Responses below.
On Sun October 3 2004 10:51 am, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Oct 2004, Jean-Claude Guedon wrote:
> > OSI is not subsidizing OA journals. It is subsidizing authors from
> > disadvantaged countries and institutions so that they may submit to OA
> > journals. OSI has also supported the setting up of repositories and of
> > guides to help doing so.
> > http://www.soros.org/openaccess/grants-awarded.shtml
>
> (The posting to which you replied was about both OSI and JISC, which *is*
> subsidizing journal conversion to OA publication.)
Then your wording was ambiguous at best.
>
> Perhaps it would be a good idea if OSI subsidized authors from
> disadvantaged countries and institutions to provide OA to their articles by
> self-archiving them in their institutional archives: Then the subsidy might
> generate more OA articles from the same author and institution for the same
> amount of subsidy money!
Why would authors need subsidies to self-archive, given all you have written
in the past about the ease with which this is done?
>
> My recommendations would extend substantially OSI's current efforts on
> behalf of setting up and filling institutional OA archives.
>
> > > (1) The cost of subsidising the conversion of an institution to OA
> > > self-archiving is far less than the cost of subsidising the
> > > conversion of a journal to OA-publishing.
> >
> > OSI does not do the latter.
>
> Maybe it would be a good idea -- per OA subsidy dollar spent -- to consider
> doing so, then. The subsidy could be reserved to the Developing world, if
> preferred.
Are you saying now we should be supporting the conversion of journals to OA,
at leas tin the Developing World? I do not understand you at all now.
>
> > > (2) The return -- in annual number of OA articles -- on subsidising
> > > the conversion of one institution to self-archiving is far greater
> > > than the return on converting one journal, and far more likely to
> > > propagate to other institutions of its own accord.
> >
> > Again, OSI does not do the latter.
>
> Always worth keeping an Open Mind on such matters...
Indeed, and I suppose that if we did follow this recommendation, you would
immediately turn around and berate OSI for supporting journal conversion
rather than archive building. This is becoming quite silly.
>
> > > (3) Converting one institution to OA self-archiving (unlike
> > > converting one journal to OA publishing) propagates over all
> > > institutional departments/disciplines.
> > > (*This is also the reason why it is so important that the national
> > > self-archiving mandates should be for distributed institutional
> > > self-archiving, as recommended by the UK Select Committee, rather
> > > than for central self-archiving, as recommended by the US House
> > > Committee.*)
> >
> > This is an interesting hypothesis, but it is only a hypothesis.
>
> And your pending posting, to which I shall reply shortly, is likewise a
> hypothesis. And rival hypotheses must be weighed on the basis of the
> supporting and contrary evidence and reasons, as I will try to do in a
> later posting. The data on the rate of both actual and potential growth in
> central archives, institutional archives, and OA journals tends to support
> my hypothesis. So does logic, if one thinks through the possibilities,
> probabailities, and practicalities. (And so does a forthcoming analysis by
> Rowland & Swan, commissioned by JISC.)
>
> http://archives.eprints.org/eprints.php?action=analysis
>
> > Result of this exchange: I have one interesting idea that I shall look
> > into; for the rest, I see hypotheses and statements that do not apply to
> > OSI's present policies.
>
> Try to keep an Open Mind on policy: The Open Access landscape is changing,
> and so is the Open Society's potential contribution to it! And we have to
> keep thinking until we get it right...
May I return the compliment. Try to keep an open mind too and not define too
narrow a path to paradise.
>
> Stevan Harnad
Received on Mon Oct 04 2004 - 12:59:06 BST