More OA Somnambulism: Conflating the Journal Affordability and Research Accessibility Problems, Again

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 15:41:35 -0500

The universities just keep sleep-walking. It would be amusing if it
weren't so appalling:

(1) U of C-1 (University of California), completely conflating, as
usual, the journal affordability problem with the research
accessibility problem, triumphantly bundles extra payment for
optional Gold OA publishing charges for its own researchers' article
output into its "Big Deal" subscription contract with Springer,
throwing still more money at publishers -- instead of simply
mandating that their own researchers make their own (published)
journal articles Green OA by self-archiving them in U of C-1's own
Institutional Repository (and, entirely independently, subscribing to
whatever journals U of C-1 needs and can afford). And they think this
is a "Good Deal" and a big step forward for OA. (No damage here that
could not be repaired by also adopting a Green OA Mandate.)

(2) U of C-2 (University of Calgary) does the same sort of thing
(having first cancelled an earlier Badder Deal along much the same
lines), triumphantly earmarking scarce funds -- which could have been
far better spent (especially in today's financial crunch) on things
that U of C-2 really needed and could not get otherwise -- to pay for
Gold OA publishing charges for its own researchers's article output.
This, again, instead of simply mandating that their own researchers
make their own (published) journal articles Green OA by
self-archiving them in U of C-2's own Institutional Repository. (No
damage here that could not be repaired by also adopting a Green OA
Mandate.)

(3) Harvard did the far more sensible thing, and mandated Green OA
self-archiving instead (but only if the author is willing and able to
negotiate rights-retention with his publisher -- otherwise the author
can opt out of self-archiving). Over 90% of journals already endorse
immediate OA self-archiving in some form, 63% for the refereed final
draft. If Harvard adds a clause that requires the no-opt-out
deposit of all articles, without exception, immediately upon
acceptance for publication, whether or not the author elects to opt
out of the rights-retention clause, then Harvard has the optimal
policy. (Access to embargoed deposits and deposits whose authors have
opted out can simply be stored in Closed Access instead of Open
Access during the embargo, or indefinitely; the Repository's
semi-automatic "Request a Copy" Button can provide Almost-OA to
Closed Access deposits almost immediately, with just one click from
the requester plus one click from the author, until universal OA
inevitably prevails.)

(4) It is not clear whether Boston University's "University-Wide"
policy (Harvard's mandate is so far only for the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences and the Faculty of Law) is indeed a mandate at all: If not,
it will fail, as all other nonbinding request/encourage policies have
failed -- beginning with NIH's policy, which was upgraded to a
requirement after two years of abject failure as a mere request. (No
damage here that could not be repaired by also adopting a Green OA
Mandate. Ditto for Griffiths U. and Nottingham...)

To make all the OA dominoes fall, all it takes is universal deposit
mandates; the rest is just (to mix metaphors) treading water and
somnambulism. 

Stevan Harnad
Received on Thu Mar 05 2009 - 20:43:19 GMT