On Sat, 5 Apr 2008, N. Miradon wrote:
http://www.accedit.com
> I am not clear whether this is a Good, or a Bad, Thing.
A Bad Thing for the authors of peer-reviewed research. (It may be
perfectly fine for authors of other kinds of work, for which they seek
royalty revenue.)
Accedit is a pay-per-view online toll-publisher, inviting authors to publish
with them for wider online distribution. Nothing at all to do with
Open Access.
For peer-reviewed research publishing with pay-per-view toll-publishers
would be worse than the quick-start OA journal spams that are now
testing the winds. The OA journal spams are just trying to exploit (in a
particularly noxious way) what looks to them like a potentially lucrative
emerging market niche. (They are mistaken, for reasons I've described. OA
will first come from OA self-archiving, and then conventional journals
will convert or migrate to OA journal publishing. There is no shortage
of journals today; there is a shortage of OA.)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399w
e152.htm
But Accedit seems to be trying to exploit only the nascent appetite
for *more* access, and to exploit it merely by offering online-only
publication, but continuing to levy an access-fee. It would be a huge
mistake for the authors of peer-reviewed research journal articles to
pick this option. (To repeat, it is fine for non-give-away authors
seeking royalty revenue, which Accedit shares with them, but it is
anathema for peer-reviewed research journal article authors seeking to
maximize the usage and impact of their research: it is access-tolls
that constrain that access.)
Open Access means free online access. No toll-barriers to the would-be
user (or their institution!): not subscription tolls, not license tolls,
not pay-per-view tolls.
Conventional peer-reviewed journal publishers are already offering online
editions alongside their print editions (though not for free). Researchers
are best advised to publish with an established conventional peer-reviewed
journal if they want their work to be accessible online too, for a fee.
But if they want it to be accessible online for free, they should publish
in an established peer-reviewed journal with a known track-record for
quality standards (preferably a Green one, which of course includes
the Gold ones) *and* self-archive the final draft online in their own
Institutional Repository (IR).
If they want to make that deposited draft OA, they can make it OA. If
they want to make it Closed Access, they can make it Closed Access (and
then would-be users can use the IR's "email eprint request" Button to
request a single copy for research use, and the author can decide whether
or not to press the Button to fulfill each individual request).
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/274-guid.html
But don't put it online only to make it toll-access!
Stevan Harnad
> From yesterday's Le Monde:-
> Olivier Amiel a ... créé ... un site, www.accedit.com, qui donne accès à
> des
> contenus de savoir (plusieurs milliers d'articles, mémoires, thèses)
> provenant de centres de recherches réputés ou d'universités. ... Est aussi
> proposé aux chercheurs ou aux laboratoires scientifiques de publier leurs
> textes, après validation d'un comité d'experts. Les auteurs en gardent la
> propriété et ils en assument la responsabilité. Ils reçoivent 15 % des
> droits sur le chiffre d'affaires produit par la consultation des textes
> ... [1]
>
> From the Accedit website:-
> L'accès à des connaissances solides et fiables est aujourd'hui la clef de
> la
> réflexion intellectuelle, de la compréhension du monde, et du
> développement
> de l'action. Mais ces connaissances, bien souvent, ne sont pas diffusées
> systématiquement, ni sous forme de livre, ni sous forme de fichier
> électronique, et demeurent confidentielles, alors qu'elles pourraient être
> utiles à un large public.
>
> Accedit veut faire le lien entre ces documents sous-exploités et un public
> sans cesse à la recherche d'informations précises, pour qui il est vital
> d'avoir accès à un savoir rigoureusement sélectionné et régulièrement mis
> à
> jour. [2]
>
> The only way of browsing this site appears to be via a brain-dead Index
> des
> Mots Clés ("Absence", "Absurde", "Accomplissement" ... "Zinc", "Zone de
> Proche Développement", "Zoométéorologie").
>
> I am not clear whether this is a Good, or a Bad, Thing.
>
> N Miradon
> [1]
> http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2008/04/03/les-nouveaux-editeurs-s-
> appuient-sur-internet_1030401_0.html
> [2] http://www.accedit.com/index.php
Received on Sat Apr 05 2008 - 16:12:37 BST