On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:31:09 -0700 Lesley Perkins wrote:
> But it also seems to me that John Willinsky may be on to something when
> he says we should be appealing to researchers' egos, by showcasing their
> articles (deposited in IRs) in special sections on university, and
> university library, homepages (and, as Peter Suber has pointed out, on
> sites like Cream of Science.) If that strategy works, then maybe a
> policy that mandate self-archiving will be a much easier pill for
> researchers to swallow.
>
> Regards,
> Lesley
John Willinsky = and Lesley - are definitely on to something, in my opinion.
For a researcher, having their work showcased in this way provides a very
concrete illustration of how self-archiving can increase impact (in this
case, certainly locally).
There are secondary reasons for building and filling institutional open
access archives that fulfill important needs for the university. For
example, a full OA institutional repository makes it possible to showcase
the work of a leading-edge research university. In Canada, a local
magazine, MacLean's, provides a comparison of universities every year on a
number of factors. It is not hard to see the open access archives being
added to the list - a real incentive for the research producers to mandate
deposit, and ensure their OA archives get filled.
Full OA archives will also help such universities to attract the best
faculty, students, and donors. For the administrators who need to be
involved in any mandate, these are important considerations. In addition,
the benefits of the research to the general public can be helpful to ensure
taxpayer support for the university.
This is a good reason for the research funder, also, to mandate OA - not
only does it maximize the benefits of the funded research, ready
availability of the research results to the general public can only help to
ensure taxpayer support for the funding of research.
In other words, helping universities to see these secondary benefits should
be most helpful in convincing universities to adopt the needed mandates. As
Jean Claude Guedon points out, to achieve change we need to develop
alliances - to develop alliances, we need to think about what the needs of
our potential allies are, not only what we see as priorities.
Heather Morrison
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
Received on Mon May 01 2006 - 00:20:33 BST