Re: On Throwing Money At Gold OA Without First Mandating Green OA, Again!

From: (wrong string) édon <jean.claude.guedon_at_umontreal.ca>
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:55:53 -0400

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Here we go again with a ruinous outlook on OA where Gold and Green
roads are seen as competing with each other in some crazy, absolute,
way. Interest for Gold is not "pre-emptive" of Green.

The obvious point, it looks to me, is that all these steps are useful
to move forward toward OA. That universities should seek to have
mandates is fine, of course; that they should seek ways to help their
researchers to publish in OA  is equally fine. In some universities,
the people in place do not see their way through a mandate but see
their way to helping authors publishing in OA; in other universities,
other people find their way to a mandate. The politics of a mandate
may appear far more difficult in one place, and less so in another.
Are we going to stay immobile wherever mandates are very hard to
secure, or cramped in a monotonous cry for the mandate despite the
local immobilism? Is it not possible, in the meanwhile, to seek other
ways to help OA? And is this not a bit more realistic than claim in a
strident voice that "universities should on no account... etc."

Jean-Claude Guédon

Le samedi 28 mars 2009 à 18:13 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
      Pre-emptive Gold Fever seems to be spreading. 


      Following hard on the heels of University of California's
      Gilded New Deal with Springer -- UC subscribes to the
      Springer fleet of journals for an undisclosed fee, but,
      as part of the Deal, UC authors get to publish their
      articles as Gold OA for free in those same Springer
      journals -- now Universities UK (UUK) and the Research
      Information Network (RIN) are jointly dispensing advice
      on the payment of Gold OA fees (which is fine) but
      without first giving the most important piece of advice: 


      Universities should on no account spend a single penny on
      Gold OA fees until and unless they have adopted a Green
      OA mandate for all of their refereed journal article
      output.


      There is still time for UUK and RIN to remedy this, by
      prominently setting the priorities and contingencies
      straight. I fervently hope they will do so!


      (Peter Suber is expressing the very same hope, but in his
      characteristically gentler and less curmudgeonly way.)


      Stevan Harnad

      American Scientist Open Access Forum

Jean-Claude Guédon
Université de Montréal
Received on Sun Mar 29 2009 - 02:09:23 BST