Re: Canada's SSHRC lacks leader, hence leadership, on OA
In my terminology, Jean-Claude's 2b, 2c, 2d, 2e and 2f are not incentives
but all just forms of a mandate differing slightly from each other. They
are all about the same or generally higher level of difficulty in
achievement as a simple institutional 'mandate': "authors must deposit
all research papers".
In fact I prefer not to use the word 'mandate' but rather talk about a
'requirement policy'. I can throw in 2h "arm-twisting by a senior member
of a modest-sized department" which is also achievable but of limited
impact. Choose your kind of mandate, but realize that that is what you
are doing.
2g and all author-support or incentive type actions are useless with
non-participants. They simply ignore them. The evidence is clear and
global - nothing works on non-participants until there is a requirement
to deposit; then and only then do all the incentives cut in. BTW, my so
far unpublished research is suggesting that the transition from voluntary
deposit to a pattern typical of a requirement (once the policy is in
place) takes of the order of 2-3 years and may be affected by incentives.
So to repeat my message for repository managers - simple, condensed and
straightforward - shorn of all unnecessary detail:
1. Try to get a requirement policy before you establish a
repository.
2. If you have a repository already, or elect to start anyway, make
it crystal clear to everyone that a requirement policy is in your sights
and that it is inevitable.
3. Don't waste your institution's time and money on incentives until
you have a requirement policy. They don't work. Leave the field to the
self-motivated early adopters who see the benefits to themselves.
4. Once you have a requirement policy, apply any or all incentives
that you can afford.
Arthur Sale
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-
> ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Guédon Jean-Claude
> Sent: Saturday, 6 May 2006 7:20 PM
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM] RE : Canada's SSHRC
lacks
> leader, hence leadership, on OA
>
> What Stevan Harnad says about the vacillations and fuzziness of SSHRC
is correct.
> What he omits to say is that he has been in touch with at least one
insider of SSHRC
> for quite some time ans has tried to coach him on these issues. What it
points to is
> the question I keep on coming back to: mandating is the right way to go
... and so are
> other ways. Mandating, if achieved, will provide success; the
difficulty is in achieving
> it precisely because the stakes are high and the resistances of all
kinds, however
> irrational; speculative, unfounded, etc., are strong.
>
> It is for this reason that I have unceasingly advocated the following:
>
> 1. Pushing for the mandating as strongly as possible;
>
> 2. In parallel, organize various forms of incentives at all levels.
> These include measures such as (the order has no meaning as to
relative
> importance):
>
> a. Create an institutional repository;
>
> b. Conflate faculty annual report requirement with the depositing
of the metada of
> their publications in the institutional repository (this allows
locating the mandating
> element in a zone that administrators will support for obvious
reasons);
>
> c. Give the libraries the mandate (and means) to collect the
publications
> corresponding to the deposited metadata in any form, including paper
and let them
> store or digitize these publications (in other words, just take the
depositing task out of
> the hands of the faculty);
>
> d. Work on tenure and promotion committees to make them review
only
> publications deposited in the institutional repository;
>
> e. Work on the granting agencies (e.g. SSHRC) to have them apply
the same
> principle. Granting agencies would have to ask for OA URL's exclusively
as acceptable
> proof of prior work (instead of a bibliography). This would also
simplify the reviewers'
> work as they could simply downlad the needed documentation.
>
> f. Work on university administrations to have them declare that
the good name of
> their institution stands behind the repository and that, therefore, the
documents
> stored in the suitable OA IR is citable as is (even though the version
may not coincide
> exactly with the kournal version);
>
> g. Re-evaluate publications in a suitable way - I have published
and lectured on
> that point - to rank them in a credible way on a global scale so as to
create new
> incentives for academics, and thus help them accept the whole archiving
philosophy
> further. At the same time, create valuable filtering devices to help
readers identify the
> best literature available.
>
> These basic ideas offer a strategic roadmap that, undoubtedly; can and
ought to be
> refined; In any case, this roadmap certainly makes the whole OA issue
appear far
> more reachable than merely clamoring for mandating, and weeping and
crying when it
> is not achieved (see Harnad's text below). It transforms the mandating
hurdle into a
> series of attainable steps and could help favourable groups to push
this or that way
> according to local conditions and possibilities. In short, it strives
to be realistic.
>
> Best,
>
> jcg
Received on Sun May 07 2006 - 00:32:11 BST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Fri Dec 10 2010 - 19:48:20 GMT