On 24-Jun-09, at 7:53 AM, Armbruster, Chris wrote:
> Congratulations to the CIHR for a stringent OA policy.
>
> Now to the dispute and argument:
> - BMC says authors are *required*
> - Harnad quotes the CIHR as saying *required to make every effort*
>
That's CIHR's words, not mine. "Required" simpliciter would have been
rather more stringent...
> You could argue that the BMC interpretation is not fully covered by
> the CIHR policy...
>
You could do better than that; you could state straight out that it
misrepresents the CIHR policy, incorrectly saying it requires
publication with a Gold OA publisher (it does not) and merely
encourages Green OA deposit -- which is again false: It requires
("making every effort") either to publish Gold OA or to deposit Green
OA.
> but you could also argue that the attack on the BMC press release is
> intended to obscure that one research funder has clearly recognized
> the strategic value of the final published version becoming OA. That
> is why Option 1 is OA publishing, why every effort is to be made and
> why OA already on the publisher's website is favoured.
>
What is somewhat obscure is CIHR's "stringent" policy. This policy is
not an original, it is a copy of the NIH policy, with a few
improvements (but not enough):
(1) "required to make every effort" s not an improvement of
"require" (but it's very Canadian)
(2) Making Gold OA publication Option #1 is not an improvement but a
step backward, since there are far more Green publishers than Gold
publishers, and in fact a Green mandate covers all publishers.
(3) Requiring immediate deposit in the case of Option #2 (Green) is a
BIG improvement, but would have been an even bigger improvement as the
only requirement (not an option), for all papers, with Gold OA being
what is merely "encouraged."
(4) Not stipulating that the Green deposit must be in PubMed Central,
but may be in the grantee's institution's repository is a BIG
improvement, but would have been an even bigger improvement if
institutional deposit were the preferred option.
(5) It would also have been an improvement to stipulate that it is the
fundee (not the publisher) who must do the deposit.
(6) Both NIH and CIHR require that the deposit be the author's peer-
reviewed final draft except for the option of direct deposit of the
published version by the publisher. The published version is welcome,
and can be encouraged, but on no account should it be the required
option.
> IRs have failed to deliver content and services.
>
They have failed to deliver content because their have failed to
mandate deposit.
IRs are able to deliver many services, but not without content. And
the majority of user services will not be at the IR level but the
harvester level.
> Green OA is cumbersome and expensive to implement because of all the
> versioning control and other exercises necessary to assure that
> something approximating a trustworthy copy of the real publication
> is created.
>
I think this is all profoundly incorrect. Green OA has no problem of
expense: expenses are distributed across IRs, and minimal. There is no
version problem
http://valrec.eprints.org/ ; just a content problem,
which is solved by Green OA mandates.
> For the sake of scientific communication and to increase the value
> of OA to scholars and the public alike, one would hope that all life
> science research funders follow CIHR in stipulating as preferred
> option publication in open access, backed by a large subject-based
> repository.
>
Let us hope not. Let us hope life science funders help wake the
"slumbering giant" (the institutions that are the universal providers
of all research, in all fields) by mandating institutional deposit of
the author's refereed final draft (the one with the fewest
restrictions on it) and leave subject-based services to harvesters.
That way we are more likely to get the content we are all waiting for,
at long last.
http://bit.ly/xbhqd
Stevan Harnad
>
> Chris Armbruster
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: boai-forum-bounces_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk on behalf of Stevan Harnad
> Sent: Wed 6/24/2009 13:16
> To: JISC-REPOSITORIES_at_JISCMAIL.AC.UK; SPARC Open Access Forum
> Cc: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: [BOAI] BioMed Central Press Release
>
> ** Apologies for Cross-Posting **
>
> On 24-Jun-09, at 5:01 AM, Charlotte Webber (BioMed Central) wrote in
> the press release appended in full after this posting):
>
> > The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) now requires
> > authors to publish research results into open access journals and
> > also encourages dual submission into an institutional repository.
>
> I invite readers to review the CIHR policy below and judge whether the
> above is an accurate description of the policy or self-serving spin by
> a commercial journal publisher (and IR service-provider) promoting its
> product:
>
> CIHR Policy on Access to Research Outputs:
> http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/34846.html
>
> -- Grant recipients are now required to make every effort to ensure
> that their peer-reviewed publications are freely accessible through
> the Publisher's website (Option #1) or an online repository as soon as
> possible and in any event within six months of publication (Option
> #2).
>
> -- Under the second option, grant recipients must archive the final
> peer-reviewed full-text manuscripts immediately upon publication in a
> digital archive, such as PubMed Central or the grantees institutional
> repository.
>
> -- Publications must be freely accessible within six months of
> publication, where allowable and in accordance with publisher
> policies...
>
> -- Grant recipients may also wish to submit their manuscripts to a
> journal that provides immediate open access to published articles (if
> a suitable journal exists). CIHR considers the cost of publishing in
> open access journals to be an eligible expense under the Use of Grant
> Funds.
>
> Yes, the difference between the reality and the spin makes a
> difference: a considerable difference. The underlying issue is always
> the same: Should priority be given to requiring Green OA self-
> archiving of all journal articles to make them OA, or to publishing
> articles in Gold OA journals to make them OA?
>
> No institution or funder on the planet "requires authors to publish
> research results into open access journals"!
>
> This is wishful thinking on the part of the publishers of open access
> journals. And when put in the way it is put in this BMC Press Release,
> it generates confusion at a time when OA mandates are still few and
> what is needed is clarity, not self-serving spin by commercial
> publishers promoting their Gold OA journals.
>
> Of lesser consequence, but worthy of note, are two further points
> related to the BMC press release:
>
> (1) "[T]he University's Supporter Membership with BioMed Central" is
> an incoherent (and self-serving) subscription-like notion that (if
> anyone gives it just a moment's careful thought) cannot scale to the
> day when many, most or all journals and publishers are Gold OA (10,000
> universities "joining" the publishers of 25,000 journals with
> individual annual memberships). "Membership" only gives the illusion
> of making any sense at all today, when a few Gold-OA journal-fleet
> publishers like BMC (now part of Springer) are promoting it to short-
> sighted and serials-stressed librarians: http://bit.ly/g62wK
>
> (2) Re: "BioMed Central's "Open Repository" system... using BioMed
> Central's extensive open access knowledge and technology experience":
> I am of course all for promoting Institutional Repositories (IRs); but
> one cannot but feel a touch sceptical about the notion of a commercial
> Gold OA publisher "promoting" IRs when IRs are -- and let us state
> this quite openly -- fundamentally in conflict with their primary
> commercial mission, which is to promote their Gold OA product. Green
> OA simply means author self-archiving of articles published in any
> journal at all -- and most journals are non-OA journals, let alone BMC
> journals. Hence it is inescapable that Green OA self-archiving is in
> competition with Gold OA publishing at this time.
>
> (Green OA will no longer be in competition with Gold OA once Green OA
> mandates have prevailed globally, and if and when the resulting
> universal Green OA eventually induces a universal transition to Gold
> OA by making subscriptions unsustainable. But today, for Gold OA
> publishers, promoting Green OA means promoting a rival means of
> providing OA itself, and, especially for commercial Gold OA
> publishers, that would be a bad business strategy. "Don't buy my
> product, because you can get it elsewhere for free." Hence the spin
> you see above.)
>
> Full Disclosure: I promote and very strongly endorse University of
> Southampton's "rival" IR system (Eprints); but Eprints is
> noncommercial, free, and has, and always has had, only one agenda,
> which is to promote universal Green OA, as quickly and as effectively
> as possible. "Eprints Services," fee-based, is only offered,
> reluctantly, as an option for those institutions who insist that they
> do not wish to set up Eprints on their own, for free; and Eprints
> Services revenues are used solely to sustain and promote the use of
> the free software, and Green OA itself: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/
> Moreover, I would welcome BMC's Open Repository Service as an ally,
> not a rival, if BMC ORS, too, could dedicate itself to the
> straightforward promotion of universal Green OA, without the obvious
> strains of conflict-of-interest evident in this press release.
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> > News release from BioMed Central
> > 24 June 2009
> >
> > "Canadian Excellence" strengthened by extensive adoption of open
> > access
> >
> > * Wilfrid Laurier University adopts Open Repository and BioMed
> > Central Membership
> > * Open access movement gains ground in North America
> >
> > BioMed Central and Wilfrid Laurier University today announce the
> > launch of Laurier IR, an institutional repository that provides a
> > visible point of open access archiving of intellectual output for
> > all members of the University community.
> >
> > Built on BioMed Central's "Open Repository" system and using BioMed
> > Central's extensive open access knowledge and technology experience,
> > Laurier IR is a personalized in-house repository that will
> > significantly increase access to the university's scholarly
> > information and also highlight the talent of the Universities
> > researchers and students.
> >
> > Laurier University is just one many organizations globally that have
> > adopted Open Repository since its inception. Open Repository is
> > built upon DSpace, an open-source solution for accessing, managing
> > and preserving scholarly material.
> >
> > In addition, the University's Supporter Membership with BioMed
> > Central reduces the barriers for Laurier researchers publishing in
> > BioMed Central's open-access journals by providing researchers with
> > a 15 percent discount on the article processing charges.
> >
> > The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) now requires
> > authors to publish research results into open access journals and
> > also encourages dual submission into an institutional repository.
> > Complying with this mandate and also heeding wider position
> > statements from bodies such as the Canadian Library Association
> > (CLA) necessitated Wilfrid Laurier University to establish Laurier
> IR.
> >
> > Laurier IR embraces the 'open access' movement by allowing authors
> > to submit their original research directly to the repository.
> > Electronic documents, including articles, pre-prints, monographs,
> > reports, movies and databases can all be archived in the repository.
> >
> > The service ensures that Laurier's scholarly communication output is
> > consolidated, thus enabling researchers to broaden their knowledge
> > base through greater collaboration and also providing a central
> > point to store teaching support materials across the Laurier
> > community.
> >
> > Laurier University aims to build a full community structure for
> > their repository within the next 12 months which will include
> > customized designs and collections for particular groups of
> > researchers. They also hope to implement a 'content recruitment
> > strategy' to ensure that as much scholarly output from the
> > university as possible is held with the repository.
> >
> > Speaking of the continued development of Laurier IR said "Laurier is
> > excited to be developing an institutional repository" said Dr.
> > Deborah MacLatchy, Vice-President: Academic and Provost at Laurier.
> > "It will be an excellent way for other scholars, as well as students
> > and professionals, to access scholarly and creative works and theses
> > published by Laurier faculty and students. It increases Laurier's
> > presence internationally and extends our scholarly output to a much
> > wider audience, such as researchers in the developing world."
> >
> >
> >
> > -ENDS-
> >
> > Media Contact
> > Matt McKay
> > Head of PR
> > BioMed Central
> >
> > Tel: +44 (0) 203 1922 2216
> > Mob: +44 (0) 7825 257 423
> > Email: matthew.mckay_at_biomedcentral.com
> >
> >
> > Notes to Editors:
> >
> > 1. BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com) is an STM (Science,
> > Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open
> > access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles
> > published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely
> > accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and
> > reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a
> > leading global publisher in the STM sector.
> >
> > 2. For more information on the Laurier Open Research Archive,
> > contact project manager Debbie Chaves at dchaves_at_wlu.ca
> >
> > 3. Open Repository (http://www.openrepository.com/) is a service
> > from BioMed Central to build, launch, host and maintain
> > institutional repositories for organisations. Built upon the latest
> > DSpace repository software the service has been designed to be
> > flexible and cost-effective. BioMed Central's economy of scale makes
> > it possible for organisations that could not otherwise afford to, or
> > lack the infrastructure or technical capacity in-house to run their
> > own repositories.
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Jun 24 2009 - 16:46:35 BST