On Mon, 28 Apr 2008, N. Miradon wrote:
> The proposal that the European Commission should "set up a web-based
> repository for published project results" was suggested by EURAB and
> subsequently supported by the Cour des Comptes [footnote 1 of page 17 of
> [0]).
>
> But Professor Harnad rejects this idea. He says that instead of running
> its own repository, the European Commission should harvest from the
> recipients' Institutional Repositories [1].
I did not say the EC should not run its own repository. I said they
should not mandate direct deposit therein. They should mandate direct
deposit in the author's IR and then harvest to the EC repository from
there.
And EURAB did not insist on direct central deposit:
"The repository may be a local institutional and/or a subject
repository."
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=European%20Research%20Advisory%20Board%20%28EURAB%29
> This would be fine, if all 100% of those institutional repositories were
> up and running. But are they?
Each of the universities and research institutions of Europe is only
a free piece of software and a couple of days of sysad time away from
having its own IR. If the Commission specified the recipient's IR as the
preferred locus of deposit, most of the institutions that don't yet have
an IR would set one up.
http://caltechlib.library.caltech.edu/15/00/SPARC-EprintsReview.pdf
(And for those institutions that don't yet have an IR, there are always
interim IRs like DEPOT
http://depot.edina.ac.uk/ (and, I *hope*,
soon, through Prof. Bernard Rentier's EurOpenScholar and U. Southampton,
EurOpenDepot
http://or08.ecs.soton.ac.uk/euro.html) as well as
consortial IRs, to tide them over.)
The problem is not and never has been getting an IR, but getting the
IR *filled* with its intended OA content. That's why funder mandates
need to complement institutional mandates, with both systematically
converging on the IR as the locus of deposit.
> I just looked for ["Seventh Framework Programme"
> projects] in Google. The first hit was the "WELTEMP" project (Water
> Electrolysis at Elevated Temperatures) [2].
>
> I could not find any of the WELTEMP partners [3] listed in the Registry of
> Open Access Repositories [4].
>
> The coordinator's university (DTU) is listed on Den Danske
> Forskningsdatabase // Danish Research Database [5]; but today (2008-04-28)
> this says "NB! The Danish Research Database is currently not being updated,
> we are working on a new solution planned to release in the 1st quarter of
> 2008". As regards Technical University of Denmark (DTU), it says
> "literature and projects available for 1996 - 1999 (2000 onwards will
> follow)".
The reason IRs are running fallow today is because neither their
institutions nor their funders are mandating deposit in them. That is
my point!
All research originates from institutions. If the Commission mandates
deposit of its EC-funded research institution-externally, it is
needlessly doing far less than it easily can, in order to generate 100%
OA for all European research, from all disciplines and all institutions,
whether EC-funded or not.
> I have nothing against WELTREMP or any of its partners. On the contrary, I
> suspect that they are representative of quite a lot of grant recipients,
> i.e. that somewhat less than 100% of Framework Programme 7 grantees have got
> a fully functional Institutional Repository. This may have changed by the
> time we get to the next Framework Programme - lets hope that it has. But
> for the moment, since the Commission already has a repository with 100%
> coverage, I cannot think that EURAB and the Cour des Comptes are wrong to
> suggest that this repository simply be put on the web.
The objective is not to get EC-funded research into a central EC
repository (though that is welcome too). The objective is to get all
EC-funded research *OA* (along with all EC-unfunded research). An
extremely minor detail in the implementation of the EC's deposit
mandate -- namely, depositing institutionally and then harvesting
centrally) would make a very major difference for OA growth in Europe.
The concern about institutions that do not yet have IRs can be
accommodated by stipulating that direct deposit in the grant recipient's
own IR (and sending the EC the URL) is the EC's preferred means of
submission, but direct submission is permissible too.
Stevan Harnad
> [0]
> http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:026:0001:0
> 038:FR:PDF
> [1]
> http://listserver.sigmaxi.org/sc/wa.exe?A2=ind08&L=american-scientist-open
> -access-forum&D=1&O=D&F=l&S=&P=36347
> [2] http://www.weltemp.eu/partners.html
> [3]
> CH INDUSTRIE HAUTE TECHNOLOGIE SA http://www.iht.ch
> CZ INSTITUTE OF MACROMOLECULAR CHEMISTRY OF THE ASCR VVI.
> http://www.imc.cas.cz
> CZ VYSOKA SKOLA CHEMICKO-TECHNOLOGICKA V PRAZE http://www.vscht.cz
> DK DANISH POWER SYSTEMS APS http://www.daposy.dk
> DK DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET http://www.dtu.dk
> IT ACTA SPA http://www.acta-nanotech.com
> NO NORGES TEKNISK ~V NATURVITENSKABELIGE UNIVERSITET http://www.ntnu.no
> ?? TANTALUM TECHNOLOGIES A/S http://www.tantaline.com
> [4] http://roar.eprints.org/
> [5] http://www.forskningsdatabasen.dk
Received on Mon Apr 28 2008 - 20:08:47 BST