Re: Authors and OA (RE: Mandating OA around the corner)

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

yOn Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Rick Anderson wrote:

> > The real problem with Harnadian OA (author self-archiving, for
> > example) is that it doesn't work *for authors.*

Of course it works for authors: those authors who do it. What doesn't work
is simply telling authors that OA will maximize their research impact.
Telling authors this is not enough to get them to self-archive for
*exactly* the same reason that telling authors that *publishing* will
augment their research impact is not enough to get them to publish: It
required a publish-or-perish policy by authors' universities and
research-funders to induce authors to do the right thing for themselves
(and for their universities and their research-funders, and for research
itself).

http://software.eprints.org/handbook/departments.php
http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php

> Self-archiving, for example, sounds like a great solution only until you
> consider all of its ramifications.  It's not just a matter of
> credentialling

A great solution to what? SA is a great (tried, true and certain) solution
to the problem of OA (access/impact), but not to the problem of converting
to OA publishing (but nor is SA intended to be: it is intended only for OA
itself).

And "credentialling" is simply a false issue, based on a profound
misunderstanding (based, again, on conflating OA itself with OA
publishing): The self-archived articles *are* credentialled: By the
journal in which they are published!

> By asking authors not only to do original research and write their
> papers but also to put them in a functional (maybe even attractive, and
> definitely ADA-compliant) online format, to maintain them in a
> universally-accessible online space, to be responsible for the
> maintenance of the necessary hardware and to keep the software
> up-to-date, to administer durable links, to carry the articles with them
> as they move from institution to institution (or provide for a permanent
> home someplace else) -- all of this will create an economic opportunity
> for someone ("Anyone! please!," I hear the authors cry) who is willing
> to provide those services, thus freeing up the authors to do their real
> work.  They will do so at a price, of course.

All on the wrong track: Authors need be asked only to do the research,
publish it in a peer-reviewed journal (as always) and, now, to also
provide OA to it -- either by publishing it in an OA journal (5%) or by
self-archiving it (95%).

Leave the archiving to the universities and their network of OAI-compliant OA
archives:

http://archives.eprints.org/index.php?action=browse
http://software.eprints.org/handbook/
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/

> We might not call such service providers "publishers," but that's what
> they'll actually be.  Then the question will be who should pay them for
> those services.  And so it all begins again...

How about just calling journal publishers "publishers" and publishing
"publishing," as always, and calling OA archives "OA archives," and
self-archiving "self-archiving" (not alternative-publishing, requiring
alternative credentialing)?

But to be able to do that, you will first have to deaconflate, once and
for all, "OA" and "OA publishing"!

Stevan Harnad