Re: Proposed update of BOAI definition of OA: Immediate and Permanent

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 17:49:42 +0000

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Lee Giles wrote:

> I strongly agree with these sentiments. If you don't include us, we will
> go elsewhere and create our own open access policies and movement.
> What a waste.

Please, this is a tempest in a tea-pot!

Distinguish (1) whatever it is that institutions and research-funders elect to
consider and reward as research publications (this has *nothing* to do with
Open Access or self-archiving!) from what they (2a) require, (2b) encourage,
or (2c) allow to be self-archived in their institutional archive!

Some institutions/fields only count and reward peer-reviewed journal articles
as research outputs; others also count peer-reviewed conference proceedings;
others count books. This is completely orthogonal to the question of institutional
self-archiving policy except in one respect: Institutions will no doubt want to
*include* among the publications that they require to be self-archived the kinds
of publications that they count and reward! (With the exception of books, which
are not in general author give-aways, and hence only their metadata and reference
lists can -- and should -- be self-archived.)

The metadata for each self-archived item can and should indicate clearly
whether or not an item is published, whether or not it is peer-reviewed,
and if published, where published (in which journal or conference
proceeding). The full reference is included.

All this *can* (and should) be self-archived, but of course an
institution is in a position to stipulate, if it wishes, that the only
items it *requires* its researchers to self-archive are, for example,
peer-reviewed journal articles, or peer-reviewed journal articles and
peer-reviewed conference articles, or still more.

An institution may also *encourage* (rather than require) the
self-archiving of pre-refereeing preprints, chapters in edited books,
research data, and other forms of research output. It can also draw its
line somewhere -- not letting its physicists self-archive their poetry,
for example (at least not in the institutional archive's physics research
sector).

Is it clear now that we are mixing apples and oranges when we talk about
institutional self-archiving strategy in terms of institutional research-evaluation
criteria? They are independent.

Stevan Harnad

PS The BOAI definition of OA is likewise neutral on what *else* to self-archive,
apart from the primary target, which is peer-reviewed articles (both journal
and conference!), and wherever possible and desired by the author, their
pre-peer-review preprint versions too.

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Lee Giles wrote:

> I strongly agree with these sentiments. If you don't include us, we will
> go elsewhere and create our own open access policies and movement.
> What a waste.
>
> Best
>
> Lee Giles
> Computer and Information Scientist and Scholar
>
> Laurent Romary wrote:
>
> >Iwas not planning to answer this thread, but any statement that does not reflect
> >the practices in communities such as computer science is not likely to be
> >endorsed by multidisciplinary bodies such as CNRS.
> >Laurent Romary
> >
> >Selon "J.F.B.Rowland" <J.F.Rowland_at_LBORO.AC.UK>:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Having spent all morning at a meeting discussing various academics'
> >>"outputs" and whether they are "acceptable" to the University's management
> >>for Research Assessment Exercise purposes, I heard this very argument from a
> >>computer scientist. The Pro Vice Chancellor for Research (an engineer, by
> >>the way) would have none of it. Journal articles only, please!
> >>
> >>Fytton Rowland, Loughborough University
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>As a Computer Scientist, I automatically read "peer reviewed journal"
> >>>as "peer reviewed (journal/conference/workshop/symposium)", because
> >>>that's the convention of my discipline, where a
> >>>conference/workshop/symposium is a "peer review service provider".
> >>>
> >>>
>
Received on Thu Mar 17 2005 - 17:49:42 GMT