Re: Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist

["FrederickFriend" <ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk>]

Perhaps Joe does not appreciate how closely the "services that 
people actually want to use" are linked to policies and 
guidelines. One aspect of green OA which is a service to users 
(authors in this case) is a link between a university's research 
management system and the repository into which research papers 
are deposited. Without that link authors may have to make two 
deposits of their research outputs, one into the research 
management system and again into the repository. Creating that 
link requires a policy decision and guidelines to researchers. A 
second example comes in the arrangements for paying gold OA 
charges. It is a service to users - in this case publishers as 
well as authors - if a university sets up straightforward payment 
mechanisms for this purpose. Setting up those payment mechanisms 
requires a policy decision and guidelines to authors.

More fundamentally this exchange of correspondence arising from 
the Monbiot article has been about what needs to be done to 
improve scholarly communication through growth in OA. This big 
question is not about demonizing publishers or about berating 
authors. It is about understanding and dealing with the systemic 
weaknesses in the research dissemination infrastructure. The 
weaknesses arise partly from a flawed relationship between the 
academic sector and the commercial sector, a relationship in 
which the academic sector has largely lost control of research 
dissemination, and partly from flawed governmental decisions on 
research assessment, resulting in universities and authors taking 
a narrow view of impact and quality. An OA-based research 
dissemination infrastructure will remedy those flaws, providing a 
more balanced relationship between the academic sector and the 
commercial sector and demonstrating the wider impact that 
research outputs should achieve, but we are finding that 
remedying the current systemic weaknesses is no easy task.

Fred Friend

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Esposito
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 12:56 AM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist

I don't think the OA world needs more policies or guidelines--or, 
for that matter, conferences of any kind.  I think it needs to 
build services that people actually want to use.

Joe Esposito

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 4:48 PM, Stevan Harnad
<amsciforum@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:24 AM, Barry Mahon <barry.mahon@iol.ie>
> wrote:
>
>> As I've said to you many times over the years, your logic is
>> impeccable, I'm just waiting for it to be implemented......
>
> Ouch! Perhaps you're right that one should duck out after over a
> decade and a half of abject failure. But call it blood-mindedness
> or overconfidence in the Law of the Excluded Middle, I'm still
> prepared to duke it out for a few years more.
>
> More seriously: I am now pinning my hopes on EOS
> (EnablingOpenScholarship:  http://www.openscholarship.org/),
> founded by Alma Swan and Bernard Rentier, which will become a
> legal entity in September (http://www2.frs-fnrs.be/open-access/)
> and will then be providing OA policy guidance to universities
> worldwide, with the help of most of the major contributors to OA
> to date (http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/c_6095/people)
>
> Stay tuned...