Re: When is a Journal Open Access?

From: peter murray-rust <pm286_at_CAM.AC.UK>
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 11:28:09 +0000

At 01:47 02/12/2006, Stevan Harnad wrote:

[lengthy and useful explanation of OA snipped...]

Thank you very much - this makes it clear and I am sorry for
misunderstandings. To summarise:

"A journal article is OA if it is accessible free online permanently.
OA is about commonsense, not operational definitions or a formal,
legalistic business. OA is defined on the article, not on the
journal. OA refers only
to online access to the online version." [SH quotes]

Corollaries:
1. It is an irrelevance or nonsense to talk of OA journals.
2. Whatever contractual conditions are attached to an "OA article"
are meaningless or irrelevant, or overridden by the fact of the
article having been posted openly (which has achieved by being OA)..
3. The various declarations of OA are overly complex and should be
replaced by the first SH sentence above and commonsense.

"distractions that have been slowing our progress in reaching the optimal
and inevitable. (I have no theory of why we tarry so) "

I apologize for the distraction - it came from an over-literal
interpretation of the BOAI.

Thanks

P.



Peter Murray-Rust
Unilever Centre for Molecular Sciences Informatics
University of Cambridge,
Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
Received on Sat Dec 02 2006 - 14:08:07 GMT