On Mon, 26 Feb 2007, Michael Geist wrote:
> Thanks for the thoughts Stevan. I'm not sure the public/policy
> makers care about the distinction between Green and Gold -- in my
> view, the hook for them is about access to knowledge and maximizing
> public tax dollars (the themes I emphasized in the piece) - but I
> appreciate the additional perspective and information your email
> provides.
Dear Michael,
It is the public/policy makers that we are trying to persuade to mandate
OA self-archiving (Green). If they do not understand the distinction
between Green OA and Gold OA then they do not understand what it is
that we are trying to persuade them to mandate. That is ideal for the
publishing lobby, since they are (successfully) trying to persuade the
public/policy makers not to do anything at all, just keep "studying."
Hence, if OA is the goal, nothing is more important than the distinction
between Green and Gold, because Green can be mandated and can get us to
100% OA with certainty, now, whereas Gold cannot be mandated, and leaves
us a long way from OA for a long, long time.
If the hook for public/policy makers is about access to knowledge and
maximizing tax dollars (and I agree with you that that is the hook),
then the crook (i.e. the means) for providing that access and maximizing
those dollars is to mandate Green OA. If public/policy makers think
Green OA is Gold OA, or they don't understand (or care that) there is
a difference, then they don't understand how to provide that access and
maximize those dollars.
Best wishes,
Stevan
> MG
>
> On 26-Feb-07, at 8:47 PM, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>
> > Dear Michael,
> >
> > Your Toronto Star article http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/
> > article/185609 was very informative and useful, but I hope you
> > don't mind if I point out a few points of misunderstanding:
> >
> > "Last month, five leading European research institutions launched
> > a petition that called
> > on the European Commission to establish a new policy to require
> > that all government-funded
> > research be made available to the public shortly after publication.
> > This is correct and accurate, but the petition did not really call
> > for a "new" policy: It supported the policy already reocmmended to
> > the European Commission in January 2006:
> >
> > Recommendation A1: Guarantee Public Access to Publicly-Funded
> > Research Results Shortly After Publication
> > Establish a Europea policy mandating published articles arising
> > from EC-funded research to be available after
> > a given time period in open access archives
> > "That requirement ^Ö called an open access principle ^Ö would
> > leverage widespread Internet connectivity with low-cost electronic
> > publication to create a freely available virtual scientific library
> > available to the entire globe.
> >
> > It is actually called an ^Óopen access self-archiving mandate^Ô:
> > Fundees are required to deposit a free copy of their final draft of
> > their research journal articles in their institutional repository.
> > This is not a form of ^Ólow-cost electronic publication.^Ô Legally,
> > posting is ^Ópublishing,^Ô but for academics, ^Ópublishing^Ô means
> > publishing in a publisher^Òs publication ^Ö which in the case of the
> > OA movement, mostly means a peer-reviewed journal. That is the
> > publishing; that is what goes into an academic CV under ^Ópublished^Ô
> > ^Ö not what one simply posts on the web. Posting on the web,
> > academically speaking, is access-provision, not publishing, and
> > especially if what is being posted is already published. Other wise
> > it is mere access provision to an unpublished manuscript.
> >
> > There is widespread confusion between ^ÓGreen OA^Ô (author self-
> > archiving of conventionally published articles) and ^ÓGold
> > OA^Ô (publishing in OA journals that make the article OA on behalf
> > of the author)
> >
> > This Green/Gold OA confusion has alas been slowing the growth and
> > progress of OA.
> >
> > "Despite scant media attention, word of the petition spread quickly
> > throughout the scientific and research communities. Within weeks,
> > it garnered more than 20,000 signatures, including several Nobel
> > prize winners and more than 750 education, research, and cultural
> > organizations from around the world.
> >
> > Now over 22,000 and 1000 respectively^Å
> > "In response, the European Commission committed over $100 million
> > toward facilitating greater open access through support for open
> > access journals and for the building of the infrastructure needed
> > to house institutional repositories that can store the millions of
> > academic articles written each year.
> >
> > This is alas a rather important error: The EC did not commit ^Óover
> > $100 million toward facilitating greater open access^Ô in response
> > to the petition!
> >
> > The actual order of events was this, and it makes a huge difference:
> > (1) The EC proposed to mandate OA self-archiving (Green
> > OA) in January 2006 (EC Recommendation A1.)
> >
> > (2) An EC OA self-archiving mandate was actually adopted
> > by the ERC (European Research Council) in January 2007
> >
> > (3) The European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) also
> > confirmed and strengthened EC A1
> >
> > (4) In advance of its actually taking place, it had been
> > rumoured (in the OA community) that the February 2007 Brussels EC
> > meeting would be announcing a much-weakened version of EC A1,
> > possibly no longer a mandate at all, modified under successful
> > pressure from the publishing industry lobby
> >
> > (5) That was why the petition was launched by its five
> > sponsoring organizations: To try to demonstrate the strength of the
> > research community's support for the original EC A1 self-archiving
> > mandate
> >
> > (6) The petition failed to have that effect
> >
> > (7) At the Brussels meeting, the result (already
> > formulated before the meeting and before the petition) was
> > announced as a fait accompli: EC A1 was not adopted. No mandate,
> > just further debate and consultations
> >
> > (8) This back-down from the EC A1 mandate, under publisher
> > pressure, was ^Ósweetened^Ô (again under publisher pressure) with
> > funding provided to finance ^Ófurther study of alternative
> > publishing models (nothing to do with mandating OA self-archiving).
> >
> > Hence, Michael, you have unwittingly described what was in fact the
> > defeat of the EC A1 mandate by the publishing lobby as if it were a
> > victory for OA as a response to the petition. Unfortunately, it was
> > nothing of the sort.
> > "The European developments demonstrate the growing global demand
> > for open access, a trend that is forcing researchers, publishers,
> > universities and funding agencies to reconsider their role in the
> > creation and dissemination of knowledge.
> >
> > The petition certainly demonstrates this, but the EC response to
> > the publishing lobby certainly does not. It is yet another
> > successful filibuster of OA progress by the publishing lobby, under
> > the guise of OA progress.
> > What is needed is not more funding, or more studies: what is needed
> > is a mandate, to self-archive.
> >
> > "For years, the research model remained relatively static.
> >
> > In Canada, federal funding agencies in the sciences, social
> > sciences and health sciences doled out hundreds of millions of
> > dollars each year to support research at Canadian universities.
> >
> > University researchers typically published their findings in
> > expensive, peer-reviewed publications, which were purchased by
> > those same publicly funded universities.
> >
> > This is beginning to mix up what both the EC A1 Recommendation and
> > the petition supporting it were actually about ^Ö which is mandating
> > the self-archiving of articles published in conventional journals
> > (whether expensive or not) in order to make them OA for all (Green
> > OA) with what it was not about:
> > EC A1 and the petition were not about OA journals (Gold OA), nor
> > about journal affordability. They were about research accessibility.
> >
> > EC A1 was about mandating Green OA, not about Gold OA, which cannot
> > be mandated and is growing far too slowly to provide the OA that is
> > urgently needed, now.
> >
> > But conflating the two simply plays into the hands of those who use
> > objections against the viability of Gold OA as the justification
> > for opposing Green OA.
> >
> > (The Brussels meeting itself did focus on publishing in general and
> > on Gold OA publishing in particular; but that was partly the result
> > of the publisher lobbying. Moreover, the EC Committee
> > Recommendations of which EC A1 was the first did include a number
> > of recommendations concerning Gold OA, but there is controversy in
> > the research community about diverting research funds to fund Gold
> > OA, whereas there is strong support for mandating Green OA Self-
> > Archiving.)
> >
> > "The model certainly proved lucrative for large publishers, yet
> > resulted in the public paying twice for research that it was
> > frequently unable to access.
> >
> > Cancer patients seeking information on new treatments or parents
> > searching for the latest on childhood development issues were often
> > denied access to the research they indirectly fund through their
> > tax dollars.
> >
> > The emergence of the Internet dramatically changes the equation.
> >
> > For the research community, the issue s not journal affordability
> > but research accessibility: The Internet makes it possible to
> > provide access to articles published in unaffordable journals to
> > those who cannot access them, via author self-archiving (OA Green).
> > This is not at all the same thing as converting non-OA journals to
> > Gold OA journals. Unlike self-archiving, that is not in the hands
> > of researchers, their funders and their institutions.
> >
> > "Researchers are increasingly choosing to publish in freely
> > available, open access journals posted on the Internet, rather than
> > in conventional, subscription-based publications.
> >
> > Increasingly here means about 5-10%, which is all there is of Gold
> > OA journals. Green OA self-archiving is doing better, at about
> > 15-15%, but that isn^Òt nearly enough either. That is why OA
> > mandates are needed, but the only thing that can be mandated is
> > Green, not Gold. And that is why it is so important not to conflate
> > them, as you unfortunately do here.
> > "The Directory of Open Access Journals, a Swedish project that
> > links to open access journals in all disciplines, currently lists
> > more than 2,500 open access journals worldwide featuring over
> > 127,000 articles.
> >
> > Your article has been talking up to this point about the EC A1
> > Recommendation, the petition in its support, and the EC meeting and
> > its outcome: All of that was about mandating Green OA. Whence this
> > transition to discussing publishing economics and OA Gold?
> > "Moreover, the cost of establishing an open access journal has
> > dropped significantly.
> >
> > Aided by the Open Journal System, a Canadian open source software
> > project based at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, more
> > than 800 journals, many in the developing world, currently use the
> > freely available OJS to bring their publications to the Internet.
> >
> > I don^Òt understand why there has been this abrupt switch to
> > discussing Gold when the topic was Green^Å
> > "For those researchers committed to traditional publication, open
> > access principles mandate that they self-archive their work by
> > depositing an electronic copy in freely available institutional
> > repositories shortly after publication.
> >
> > This is a rather complicated and somewhat confusing way of saying:
> > "If you want OA for your article and there is no suitable OA
> > journal for it (as will be true 90-95% of the time), self-archive
> > it. And funders and institutions should mandate that."
> > "This approach grants the public full access to the work, while
> > retaining the current peer-reviewed conventional publication model.
> >
> > While today this self-archiving approach is typically optional, a
> > growing number of funding agencies are making it a mandatory
> > requirement.
> >
> > These include the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., the
> > Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom, and the Australian Research
> > Council.
> >
> > Actually, the NIH prominently does not mandate Green, but merely
> > ^Órequests^Ô it (as Athabasca does); and after 2 years the NIH policy
> > has been admitted to be a failure, generating self-archiving rates
> > (4%) even lower than the spontaneous worldwide baseline (15%).
> >
> > In contrast, not only the Wellcome Trust and the ARC but, notably,
> > 5 (soon 6) out of the 8 (soon 7, two merging) UK Research Councils
> > have mandated, rather than requested, OA self-archiving, and so has
> > the ERC. So too have a number of universities worldwide. And that
> > is also what the US Federal Research Public Access Act is proposing
> > (as you note below). (NIH too proposes to upgrade to a mandate soon.)
> >
> > "Moreover, some countries are considering legislatively mandating
> > open access.For example, last year the Federal Research Public
> > Access Act was introduced in the U.S. Congress. If enacted, the
> > bill would require federal agencies that fund over $100 million
> > (U.S.) in annual external research to make manuscripts of peer-
> > reviewed journal articles stemming from that research publicly
> > available on the Internet.
> >
> > This is all correct and accurate, but I think its
> > comprehensibility was a little scrambled by the conflation of Green
> > and Gold above.
> > "Notwithstanding the momentum toward open access, several barriers
> > remain.
> >
> > First, many conventional publishers actively oppose open access,
> > fearful that it will cut into their profitability.
> >
> > What they are in fact opposing is Green OA mandates. But the guise
> > under which publishers are opposing them is to cloak the opposition
> > in talk about Gold OA economics and risks. Their hand is
> > strengthened if we continue to conflate Green and Gold as an ^Óopen
> > access principle^Ô instead of making it quite clear that it is Green
> > OA that can be and is being mandated, and that that has nothing at
> > all to do with Gold OA or its uncertainties.
> > "Indeed, soon after the launch of the European petition, Nature
> > reported that publishers were preparing to spend hundreds of
> > thousands of dollars to counter open access support with a message
> > that equates public access to government censorship.
> >
> > This is incorrect: The Nature article came before the EC petition
> > and what it was reporting on was what the publishing lobby was
> > doing in the background ^Ö in the US as well as the UK and Europe ^Ö
> > namely, lobbying against proposals like the EC A1 self-archiving
> > mandate.
> > The petition in fact was launched as an attempt to counteract the
> > effects of this kind of lobbying of the EC (though not the specific
> > US instance of it that the Nature article referred to)
> >
> > "Second, many universities and individual researchers have been
> > slow to adopt open access, with only a limited number of
> > universities worldwide having established institutional
> > repositories to facilitate deposit of research by their faculty.
> >
> > The problem is not lack of IRs but empty IRs owing to the absence
> > of institutional self-archiving mandates.
> > "Athabasca University is the sole Canadian university to establish
> > both a repository and a policy requesting that faculty submit
> > electronic copies of all publications.
> >
> > It is commendable that Athabasca has a policy at all, but a
> > ^Órequest^Ô policy has been repeatedly shown to be ineffectual. (See
> > the many analyses by Arthur Sale, and by Alma Swan.)
> > "Third, Canadian funding agencies are increasingly at risk of
> > falling behind their counterparts around the world by dragging
> > their heels on the open access front.
> >
> > With the notable exceptions of the Canadian Institute of Health
> > Research and the International Development Research Agency, which
> > last year introduced proposals to require open access for their
> > funded research, Canada's major funding agencies have been slow to
> > move on the issue.
> >
> > (I did not know about the proposed IDR mandate: Could you please
> > send me a URL?)
> > "Neither the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
> > Canada, nor the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council,
> > which together have an annual budget of more than $1 billion, are
> > anywhere near incorporating open access requirements into their
> > funding policies.
> >
> > The failure to lead on this issue could have long-term negative
> > consequences for Canadian research.
> >
> > Given the connection between research and economic prosperity, the
> > time has come for the federal government, its funding agencies and
> > the Canadian research community to maximize the public's investment
> > in research by prioritizing open access.
> >
> > All this is very helpful. But I would urge you to distinguish
> > clearly between Green and Gold in future communications. It will
> > greatly help progress and understanding.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Professor Michael A. Geist
> Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law
> University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law
> 57 Louis Pasteur St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5
> Tel: 613-562-5800, x3319
> Fax: 613-562-5124
> mgeist_at_pobox.com http://www.michaelgeist.ca
> RSS - http://www.michaelgeist.ca/rssf_gist.php
>
>
>
Received on Tue Feb 27 2007 - 11:09:48 GMT