Why was the WHO IGWG OA recommendation
http://www.oliver-moldenhauer.de/msf/draftIGWG.pdf
downgraded from "requiring" OA to just "strongly encouraging" it?
As Manon Ress and Peter Suber point out,
http://www.keionline.org/index.php?option=com_jd-wp&Itemid=39&p=97
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007/11/who-igwg2-waters-down-draft-oa-
mandate.html
this is simply a replay of the failed NIH policy,
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/3962.html
likewise downgraded from a requirement, tried for 2 years, resoundingly
unsuccessful, and now being upgraded again to a requirement by the US
Congress (only to be vetoed by George Bush).
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/317-guid.html
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/326-guid.html
As repeatedly shown by Alma Swan's surveys of what authors say they
will do and Arthur Sale's studies of what authors actually do, only a
requirement (mandate) works.
http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10999/
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_10/sale/index.html
The following prior wording:
(b) promote public access to the results of government funded
research, THROUGH REQUIREMENTS that all investigators funded by
governments submit to an open access database an electronic version
of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts.
has for some reason been changed to:
(b) promote public access to the results of government funded
research, BY STRONGLY ENCOURAGING that all investigators funded by
governments submit to an open access database an electronic version
of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts.
(George Santayana (on being condemned to repeat history) comes to mind.)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana
---------------------------------------------------------------
Candor prompts the following shame-faced disclosure: In the very first
mandate recommendation of them all, this feckless archivangelist also
cravenly allowed himself to be persuaded once -- but only once! -- to
equivocate on mandating vs. "strongly encouraging," despite having
insisted on the need to mandate self-archiving from the outset.
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/
To mortify me, compare the original wording of the 2003 recommendation
first submitted to the UK Parliamentary Select Committee
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Temp/UKSTC.htm
with the subsequent (downgraded) version:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399w
e151.htm
Fortunately, only one mention of "mandate" was diluted to "strong
encouragement," the rest of the mentions are all the m-word, and it was
that, fortunately, that the wise members of the Select Committee hewed
to in their ultimate recommendation...
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/3990
3.htm
Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
tml
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/
UNIVERSITIES and RESEARCH FUNDERS:
If you have adopted or plan to adopt a policy of providing Open Access
to your own research article output, please describe your policy at:
http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html
OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
BOAI-1 ("Green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal
http://romeo.eprints.org/
OR
BOAI-2 ("Gold"): Publish your article in an open-access journal if/when
a suitable one exists.
http://www.doaj.org/
AND
in BOTH cases self-archive a supplementary version of your article
in your own institutional repository.
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
http://archives.eprints.org/
http://openaccess.eprints.org/
Received on Thu Nov 15 2007 - 01:32:50 GMT