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Dear Stevan,
You wrote: ^ÓIf one slight change is made to the Lund OA policy, the "strongly recommends" can be uncontroversially changed into a "requires"^Ô
As Ingegerd mentioned we consider the decision of the Board of the University a major achievement on a journey towards Open Access.
I guess I do not need to mention that political processes within an organisation such as a university are not easy to manage. Therefore the wording: strongly recommends^Ô is not easily exchanged with ^Órequires^Ô ^Ö mainly because it sends a slightly different message and because it reflects the way we do things in Lund.
The bottom line is and will be that we have to implement services, workflows and show the benefits in such a way that it becomes attractive for researchers to act according to the policy.
You wrote: ^ÓOnce the Lund Policy is optimised, I hope you will register it as a model for other instutions to emulate in^Ô.
First of all I do not think it is important to optimise the policy for a foreseeable future, second it would be an own goal of dimensions to try to do it.
What we want to do instead of fine tuning a policy is to concentrate on the huge job we have to do in order to actually implement the OA-policy ^Ö then policy adjustments might come later, when hopefully everyone can see the actual benefits.
I do hope that we are allowed to register the existing policy though!?
All the best
Lars Bjørnshauge,
Director of Libraries,
Lund University
----- Original Message -----
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2005 7:30 pm
Subject: Re: Decision on OA policy Lund University
> To save time (and minimise multiple snippet-postings) I am posting and
> replying to Michael Day's comment in the same message (and appending
> Heather Morrison's at the end):
>
> On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Michael Day <lismd_at_ukoln.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > SH: If one slight change is made to the Lund OA policy, the
> "strongly> > recommends" can be uncontroversially changed into a
> "requires":>
> > Surely the main difference is that _requiring_ something means
> that an
> > organisation needs to set up some kind of monitoring and/or
> enforcement> regime? This is not just a matter of semantics but
> would have genuine
> > resource implications.
> >
> > Michael Day
> > Research Officer
> > UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom
>
> Yes, there are resource implications, but not the (minor)
> administrative ones
> (for monitoring compliance) that Michael Day is alluding to here.
> The major
> resource implications are the researcher and institutional revenue
> losses from
> *failing* to maximise the impact of their research output (by
> requiring it):
>
> Maximising the Return on the UK's Public Investment in Research
> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/28-guid.html
>
> It is already quite clear, both from international survey data on
> researchers' self-report data on future compliance with self-archiving
> requirements
>
> Open access self-archiving: An author study
> http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10999/
>
> and from actual statistics for self-archiving rates for "recommended"
> versus "required" self-archiving policies
>
> Comparison of Deposit Policies
> http://listserver.sigmaxi.org/sc/wa.exe?A2=ind05&L=american-
> scientist-open-access-forum&D=1&O=D&F=l&P=90391
>
> that recommendations simply do not work and requirements
> definitely do.
>
> Depositing papers in the author's institutional IR is a record-
> keeping matter,
> just like updating a CV for annual performance review. Yes,
> something has to
> be put into monitoring compliance, but a sensible policy will just
> make it
> a routine part of performance review (and, in UK universities, RAE).
>
> And the thing to keep in mind is the resourcing implications of *not*
> requiring deposit (because all the evidence is that if you don't
> requiredeposit, you don't get much depositing -- just as if you do
> not require
> publish-or-perish you don't get much publishing).
>
> Or is Michael worried about the resource implications of requiring
> publishingtoo?
>
> Another opinion (this time favorable) about requiring vs.
> recommending follows
> below. I recommend setting aside opinions and looking at the
> actual objective
> evidence, which is all favorable.
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Heather Morrison wrote:
>
> > SH: If one slight change is made to the Lund OA policy, the
> "strongly> recommends" can be uncontroversially changed into a
> "requires":
> Good suggestion, Stevan - one worth highlighting and repeating. No
> doubt universities wish to develop flexible policies to accommodate
> faculty choice, however, a requirement is much more empowering for a
> faculty member than a strong recommendation. In the rare instance
> where a faculty member wishes to publish with one of the very few
> remaining publishers with no green self-archiving rights, it is much
> easier for the faculty member if they are required to self-archive.
> A recommendation is more likely to invite negotiations, wasting the
> researcher's time, while a requirement is more likely to invite
> either a change or an exception to a publisher's policy.
>
> hope this helps,
>
> Heather Morrison
>
Received on Wed Dec 14 2005 - 19:44:59 GMT