With respect, I think David has a point.
Just because the desirability of OA combined with clear evidence of its
usefulness is obvious to some people does not mean everyone will "get
it", and merely repeating the message over and over again irritates
rather than informs. A lateral approach is needed, rather than
constantly battering away in the same direction. I, like David, have no
particular ideas on this, but I do feel a different angle is now needed.
Charles
Professor Charles Oppenheim
Head
Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leics LE1 3TU
Tel 01509-223065
Fax 01509 223053
e mail c.oppenheim_at_lboro.ac.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On
Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 20 March 2007 11:55
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Why Cornell's Institutional Repository Is Near-Empty
On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, David Goodman wrote:
Subject: Re: Why Cornell's Institutional Repository Is Near-Empty
> Stevan, who at Cornell do you propose should issue the mandate,
> and how do you propose to persuade them to do it? The university
> administration there is not unaware of the existence of
> self-archiving, and neither is the faculty.
I branched the critique to Cornell's provost, Carol Martin. Cornell's
Repository manager has already replied that they are aware and looking
into ways to increase the deposit rate.
> You give, as always, perfectly good reasons for the faculty to be
> convinced of the necessity, but repeating them any number of times
> is not going to convince any who have not been convinced already.
Thanks for the advice. I have found that repeating it *does* lead to
results eventually, even though it is tedious for me (and others). And,
as you know, I am always trying to add new angles to the strategy, and
the way it is put.
(Examples of the success of relentless reasoned repetition, from every
possible angle, by me and by others, include, so far, the UK Select
Committee outcome, the RCUK outcome, the Southampton mandate, the ERC
mandate, the EURAB recommendation, the Zurich mandate, and, most
recently, the Liege mandate.)
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
Besides, as Alma Swan's international, transdisciplinary surveys have
shown, faculty need mandates, not one-by-one convincing. Despite their
prima-facie Zeno's Paralysis and the opinions underpinning it, 95% say
they will comply with a self-archiving mandate -- over 80% of them
willingly. And Arthur Sale has confirmed that they actually do, when
mandated.
Swan, A. (2006) The culture of Open Access: researchers'
views and responses, in Jacobs, N., Eds. Open Access: Key
Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects, chapter 7. Chandos.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12428/
Sale, Arthur (2006) Researchers and institutional
repositories, in Jacobs, Neil, Eds. Open Access: Key
Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects, chapter 9,
pages 87-100. Chandos Publishing (Oxford) Limited.
http://eprints.utas.edu.au/257/
Harnad, S. (2006) Opening Access by Overcoming Zeno's
Paralysis, in Jacobs, N., Eds. Open Access: Key Strategic,
Technical and Economic Aspects, chapter 8. Chandos.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12094/
> The same is true of the administration. Probably they are not yet
> convinced--in common with the administration of all 200 or so US
> universities. There is obviously some step in the argument that
seems
> obviously reasonable to us, but which not one single administration
> out of them all agrees with.
Obviously, so I (and others) keep working, relentlessly, on trying to
get administrators to (1) listen and (2) understand. (That is what the
ID/OA mandate was designed is for. I doubt that the provosts on my CC
list have as yet paid it enough attention to be able even to repeat
back, in their own words, what ID/OA is, and why. Nor have they noticed
the inherent contradiction in signing their institution's in support of
the FRPAA global Green OA Mandate yet not adopting a local institutional
Green OA Mandate of their own in concert. But the tokens are dropping,
still too slowly, yet perhaps a bit faster each time, worldwide.)
http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/frpaa/institutions.html
Generic Rationale and Model for University Open Access
Self-Archiving Mandate: Immediate-Deposit/Optional Access (ID/OA)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
David, if you have a constructive, substantive suggestion, please make
it. But just rehearsing the all-too-well-known fact that little is
happening is not news, not substantive, not informative, and not
helpful.
> Alternatively, they may think that they cannot persuade the faculty
or
> successfully require it. There is a balance in research universities
> between what the administration would like to demand and what the
> faculty is willing to accept, and the better the university, the
> stronger the position of the faculty (as the best will be easily
> able to go elsewhere).
This is simply parroting the opinion that the Swan survey evidence
contradicted, and the Sale findings confirmed to be contradicted by
actual practise. If you can think of a way to hasten provosts' taking
cognizance of the evidence, please share it; but don't keep citing the
status quo as evidence of its own immutability: It is mutating, just too
slowly.
> Obviously the administrations--all 200 of them, acting
independently--
> do not think the result worth the difficulty. It is unlikely
> to be ignorance. It is unlikely to be stupidity to the extent
> necessary--administrators are usually good judges of what they can
> succeed in doing. Obviously academic faculty and administrators do
> not accept one of the premises. Instead of repeating why they
should,
> it might help to figure out what the critical one is.
It is not just likely to be but *is* ignorance -- curable by knowledge,
if and when we can get them to listen long enough and attentively enough
to understand what is at issue and what is being proposed. (If you have
any concrete suggestions on how to get them to listen, I'm listening!)
NIH did not listen (when warned in advance that a non-mandate would not
work, and why). They then went on to reap what they had sown. Now, they
are planning to take corrective steps. Maybe others will learn from
this, and take the right course in advance.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/nihfaq.htm
> (I do not pretend to know, though I have my guesses). This is a
> serious request for you to do what you rightly say the purpose
> of the list is, find the appropriate argument that will work for
> getting OA. But the results make manifest that the arguments now
> being used do not work. A result of zero out of 200 after 5 years
> is not a record of success.
David, the "appropriate argument" (and evidence) is already there; it is
simply not being listened to. Having you publicly point out that obvious
fact as if it were evidence that the argument and evidence are not
"appropriate" is not particularly useful, or informative.
Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-For
um.html
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/
http://openaccess.eprints.org/
Received on Tue Mar 20 2007 - 13:31:42 GMT