I have written a critique of Jean-Claude Guedon's recent Serials Review
article:
The "Green" and "Gold" Roads to Open Access:
The Case for Mixing and Matching
Jean-Claude Guédon, Serials Review 30(4) 2004
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00987913
My critique is entitled:
Fast-Forward on the Green Road to Open Access:
The Case Against Mixing Up Green and Gold
Its full text is at:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/mixcrit.htm
(There is also a full-context version of the critique that quuotes his article
in entirety:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/mixcritcont.htm )
Comments are welcome.
Here is a summary from the introduction to my critique:
Open Access (OA) means: free online access to all peer-reviewed
journal articles.
Jean-Claude Guedon (J-CG) argues against the efficacy of author
self-archiving of peer-reviewed journal articles -- the "Green" road
to OA -- on the grounds (1) that far too few authors self-archive,
(2) that self-archiving can only generate incomplete and inconvenient
access, and (3) that maximizing access and impact is the wrong reason
for seeking OA (and only favors elite authors). J-CG suggests instead
that the right reason for seeking OA is so as to reform the journal
publishing system by converting it to OA ("Gold") publishing (in which
the online version of all articles is free to all users). He proposes
converting to Gold by "mixing and matching" Green and Gold as follows:
First, self-archive dissertations (not published, peer-reviewed
journal articles). Second, identify and tag how those dissertations
have been evaluated and reviewed. Third, self-archive unrefereed
preprints (not published, peer-reviewed journal articles). Fourth,
develop new mechanisms for evaluating and reviewing those unrefereed
preprints, at multiple levels. The result will be OA Publishing
(Gold).
I reply that this is not mixing and matching but merely imagining:
a rather vague conjecture about how to convert to 100% Gold,
involving no real Green at all along the way, because Green is the
self-archiving of published, peer-reviewed articles, not just
dissertations and preprints.
I argue that rather than yet another 10 years of speculation
what is actually needed (and imminent) is for OA self-archiving
to be mandated by research funders and institutions so that
the self-archiving of published, peer-reviewed journal articles
(Green) can be fast-forwarded to 100% OA. The direct purpose of OA
is to maximize research access and impact, not to reform journal
publishing; and OA's direct benefits are not just for elite authors
but for all researchers, for their institutions, for their funders,
for the tax-payers who fund their funders, and for the progress and
productivity of research itself.
There is a complementarity between the Green and Gold strategies for
reaching 100% OA today, just as there is a complementarity between
access to the OA and non-OA versions of the same non-OA articles
today. Whether 100% Green OA will or will not eventually lead to 100%
Gold, however, is a hypothetical question that is best deferred until
we have first reached 100% OA, which is a direct, practical, reachable
and far more urgent immediate goal -- and the optimal, inevitable
and natural outcome for research in the PostGutenberg Galaxy.
Stevan Harnad
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 or leave the Forum or change your subscription address:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
Post discussion to:
american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
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
Received on Mon Dec 27 2004 - 23:34:59 GMT