[LINK] more about open info access ...

Anthony Hornby anthony.w.hornby at gmail.com
Wed Apr 1 11:52:48 AEDT 2009


Hi All,
some comments from me - and I don't pretend to have a perfect view of
all of this. So tell me where I am wrong (I always like to learn new
things).

>>... OA, ePrints and repositories movements has not, or at least not
>>yet, resulted in success in practice. This is because only a small
>>proportion of papers are actually
>>self-deposited ...

This is the case where deposit is not mandated. My understanding is
that where deposit is mandated eg NIH and other examples there are
high levels of deposit. The problem is not enough mandates from
funding bodies / governments and research institutions. One point of
OA repositories is to act as a catalyst for change in the research
publishing world, to educate institutions and research authors to not
hand over their copyright on a plate. This deposit process should be
able to be built into the publication process - my previous comment
was alluding to this - let the negotiation between publishers and
researchers happen via the repository and provide the support to get
the appropriate contracts negotiated etc. Also last year the best
estimate was around 20% of the world wide research outputs are
available via OAI-PMH now. This is increasing and while not
overwhelming, is some success. It is also much higher in some
disciplines than others. Still the message here is a lot of
researchers are not strongly motivated to publish Open Access - this
is changing through mandates etc but the current regime largely
rewards those that stay within the current system (though this varies
to some extent by discipline).

> The self deposit process seems to me to be a flawed business model
> derived from a librarian's outdated idea of how publishing is done.

Is rubbish (sorry).

Libraries are running repositories to contain pre and post prints
because the dominant model right now is commercial publication via
large publishers who require in many cases for authors to sign over
their copyright and then they lock this IP away and sell it back to
the research community. Yes there are many changes in how publishing
is done now and many of these can't come fast enough, but to suggest
that the commercial publication of journals by companies like Elsevier
etc is already in the minority for publication of peer-reviewed
research outputs is just not the case. It is also the case that most
publishers couldn't care less about consistent interfaces for
harvesting data/metadata to their published research platforms (they
want you to buy it and lock you in via their interfaces / branding /
advertising). Without a powerful motivator for the existing players to
change (or a way to make them irrelevant) how will we ever get to a
situation where all the research outputs (and just as importantly
research datasets) are made available via open and well understood
mechanisms and able to harvested, analysed and brought to researchers
automatically via smart web tools.

I don't think the majority of librarians could care less about the
actual platform as long as the majority of research outputs and data
sets out there able to be found, mined, interconnected and analysed
and get out of the flawed model we are currently locked into.

>Having set up the ACS <http://dl.acs.org.au/> and IFIP
><http://dl.ifip.org/> digital libraries, it seems to me it is much
>simpler and cheaper to make an open access publication, than try to
>get people to put copies of papers from old publications in a
>repository.

No argument there, but this is not the case for the vast majority of
research publishing right now, and what is the motivator for that
status quo to change. We are dealing with a guild mentality in most
research publishing and there needs to be a fundamental shift to get
us out of this mess. Repositories and funder / employer mandates are
one very strong motivator/instrument (and personally if
funders/governments said to researchers you must deposit/publish your
work in an Open Access journal directly rather than have it in the
local repository I would be completely happy with that - it would save
us a lot of local effort!!). Open Access publishing efforts and new
web citation tracking, metrics and peer review mechanisms are also
very important (we need to provide opportunity for money and
visibility, prestige and career advancement to the best and brightest
in this new open access world).

I guess my major objection to your comments is that you are taking a
large and complex problem and reducing it to a couple of "simple"
fixes with some allied unsubstantiated comment. Research is very big
business with entrenched interests that mostly don't want a richly
connected corpus of research out there for all (unless they own it all
and you are buying it from them). Current advancement for researchers
(peer recognition and career advancement) is still very closely tied
to participation in the current closed commercial publishing world in
many, many places. This is not going to go away by itself and requires
a range of approaches and constant vigilance by everyone who wants
change.


Regards Anthony



2009/3/31 Tom Worthington <Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au>:
> At 03:10 PM 31/03/2009, Roger Clarke wrote:
>>... ask for ... feedback on ... Open Access to Journal Content as a
>>Case Study in Unlocking IP ...   http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OAJC-0904.html
>>
>>... OA, ePrints and repositories movements has not, or at least not
>>yet, resulted in success in practice. This is because only a small
>>proportion of papers are actually
>>self-deposited ...
>
> The self deposit process seems to me to be a flawed business model
> derived from a librarian's outdated idea of how publishing is done.
>
> Having set up the ACS <http://dl.acs.org.au/> and IFIP
> <http://dl.ifip.org/> digital libraries, it seems to me it is much
> simpler and cheaper to make an open access publication, than try to
> get people to put copies of papers from old publications in a
> repository. Setting up AJIS <http://dl.acs.org.au/index.php/ajis>
> with papers borne digital was much simpler than the IFIP DL which has
> to take items already published elsewhere.
>
> The problem to me seems to be that librarians are used to getting
> copies of things which someone else has already published. Publishing
> used to be an expensive and complex process. But with e-publishing
> the mechanics of the process is easier. It is a lot easier to get
> authors to put the content and metadata into the system when they
> first submit their paper, than try and get them to do it later as a
> pre- or post print, or to try and automatically extract the data from
> someone else's system.
>
> There is a powerful motive for an author to provide the required
> metadata and content for an open access e-journal: if they do not,
> their paper will not be published. With a pre or post print into an
> archive, they author has little incentive to deposit, as they do not
> get any extra credit (or cash) for doing it.
>
>
>
> Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
> Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
> PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
> Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
>
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