The following message from Peter Murray-Rust is posted with his
permission. My reply follows below Peter Murray-Rust's text:
> Date: Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:01:34 +0100
> From: peter murray-rust <pm286 -- cam.ac.uk>
>
> I have tried to summarise some of this in
> http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=703 where similar
> tensions exist in the chemical community, Open Source, etc. It's
> quite difficult to dispute strongly in public while moving towards
> a consensus. In that I note the agreements and differences in the
> Green/Open ideas....
>
> The differences between us are illuminating. For Stevan and many
> others a 6-month ban is a disaster. For me it doesn't affect what I
> want to do very much, but a ban on access to data is catastrophic. Can
> we reconcile these points of view? Do we need two separate instruments
> (I am beginning to think so). We certainly don't want to confuse
> the community, and the objective problem is complex enough.
>
> Here is the example I refrained from posting - my technical
> difficulties with Green access. It's offered to show how complex
> the issues are - not that there is a right view:
>
> Suppose I wish to access and re-use "Earlier Web usage statistics
> as predictors of later citation impact " Tim Brody, Stevan Harnad,
> Leslie Carr with Digital Object Identifier (DOI) 10.1002/asi.20373
>
> If I search Google (not Google Scholar) with the title
> (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Earlier+Web+usage+statistics+as+predi
> ctors+of+later+citation+impact+%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:
> en-GB:official&client=firefox-a)
> I find many links which are a mixture of the publishers official
> site (Closed, TA), portals, and some freely accessible copies of
> the article (Soton, Citebase, etc.). I look for the "Green" copy of
> the article and I do not know which it is. I might stop there and
> many people would. However if I use some intelligence (more than
> my robot can) I might assume that ecs.eprints.soton.ac.uk was an
> official repository. (I am only guessing at this because it's got
> eprints in the URL). I find:
> http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10713/
> is this the Green version? There is no machine-interpretable metadata
> saying it is, no copyright and no licence. (There is a keyword
> "self-archiving", but this could - and probably does - refer to the
> content rather than the actual context).
>
> If I am brave I might assume that because it's freely accessible it
> is ipso facto Green. Regardless of the lack of explicit metadata. But
> I want to re-use it. Not because of Open Access, but because I am
> interested in graphs representing web-based timeseries (There is a
> graph showing web usage against time and it's a highly legitimate
> and active area to look at the growth and fluctuations in this graph).
>
> So I cut and paste this graph onto my website with the message
> ("Does anyone have a timeseries algorithm which can interpret this
> graph"). I may need to edit it (e.g. separate out the different
> series) so I cannot simply link to the original.
>
> The graph - I assume, because I cannot verify it - is also in Wiley's
> copy of the article. So when I post it, Wiley's robots discover
> I have copied one of their graphs and - like Shelley Batts - send
> me a lawyer's letter. They do not know - nor, probably does anyone
> else - that the graph is a Green graph and not a Black graph. It may
> even be that there has been no agreement between Stevan and Wiley
> that the graph can be posted. It may well be that the "full-text"
> or Stevan's paper is Green but the graphs belong to Wiley.
>
> So unless Green carries explicit permissions I cannot see technically
> and legally how I can re-use it.
>
> Peter Murray-Rust
> Unilever Centre for Molecular Sciences Informatics
> University of Cambridge,
> Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069
Stevan Harnad's Reply.
Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
> PM-R:
> The differences between us are illuminating. For Stevan and many
> others a 6-month ban is a disaster.
No, it's not a disaster. It's unnecessary; it's dysfunctional. But it
isn't a disaster at all. The simple solution is the global adoption,
by all universities and all research funders worldwide, of the
Immediate-Deposit ID/OA Mandate plus the "Email Eprint Request"
Button. Only almost-immediate, almost-OA. Less convenient. But not
a disaster.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
And once we approach 100% ID/OA, embargoes will be well on the way to
dying the natural death they so richly deserve, under the irresistible
pressure of the increasingly obvious and palpable benefits of OA.
> For me it doesn't affect what I
> want to do very much, but a ban on access to data is catastrophic. Can
> we reconcile these points of view? Do we need two separate instruments
> (I am beginning to think so). We certainly don't want to confuse
> the community, and the objective problem is complex enough.
Yes, we need separate instruments (though I'm not quite sure what
"instruments" means), because, no, the problem of researcher access to
journal articles that are inaccessible behind publishers' toll-access
firewalls is not the same as either the problem of researcher access to
researchers' unpublished primary data, nor the problem of publishing
enhanced derivative works composed of published journal articles.
If "instrument" means "strategy," then, yes, we need a different strategy
for the two (possibly three) different cases. If "instrument" means
"name," then I suggest we reserve "Open Access: for researcher online
access to published journal articles (postprints) for now, and extend it
to other kinds of content (data, books) only after we are safely on the
road to 100% OA to journal articles. If "instrument" means capabilities,
then I suggest we should not subsume the publication of derivative works
under OA: Let that continue to require special permission until such a
time as all research authors are agreed that they want to give blanket
permission for blanket re-use, and such a time as they are all in position
to do so (because they have all retained the requisite rights in their
copyright transfer or licensing agreements with their publishers). Not
now.
> PM-R
> Suppose I wish to access and re-use
> "Earlier Web usage statistics as predictors of later citation impact "
> Tim Brody, Stevan Harnad, Leslie Carr
>
> If I search Google...
> I find many links which are a mixture of the publishers official site
> (Closed, TA), portals, and some freely accessible copies...
> I look for the "Green" copy of the article and I do not know which it is.
> I might stop there and many people would.
Stop what? Stop trying to read, download, store, and print it off? Do that
with any of those copies that is freely available.
And right now, next to nothing is OA. (About 15%-25% of the literature,
more in some disciplines, less in others, such as chemistry.) Hence the
problem is not that you don't know which one's the Green version (nor
whether you may go ahead and enhance it with SciBorg), but that most of
it isn't there any which way.
Solution: Get it all up there, as Green OA, by mandating it, institution
by institution (backed up by funder mandates). Once it's all being
reliably deposited in each institution's IR, it's a piece of cake to
calibrate search so as to flag those IRs as containing the Green OA
versions of choice.
> PM-R
> However if I use some intelligence (more than my robot can)... I find:
> http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10713/
> is this the Green version?
Yes, but, as noted, today it matters nary a whit, compared to the fact
that most current research output is not in the Green IRs the way
that lucky postprint is; once all or most is, it can and will all be clearly
tagged as green OA postprints.
> PM-R
> If I am brave I might assume that because it's freely accessible it is
> ipso facto Green. Regardless of the lack of explicit metadata. But I want
> to re-use it. Not because of Open Access, but because I am interested in
> graphs representing web-based timeseries (There is a graph showing web
> usage against time and it's a highly legitimate and active area to look at
> the growth and fluctuations in this graph).
>
> So I cut and paste this graph onto my website with the message ("Does
> anyone have a timeseries algorithm which can interpret this graph"). I may
> need to edit it (e.g. separate out the different series) so I cannot
> simply link to the original.
No problem at all. That's the author's postprint. He put it up so you
could do that kind of thing with it. And you can report the outcome,
properly attributed with a citation. It's his discursive full-text that the
author is not in general interested in having republished as all or part
of another work (without permission).
> PM-R
> The graph - I assume, because I cannot verify it - is also in Wiley's copy
> of the article. So when I post it, Wiley's robots discover I have copied
> one of their graphs and - like Shelley Batts - send me a lawyer's letter.
> They do not know - nor, probably does anyone else - that the graph is a
> Green graph and not a Black graph. It may even be that there has been no
> agreement between Stevan and Wiley that the graph can be posted. It may
> well be that the "full-text" or Stevan's paper is Green but the graphs
> belong to Wiley.
Nope. If the postprint is Green, every bit of its content is Green.
Ignore any lawyer's letter you get from Wiley -- or refer them to the
author.
> PM-R
> So unless Green carries explicit permissions I cannot see technically and
> legally how I can re-use it.
Peter, you've been traumatised by publishers threatening litigation
over your re-use of their versions. We are talking about the author's
version, the Green OA postprint, and neither your example nor your worry
carries over.
Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
tml
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:
http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html
OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
BOAI-1 ("Green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal
http://romeo.eprints.org/
OR
BOAI-2 ("Gold"): Publish your article in an open-access journal if/when
a suitable one exists.
http://www.doaj.org/
AND
in BOTH cases self-archive a supplementary version of your article
in your own institutional repository.
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
http://archives.eprints.org/
http://openaccess.eprints.org/
Received on Sun Oct 21 2007 - 22:54:18 BST