Comparing Physicists' Central and Institutional Self-archiving Practices at Southampton

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 22:28:26 -0500

      Comparing Physicists' Central and Institutional
      Self-archiving Practices at Southampton

      SUMMARY:�An Indiana University study (on
      the�Institutional Repository of the University of
      Southampton) by�Xia (2008)�has tested the hypothesis that
      physicists who already habitually self-archive in an Open
      Access (OA)�Central Repository�(Arxiv) would be more
      likely to self-archive in their own institution's
      OA�Institutional Repository�(IR). The outcome of the
      study was that the hypothesis is incorrect: If anything,
      veteran Arxiv self-archivers are more resistant to IR
      deposit than ordinary nonarchivers, because they neither
      wish to change their longstanding locus of deposit, nor
      do they wish to double-deposit.�
      ���This outcome is quite natural and to be expected. The
      solution for this relatively small population of seasoned
      self-archivers is for their institution-external deposits
      to be automatically imported back into their IRs using
      the�SWORD�protocol (which can also be used to export
      automatically from IRs to central repositories). There is
      no need for veteran self-archivers to change their
      practices or to double-deposit.�
      ���It is not the�15%�of authors who already self-archive
      (whether institution-externally or on their own
      institutional websites) that are the problem for OA: The
      problem is the 85% who do not yet self-archive. It is in
      order to set the�keystrokes�of those nonarchivers in
      motion at long last -- for their own�benefit�and that of
      their employing institutions as well as the tax-paying
      public that funds their research -- that�Green OA
      self-archiving mandates�are now being adopted by their
      institutions and funders.�
      ���When researchers have been polled (by�Alma Swan &
      Sheridan Brown), the vast majority (95%), across all
      fields, have responded that they would comply with
      self-archiving mandates by their institutions and/or
      their funders (over 80% of them reporting that they would
      comply�willingly). And actual outcome studies (by�Arthur
      Sale) have confirmed that this is indeed what happens,
      with near-100% self-archiving rates reached within about
      two years once mandated -- but continuing to languish at
      the baseline 15% self-archiving rate (30% with incentives
      ad assistance) if left unmandated.

____________________________________________________________________________

            Xia, J. (2008)�A Comparison of Subject and
            Institutional Repositories in Self-archiving
            Practices.�The Journal of Academic
            Librarianship�34 (6):489-495.

(1)�The�Xia (2008) study's finding is quite correct that many
more�Southampton physicists�self-archive centrally in�Arxiv�rather
than institutionally in�Southamtpon University's Institutional
Repository�(IR). If the same study had been conducted at any other
university, the outcome would almost certainly have been identical.
The reason is that physicists have been self-archiving centrally in
Arxiv�since 1991, and today, quite understandably, they have no
desire either to switch to local IR self-archiving or to do
double-depositing.

(2)�This was already known at Southampton, and other institutions
know it about their own physicists.

(3)�Consequently, it is not at clear why anyone would have expected
the opposite result, namely, that longstanding Arxiv self-archivers
would be quite happy to switch to local IR self-archiving, or to do
double-depositing!

(4)�In reality, the problem -- for both OA and for IRs -- is not the
physicists who are already self-archiving, regardless of where they
are self-archiving. If all researchers were doing what the physicists
have been doing since 1991 (and computer scientists have been doing
since even earlier), 100% OA would be long behind us, and IRs could
all be filled, if we wished, trivially, by simply importing back all
their own institution-external deposits, automatically, using
something like the�SWORD�protocol.

(5)�The real problem is hence not the minority of spontaneous
self-archivers of long standing (globally, spontaneous self-archiving
overall hovers at about�15%�overall); the problem is the vast
majority, which consists of nonarchivers: Of OA's target content --
the annual 2.5 million articles published in the planet's 25,000
peer-reviewed journals, across all disciplines and institutions --
85% is not yet being self-archived. It is for that reason
that�self-archiving mandates�have proved to be necessary.

(6)�In choosing to analyze the data on Southampton -- which is indeed
a hotbed of OA, OA IRs, OA self-archiving, and OA self-archiving
mandates -- this study has�unfortunately�chosen to analyze�the wrong
IR and the wrong mandate! It is Southampton's School of Electronics
and Computer Science (ECS) that has the planet's first and longest
standing self-archiving mandate (since�2002-2003), and it is the�ECS
IR�that has a full-text deposit rate near 100%.�

(7)�The 2008 study analyzed the self-archiving rate for physicists,
in the�university-wide IR. But the University as a whole only has a
university-wide mandate (and a rather vague one) since�April 2008,
and even that has not yet been publicized or implemented yet. (The
university did have a longer standing�requirement to enter
metadata�in the IR for the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE),
mostly by�library proxy deposit, which is why the study found so many
abstracts without full texts therein, for�there was no requirement to
deposit the full text.)

(8)�As a consequence, the study's findings -- although quite accurate
regarding the general resistance of veteran Arxiv self-archivers to
self-archiving alternatively or additionally in their own
institution's IR -- do not really have any bearing on mandates and
mandated IR behavior in general.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Mon Jan 05 2009 - 03:29:37 GMT