Re: Critique of J-C Guedon's Serials Review article on Open Access

[jcg <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Having been on the road for a while and having just extricated myself from
a fair number of papers to mark, I have not had time to study Stevan
Harnad's critique of my paper published in Serials Review last December.
However, having now downloaded it and printed it, I can say that I am
flattered, if only by its length.

Having also read only the first two paragraphs, I can only say that Stevan
Harnad is a little like this French (actually Belgian) cowboy cartoon
character called "Lucky Luke": Lucky Luke is famous for "shooting faster
than his shadow": Stevan is increasingly becoming famous for being able to
write faster than he reads.

I will only take the very first sentence as witness:

"Jean-Claude Guedon argues against the efficacy of author self-archiving
of peer-reviewed journal articles... etc"

I have not argued against the "efficacy of author self-archiving"; I have
argued that OA self-archiving is good in and of itself, but insufficient,
incomplete, etc... and I have ventured to see how to complete
self-archiving.  Incompleteness of function and lack of efficacy are quite
different matters.  However, when you write faster than you read, these
distinctions may actually get blurred...

Once again, I have not rejected self-archiving; on the contrary, I have
said it should be done, and I repeat again if only to slow down Stevan's
writing speed for the sake of keeping closer to reality, it SHOULD REALLY
BE DONE;  but WE SHOULD NOT STOP THERE. And I tried to indicate how we
should move beyond simple self-archiving.

With regards to dissertations, this is not a necessary first step and was
never meant to be an absolutely necessary first step; it was introduced on
pragmatic grounds. In effect, I was saying: if you think my scenario holds
some water and if you want to try it with materials that are interesting,
that you pretty well control and which are functionally similar (not
equivalent, Stevan, similar and the similarity lies in the way they are
circulated, used and cited, nothing more), then dirty your institutiona
and technical hands with theses. Then move on to articles, holding the
results already achieved with articles: this might help convince more
members of the faculty to come aboard.

One point Stevan fails to mention in his somewhat idiosyncratic summary of
my paper as portrayed in the first two paragraphs of his somewhat lengthy
rebuttal is that I spend a fair amount of time showing how refereed papers
that are self-archived open the possibility of enriched evaluation
methods. I specifically argue that this ought to attract some attention.
As a result, we should see authors testing the possibility of submitting
papers directly to these archives, once they demonstrate that they can
impart "symbolic value"  or "branding" onto articles that have already
been refereed and branded through journals titles. It is only at that
stage that we reach true gold status.

And the "should" here is not "imagining"; it is the basis of a hypothesis
which, like any hypothesis, ought to be tested. I am presently trying to
find the ways to do such tests with various colleagues in various
contexts.

In fine, all I was arguing in this paper is that it would be important to
see how to make the green and gold roads work in tandem, one preparing the
way for the other; I was also working toward reuniting these two
strategies within a wider, more encompassing vision of their respective
roles. Nothing was rejected, except perhaps Stevan Harnad's pretention
that self-archiving by and of itself is the sure path to scholarly bliss,
bliss being conceived in his vision as mainly enhanced visibility (as
measured by impact).

I could go on and on and on like this, and I may still do so at some later
point, directly or in the course of other papers. However, for the moment,
let me recall that my point was NOT to disparage self-archiving - we
greatly need to do it and do more of it -, my point was to improve our
Open Access strategies by stopping viewing the green and gold roads as
necessarily separate, or worse as competitors for rare resources.

Pace Harnad!

Jean-Claude Gu�don 

On Wed December 29 2004 10:27 pm, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>             ** Apologies for Cross-Posting **
>
> I have written a critique of Jean-Claude Guedon's recent Serials Review
> article:
>
>     The "Green" and "Gold" Roads to Open Access:
>     The Case for Mixing and Matching
>     Jean-Claude Gu�don, Serials Review 30(4) 2004
>     http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00987913
>
> My critique is entitled:
>
>     Fast-Forward on the Green Road to Open Access:
>     The Case Against Mixing Up Green and Gold
>
> Its full text is at:
>
>     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/mixcrit.htm
>
> (There is also a full-context version of the critique that quotes J-CG's
> article in entirety:
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/mixcritcont.htm )
>
> Comments are welcome -- preferably posted to:
>     american-scientist-open-access-forum@amsci.org

[SNIP]

> Stevan Harnad