Stevan, All helpful clarifications, but you are focussing on the words rather than the underlying belief behind the proposal, which was that authors of research papers everywhere want "to reach the eyes and minds of peers, fellow esoteric scientists and scholars the world over, so that they can build on one another's contributions in that cumulative. collaborative enterprise called learned inquiry."
The belief was founded on principle, but also on observed practice, that in 1994 we saw authors spontaneously making their papers available on the Web. From those small early beginnings we just assumed the practice would grow. Why wouldn't it? The Web was new, and open, and people were learning quickly how they could make use of it. Our instincts about the Web were not wrong. Since then, writing to the Web has become even easier.
So this is the powerful idea in the proposal, and what we haven't yet understood is why, beyond the typical 15% deposit level, self-archiving does not happen without mandates. The passage of 15 years should tell us something about the other 85% of authors. Do they not share this belief? Does self-archiving not serve the purpose? The 38 author 'worries' may have been a factor, but surely time would have worn those away. No need either for you to beat yourself with mea culpas, over gold OA for example. I doubt that has played out widely among the 85%, just among the OA advocates.
This is the part that needs to be re-examined, the idea, and why it has yet to awaken and enthuse our colleagues, as it has us, to the extent we envisaged. Might we have misunderstood and idealised the process of 'learned inquiry'?
Steve Hitchcock
IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865
On 2 Dec 2009, at 19:34, Stevan Harnad wrote:
>>
>> SH2: Who are "peers"? And what is the reason for this obsession with reaching their "eyes and minds"? The fact that they are all in some sort of "esoteric" club surely is not the explanation.
>
> SH3:
> Peers are the fellow-researchers worldwide for whose usage peer-reviewed
> research is conducted and published.
>
> "Eyes and minds" should have been research uptake, usage and impact
> (e.g., as measured by downloads and citations).
> http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
>
>> SH2:
>> And this "building on one another's contributions" sounds cosy enough,
>> but what is really going on here. It's certainly not about verbal Lego
>> Blocks!
>
> SH3:
> Research uptake, usage, applications, citations.
>
>> SH2: Fine. These authors are saints, or monks. But why? For what?
>
> SH3:
> Their research progress, their funding and their careers are based on
> the uptake and usage of their research findings, not on income from the
> sales of their writings. (User access-barriers are also author
> impact-barriers.)
Steve Hitchcock
IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
Email: sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865
Received on Thu Dec 03 2009 - 19:30:29 GMT