Re: Value-Neutral Names Needed for the Two Forms of OA

From: (wrong string) édon <jean.claude.guedon_at_umontreal.ca>
Date: Sat, 3 May 2008 06:58:35 -0400

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At the risk of disturbing symmetries that always look pleasant to th
eeye and the mind, I would suggest taking the first two suggestions
fronm the "transparent" category and work them together as follows:

Read OA vs Re-use OA

Otherwise, like Stevan, I have the feeling that the distinction
between "basic" and "full" will win the day, precisely because it is
a little fuzzy. However, it clearly marks the presence of an
important distinction.

There is an interesting case stuck cleverly somewhere in the middle
of all of this: it is the case of documents digitized by Google. They
can be easily accesed and  read. If you accept Google's tools, they
are searchable. However, if you download them, you end up with inert,
paper-like digital material because you are stuck with page images.
You can OCR them anew, of course, but ... In short, as Clifford Lynch
has pointed out, the computational potential of these documents is
locked up unless you are ready to redo Google's indexing work.

Is this basic OA? Is it more as it appears to be? I would be
interested in knowing what others think about this.

Best,

Jean-Claude

Le vendredi 02 mai 2008 à 23:07 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit :


    The Two Forms of OA Have Been Defined: They Now Need
    Value-Neutral Names



            SUMMARY: Our joint statement with Peter Suber
            noted that both price-barrier-free access and
            permission-barrier-free access are indeed
            forms of Open Access (OA) and that virtually
            all Green OA and much of Gold OA today is
            just price-barrier-free OA, although we both
            agree that permission-barrier-free OA is the
            ultimate desideratum. What we had not
            anticipated was that if price-barrier-free OA
            were actually named by its logical condition
            as "Weak OA" (i.e., the necessary condition
            for permission-barrier-free OA) then that
            would create difficulties for those who are
            working hard toward the universal adoption of
            the mandates to provide price-barrier-free OA
            (Green OA self-archiving mandates) that are
            only now beginning to grow and flourish. So
            we are looking for a shorthand or stand-in
            for "price-barrier-free OA" and
            "permission-barrier-free OA" that will convey
            the distinction without any pejorative
            connotations for either form of OA. The two
            forms of OA stand defined, explicitly and
            logically. They are now in need of
            value-neutral names (e.g., BASIC vs. FULL
            OA).





      "Weak/Strong" marks the logical distinction between two
      forms of OA: price-barrier-free access is anecessary
      condition for permission-barrier-free access, and
      permission-barrier-free access is a sufficient
      condition for price-barrier-free access. That is the
      logic of weak vs. strong conditions.

      But since Peter Suber and I posted the distinction,
      noting that both price-barrier-free access and
      permission-barrier-free access are indeed Open Access
      (OA), many of our colleagues have been contacting us to
      express serious concern about the unintended pejorative
      connotations of "weak." 

      As a consequence, to avoid this unanticipated and
      inadvertent bias, the two types of OA cannot be named by
      the logical conditions (weak and strong) that define
      them. We soon hope to announce a more transparent,
      unbiased pair of names. Current candidates include:
            Transparent, self-explanatory descriptors:
                  USE OA vs. RE-USE OA
                  READ OA vs. READ-WRITE OA
                  PRICE OA vs. PERMISSION OA

            Generic descriptors:
                  BASIC or GENERIC or CORE OA vs.
                  EXTENDED or EXTENSIBLE or FULL OA
                  SOFT OA vs. HARD OA
                  EASY OA vs. HARD OA

      (My own sense it that the consensus is tending toward
      BASIC vs. FULL OA.)

      The ultimate choice of names matters far less than
      ensuring that the unintended connotations of "weak"
      cannot be exploited by the opponents of OA, or by the
      partisans of one of the forms of OA to the detriment of
      the other. Nor should mandating "weak OA" be discouraged
      by the misapprehension that it is some sort of sign of
      weakness, or of a deficient desideratum

      The purpose of our joint statement with Peter Suber had
      been to make explicit what is already true de facto,
      which is that both price-barrier-free access and
      permission-barrier-free access are indeed forms of Open
      Access (OA), and referred to as such, and that virtually
      all Green OA today, and much of Gold OA today, is just
      price-barrier-free OA, not permission-barrier-free OA,
      although we both agree that permission-barrier-free OA is
      the ultimate desideratum.

      But what Peter Suber and I had not anticipated was that
      if price-barrier-free OA were actually named by its
      logical condition as "Weak OA" (i.e., the necessary
      condition for permission-barrier-free OA) then that would
      create difficulties for those who are working hard toward
      the universal adoption of the mandates to provide
      price-barrier-free OA (Green OA self-archiving mandates)
      that are only now beginning to grow and flourish.

      In particular, Professor Bernard Rentier, the Rector of
      the University of Liege (which has adopted a Green OA
      self-archiving mandate to provide price-barrier-free OA)
      is also the founder of EurOpenScholar, which is dedicated
      to promoting the adoption of Green OA mandates in the
      universities of Europe and worldwide. Professor Rentier
      advised us quite explicitly that if price-boundary-free
      OA were called "Weak OA," it would make it much harder to
      persuade other rectors to adopt Green OA mandates --
      purely because of the negative connotations of "weak."

      Nor is the solution to try instead to promote
      permission-barrier-free ("Strong OA") mandates, for the
      obstacles and resistance to that are far, far greater. We
      are all agreed that it is not realistic to expect
      consensus from either authors, university administrators
      or funders on the adoption of, or compliance with,
      mandates to provide permission-barrier-free OA at this
      time, and that the growth of price-barrier-free OA should
      on no account be slowed by or subordinated to efforts to
      promote permission-barrier-free OA (though all of us are
      in favour of permission-barrier-free OA too).

      So, as the label "weak" would be a handicap, we need
      another label. The solution is not to spell it out
      longhand every time either, as "price-barrier-free OA,"
      etc. That would be as awkward as it would be absurd.

      So we are looking for a short-hand or stand-in for
      "price-barrier-free OA" and "permission-barrier-free OA"
      that will convey the distinction without any pejorative
      connotations for either form of OA. The two forms of OA
      stand defined, explicitly and logically. They are now in
      need of value-neutral names.

      Suggested names are welcome -- but not if they have
      negative connotations for either form of OA. Nor is it an
      option to re-appropriate the label "OA" for only one of
      the two forms of OA.

      Stevan Harnad

Jean-Claude Guédon
Université de Montréal
Received on Sat May 03 2008 - 12:47:26 BST