Re: Access-Denial, Impact-Denial and the Developing and Developed World

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 14:18:06 +0100

These are replies to queries about open access to Asian research
output:

> Institutional repositories, eprint servers, new ejournals created
> for Asian scientists: Are these viable ideas?

The ideas are viable, but they are not the *same* idea. Institutional
repositories and eprint servers are one kind of thing (and there are
some important internal distinctions to be made there, which I will
mention in a moment) and new ejournals are another (again with important
distinctions). But, in general, the purpose of self-archiving of Asian
(A) research in A eprint archives is to make A research output openly
accessible online, and hence more visible and more used, applied, cited
by researchers (both A and non-A researchers), thereby increasing A's
research impact. Reciprocally, if done in the West too (non-A), the
self-archiving of non-A research in non-A eprint archives makes non-A
research openly accessible online to A, thereby also strengthening
A research.

New A ejournals can be created for a variety of reasons, but if they are
toll-access ejournals they do not increase A accessibility or
impact; it is *open accessibility* online that does that. If the new
A ejournals are open-access journals, then that *does* provide open
access, but that open access applies only to the contents of
those particular open-access A ejournals, one by one, as they are
created (or as toll-access journals are converted to open-access, one by
one). Meanwhile, however, what about all the rest of A research output,
which is being published in both A and non-A toll-access journals? *That*
is the biggest and most important target for open access. To self-archive
-- as a *supplement*, not a *substitute* -- all the A research that is
published in A and non-A toll-access journals right now is far faster than
to wait for the creation of the new open-access ejournals to publish it
in, or the conversion of the existing toll-access journals to open-access
(though that also should be worked toward too, in parallel).

So the pertinent distinctions among ejournals include both the distinction
between (1) toll-access and open-access journals and the distinction
between (2) A and non-A journals, for it is hardly a solution that the A
research that is published in non-A toll-access ejournals should remain
burdened with the restricted visibility and impact of toll-access, while
only the A research published in A ejournals becomes openly accessible --
slowly, as we wait for the creation and conversion of more open-access
A ejournals, one by one).

The distinction among eprint archives is:

    IS: distributed, local Institutional/departmental Self-archiving
    versus
    CS: Central, discipline-based Self-archiving

Again, IS in principle applies to *all* A (and non-A) research output,
immediately and universally, requiring only that universities (i)
create their own IS archives (a very small individual step in each
institution's case) and then (ii) self-archive all their research output in
their own IS archives:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~lac/archpol.html

Researchers and their institutions share the interest in and benefits of
enhanced research impact (whereas researchers and their disciplines
do not):
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving.htm
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/unto-others.html

In contrast, CS requires both creating and maintaining central archives
for each discipline (who should do that in each case? and in an A or
non-A country?), and persuading researchers to self-archive in them
(A researchers? non-A researchers? both? how?).

In other words, there continue to be many logical and practical reasons
why IS (distributed institutional/departmental self-archiving) is the
fastest, shortest, easiest, most direct, most natural, most motivated and
most universal route to open access, among the three that are available:
(1) IS, (2) CS, and (3) open-access ejournals.

> Would they ghettoise Asian science if they were Asian only?

A-only open-access ejournals or A-only CS might possibly ghettoize
(a little), but IS certainly would not. (In general, though, opening
access does not ghettoise, it unghettoises -- except perhaps if it is
restricted to A-languages only).

> How would one cope with Asian languages?

Open-access to A-language research is still far better than only
toll-access to it. English-language abstracts help make the access chain go
A-->non-A too, and not just A-->A. Perhaps appending approximate machine
translations of the full-text into English would help a little more
(and would increase the likelihood of retrieval by boolean searches
in English). But obviously also self-archiving a full human translation
into English would be the best solution (even if the paper itself was
published in an A-language journal).

> What techniques do we have to see if they are effective, eg,
> counting of hits, counting number of times they cited, counting deep
> links etc.

All those techniques: and the many more that will be generated by creating
this worldwide, full-text, open-access database for further scientometric
analysis and developments.
http://opcit.eprints.org/evaluation/Citebase-evaluation/evaluation-report.html

> And how do we relate all this back to Southeast Asian librarians
> who are pretty sophisticated and already part of the internet world?

Librarions, whether A, Southeast-A, or non-A can only do so much. They
can create and maintain the IS archives and help researchers
self-archive, but they cannot induce researchers to self-archive
(nor can they create open-access journals, nor induce researchers
to publish in them):
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#libraries-do
Only researchers' institutions and research-funders
can persuade their researchers to self-archive (in the
same way that it persuades them to publish-or-perish):
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#institution-facilitate-filling
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/Ariadne-RAE.htm

> Issues facing the librarian in these digital times: Open URL, purchasing
> ejournals and ebooks in consortia deals, linking technologies, digital
> collection acquisition and management, libraries and knowledge management,
> creating metadata and so on

These are important digital-era issues for librarians, but they are only
marginally connected with the central problem at issue here, which is
maximizing the visibility and impact of A's research output. It
is actually slowing the progress of IS (institutional/departmental
self-archiving of research output) to keep lumping it indiscriminately
with these other worthwhile but distinct digital issues. They need to be
kept separate.

> It is important for us to publish many journals from Asia, as it gives
> us the opportunity to criticize one another's work (as referees), an
> important aspect of science and scholarship.

The value of publishing journals (whether ejournals or ordinary
journals, whether toll-access or open-access, whether A or non-A) should
not be confused with open-access issues. Journals are one thing, and
open-access to them is another. But it is certainly the case that
open-access provides a far greater opportunity both to see/use/cite
work (whether A or non-A) and to comment and criticize it (both before and
after peer-review)
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#What-is-Eprint
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Theschat/0007.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/1926.html

> New advances are revolutionizing not only the way scientists communicate
> their results but also the business models followed in distributing
> scientific information. It is only at our peril that we can not
> take advantage of them.

There are indeed new business models for open-access journals:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#journals
However, it is perhaps an overstatement that one fails to adopt
them at one's "peril"! (Rather, there is still some financial risk in
creating/converting an open-access journal!).

But neither new business models nor new risks are involved in the
self-archiving route to open-access (except as one possible hypothesis
about the end-game, once we are well along the road to open-access):
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/harnad.html#B1

> Many physicists in Asia are already using arXiv, which has more than one
> mirror server in Asia. There are other subject-specific preprint servers
> such as CiteSeer (computer science), Cogprints (cognitive sciences),
> and RePec (economics).

Yes, these central archives for self-archiving (CS) already exist, and
are certainly open for content from A as well as non-A countries (although
only the Physics ArXiv and CogPrints can be deposited into directly by
anyone; CiteSeer is harvested from local websites and RePec requires
the creation of a local archive).

IS (distributed, local, OAI-compliant, institutional/departmental
self-archiving) does not require the creation or maintenance of
centralized archives for each discipline. Each university can take care
of that locally, using free software
http://software.eprints.org/
to create departmental archives that are all OAI-compliant
and interoperable, and harvestable by OAI cross-archive
search engines like OAIster and scientometric analysers
like Citebase:
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/
http://citebase.eprints.org/help/index.php

> Leading Asian academic and research institutions should establish their
> own institutional eprint archives using interoperable software such as
> e-prints and make their research findings electronically accessible to
> anyone with an Internet connection.

I of course agree with this recommendation, but it has to be clearly
disentangled from all the confusing associations preceding it,
concerning central archives and ejournals.

> Steve Lawrence of NEC has shown, at least in the case of computer science,
> papers made freely available on the Internet are cited far more often
> than those which are not. This is a sure way to improve the visibility
> and impact of work performed in Asia.

(And Tim Brody and others are now gathering data to confirm that this
effect is in no way unique to computer science, but applies to all
self-archived research.)

> Also, now more and more journals are willing to forego the
> Ingelfinger rule and accept papers included in institutional archives for
> publication. If some authors are still keen to have their papers published
> in traditional scholarly journals, they can still go ahead and do so.

First, the Ingelfinger Rule (a journal's submission policy) should not
be confused with the journal's copyright transfer policy:
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/17/03/

55% of journals already formally support self-archiving in their
copyright transfer agreements:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/Romeo%20Publisher%20Policies.htm
The other 45% can still be asked in each case, and for those that still
make full copyright transfer a condition for publication, there is a
way to self-archive without having to give up publishing in whichever
journals one wishes:
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#self-archiving-legal

> For those who want to publish in their own languages, technically it is
> feasible today to publish and disseminate one's papers in any language.

Yes, but see above about the advantages of self-archiving the English
version too.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Sun Apr 13 2003 - 14:18:06 BST

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