The following "Poisoned Apple" FAQ has been added to the Self-Archiving
FAQs:
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#32.Poisoned
32. Poisoned Apple
"I worry about self-archiving even if the journal gives me the
green light to do so, because if I do, the light may change
to red."
Eighty-four percent of journals have already given their green light
to author self-archiving --
http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php -- for
at least six reasons. Here are those 6 reasons, in approximate order
of priority:
(1) OA is Optimal and Inevitable. Open Access (OA) is clearly on the
way. Its benefits to research and researchers -- in terms of enhanced
research usage and impact -- are demonstrated and undeniable.
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june04/harnad/06harnad.html
Its progress is unstoppable. Going green is a natural way for
research journal publishers to support OA and demonstrate that they
are not in conflict with what is in the best interests of research and
researchers. Opposing OA today is becoming increasingly bad public
relations for journal publishers.
(2) Green is a Hedge Against Gold. At the same time, the risks of
converting to OA journal publishing ("gold") are still considerable:
The OA cost-recovery model has not yet been tested long, and only
by about 5% of journals:
http://www.doaj.org/ Hence going green is
a rational hedge against pressure to go gold: "If authors want OA
so badly, let them show it by providing it for themselves, with our
green light, rather than pressuring us to make all the sacrifices,
and take all the risk upon ourselves."
(3) The Risk of Going Green is Low: There are physics journals that
have been effectively green since 1991, and some of their contents
have been 100% OA through self-archiving for years now, yet their
subscription revenues have not eroded. The American Physical Society
(APS) was the first green publisher. One physics journal (JHEP),
born gold (subsidised), even converted back to green, successfully,
by migrating to a green publisher (IOP) .
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0471.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1812.html
(4) If/When It Ever Came To That, Green Would Allow Publishers
a Gradual Leveraged Transition to Gold. OA growth by author
self-archiving is gradual and anarchic, article by article, rather
than journal by journal. It gives journal publishers time to adapt to
OA. If and when there should ever be a transition to gold, a prior
green preparatory phase will allow this to be a stable leveraged
transition rather than an abrupt and catastrophic one.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3378.html
(5) OA Enhances Journal Impact Too. Enhanced impact not only benefits
reasearch, as well as authors and their careers, but it benefits
journals too, as the journal impact factor (which helps sell journals)
is the average of its articles' impact.
(6) Research Institutions and Funders Will Soon Be Mandating
Self-Archiving. The US House Appropriations Committee and the UK
Parliament Science and Technology Committee have both recommended
that self-archiving be mandatory for funded research. As this mandate
is implemented, it will produce pressure for journals to go green,
or risk losing their authors. It accordingly makes more sense to
anticipate this mandate by going green now.
http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/congress.html
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm
http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
In the light of these 6 reasons for publishers to go green now, it is
hard to imagine why anyone would think that authors taking publishers up
on their green light today, by going ahead and self-archiving -- thereby
generating still more OA, and still more demand for and reliance upon OA
-- would make it easier rather than harder for any journal not to be
green than it is today, when 84% are already green. On the contrary,
authors failing to go ahead and self-archive even though the publisher's
light is green would give opponents of OA strong grounds for concluding
that the research community does not need or want OA as much as it
purports to do, and hence there is no real call for either green or
gold!
Stevan Harnad
UNIVERSITIES: If you have adopted or plan to adopt an institutional
policy of providing Open Access to your own research article output,
please describe your policy at:
http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
UNIFIED DUAL OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
BOAI-2 ("gold"): Publish your article in a suitable open-access
journal whenever one exists.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals
BOAI-1 ("green"): Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable
toll-access journal and also self-archive it.
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
A complete Hypermail archive of the ongoing discussion of providing
open access to the peer-reviewed research literature online (1998-2004)
is available at:
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
To join the Forum:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
Post discussion to:
american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
Received on Sun Aug 01 2004 - 03:16:53 BST