's archived research --
http://archives.eprints.org/eprints.php
--.
This is what all scientists, and every institute funding their work,
most want. Why hide their achievements when institutional archiving is
available to all?
The OAPub route will progress and the economic debate will be resolved
over time, but the OAArch can happen now and we owe it to our scientific
colleagues in the less priviledged countries - and to ourselves - to
'just do it'. Ideas as to how to speed up this reform would be very
welcome from subscribers to this list.
Subbiah Arunachalam, Trustee EPT, MS Swaminathan Institute, Chennai
Leslie Chan, Trustee EPT, University of Toronto
Barbara Kirsop, Secretary EPT, UK
Electronic Publishing Trust for Development
<
http://www.epublishingtrust.org>
----------------------------------------------------------
Prior Threads:
On the Need to Take Both Roads to Open Access
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2995.html
The Green Road to Open Access: A Leveraged Transition
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3378.html
The Green and Gold Roads to Open Access
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3147.html
Received on Fri Feb 27 2004 - 09:58:17 GMT
