May I suggest that the best OA strategy, now proven over and over again,
is not to over-reach: Don't try to get more than is necessary in order
to get OA, otherwise you risk years of needless and fruitless delay over
the needless increment. As examples, I give four prominent cases:
(1) Don't hold out for the publisher's proprietary PDF; it isn't
necessary, and has far more obstacles and restrictions attached to it.
Make the author's refereed, revised, accepted final draft (the
postprint) the target for deposit mandates.
(2) Don't try to dictate the journal in which your researchers publish:
just mandate that they deposit their postprint immediately upon
acceptance for publication.
(3) Don't try to mandate rights-retention or renegotiation: Rights
retention and renegotiation is desirable and welcome where and when it can
be successfully accomplished, but OA only requires depositing the
postprint (with ID/OA, below). Don't delay or jeopardize the adoption of
an OA mandate by making it contingent on rights retention/renegotiation.
Authors do not like anything that constrains their choice of journals or
their perceived likelihood of acceptance, or that gives them needless
extra work. You want author cooperation and enthusiasm, not author
resistance and resentment.
(4) If you cannot get an immediate-deposit, immediate OA mandate adopted
quickly and without opposition from those who are worried about
copyright, adopt instead the Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access (ID/OA)
mandate. Any deposit about which the author is unsure can be set as
Closed Access instead of Open Access (and email eprint requests, via the
IR's semi-automatic button, can be fulfilled almost-instantly, providing
almost-OA throughout any embargo period). Do not let a mandate be
delayed, or turned into a non-mandate, because of copyright worries.
The obstacle to OA is only keystrokes. ID/OA will ensure that the
keystrokes get done, and nature will take care of the rest, under the
influence of the increasingly palpable benefits of OA.
Many mandates are being delayed or undone by needless extra constraints
like the above. OA is urgent, and reachable, with an ID/OA mandate, with
no need to do anything else as a precondition. Please adopt ID/OA first,
now, and then debate upgrades and extras afterward. OA has already waited
long enough...
Stevan Harnad
On Mon, 3 Dec 2007, Talat Chaudhri [tac] wrote:
> I recall some problems of the same sort that happened a few years ago,
> although not the details, in Swansea. I'm rather surprised that nobody
> seems to remember that there has in the past been some discussion of
> institutions trying to take copyright over research produced in the
> course of employment, and strike action has been mooted before. It
> reached THES, but this is all quite a while ago now, so I forget the
> details. Let's be clear, I don't expect a repeat of this issue, though
> Fred's testimony affirms that there are still strong feelings here -
> even though there's clearly no money in it.
>
> What I meant was this: we and probably many repositories ask for the
> researcher to indemnify the university against loss sustained through
> negligence, while not agreeing necessarily to defend them if someone
> breaches their own copyright. See
> http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/cadair/licence.jsp for our licence,
> which I'm afraid is unlikely to be changed. At the same time it is
> increasingly a condition of research grants to deposit, and an
> expectation of their academic work to seek grants - all this would be
> affirmed more directly if we achieved a mandate. This would be a change
> to a condition of employment that could be seen to put academics at
> personal risk. Union action is not therefore a fanciful notion.
>
> Thanks for any advice on this,
>
>
> Talat
>
Received on Mon Dec 03 2007 - 17:05:08 GMT