Re: Author Self-Archiving versus Author/Institution Self-Archiving

From: Steve Hitchcock <sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:54:55 +0100

I appear to have been paraphrased incorrectly. I referred to "archiving by
publisher", which I meant to be distinct from the 'journal-based' model
attributed to me below. The main point of this distinction is to separate
the eprint archive costs from journal (i.e. peer review) costs, as the
response went on to elaborate, perhaps unnecessarily, although I agree with
the basic point.

The question of comparing apples and oranges needn't have arisen either,
since there was no comparison. What I quoted should be seen as a baseline
figure, a target, for eprint archive costs. Even if costs this low cannot
be achieved by all, it highlights the importance of separating the
essential costs of eprint archiving. Costs that are significantly higher
than this may be due to combining inessential functions, as far as eprint
archives are concerned.

Steve Hitchcock
Open Citation (OpCit) Project <http://opcit.eprints.org/>
IAM Research Group, Department of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 3256 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865

At 00:15 04/06/02 +0100, you wrote:
>On Wed, 29 May 2002, Steve Hitchcock wrote:
>
> > All three [open-access] models
> > [(1) discipline-based, (2) university-based, and (3) journal-based]
> > have the same objective, or at least they should do, which is to provide
> > free and open access to the full texts of refereed papers. That objective
> > is compromised if costs are too high.
> >
> > The pre-eminent model, arXiv, based on author self-archiving, estimates
> > costs of less than 5 US dollars per archived paper
> > http://associnst.ox.ac.uk/~icsuinfo/ginspargfin.htm (Figure 1)
>
>I regret to have to point out that this is comparing apples and oranges.
>
>The costs per [peer-reviewed] paper archived are bound to be lower for
>(1) central discipline-based archives (like the Physics ArXiv) or for (2)
>distributed university-based archives (on the Eprints.org model) than the
>costs per [peer-reviewed] paper archived for (3) journal publishers'
>archive for the simple reason that the first two kinds of archives are
>completely parasitic on an essential service that is provided and paid
>for by the journals, and the journals alone, namely [the implementation of]
>peer review:
>
> "Clarification of "parasitism" and copyright"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1827.html
>
> "Distinguishing the Essentials from the Optional Add-Ons"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1437.html
>
> "The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)"
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/0303.html
>
>The cost OF THE ARCHIVING ALONE will be roughly the same for the three
>kinds of archives, but in that sense this does not represent an interesting
>figure, nor does it represent three different "models." Because of the
>parasitism of both (1) disciplinary and (2) university archiving on (3)
>journal-based peer review, what we need a model for is the funding of
>the PEER REVIEW (in case it should eventually happen that open-access
>eliminates the toll-access revenue base from which this essential cost is
>currently being covered), not for the far more trivial cost (per paper)
>of archiving itself.
>
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
>
>Stevan Harnad
>
>NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free
>access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the
>American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01):
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> or
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
>
>Discussion can be posted to:
> american-scientist-open-access-forum_at_amsci.org
>
>See also the Budapest Open Access Initiative:
> http://www.soros.org/openaccess
>
>and the Free Online Scholarship Movement:
> http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
Received on Mon Jun 10 2002 - 12:54:55 BST

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