Stevan
My comments are interspersed. Best wishes.
Arthur
From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: Friday, 15 March 2013 9:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On 2013-03-14, at 6:00 PM, Arthur Sale <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Unfortunately Stevan, Nick was asking you about the Australian Research Council’s policy.
Thanks, Arthur, for pointing out that I had mistaken an ACT [Arthur] ARC policy query for a HEFCE/REF policy query
(since it was on the HEFCE/REF thread).
Some queries below:
The metadata must always be deposited in the IR, but the AM or VoR (either is ok) need
only be deposited if one of them is not otherwise OA. If they are, then a link to the OA
version suffices (URL, DOI, etc). In all relevant cases an immediate deposit, OA when
possible but max 12 months applies, so that’ll make you a bit happier.
Of course this does not compel people to do that, but that is what the policy allows,
and what most Australian researchers will follow. Note that ‘otherwise OA’ covers a
broader field than Gold journals, for example a subject repository, a personal website,
the cloud, etc. The intention is clear: the ARC wants open access, and it is happy to
prescribe that. It is not concerned with how compliance might be monitored.
Compliance with the ARC policy is however not difficult to determine for the institution.
How so? If authors might be depositing anywhere?
[Arthur] For the ARC policy (and the NHMRC), each research project will be individually tracked. There are not that many for a Research Office to check that any links are to live full-texts. In any case, compliance is sheeted home to the Chief Investigator, who is responsible for ensuring compliance by each and every co-author partly funded by the grant. The institution is merely a backstop. The threat is that non-compliant Chief Investigators might not get future funding.
The issue that now concerns Australian open access advocates is ‘What approach do
we take to get our institutions to adopt institutional mandates?’ There are very few
of these in Australia, though now both our research councils have similar funder
mandates. Left to themselves, universities are likely to just implement those policies,
which affect only a fraction of the academics (albeit an active group). I believe the
only strategy for us that makes sense is to try to get universities to adopt a union of
the two funder mandate policies, to apply to all academics in the institution. That
might work. Trying for a much more expansive institutional mandate (like your
deposit even if already in a Gold journal) seems likely to fail, as an absurd requirement.
Why is it an absurd requirement to deposit immediately in the author's IR, regardless of whether the
journal is subscription or OA and of whether the deposit is embargoed or immediate OA?
[Arthur] It is absurd because it is plainly unnecessary (duplicated work) and will be seen to be so, both by the authors and the senior administrators. If something is worth doing, do it once – a cardinal principle of computer science. The article is OA – that’s what the policy requires. Why do the authors need to do extra work? The argument that an OA article should be co-deposited in an IR relies simply on a second order issue: does it simplify the repository administrators’ work in ensuring compliance? Why should a researcher care? Even this issue is questionable, if the administrators have to do it.
Frankly, if an IR wants a copy of an already OA article, all it has to do it download it and automatically deposit it. It has the link. No human intervention, just a little bit of software and a cron task. Of course, the software could also do some due diligence checks to ensure the title and authors match.
That simple, natural, uniform local deposit procedure is precisely what makes it easy for an institution
to monitor compliance.
And that's part of the reason why HEFCE/REF proposed it.
[Arthur] I cannot speculate as to what is in HEFCE/REF’s mind.
Maybe if it is actually adopted by HEFCE/REF, ARC will eventually see fit to follow suit?
[Arthur] I hope they are not so foolish, and think it unlikely. We did not follow Finch. We should all be encouraging the open access journals that exist and are being established. We should rely on them, because they are our long-term future.
To forestall the inevitable answer, I am not saying we should specially fund them (as Finch). But if people make their articles OA, whether free or via an APC, of their own choice, I cannot conceive why I would want to be Big Brother to penalize them for doing so.
BTW, the ARC mandate appears to apply to monographs (books) arising
from research grants as well as journal articles, but that is another thread…
Lot's of luck. But my hands are full trying to first get what is already fully doable, and long overdue,
done, at long last…
[Arthur] I know, and the books mandate has many issues, I am sure. I am not an advocate of it, but that’s what they say. They also say things about access to data too…
Stevan
Arthur Sale
Tasmania, Australia
From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:JISC-[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: Friday, 15 March 2013 8:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Harnad Comments on Proposed HEFCE/REF Green Open Access Mandate
On 2013-03-14, at 1:13 AM, Nick Thieberger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
But what if the article is in an OA journal that would like to have the hit count for
downloads from its site? Is there scope for the mandate to cover only non-OA
journal articles perhaps?
That would be an exceedingly bad solution, for authors, for their institutions
for their research and for OA.
And institutions would lose a simple, natural, powerful and uniform way to monitor
mandate compliance by their authors.
And what's more important: hit/download counts for authors, for their own articles,
and for their institutions, or hit/download counts for publishers' sites?
But in any case there's a simple (though silly) compromise:
All articles (whether subscription or Gold, emargoed or not) must be immediately
deposited in the author's institutional repository.
Where the author either wishes to comply with a non-OA publisher's embargo
on Green OA, or with a Gold-OA publisher's desire to have hit/download counts
for its site, access to the deposit need not be made OA (until the embargo
elapses or until the author tires of accommodating publishers' importunate
nonsense).
Stevan Harnad
On 14 March 2013 11:16, Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Executive Summary: The proposed HEFCE/REF Open Access [OA] mandate -- that in order to be eligible for REF, the peer-reviewed final draft of all journal articles must be deposited in the author’s institutional repository immediately upon publication, with embargoes applicable only to the date at which the article must be made OA – is excellent, and provides exactly the sort of complement required by the RCUK OA mandate. It ensures that authors deposit immediately and institutionally and it recruits their institutions to monitor and ensure compliance.
For journal articles, no individual or disciplinary exceptions or exemptions to the immediate-deposit are needed, but embargo length can be adapted to the discipline or even to exceptional individual cases.
Embargo length is even more important for open data, and should be carefully and flexibly adapted to the needs not only of disciplines and individuals, but of each individual research project.
Requiring monograph OA if the author does not wish to provide it is not reasonable, but perhaps many or most monograph authors would not mind depositing their texts as Closed Access.
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