Re: Roundtable Press Release (Access to Research Results)

From: Andy Powell <andy.powell_at_EDUSERV.ORG.UK>
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:02:40 +0000

> As to the latter issue, one can argue that institutionally-provided
> Internet access and use of proxies do blur the distinction. For
> instance, I have no obvious way to determine if Morris & Thorn's
> paper, which I freely accessed from home (with proxy) on the publisher
> website, is OA or not (a Google Scholar search seems to indicate it
> isn't).

Interesting point. Has anyone ever considered developing an 'OA' button (a bit like the CC ones) that can be added to individual articles? I'm not quite sure how this would work, since one wouldn't want individual authors to have to add the button to every document that they upload, but if the repository could be made to automatically add it each time a document is uploaded or served it might help raise awareness?

Andy

Andy Powell
Research Programme Director
Eduserv

andy.powell_at_eduserv.org.uk
01225 474319 / 07989 476710
www.eduserv.org.uk
efoundations.typepad.com
twitter.com/andypowe11
________________________________________
From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG] On Behalf Of Marc Couture [jaamcouture_at_GMAIL.COM]
Sent: 18 January 2010 16:25
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Roundtable Press Release (Access to Research Results)

On 17-Jan-10, at 2:39 PM, Sally Morris wrote:

>
> Those who look beyond the abstract will find that we did, indeed, ask
> where they looked for articles
>

As one who has indeed looked beyond the abstract (read the whole paper
in fact), I have some difficulty understanding what the authors mean
precisely by "using", "accessing" "identifying" self-archived
articles, as well as by "whenever possible", so that it is somewhat
difficult to sort out the various numbers and percentages stated in p.
230-231, including those quoted in previous posts.

Perhaps the exact wording of the questionnaire would help clarify the
issue, but unfortunately the DOI-based hyperlink to Appendix 1: Text
of survey (http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/2009318) don't seem to work.

What I think I can deduce is that close to 50% of those who didn't
have access to the published version didn't even look for a
self-archived version (but I'm not sure if I my reasoning is right,
because the paper refers to those who "did not [never?] use
self-archived versions"). And we don't know how often those who did
look for such a version were able to find one.

What I found most interesting though - and more useful, from an
OA-advocacy standpoint - is the fact that there was much confusion
among participants about what is a repository, and whether an article
(or journal) is OA or not.

As to the latter issue, one can argue that institutionally-provided
Internet access and use of proxies do blur the distinction. For
instance, I have no obvious way to determine if Morris & Thorn's
paper, which I freely accessed from home (with proxy) on the publisher
website, is OA or not (a Google Scholar search seems to indicate it
isn't).

Marc Couture
Received on Tue Jan 19 2010 - 16:48:03 GMT

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