I'm not wishing to prolong the argument, either, but I agree with Andrew
that mandates are not always 'wrong'. All I said is that I'm "somewhat
uncomfortable with mandates". That doesn't mean they are 'always' wrong.
I'm uncomfortable with other impositions, such as many taxes, and they
are not always 'wrong', either.
The funder 'mandate' is not really a mandate, but a stipulation in a
voluntary contract. And a very sensible one, too, if it says that you
will only get funded if you agree to make resulting publications
available with open access. No 'green' or 'gold' mandate here, just a
contractual requirement for OA. Personally, I would like to see that
requirement include: "to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide,
perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute,
transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute
derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose,
subject to proper attribution of authorship." It may well be included in
many funders' requirements already.
What I disagree with Stevan on is the primacy of 'green' over 'gold'. He
regards that more or less as a given, even an axiom; I don't.
Jan Velterop
Andrew A. Adams wrote:
> I'm not wishing to start or continue an argument with Jan, but to post some
> philosophical musings prompted by his comment that he dislikes "mandates".
>
> I disagree that mandates are always wrong. The so-called "publish or perish"
> "mandate" has severe negative consequences for academic, that most here will
> know about (least publishable unit, skewing research progress, particularly
> in fields that require significant groundwork before a flurry of publications
> of results, etc etc etc.
>
> However, the "mandates" placed by institutions on their staff and on staff
> and institutions by funders are not always negative. It seems quite right to
> me that funders mandate that the work they fund has its results disseminated
> widely. This means that they require (or, mandate) that papers be produced
> and, when published, be made available as widely as possible. Without them,
> some staff would indulge in potentially world-changing research which had its
> impact delayed or denied. Academic freedom, like many other freedoms, is not
> unbounded, and comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is
> to disseminate the results of one's work widely, balancing the need/desire to
> do further work with the necessity of transmitting the results already done.
>
>
>
> --
> Professor Andrew A Adams aaa_at_meiji.ac.jp
> Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and
> Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
> Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan http://www.a-cubed.info/
>
>
Received on Tue Aug 31 2010 - 13:28:23 BST