Franklin Consulting

Steve,

You suggest that "The interests and incentives are all there -- research
usage and impact -- and they are all local (and competitive). Those
interests and incentives simply need to be mobilized".

If those interests were real then people would be doing it already. If it
would help with RAE or REF then a very large number (those who are, or would
like to be, research active) would get involved and do it. They cannot see
the benefit when there are far more important things that they have to do.
People are not going to institutional repositories to find papers; they use
abstract indeces, references, google etc. Indeed, I very much doubt that
people will go to institutional repositories in any number ("Oh, I need some
information on genetic dooh dah in the development of chickens; I wonder
what there is in the University of Wigan's institutional repository"). They
might go to something like Intute Repository Search or to web of science or
to their favourite journal.

If my intuition is correct then the purpose of the IR is to provide a
potentially free alternative source to journals for published papers and
possibly access to the raw data (presumably linked from the paper). If that
is correct then it would seem to me that the real purpose of IRs is to drive
a change in the publishing model to move from pay for journal to pay for
publication (author pays) and have free downline access to the results. IF
(and I accept that it is a big if that it is either people's reason for this
or that it will make it happen) then what is the current benefit to the
academic? it is too remote, to unlikely so they will do all those urgent
tasks they have instead.

Secondly, even if academics were motivated are IRs the way they would want
to do it? I keep hearing that academics have stronger loyalty to the subject
than the institution, so why would they be interested in putting the stuff
in an IR? And if they are interested can they deposit it correctly? see for
instance http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm

regards

Tom.

Tom Franklin
Franklin Consulting
9 Redclyffe Road
Withington
Manchester
M20 3JR

email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 0161 434 3454
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Repositories discussion list
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
> Sent: 10 March 2008 09:56
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Central versus institutional self-archiving
>
> I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there is something
> very fundamentally wrong with the hypothetical cost
> comparison that Andy Powell is contemplating (below): It is
> rather like asking whether it would be cheaper to offload all
> storage and auditing of a corporation's assets onto a global
> auditing entity rather than storing and auditing them
> locally: Especially in the online age, when all we are
> talking about is bits, it seems odd to be thinking in this way.
>
> Brewster Kahle may have the disk space, but if his is to
> become the global database, then why should individuals have
> local websites at all? They could all set up shop in the
> Global Wayback Machine -- or, for that matter, store directly
> in Google, saving it the trouble of having to harvest!
>
> Apart from going directly against the spirit and success of
> distributed networking in the online digital era, it seems to
> me that such global centralism would even carry risks. Not to
> mention that with the plummeting cost and skyrocketing power
> of local computation and disk storage capacity, globalism of
> anything but the most virtual (i.e., harvested) kind seems to
> be a distinct anachronism today, both financially and
> functionally: We don't need one real global digital
> collection in the sky. A harvested, virtual one (or many) is enough.
>
> I too have a hypothesis: I think Andy is basically still
> thinking of IRs and CRs as being basically for the sake of
> archiving and preservation. They are not! They are for
> immediate and ongoing online access-provision. And their
> persistent emptiness is a problem of motivation, not money.
> The interests and incentives are all there -- research usage
> and impact -- and they are all local (and competitive).
> Those interests and incentives simply need to be mobilized,
> at long last, through the adoption of a sensible
> institutional policy that explicitly capitalizes upon and
> caters for them.
>
> Universal (local) university self-archiving mandates, tied to
> research performance review, are that sensible policy.
> Brewster Kahle's global Internet Archive (invaluable as it is
> for digital preservation) has absolutely nothing to do with it.
>
> Stevan Harnad
>
> On 10-Mar-08, at 5:11 AM, Andy Powell wrote:
>
> > Well, I hope that you are right... I certainly don't have
> the will or
> > ability to fight a political and technical agenda that has
> become so
> > entrenched worldwide and that says there is only one 'right' way of
> > achieving OA.
> >
> > And just to be clear, I think we share the same aim - 100% OA to
> > research output - my concern lies only with whether we are getting
> > there most effectively. And, like you I guess, I'm
> frustrated by lack
> > of progress.
> >
> > I think the *total* financial spend on the IR-based OA solution is
> > pertinent... though, as I said, I have no way of assessing
> how much is
> > being spent worldwide (by funding bodies, institutions and
> others) on
> > IRs.
> >
> > What if we took all that money, gave it to someone like
> Brewster Kahle
> > (assuming he was interested) and said, "here, we want to
> work with you
> > to build a single global repository for all scholarly
> research output
> > worldwide"?
> >
> > To suggest such a thing even 2 or 3 years ago would have been
> > laughable.
> > But to suggest it now would be completely in line with what is
> > happening elsewhere on the Web. Well, I guess it might be
> laughable
> > for other reasons... but whether it is or not is largely irrelevant
> > because we appear to have so much political investment in the IR
> > solution that I'm not convinced we are willing to give serious
> > consideration to any other approach.
> >
> > Andy
> > --
> > Head of Development, Eduserv Foundation
> > http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/
> > http://efoundations.typepad.com/
> > [log in to unmask]
> > +44 (0)1225 474319
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Repositories discussion list
> >> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Stevan Harnad
> >> Sent: 09 March 2008 13:09
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: Central versus institutional self-archiving: 6 Mantras
> >>
> >> On Sun, 9 Mar 2008, Andy Powell wrote:
> >>
> >>> You can repeat the IR mantra as many times as you like...
> >> it doesn't
> >>> make it true.
> >>
> >> I'd settle for a substantive reply to the substantive points,
> >> empirical and logical (however repetitive they may be)...
> >>
> >>> Despite who knows how much funding being pumped into IRs
> >> globally (can
> >>> anyone begin to put a figure on this, even in the UK?),
> >>
> >> Plenty of figures have been posted on how much money institutions
> >> have wasted on their (empty) IRs in the eight years since
> IRs began.
> >> People needlessly waste a lot of money on lots of needless things.
> >> The amount wasted is of no interest in and of itself.
> >>
> >> The relevant figure is: How much does it actually cost to
> set up an
> >> OA IR and to implement a self-archiving mandate to fill
> it. For the
> >> answer, you do not have to go far: Just ask the dozen universities
> >> that have so far done both: The very first IR-plus-mandate was a
> >> departmental one (at Southampton ECS) but the most
> relevant figures
> >> will come from university-wide mandated IRs, and for that
> you should
> >> ask Tom Cochrane at QUT and Eloy Rodrigues at Minho.
> >>
> >> And then, compare the cost of that (relative to each university's
> >> annual research output) with what it would have cost
> (someone: who?)
> >> to set up subject-based CRs (which?
> >> where? how many?) for all of that same university annual research
> >> output, in every subject) willy-nilly worldwide, and to
> ensure (how?)
> >> that it was deposited in its respective CR.
> >>
> >> (Please do not reply with social-theoretic mantras but
> with precisely
> >> what data you propose to base your comparative estimate upon!)
> >>
> >>> most remain
> >>> largely unfilled and our only response is to say that
> >> funding bodies
> >>> and institutions need to force researchers to deposit when they
> >>> clearly don't want to of their own free will. We haven't (yet)
> >>> succeeded in building services that researchers find
> >> compelling to use.
> >>
> >> We haven't (yet) succeeded in persuading researchers to publish of
> >> their own free will: So instead of waiting for researchers
> to wait to
> >> find compelling reasons to publish, we review and reward their
> >> research performance for publishing ("publish or perish").
> >>
> >> We also haven't (yet) succeeded in persuading researchers
> to publish
> >> research that is important and useful to research
> >> progress: So instead of waiting for researchers to wait to find
> >> compelling reasons to maximise their research impact, we
> review and
> >> reward research performance on the basis not just of the number of
> >> publications, but publication impact metrics.
> >>
> >> Mandating that researchers maximise the potential usage
> and impact of
> >> their research by self-archiving it in their own IR, and reviewing
> >> and rewarding their doing so, seems a quite natural (though long
> >> overdue) extension of what universities are all doing already.
> >>
> >>> If we want to build compelling scholarly social networks
> (which is
> >>> essentially what any 'repository' system should be) then we
> >> might be
> >>> better to start by thinking in terms of the social networks that
> >>> currently exist in the research community - social networks
> >> that are
> >>> largely independent of the institution.
> >>
> >> Some of us have been thinking about these "social networks"
> >> since the early 1990's and we have noted that -- apart from a very
> >> few communities where they formed spontaneously early on
> >> -- most disciplines have not followed the examples of these few
> >> communities in the ensuing decade and a half, even after
> repeatedly
> >> hearing the mantra (Mantra 1) urging them to do so, along with the
> >> empirical evidence of its evidence beneficial effects on research
> >> usage and impact (Mantra 2).
> >>
> >> Then the evidence from the homologous precedent and example of (a)
> >> the institutional incentive system underlying publish-or-perish as
> >> well as (b) research metric assessment, was reinforced by
> Alma Swan's
> >> JISC surveys that found that
> >> (c) the vast majority of researchers report that they
> would not do it
> >> spontaneously of their own accord if their institutions and/or
> >> funders did not require it (mainly because they were busy
> with their
> >> institutions' and funders'
> >> other priorities), 95% of them would self-archive their
> research if
> >> their institutions and/or funders were to require it --
> and over 80%
> >> of them would do so *willingly* (Mantra 3). And then Arthur Sale's
> >> empirical comparisons of what researchers actually do when such
> >> requirements are and are not implemented fully confirmed what the
> >> surveys said that the research (across all disciplines and "social
> >> networks"
> >> worldwide) had said they would and would not do (Mantra 4).
> >>
> >> So I'd say we should not waste another decade and a half
> waiting for
> >> the fabled "social networks" to form spontaneously so the research
> >> community can at last have the OA that has already been
> demonstrated
> >> to be feasible and beneficial to them.
> >>
> >>> Oddly, to do that we might do well to change our thinking
> about how
> >>> best to surface scholarly content on the Web to be both 1)
> >>> user-centric (acknowledging that individual researchers
> >> want to take
> >>> responsibility for how they surface their content, as
> >> happens, say, in
> >>> the blogsphere) and 2) globally-centric (acknowledging that the
> >>> infrastructure is now available that allows us to realise the
> >>> efficiency savings and social network effects of
> >> large-scale globally
> >>> concentrated services, as happens in, say, Slideshare,
> >> Flickr and so on).
> >>
> >> It is odd indeed that all these wonders of technology, so readily
> >> taken up spontaneously when people are playing computer games or
> >> blabbing in the blogosphere have not been systematically
> applied to
> >> their ergonomic practices, but the fact is that they have
> not been,
> >> and we have waited more than long enough. That systematic
> application
> >> is precisely what the now-growing wave of OA
> self-archiving mandates
> >> by funders (such as RCUK and NIH) and universities (such as
> >> Southampton and Harvard) is meant to accelerate and ensure.
> >>
> >>> Such a change in thinking does not rule the institution
> out of the
> >>> picture, since the institution remains a significant
> >> stakeholder with
> >>> significant interests... but it certainly does change the
> >> emphasis and
> >>> direction and it hopefully stops us putting institutional
> >> needs higher
> >>> up the agenda than the needs of the individual researcher.
> >>
> >> Individual researchers do not work in a vacuum. That is
> why we have
> >> institutions and funders. Those "research networks"
> >> already exist. As much as we may all admire the spontaneous,
> >> anonymous way in which (for
> >> example) Wikipedia is growing, we also have to note the repeatedly
> >> voiced laments of those academics who devote large
> portions of their
> >> time to such web-based activities without being rewarded for it by
> >> their institutions and funders Mantra 5. OA self-archiving
> mandates
> >> are precisely the bridge between the existing canonical "social
> >> networks" and reward systems of the scholarly and scientific
> >> community -- their universities and research funders --
> and the new
> >> world that is open before them.
> >>
> >> It is time we crossed that bridge, at long last (Mantra 6).
> >>
> >> Stevan Harnad
> >> AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
> >> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-
> >> Access-Forum.html
> >> 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/
> >>
>