[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: The Value of OA

This is just wrong. The proposition that is being put forth here is between fully open access material and fully closed access material, a contrast that does not exist on the Internet, where materials are found through Web-exposed indexes, published keywords, linking arrangements, abstracts and summaries, hot-linked citations, and various (and evolving) algorithmic methods. There is an entire industry that has grown up around thise called "search-engine and site optimization"; and like any industry, it has its share of cheaters and scam artists. Google "SEO" and take a look.

This industry also has serious and ethical players (who are expensive), who redesign content for maximum Web "findability" and can greatly and legitimately increase the prominence of research materials. This costs money: it requires well-designed Web presences, superior marketing personnel, and extensive attention to Web analytics. It also requires sophisticated software platforms to manage all of this, something that is apparently entirely lacking in the OA universe, where "cheap" is a synonym for "good." This is why commercial and well-run not-for-profit research publishers have always provided, continue to provide, and will provide in the future the best vehicle for researchers who publish. There are very good reasons to want to publish in Nature and Science, just as there are very good reasons to want to send your kid to Harvard or Yale.

The basic problem here is the insistence that Web findability and access are somehow one and the same. It just ain't true. You can put up anything you want on a Web server and you may even get lucky and have Google and some other search engines index it. And this is where advocates of OA start and end the discussion. The problem is that findability is a function of many, many things, including how content is "pitched" to search engines and the network of Web relationships surrounding content. You can build it, but they may not come.

But even this doesn't speak to the biggest issue of all, which is not how you find or access something, but what puts those keywords into a researcher's head in the first place. OA is useless here; it can only fulfill demand that has been generated elsewhere. The OA advocates are doing an enormous disservice to authors by telling them that they can all be stars in a Hollywood movie. Where oh where are the tort lawyers when you need them? Of course, the vanity of authors is endless and many listen and believe. Successful and prominent OA publishers understand the importance of generating demand. Wouldn't every commercial publisher like to have a marketing budget the size of PLoS's?

Joe Esposito

On 4/7/07, Alma Swan <a.p.swan@talk21.com> wrote:
Joe Esposito wrote:
There is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works in this post. OA is contrasted with hardcopy and Web 1.0 applications. Everything that is listed here for OA can be done (and done better) with proprietary services.
There is no misunderstanding, fundamental or otherwise. OA is contrasted with CA (closed access) on the Web (I must confess I hadn't given much thought to print: a rather quaint concept in the context of obtaining scientific information). Authors cannot cite articles they don't know about, they certainly cannot cite early any articles they don't know about, semantic technologies cannot get at closed access articles to work on them, proprietory services do not construct one research space, and researchers whose work requires them to reach out into other fields cannot find articles that are not in their library (and the concept of 'new fields' frequently means that their library does not provide the materials they need). Indeed, this whole area of servicing the demands of collaborative and pooled research is a major issue that research libraries are now having to start facing up to (as will be clear from the report to be published next week by RIN).

Alma Swan
Key Perspectives Ltd
Truro, UK