Stevan, Mandates, mandates, mandates. Yes, of course, mandates and
content are the no. 1 priority. But that doesn't mean we should
ignore anything else that might help facilitate more of both. We have
enough content in IRs now for improved visibility to be an issue, and
it's an issue that will become more acute as content continues to grow.
> IRs do not need "to do more to be highly visible." Their problem is
> not their invisibility, it is their emptiness. And Steve ought to
> know this, because his own department's IR is anything but invisible
> -- for the simple reason that it has content; and it has content
> because self-archiving is mandated!
My point is not about one single IR, or any single IR, but about
services that reveal IRs collectively. It's services that allow us to
have effective IRs - OAI and interoperability and all that. And I
didn't say they are invisible, but that they could and should be more
visible. It's not just about search, it's about awareness and
currency as well. Arxiv has that, IRs as a whole do not.
I'm not arguing for central repositories, but others are. Critically,
some mandates require them, e.g. Wellcome, while the UK RC mandates
are more open. So the best we can say is that the most important
mandates so far are ambivalent about subject vs IR. In that case some
authors affected by the mandates have a choice, and this is a
challenge to IRs now in which IRs can help their cause with better services.
Steve
At 21:03 18/07/2007, Stevan Harnad wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, Steve Hitchcock wrote:
>
> > Until recently I would have thought that David
> > was overstating the case about the limitations of
> > discovering papers in IRs, but now I tend to
> > agree. There is no conspiracy with journal
> > publishers. Simply the services available have
> > not kept up. Where is Web 2.0 for IRs?
>
> Nope, the problem is not with the findability of the OA content (in IRs
> or anywhere). It is with the absence of (85% of) it. Don't blame
> services for failing to find absent content!
>
> > There are problems with identifying full-text
> > availability and versioning/duplication in IRs.
>
> Nope again: The problem is not plenty of content yet too many
> versions/duplicates of it. (If that were the problem, it would
> quickly and easily be solved!) The problem is the absence of
> *any* version of (85% of) the content!
>
> > To overcome this we need better OAI and better
> > services. There is work going on that will offer
> > some opportunities but it needs to be focussed by
> > recognising the problems we are dealing with.
>
> Better OAI and services are always welcome, but they will not
> solve the real problem, which is absent OA content. That is
> the (*only*) real problem we are dealing with (and dancing
> around, in all directions, instead of solving it.)
>
> > One of the principal reasons for introducing IRs
> > was the lack of takeup of the subject model
> > beyond Arxiv, and the explicit link with the
> > author's institution.
>
> Lack of takeup up in the sense of failure to self-archive,
> not in the sense of preferring to self-archive here, rather than
> there. IRs were introduced so all institutions could provide OA
> to their own research output (in all subjects).
>
> > Now the situation may be
> > different. Most recent research funder OA
> > mandates are open about subject repositories vs
> > IRs (although where they are less open about this
> > mandates tend to favour subjects).
>
> The fact that some funder mandates favour central repositories is a big
> strategic error, and not one to be admired, encouraged or emulated,
> but one to be steered firmly in a more sensible, thought-through
> direction: IRs. (The same is true with the ill-considered mandates that
> allow
> deposit to be embargoed, instead of requiring immediate deposit and only
> allowing Open Access-setting to be embargoed: That too is not to be cited
> as a rational law of nature but as a silly, short-sighted decision by
> a few of the first funding mandators, to be corrected before it hardens
> into common practice.)
>
> > If subject
> > repositories exploit the inherent advantage of
> > visibility in a given field they could claim more
> > content.
>
> "Subject" repositories have no inherent advantage of visibility in a
> given field if they are empty. And if they happen to have content
> (beyond the 15% spontaneous baseline) as Arxiv did, then their
> advantage is not because of their centrality but because of their
> content! That very same content would have had the very same
> visibility if it had been deposited in IRs and harvested by OAIster
> or Google Scholar or Citebase or Citeseer -- or, for that matter,
> Arxiv!
>
> If someone has the hypothesis that having subject content in
> subject-based central repositories will help generate more OA
> self-archiving -- or more OA self-archiving mandates -- then let them
> harvest IR (and other) OA content metadata into subject-based
> meta-repositories. Let them not confuse the issue by recommending
> direct central self-archiving (again) after it has already failed.
>
> > Of itself that isn't a problem for those
> > fields covered by mandates, but what about the
> > rest?
>
> Isn't the answer obvious: Mandate the rest too! Not subject by subject
> but institution by institution, for all of an institution's subjects.
> And funders should mandate *institutional* self-archiving too. Then, if
> you wish, harvest the IR content metadata into subject-based
> meta-repositories.
>
> > IRs remain important, and have to do more
> > to be highly visible, or they risk becoming
> > secondary sources, as David suggests, with the
> > consequences that follow.
>
> Both David and Steve are missing the crux of the matter: There is
> little spontaneous self-archiving, either way, except in physics and
> computer science (for cultural and historical reasons). In physics,
> spontaneous self-archiving happens to have been much more substantial,
> and central. In computer science spontaneous self-archiving happens to
> have
> been much more substantial, and distributed (and harvested by Citeseer,
> and now Google Scholar). Both cases are exceptional solely because they
> are providing high volumes of content spontaneously (unmandated); not
> for any other reason (one being central and the other distributed).
>
> IRs do not need "to do more to be highly visible." Their problem is
> not their invisibility, it is their emptiness. And Steve ought to
> know this, because his own department's IR is anything but invisible
> -- for the simple reason that it has content; and it has content
> because self-archiving is mandated!
>
> With too many of the (still few) funders foolishly mandating central
> self-archiving instead of Institutional Self-Archiving, it remains
> for the sleeping giant -- the universities, the primary providers of
> *all* research, in *all* subjects, whether funded or unfunded -- to set
> the right example, by mandating self-archiving in their own IRs. Then
> funders will catch on and reinforce institutional self-archiving by
> requiring their fundees to self-archive in their IRs too. And then,
> if they wish it, central, subject-based repositories can harvest from
> the IRs willy-nilly, as they see fit.
>
> Stevan Harnad
> AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum
> .html
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/
>
> UNIVERSITIES and RESEARCH FUNDERS:
> If you have adopted or plan to adopt a policy of providing Open Access
> to your own research article output, please describe your policy at:
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>
> OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
> BOAI-1 ("Green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access
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> OR
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> if/when
> a suitable one exists.
> http://www.doaj.org/
> AND
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Received on Fri Jul 20 2007 - 16:06:14 BST