Self-Archiving Mandates

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SUMMARY: There is some difference of opinion as to what is delaying and disrupting OA: whether it is (1) promoting immediate OA self-archiving mandates (such as the FRPAA's, RCUK's, or EC's), or (2) opposing them. The following are excerpts from a series of exchanges in the American Scientist Open Access Forum. It is left to the reader (and history) to decide what, exactly, constitutes the delaying and disrupting.

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The following are excerpts from a series of exchanges between Jan Velterop and me (Stevan Harnad), in the American Scientist Open Access Forum, on the notion that if research funders are to mandate OA at all, it should not be (i) by mandating that authors self-archive, in their own institutional repositories, their own final drafts of articles that they publish (in any journal), but (ii) by mandating that authors publish in OA journals, and by also providing them with the funds to pay the publication charges. (Note that Jan is not actually recommending that OA publishing and its funding should be mandated: yet that is clearly the notion we are discussing, on the premise that research funders should mandate OA at all, as is currently being proposed in the US, UK and EC):

Re: Royal Society Offers Open Choice:
Velterop (Sat Jun 24 16:48)
Harnad (23:20)
Harnad (Sun Jun 25 04:35)
Velterop (09:32:00)
Harnad (12:55:51)
Velterop (19:59)
Harnad (21:39:58)

Jan Velterop (quoted below) has both priorities and event-order exactly backwards, and I suspect he may not even be aware of it.

The priority is Open Access, now. This is an immediate and direct research priority as well as a public-good priority, because it is the public that benefits from research impact and progress, and it is for that reason that the public funds research. Hence OA's first priority is OA, 100% OA -- not OA publishing, nor publishing reform: OA; 100% OA. Moreover, the order of events, leading to OA publishing through publishing reform, is, almost certainly: mandating OA self-archiving --> 100% OA --> possibly subscription cancellations --> possibly substantial subscription cancellations --> transition to OA publishing. The order of events is almost certainly not, instead: transition to OA Publishing --> 100% OA.

Let me repeat: the priority of OA is immediate and direct: In particular, there is zero evidence at the present time that there is any other problem (such as self-archiving causing subscription cancellations) that first has to be solved before we can have immediate 100% Open Access.

Still more particularly, it is simple false to say that we cannot have immediate 100% OA until we first solve the problem of subscription revenue losses for publishers, for there is as yet zero evidence of subscription revenue loss for publishers as a consequence of self-archiving, whereas there is already overwhelming evidence of the benefits of OA self-archiving to research, researchers, and the public that funds them.

There is also overwhelming evidence that merely inviting or recommending self-archiving does not generate rates of self-archiving above its spontaneous baseline level of 15%. The only way -- and the sure, demonstrated way -- to achieve 100% self-archiving is to mandate it.

And that is the issue on the table: mandating self-archiving. Not protecting publishers from hypothetical risk, but mandating self-archiving, for its demonstrated benefits to research.

Now, in weighing Jan Velterop's remarks below, please do keep this logic in your mind, because alas those in Jan's position -- indeed anyone whose primary allegiance is to what is best for publishers' bottom lines rather than what is best for research, researchers and the public that funds the research -- is bound to have great difficulty in keeping this logic in mind, being preoccupied with their own, conflicting, interests:

(1) 100% OA has been repeatedly demonstrated to benefit research, researchers and the public that funds research.

(2) Immediate, 100% OA has been repeatedly demonstrated to be achievable in practise, rapidly and reliably, by mandating OA self-archiving.

(3) There exists no evidence whatsoever to date that OA self-archiving reduces subscriptions.

(4) Publishers are nevertheless lobbying against mandating OA self-archiving (with no supporting evidence) on the grounds that it might threaten their business.

(5) In place of mandating OA self-archiving, publishers are now lobbying for mandates to pay publishers their asking price for providing paid OA.

(6) The asking price is being set at a time when subscriptions are paying all publishing costs and there exists no evidence at all that self-archiving reduces subscription revenue.

(7) If research funders and researchers are able and willing, right now, to mandate and provide for paying publishers' asking price, all is well.

(8) But if research funders and researchers are not able or willing, right now, to mandate and provide for paying publishers' asking price, then publishers are delaying and deterring a demonstrated benefit for researcher, researchers and the public on the basis of no evidence of any actual cost (let alone substantial cost) to themselves.

(9) The rational and practical thing for research funders and institutions to do under these conditions would be to act on what has already been demonstrated to be true: Mandate OA self-archiving, generate its demonstrated benefits for research, researchers and the public, and thereby test, at the very same time, whether it ever induces any subscription decline -- and if so whether that decline is substantial enough to require restructuring publishers' cost-recovery system.

(10) With the objective evidence that cost-recovery needs to be restructured will come the funds for paying for it -- because institutional subscription cancellations mean corresponding institutional subscription savings, out of which institutions can then pay for their researchers' publishing costs using the very same money that is currently being spent on subscriptions -- instead of extra money taken from what is currently being spent on research.

Jan does not see it this way because his first allegiance is to making sure publishers make ends meet, and because he is convinced that they will not be able to make ends meet if self-archiving is mandated, even though there exists to date absolutely no evidence in support of this conviction. The conviction, in turn, warrants -- not for Jan, who, I believe, supports the self-archiving mandate despite his reservations, but for many other publishers -- trying to prevent research funders from mandating OA until and unless they can agree to pay in advance for the hypothetical subscription shortfall (of which there is as yet not the slightest sign).

The demonstrated and readily reachable immediate benefits of OA to research, researchers and the public are hence set aside, and hypothetical risks to the publisher's bottom line are instead given the priority, with the insistence that if OA is to be mandated at all, it is OA publishing that needs to be mandated (along with the extra funds to pay for it), not OA self-archiving.

I add only one other point to reflect upon, before turning to Jan's specific points:

Institutional subscriptions today are not paying only for online access, but also for the print edition (among other perks). Is the publishers' "realistic" asking price for author-institution-funder-paid OA meant to be covering the costs of supplying the paper edition to all those institutions too? (I take up this theme again in replying to Ian Russell of the Royal Society in another posting.)

Harnad: "... if mandated SA does generate substantial institutional subscription cancellations, then those very same substantial institutional subscriptions cancellations will generate the institutional windfall savings out of which PA costs (again determined by the market and not by a-priori fiat) could be paid without taking any money away from research funding."

Velterop: "I'm afraid Stevan fails to appreciate three things here:

1. Access to scientific literature and the formal publishing of articles are not optional, but essential parts of doing research, so the cost of access and publishing is an essential cost of doing research, and in that regard entirely comparable with the cost of laboratory equipment, reagents, et cetera;

I agree completely. I am advocating immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates. What is your point?

Velterop: "2. If the cost of essentials is seen as 'taking money away from research funding, then money is already being 'taken away' from research funding because subscriptions are largely paid out of the overhead that institutions take out of research grants (often more than 50%);

I agree completely. I am advocating immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates. What is your point?

Velterop: 3. Shifting payment patterns from subscriptions to open access via institutional self-archiving mandates (the 'windfall' argument) is unnecessarily disruptive and as such only delays open access [emphasis added] as it inevitably causes entirely predicatable and understandable doubt as to the real intentions and ulterior motives of the OA 'movement' (which often seems more about money than about access), and consequent defensive attitudes amongst publishers and scholarly societies, and even amongst researchers themselves.

Advocating immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates is
unnecessarily disruptive and only delays open access? (Could you explain that please? because on the face of it it sure looks like the exact opposite.)

And whose real intention and ulterior motive is money rather than access? Those who support or those who oppose immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates? (Who is hastening and who is delaying OA? Who is facilitating and who is disrupting OA? Are you perhaps, again, conflating OA with paid-OA publishing?)

Velterop:" Advocating open access should not be conflated with advocating cost-evasion (the ultimate free-ridership). Access and costs are two independent variables. Lower costs do not necessarily bring open access; and open access does not necessarily bring lower costs. But we would be able to make a great deal more progress on an equal-revenue basis, were that advocated more widely. The amount of money now being spent, Academia-wide, on subscriptions, could, almost by definition for the vast majority of journals, also fund full open access. That's what we should be focussing on. [emphasis added]

Isn't that precisely what I said in your opening quotation from me, with which you were disagreeing? viz:

Harnad: "... if mandated SA does generate substantial institutional subscription cancellations, then those very same substantial institutional subscriptions cancellations will generate the institutional windfall savings out of which PA costs (again determined by the market and not by a-priori fiat) could be paid without taking any money away from research funding."

I keep focussing on immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates, and you keep focussing on money.

Can we agree to focus on money only if and when there is objective evidence that immediate OA, through immediate self-archiving mandates, is actually starting to make someone lose money? Until then, it would seem, focussing on money instead of access is "unnecessarily disruptive and only delays open access."

On Sun, 25 Jun 2006, Jan Velterop wrote:

Velterop: " I'm glad Stevan agrees with me on so many points. The only thing that seems to separate us is the judgement that an unfunded self-archiving mandate carries an appreciable risk of destroying the valuable system of formal peer-reviewed journals to communicate and preserve scientific findings. Stevan thinks there is no such risk. I think there is, and that it is a wholly unnecessary risk. My motive is to come to a solid, stable, economically sustainable, and reliable method to ensure open access to the formal research journal literature.

I'm also glad that Stevan is a psychologist and not an engineer. The 'empirical' evidence on which he bases his no-risk hypothesis is comparable to the evidence that a layer of 10 centimeters of snow doesn't cause a roof to collapse and that there has been at least 10 years with no more than 10 centimeters of snow on any given day. He would construct a roof that can deal with 10 centimeters of snow, only to see it collapse when that one night comes when there is snowfall of 25 centimeters. He would say "no problem, we'll just rebuild the hall".

I'm also glad that he is not in charge of fire prevention. His empirical evidence from establishing that an unsupervised toddler who lit a whole box of matches and yet somehow didn't burn the house down would lead him to happily hand out matches to all toddlers, since lighting matches is a valuable learning experience for them and there is no proof whatsoever that any houses might be burnt down. And if they do he would simply say "no problem, we'll just rebuild them".

Stevan asks: "Can we agree to focus on money only if and when there is objective evidence that immediate OA, through immediate self- archiving mandates, is actually starting to make someone lose money?"

No. I'm afraid I cannot agree. First of all, I'm not focussing on money. I'm focussing on a solid, stable, economically sustainable, and reliable method to ensure open access to the formal research journal literature, which I do not accept that Stevan's desired mandates in their current formulation would bring. Secondly, would we allow the engineer to wait for objective evidence, i.e. the collapse of a roof, before using higher specifications with ample safety margins? Is it necessary to wait for such objective evidence? Would we wait for the objective evidence of a house burning down before making sure that matches cannot be reached by toddlers?

Reasoning By Escalating Doomsday Prophecies: Pascal's Wager

The gentle reader need not cringe at the prospect of yet another verbose Jan/Stevan exchange. The reply here is mercifully short:

With all his lurid analogies above, Jan is merely reasoning by escalating the shrillness of his prophecies of the doom and gloom that will befall us should the many research funders (US, UK, EC) who have proposed to mandate OA self-archiving actually go ahead and adopt their mandates (instead of paying publishers' asking price for paid OA).

The strategy is simple: To every point showing that one's own view is contrary to the evidence, improbable or illogical, one simply responds by escalating the direness of the consequences, should one's view (per impossibile) nevertheless prove right.

This reasoning is exactly the same as that of Pascal's Wager, which "proved" that it was more rational to believe and do as Scripture dictated, whether or not it was true, because otherwise one risked burning forever, if, against all evidence, Scripture turned out to be true after all.

"Pascal's Wager and Open Access (OA)" (Dec 2004)

The trouble is that any belief and action and its opposite can be defended in this way, simply by raising the agony ante in the other direction!

Should I now reply with lurid stories about how CURES for diseases will be lost, and millions will perish, because we failed to provide access to research findings for the scientists who could have used and built upon them, simply because we were afraid the sky might otherwise fall down, as per publishers' rival prophecies?

Enough said. Time to mandate OA self-archiving.

Jan, let's cut to the quick (because the rest is really just ideology, hypothesis and posturing, on both of our parts):

Are you and Springer part of the publisher lobby opposing the FRPAA, RCUK, and EC proposals to mandate author self-archiving, right now?

Springer is green on author self-archiving. If it is not, at the same time, a part of the publisher lobby against mandating author self-archiving, right now, then Springer is on the side of the Angels and the rest of our quibbling does not amount to a hill of beans.

Remember that the postings by me on which you intervened were aimed against the publisher lobby opposing the self-archiving mandates -- in particular, the latest attempt to replace the author self-archiving mandate with a publisher paid-OA mandate.

And my objection to this attempt is conditional. If the funders have the cash and the willingness to mandate paid-OA, and pay for it, right now, and they implement that mandate, right now, not a peep of objection from me. Years of delay, disruption and non-OA will be over.

But if this move just results in still more delay and disruption, and still no OA mandate, after it has been dragging on like this for years already, then of course there will be more dissension.

I won't comment on your follow-up comments, except the very last one, which I think illustrates the yawning gap between the interests of publishers (whether OA or non-OA) and those of researchers (and it also limns who is delaying/disrupting what, and why). You wrote:

Velterop: "why wait and in the mean time set up costly institutional repositories... not just costly, but OA-wise sub-optimal...?

I think any disinterested 3rd party would see very clearly that the research community is not "waiting": Its funders are trying to mandate OA self-archiving, and it is publishers who are delaying and disrupting that, and forcing the research community to keep waiting for OA.

And not only are the (small) costs of setting up Institutional Repositories utterly irrelevant to publishers (who are not being asked to pay for them) but IRs are being set up anyway, for a variety of reasons, OA being only one of them (and alas not always the primary one!).

And as to the "sub-optimality" of having access only to the author's refereed final draft, in an IR, instead of the publisher's proprietary PDF: Please tell that to the many, many would-be users all over the planet who have no access to either of those, and whose access to the "sub-optimal" OA draft is being delayed and opposed by the publisher lobby.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

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SUMMARY: France has one of the most centralised research networks in the world. Hence it is in a better position to generate Open Access on a national scale overnight than most other countries. It is not happening overnight, but it may be happening. The French research and higher education institutions are to issue a Joint Draft Agreement on Open Access which will begin as a request but may become a requirement for all French researchers to deposit their articles in HAL, the French network of Open Access Archives. There is still some timidity about mandating, as well as about legalities, but the empirical evidence of the feasibility and the efficacy of self-archiving mandates, plus the strategy of requiring deposit but merely requesting that access be set as Open Access (while allowing the option of Closed Access) moots all practical and legal objections to an exception-free, immediate-deposit mandate -- and adding the semi-automatic EMAIL EPRINT feature to HAL will tide over research access needs during any Closed-Access embargo interval. Let us hope France will put its Joint Draft Agreement into practice soon.

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Below is a synoptic translation, followed by the original, of an important French press release about forthcoming OA developments in France. I would add only that CNRS is mistaken in its worry that CNRS researchers would resist or resent a self-archiving mandate: Multiple author surveys -- international and multisciplinary -- as well as repeated actual experience with implemented self-archiving mandates -- have shown that there will be very high (95%) rates of compliance (over 80% of it willing rather than reluctant).

Second, legal issues are mooted if the mandate is an immediate deposit mandate, but the author has the option to set access to the deposit as either Open Access or Closed Access: 94% of journals already endorse setting access immediately to Open Access. For the remaining 6%, the HAL repository software should implement the semi-automatic EMAIL EPRINT feature, based on the metadata (visible webwide even with Closed Access to the full text) that has already been implemented in the GNU Eprints and DSpace repository software. That will tide over access during any embargo period (and embargoes will fade away once everything is being systematically self-archived and used).

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Press release synopsis:
The STI 'Professional Days' 2006 (4th edition) conference on "Archives institutionnelles et archives ouvertes" took place in Nancy from 19 - 21 June.

All the major French research organizations were represented: CNRS, INSERM, INRIA, INRA, INERIS, IRD, and ADEME are to sign a Joint Draft Agreement (already finalised), defining a coordinated approach, at the national level, for open-access self-archiving of French research output. Also to sign the agreement are the conference of university presidents (CPU), the conference of Grandes Ecoles (France's Elite Universities), and the Pasteur Institute.

This marks an important advance in the implementation of a French national policy for open access institutional archives (OA/IA). There is also a protocol of agreement about metadata to enrich the articles and some assistance to depositers on legal matters.

Elsewhere, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has also recommended that making results open access in open archives should be made a condition of R&D funding, and so have NIH and FRPAA in the US and RCUK in the UK.

In France there is first to be a 'statement' as a prelude to a 'directive'. The difference is important. NIH and CERN have different deposit rates, reflecting the difference between a request and a requirement.

NIH, with only a request, has a deposit rate of, 4%, whereas CERN, with a requirement, is approaching 100%. OA cannot achieve its objectives unless deposit rates approach 100%.

A laisser-faire policy, only requesting self-archiving, generates a deposit rate of a few percent. Systematic activism from librarians and information professionals (informing, encouraging, helping with deposits) raises the rate to about 12%. Adding a 'carrot and stick' component (e.g., making the deposit rate one of the criteria in annual evaluation) might raise rates to 20% but not much more. By contrast, organizations that have a contractual obligation to deposit (such as CEMAGREF, since 1992, and INERIS) have deposit rates near 100%, fulfilling their contract to have open institutional archives which reflect the full research output of their organizations.

The Joint Draft Agreement is being formulated at a time when France is considering many other questions about legal aspects, voluntary vs. obligatory deposit, and the purpose of knowledge repositories. For fear that restive researchers might resent the imposition of administrative rules, the question is mostly evaded (especially by the CNRS), but there is evidence of progress: at the Nancy conference, INSERM (National Institute of Health and Medical Research), announced that it plans to make self-archiving in its open-access archive compulsory within the next few years -- but this progress is far too slow.

A sense of legal uncertainty is one of the factors holding back deposit rates. Paradoxically, it is information professionals (librarians and documentalists) -- not researchers or management -- who have been pressing for a clear legal framework on open access archiving from the directorate of the CNRS.

There is a French call for proposals (drawing on a total source of only 1 million euros) for studies on the creation and support of new Open Access Journals. In contrast, in the UK, the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) is spending approximately 115 million euros, much of it devoted to studies on the creation and support of the infrastructure for open access archives in British universities and research institutions. According to some of the participants at the Nancy conference, France's new National Agency of Research (ANR) refers in its contracts to requirement (or is it a request') linking its research funding to the provision of 'Open Access' to the results.

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L’information : Les journées 2006 des professionnels de l’IST (4ème édition de ce rendez-vous) se sont déroulées à Nancy du 19 au 21 juin. Deux thèmes étaient inscrits au menu de ces journées qui sont devenues un classique et ne touchent plus uniquement les professionnels de l’information du CNRS, puisque aussi bien dans la salle qu’en tribune, tous les grands établissements de recherche français (INSERM, INRIA, INRA, INERIS, IRD, ADEME…) étaient représentés. Annonce majeure de ces journées : la signature d’un protocole d’accord (déjà finalisé), définissant une approche coordonnée, au niveau national, pour l’archivage ouvert de la production scientifique française. Outre le CNRS et les organismes déjà cités, la conférence des présidents d’université (CPU), la conférence des grandes écoles, l’Institut Pasteur, signeront cet accord. Celui-ci marque une avancée importante dans la mise en place d’une politique nationale en matière d’archives ouvertes (A0) et d’archives institutionnelles (AI).

L’analyse de la Dépêche : Le protocole « archives ouvertes » bientôt signé, qui au travers d’un guichet commun, prévoit la mise en place d’une « infrastructure nationale » OI/OA est à marquer d’une pierre blanche. Tout d’abord, il concrétise une volonté de coopération entre grands organismes de recherche (l’accord restant ouvert, sa signature va probablement avoir un effet d’entraînement sur d’autres EPST spécialisés), volonté qui est encore trop rare pour ne pas être soulignée – même si la mise en place sous l’égide de l’INIST du portail TermScience (cf. la Dépêche du 6 juin dernier) relevait déjà de cette mutualisation des stratégies et des moyens. Comme toute initiative négociée entre des entités ayant des objectifs et des rôles différents, les compromis nécessaires que reflète ce « traité multilatéral », ne satisfont pas tout le monde. Le guichet envisagé à ce jour, construit autour de la plate- forme HAL (mise en place et développée depuis 2001 par le Centre de communication scientifique directe – CCSD – du CNRS), a tous les avantages et tous les inconvénients d’une solution dont il n’était pas, dès l’origine, prévu qu’elle puisse jouer ce rôle d’infrastructure fédératrice. On n’entrera pas ici dans ce débat : il faut simplement souligner que le protocole d’accord définit bien une vraie « philosophie commune » en matière d’archives ouvertes et va assez loin dans des aspects directement fonctionnels : la définition du cœur de métadonnées qui doivent enrichir les articles déposés quelle qu’en soit l’origine ; la définition des procédures de travail collaboratif pour l’alimentation de ce guichet commun ; enfin la définition des besoins en terme «d’assistance aux déposants en particulier l’expertise juridique (1)».

Par une initiative « consortiale » qui ne relève que de leur propre volonté, ces organismes parent à ce qui semble une totale incurie des politiques et des pouvoirs publics français – et en tout premier lieu du Ministère de la Recherche (2) sur ces questions. La dimension politique de ces questions est pourtant désormais sur la place publique, bien au-delà des seuls milieux de la recherche. Le rapport de l’OCDE (septembre 2005) préconisant la généralisation systématique d’un lien obligatoire entre financement public de la R&D et mise à disposition des résultats de la recherche dans des archives ouvertes a fait grand bruit. La question de cette obligation est au cœur d’un très vif débat parlementaire aux Etats-Unis (projet de loi des sénateurs Lieberman (D) et Cornyn (R) et au Royaume-Uni (prise de position du House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee). La Commission devrait publier prochainement une « communication » sur ce thème, prélude à une éventuelle directive.

Le signal de réactivité et de mutualisation des approches et des moyens qu’envoient les acteurs de la recherche français au travers de ce protocole est donc important. Mais l’analyse ne serait pas complète si on ne posait la question des conditions de valeur d’usage à terme de ces archives ouvertes. Les grands modèles d’archives ouvertes (PubMed - piloté par le NIH aux Etats- Unis dans le secteur du biomédical ou ArXiv piloté en Europe par le CERN – dans le domaine de la physique) font apparaître des taux de dépôt très contrastés.

Si la logique communautaire fonctionne bien en physique et assure une réelle représentativité des matériaux déposés dans ArXiV, PubMed, malgré sa notoriété, n’obtient dans un cadre qui ne définit pas d’obligation, un tau Xde dépôt de 4% (c'est-à-dire que seuls 4% des articles reflétant des recherches biomédicales financées par le NIH sont versés dans PubMed). Or le taux de dépôt est un paramètre essentiel du développement des valeurs d’usage de ces gisements « ouverts » d’information scientifique élaborée. Que l’on assigne à ces AO des objectifs de simple communication directe des résultats de la recherche publique, ou des objectifs plus ambitieux de visibilité internationale des entités de recherche, de reflet exhaustif des activités de R&D financées sur fonds public, d’articulation de cette R&D avec l’économie de l’innovation (perspective OCDE), ces gisements en cours de constitution ne pourront atteindre ces objectifs que si le taux de dépôts sans atteindre 100% se rapproche asymptotiquement de cette limite. Puisque c’est une condition évidente de leur « représentativité » de la recherche en train de se faire. Or les « retours d’expériences » enregistrés ces derniers jours à Nancy confirment le « modèle PubMed » : trop d’énergies sont actuellement consacrées sur le terrain à la « bataille du dépôt » (convaincre les chercheurs de déposer), avec des résultats très mitigés. Pour simplifier, disons qu’une politique de « laisser faire » permet d’enregistrer un taux de dépôt de l’ordre de quelques %. Un investissement des professionnels de l’information dans la « bataille du dépôt » (sensibilisation, prise en charge de certaines tâches) permet d’atteindre un taux de dépôt de l’ordre de 12 %. L’association à l’invitation au dépôt d’une politique de la « carotte et du bâton » (en faisant par exemple du taux de dépôt des chercheurs l’un des éléments de leur évaluation annuelle) permettrait de porter la performance au-dessus de 20 % mais guère plus. Par contraste, les organismes (le CEMAGREF, qui a introduit cette obligation en 1992; l’INERIS, Institut national de l'environnement industriel et des risques où le taux de dépôt atteint 100 %) ont, pour des raisons évidentes, rempli leur contrat, à savoir disposer d’archives institutionnelles ouvertes qui reflètent de façon exhaustive l’activité de recherche de ces organismes.

Le protocole d’accord intervient donc en France à ce moment précis où commence à se poser la question essentielle de l’articulation entre « cadre réglementaire » (obligation de dépôt, pas obligation) et des finalités de ces entrepôts de connaissance. Même si, de crainte de prendre à rebrousse-poil la sensibilité des chercheurs rétifs à l’introductions de contraintes administratives la question est pudiquement éludée (en particulier au CNRS). Indice d’une évolution des esprits : lors des journées de Nancy, la représentante de l'INSERM (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale), a annoncé que cet organisme projette de rendre obligatoire le dépôt dans ses archives ouvertes dans les prochaines années. Une évolution de l’INSERM sur ce point aurait probablement valeur d’exemple en raison de l’importance et du prestige de cet EPST. Les mauvais esprits et les pessimistes souligneront qu’en raison des crédits dérisoires allant en France tant à ces outils qu’aux recherches sur ces questions, l’inutilité éventuelle (liée à un trop faible taux de dépôt) de ces « machins » ne pourrait cependant guère être qualifiée de gâchis de ressources. On se console comme on peut.

(1) Cette question de l’encadrement juridique du dépôt en archives institutionnelles ouvertes apparaissant lors des journées de Nancy comme un « point douloureux » surtout au sein du CNRS au sein duquel s’affrontent des sensibilités différentes, allant d’un laisser-faire laisser-passer minimisant l’importance du cadre juridique au profit d’une spontanéité autorégulée par les chercheurs et la sensibilité de ceux qui soulignent que l’actuelle insécurité juridique est l’un des freins importants au dépôt. Paradoxalement ce sont les professionnels de l’information – les documentalistes accompagnant les chercheurs dans leurs logiques de « publication sur archives ouvertes » qui - plus que les chercheurs ou les directions générales – formulent une demande très claire de définition au niveau de la direction du CNRS d’un cadre juridique clair. (2) Pour mesurer cette incurie, il suffit d’interroger le site www.recherche.gouv.fr avec les mots clés « archives ouvertes » « archives institutionnelles » ou « accès libre ». On constatera qu’aucun document de cadrage politique – ou même de simple synthèse didactique – sur ces questions ne figure dans la vitrine Web du Ministère. Le seul document (datant de 2004) qui s’approche d’un peu près de ce que pourrait être un cadre didactique/programmatique sur ces questions sont les deux pages d’ « exposé des motifs » pour un appel à propositions (royalement doté de 1 million d’euros, un montant sans doute inférieur au budget « petits fours » du ministère) visant à soutenir le développement de nouvelles revues scientifiques en ligne satisfaisant aux critères de l’Open Access. Il n’a pas été possible de vérifier sur le site du ministère si ce type d’opération s’est depuis 2004 inscrit dans une continuité d’action (mais il semble que la réponse soit négative). Pour mémoire rappelons que le JISC, Joint Information Systems Committee, l’entité jouant outre-Manche à la fois le rôle d’un consortium d’achat, d’un centre d’études et de gestionnaire d’une infrastructure réseau dédiée, a obtenu en octobre 2005 de ses autorités de tutelle une enveloppe de 80 millions de livres (environ 115 millions d’euros) qui seront essentiellement affectés au développement d’archives ouvertes d’articles scientifiques (« Open repositories ») au sein des universités et institutions de recherche britanniques et de l’ « infrastructure » (mise en réseau et exploitation à partir d’un moteur de recherche unique) nécessaire à l’exploitation de ces archives. La toute jeune Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) ne fournit pas non plus sur son site Internet de « cadre » sur ces questions. Il semble cependant, d’après certains participants aux journées de Nancy, que l’ANR, dans ses contrats inclut une clause posant le principe d’une obligation (ou d’un souhait ?) liant ses financements sur projets à une mise en œuvre d’une logique d’ « open access » pour les articles scientifiques résultant de ces projets.

Indexation : Information scientifique, technique et médicale

Suite à une erreur, la Dépêche diffusée hier était une dépêche qui vous avait déjà été transmise en date du 20 juin 2005. Nous vous prions de bien vouloir nous en excuser.

Mentions de responsabilité et de propriété : Dépêche élaborée par MV Etudes et Conseil, qui assume seul la responsabilité journalistique de ces contenus. Tous droits d'utilisation réservés GFII.

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:56:38 +0200
From: GFII
To: Stevan Harnad
Cc: Helene Bosc
Subject: Re: [depeche-gfii] CNRS, INSERM, CEMAGREF,INRIA, INRA, INERIS, IRD

Bonjour,

Je vous remercie de l'intérêt que vous portez à la Dépêche du GFII.
Nous vous donnons l'autorisation de faire figurer cette information en
mentionnant la source.
Cordialement

Ruth Martinez
Déléguée Générale
GFII - Groupement Français de l'Industrie de l'Information
Groupement Français de l'Industrie de l'Information
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