Re: University of Zurich: 4th Institution with Self-Archiving Mandate

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:36:39 +0100

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, McCown Cherie wrote:

> Thank you for the update and congratulations to the University of Zurich
> for formulating an exemplary policy.

One correction/update: Zurich is not the 4th but the *5th* of the 14
registered policies that is a mandate (i.e., a self-archiving requirement
rather than just a recommendation). The 4th is University of Minho
in Portugal:

http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=Universidade%20do%20Minho%2C%20Portugal

My sincere apologies to my comrade-at-arms, Eloy Rodrigues, the mastermind
behind the mandate, who wrote:

        "The mandate is really producing effect (although not 100%):
        we had 600 documents in our repository in December 2004, and we
        have already more than 2600 in October 2005.

        "The 2600 documents are composed by approximately 41% of journal
        articles, 29% of conference papers, 8% of master thesis, 5% of
        PHD thesis, 4% of working papers, and 13% of other types (book
        chapters, posters, etc.). 91% are available in open access,
        1% have an embargo period (from 1 to 3 years), and 8 are with
        restricted access to Minho University."

> I have one question regarding your suggestion to require "deposit of the
> full-text and metadata immediately upon acceptance for publication..."
> In terms of the logistics in the editing flow, wouldn't it be simpler to
> wait until the final stage of author approval when the galley proofs are
> corrected? A letter of acceptance from a journal is fine for the
> purposes of graduation or professional advancement, but corrections may
> yet be required. I consider making and tracking such corrections to be a
> necessary but time-consuming pain in the neck. I imagine busy
> self-archiving researchers are looking for a relatively painless process.

I would say definitely *not* to wait for galleys. The author's final
accepted draft should be self-archived immediately upon acceptance,
as-is. When galley corrections come, an updated author's draft
(not the galleys!) can be deposited, but this minor improvement is
worth infinitely less then getting the refereed, accepted, final draft
relaibly self-archived at the critical milestone: the point of acceptance
of the final draft.

Please separate the secondary issue of updates and corrections from the very
fundamental one of getting the refereed final draft online the moment it exists.
(It is also highly desirable in many cases to self-archive the pre-refereeing
preprint, and any successive revisions/updates, but those are not matters for
mandate, merely for recommendation.)

Stevan Harnad

> Cherie McCown
> Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
> Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine,
> Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences
> 2-5-1 Shikata-cho, Okayama City,
> Japan 700-0914
> E-mail cmccown_at_md.okayama-u.ac.jp
>
> --------------------------------------------------------
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005 13:19:07 +0100 (BST)
> Stevan Harnad wrote:
>
> >The University of Zurich has just registered its Institutional Self-Archiving
> >Policy at: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
> >
> >The 14th institution with a policy, Zurich is the 4th (after Southampton,
> >Queensland University of Technology, and CERN) with a mandate rather
> >than merely a recommendation. This is also the second mandate in a
> >Swiss institution:
> >
> > "Based on the Berlin Declaration (Berlin, October 2003)
> > http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html
> > and the Berlin 3 Open Access recommendations (Southampton, March
> > 2005) the University of Zurich has decided to
> >
> > 1. require their researchers to deposit a copy of all their
> > published and refereed articles in the Institutional Repository
> > of the University of Zurich, if there are no legal objections
> >
> > 2. encourage and support their authors to publish their research
> > articles in open access journals where a suitable journals exists
> > and provide the support to enable that to happen"
> >
> >[If I could make one suggestion to Prof. Borbely: Zurich's policy would be
> >even more effective, and the optimal model for emulation, if it *required*
> >deposit of the full-text and metadata immediately upon acceptance for
> >publication in all cases (no exceptions), and *recommended* that access to
> >them be immediately set as open-access (if there are no legal objections);
> >otherwise access can be provisionally set as institution-internal,
> >and authors can email eprints of the full-text to any eprint-requesters
> >who request them, based on the metadata visible webwide, alongside the
> >metadata for all the articles with access already set as open-access.]
> >
> >Stevan Harnad
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
Received on Thu Oct 13 2005 - 14:47:45 BST

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