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Hugh
Let me reply interspersed.
Best wishes
Arthur Sale
University of Tasmania
-----Original Message-----
From: Hugh Glaser [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 11:57 PM
To: Arthur Sale; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Guide for the Perplexed (about how to inspire institutions to
adopt Green OA self-archiving mandates)
Thanks Arthur.
I actually know quite a lot of academics who are
delinquent in one or more
of the things that they are mandated to do, or only do
the minimum they can
get away with without being hassled.
That is sort of the point here.
I am not saying mandates are bad.
Mandates are great, if you want to put get stuff into
your repository.
But once you have the mandate, the work is not finished.
Compliance must be tackled, and simply telling academics
there is a mandate
is not the only way of improving it. Carrots of the right
taste are good, as
well as sticks.
I half-agree. The work is not
finished. But compliance can be a light touch rather than heavy-handed, and the
examples I know have used the light touch very effectively. For example a phone
call or an email to the Head of Department listing the academics and/or the
publications who have not deposited in the last year. The idea is to get
deposition to become part of the normal academic workload, not set up a
deposit police force. Produce reports on compliance by department tabled at
Faculty and Senate meetings. No doubt you can think of other measures which
employ the light touch.
Of course 80% full beats 15%
full hands-down!
By the way, I see people talking about mandates working
or repositories
being full.
One of the things I noticed when we built
rkbexplorer.com(*) was that when I
looked at ECS at Southampton, which had had a mandate for
many years, there
were significant numbers of papers that had been
published by members of
staff that were not in ECS ePrints.
I keep meaning to write a utility that will identify
them, but haven't found
the time yet.
Is there research that identifies the proportion of an
institution's
publications that do not get deposited for a steady state
mandate?
If so, does it manage to relate the different compliance
rates to the way
the policy is presented?
Not that I know of. It would
depend quite strongly on the style of the mandate and the things we discussed
earlier. There will always be a small number or recalcitrant academics, and we
will have to wait for them to retire. One of the other problems is that there
are not enough consistent mandates yet to study.
BTW in Australia we know exactly
what is published every year for each university, because the Australian
Government requires us to collect the citations and report them. The scheme is
audited too, and is probably with a percent or so of being fully accurate.
Analysis of repository fullness tends to be easy.
I also see people (on this list and elsewhere) asking for
help in convincing
people to deposit. The response is frequently to say that
the mandate is the
whole answer. I find that disappointing. Perhaps if a
more inclusive
approach was taken, the mandate uptake and compliance
would not be quite as
painful.
I am sorry to say that
mandates are the whole answer, except as I said as a route to soften up the
institution and get a mandate adopted. I have written often on what can be
done, mostly alas for conferences. However, for those looking for guidance on
what they should do, may I recommend my paper on the Patchwork Mandate strategy
http://eprints.utas.edu.au/410/
and http://dx.doi.org/10.1045/january2007-sale? It fits neatly into that space of using
persuasion effectively in order to achieve and institution-wide mandate. Target
your areas, rather than using a scattergun approach. Get each area to
commit to depositing (a "mandate"). Identify a champion who
will leverage your effort and continue it to stop backsliding. Show benefits to
users like usage statistics, citation counts, etc.
There was a time I was the person in charge of the ECS
Southampton
repository, so please don't think I am against mandates.
But I think it does
mean I am aware of some of the problems.
Best
Hugh
(*)rkbexplorer.com is a system that harvests many sources
of publications,
including oai archives, dblp, acm, citeseer (some with
older data), and
gives a unified view of an individual's research
activity.
On 23/03/2010 04:37, "Arthur Sale"
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Perhaps I can add something to this discussion. The
reason we know that
> mandates are the only way to get repositories full
is simple- it works and
> nothing else does.
>
> Long experience over many years has consistently
proven that persuading
> academics to deposit their papers is a Sisyphean
task. A few academics stay
> persuaded, but the persuasion for most wears off
after a while, and the
> persuaded academics drop out. The balance seems to
be around 15%, maybe
> slightly higher like 20% where the benefits are more
obvious. Neither level
> is satisfying and no-one has found any good argument
for persuasion as a
> strategy, except as a route to a mandate.
>
> Let's not get hung up about mandates. Academics are
mandated all the time.
> Indeed it is an intrinsic part of what it means to
be an academic. They are
> required to turn up to scheduled lectures. They are
required to set exam
> papers, and even worse to mark them. Most academics
are required to undergo
> performance management evaluation, or to go through
promotion procedures to
> proceed in rank. Academics are required not to
molest their students or show
> personal preferences. When things like the RAE/REF
are contemplated,
> academics are required to take part. Academics are
also required to publish
> their research. Academics happily mandate that their
students must submit
> assignments on time, and turn up to exams. I could
keep going on for quite a
> long time...
>
> The only immediate solution in this transitional
time is deposit mandates.
> Once mandates are universal, they become the
community norm but a mandate
> nonetheless.
>
> Arthur Sale
> University of Tasmania
> Australia