Re: A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy

From: David Goodman <David.Goodman_at_LIU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 19:17:08 -0400

Stevan,

If we were able to achieve both a network of discipline based repositories, and one
of IRs (thus accommodating all preferences), would it not be better for the items to be
mirrored, rather than just linked and harvested? The virtue of mirroring would
be the provision of multiple copies as an automatic byproduct and immediately
providing truly reliable archiving not under the control of a single institution.

As for the rest of the NIH policy, it does have one really good feature that
you did not mention. It would be very easy to improve on it next year.
The embargo can be shortened, all the way to zero. The material can improve to
the pdf's. The "requested," which is being read by all those with NIH grants as
meaning "required, unless you want to gamble with your career" can change to "required."

Dr. David Goodman
Associate Professor
Palmer School of Library and Information Science
Long Island University
dgoodman_at_liu.edu



-----Original Message-----
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum on behalf of Stevan Harnad
Sent: Wed 6/22/2005 6:18 PM
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_listserver.sigmaxi.org
Subject: Re: A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy
 
Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Threads:

    "A Simple Way to Optimize the NIH Public Access Policy"
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4091.html

    "Please Don't Copy-Cat Clone NIH-12 Non-OA Policy!"
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4307.html

    "Open Access vs. NIH Back Access and Nature's Back-Sliding"
     http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4312.html

Ironic that apologists for NIH's flawed "public access" policy (see
below) are citing Nature's Back-Sliding from Green to Pale-Green as one
of the benefits of the NIH Policy.

    "Nature Back-Slides on Self-Archiving [Corrected] (2005)"
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4311.html

Pity also that NIH policy-makers still don't seem to realize that all
their current objectives plus a great deal more would be achieved by:

    (1) *requiring* (not requesting)

    (2) *institutional* (not PubMedCentral) self-archiving, with PMC
    simply harvesting from the fundee's Institutional Repository, IR),

    (3) *immediately* upon acceptance (not within 12 months) along
    with the "keystroke" strategy of giving the NIH fundees the option,
    if they wish (for the 8% of journals that are still not green),
    of depositing the compulsory full-text in their own IR, but making
    only the metadata visible institution-externally, while emailing the
    eprint to any eprint-requesters (who of course see the metadata) for
    the 8% of journals that are still not green: infinitely preferable
    to a blanket embargo). NIH's PubMed Central can then harvest when
    it chooses, without holding everything else back by underwriting
    an embargo.

Instead, apologists for the NIH Policy keep expounding the prominent,
undeniable, and totally unnecessary flaws of its current version as if
they were hidden virtues. Meanwhile, the waiting for OA goes on (and
on)...

Thank goodness things are looking far more promising and sensible
in Europe (and perhaps soon Asia)!

    http://www.eprints.org/berlin3/outcomes.html
http://libraries.csdl.ac.cn/Meeting/MeetingID.asp?MeetingID=7&MeetingMenuID=51
    http://makeashorterlink.com/?G3C722F4B

Stevan Harnad
 
Received on Thu Jun 23 2005 - 00:17:08 BST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Dec 10 2010 - 19:47:56 GMT