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While fully agreeing with Rune Nilsen, I would add - but this is an old
debate between Stevan and myself - that the products of research do not
concern only researchers. I know medical practitioners that need the
recent literature to make choices in difficult situations and cannot have
it unless someone gives them access to it. I also heard about commercial
labs that do provide some limited access (which, strictly speaking,
breaks the terms of their licences with publsihers) ... against some kind
words for their products , or even against using these same products...
This kind of bartering is not very nice, to say the least, but that is
also what happens when access is not open to medical practitioners.
In the social sciences and the humanities, the case is quite clear and
this represents a large fraction of the research communities in countries
like Canada (more than 50% in fact). Anyone who has read Gibbons' The New
Production of Scientific Knowledge by Michael Gibbons et alii knows that
(see chapter 4). In the medical sciences, this is also true; in all of
engineering this is again true. In much of chemistry, givent its close
ties to industry, again this is true. In most disciplines (if not all, in
fact, if we think about the needs of education) research results concern
far more than researchers.
Moreover, in the developing world, i.e. 80% of humanity more or less, it
also includes researchers or would be researchers that cannot manage to
begin working serious because they lack access to the literature.
These are points that have been made repeatedly on this list and others,
but to no avail as far as Stevan is concerned. No matter: we can support
him on his limited quest to improve the situation of researchers in rich
countries and in rich institutions; but we shall also support and defend
all those that need the results of research, not only to do further
research, but also to act and take decisions in a more informed manner.
If he wants to limit himself to the elite sub-group, so be it!
This is a no-brainer in my opinion, but, for some odd reason, we keep
returning again and again to this question, and only because of one or
two individuals... I even bet we are going to be subjected to the same
old collection of tirades and URL's we have been periodically facing for
the last three or four years. Yet, taking into account the complete
audience of research results does not endanger the Open Access movement,
quite the contrary.
Oh well...
Jean-Claude Guédon
Le samedi 10 février 2007 à 20:33 +0100, Rune Nilsen a écrit :
Stevan Harnads 5 messages are very important and well well
pointed, except for no 5, Developing countries.
I strongly support Jan Veltrops comment to this point.
The needs for scientific literature to researchers and
others in developing countries are very important, not at
least in a global perpective of research challenges.
1. In health this is clearly stated by WHO and others what is
called the 90/10 dilemma: ("only about 10% of funding is
targeted to the diseases which account for 90% of the global
disease burden.") also addressing the fact that to solve
the most important global health problems, researchers and
universities in the developing part of the world have to be
partners, and and active users of international research
publications. The NIH and PLoS contribution to this agenda
setting has been good.
2. This 90/10 problem, however, is valid also in all other
fields of research (technology, biodiversity, social
science and so on).
3. If the international research community do not take the
consequences of this global reality, which includes the
publication strategy, we are supporting the present
ACADEMIC APARTEID. Availability of research publications as
OPEN ACESS, as a global public good is the most important
tool to address and solve the important global and
poverty related issues..
5. Mandatory self archiving is the most important tool for
this goal, --also for the "book writing" researchers.
I am professor in International health, University of
Bergen, Norway, and has worked in this field since last 30
years.
Presently I am leader of a research programme Nile Basin
Research programme (for all the 10 Nile countries)
In all the institutions we are working with, the most
fundamental problem is lack of access to research
publications.
Stevan, this is a big and fundamental global problem.
I am also member of the Working group of Open Access in the
EUA, European University Association, I am happy to say that
it is a rapidly increaseing awareness in this field in
Europe now.
Best regards
Rune Nilsen
Professor Rune Nilsen
Professor International Health
Director Nile Basin Research Programme (NBRP)
University of Bergen
POB 7800, 5020 Bergen
Norway
www.nile.uib.no
Teleph: +4741479217
.
________________________________________________________________________________
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]
On Behalf Of Velterop, Jan, Springer UK
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 3:58 PM
To:
AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Sense Versus Sensationalism: Pitting
Petitions Against Pit-Bulls
(1) The "open access movement" is not the "open
access journal movement", but that doesn't mean
there isn't something that can be described as an
"open access journal movement" among publishers
and editors (a growing number of sensible ones
offering 'Gold' open access);
(2) At least one of the two 'Gold' publishing
organisations (BMC) came *before* the BOAI and
both BMC and PLoS were constituents of the BOAI
(PLoS was not yet a publisher, but an open access
advocacy group before the BOAI and arguably
started the whole movement off);
(3) The need for access to medical literature and
in developing countries is not "just" a small
portion of the need for OA, but an important
portion, especially given the fact that a very
high proportion of scientific research is
medical, relevant to the entire world population
(not just scientists and medics) and
intellectually accessible to a rather wide range
of well-educated people (again, not just
scientists and medics), and a very low proportion
of any research reaches developing countries;
Jan Velterop
-----Original Message-----
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on
behalf of Stevan Harnad
Sent: Sat 2/10/2007 1:39 PM
To:
AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Sense Versus Sensationalism: Pitting
Petitions Against Pit-Bulls
Sense Versus Sensationalism: Pitting
Petitions Against Pit-Bulls
A CRITIQUE OF: Goldacre, Ben (2007) Open
access and the price of
knowledge. "Badscience.net" The Guardian,
Saturday February 10, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,,2010036,00.html
http://www.badscience.net/
"Journalists,
like moths and drunks,
seem attracted,
irresistibly,
where the light
shines, not
where the key lies"
(1) The Open Access movement is not the "Open
Access Journal movement."
Converting non-OA journals to OA journals is only
one of the two ways to
make articles OA ("Gold OA"), and the slower,
more resistant way. The
faster, surer way is to convert authors to
depositing their own articles
(published in non-OA journals) on the web to make
them OA ("Green OA").
It is Green OA that can and will be required by
researchers' funding
councils and employers (universities). The
research community has just
signed a petition in support of the European
Community's proposal to
mandate Green OA (20,000 individuals, 1000
institutions):
http://www.ec-petition.eu/
Similar movements are afoot in the US:
http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa/
(2) It is not "two [Gold] OA publishing
organisations" that have led the
fight for (Gold) OA, but one (Green and Gold)
organisation, the one that
first coined the term OA in 2002: The Budapest
Open Access Initiative:
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/
(3) The need for access to "medical literature",
and in "developing
countries" is just a small portion of the need
for OA, which concerns
all forms of research, and researchers all over
the world.
(4) The primary need for OA is to make research
(most of it specialised
and technical) freely available not only to
"part-time tinkering
thinkers, journalists and the public" but to the
researchers worldwide
for whom it was written and who can use and apply
it to the benefit of
the public that paid for it.
(5) To demonize non-OA publisher Reed-Elsevier as
the "sponsor of the
DSEI international arms fair [that] needs police,
security, wire fences,
and the pitbull of PR [Dezenhall] to defend it"
is to sink into the very
same pit-bull tactics. Reed-Elsevier journals
are Green on OA: It is
research funders and universities that now need
to mandate Green OA:
http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php
Journalists and tinkerers should think more
carefully before opining
about OA: Good science needs more sense, not more
sensationalism.
Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
Received on Sun Feb 11 2007 - 03:49:53 GMT