Open Access Archivangelism

The lion's share of science and scholarship is founded on peer review:

The findings of experts are vetted by qualified fellow-experts for correctness, importance and originality before being published; this validates the results and serves as a filter, to protect other scientists and scholars from risking their time and effort reading and trying to apply or build upon work that may not be sound.

That's the lion's share of science and scholarship.

But some scientists and scholars are peerless: Their work is at such a high level that only they, or a very few like them, are even equipped to test and attest to its soundness.

Such is the case with the work of Grigori Perelman.

It is a mistake to try to generalize this in any way: it doesn't scale. It does not follow from the fact that a rare genius like Perelman can transmit his huge and profound contribution by simpling posting it publicly on the Web -- without refereeing or publication -- that anything at all has changed about the way the overwhelming majority of scientific and scholarly research continues to need to be quality-controlled: via classical peer review.

Nor has this anything at all to do with Open Access. In paper days, Perelman could just as well have snail-mailed his proofs to the few people on the planet qualified to check them, and if, having done that, he was content to leave it at that, he could have done so. They would have been cited in articles and would have made their way into textbooks as "unpublished results by G. Perelman (2003)."

For the quotidial minor and major contributions that are researchers' daily bread and butter, formal publication is essential, for both credibility and credit. For the occasional rare monumental contribution or masterpiece, they are supererogatory.

Nothing follows from this. OA continues to mean free online access to peer-reviewed research (after -- and sometimes before -- peer review), not to research free of peer review!

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

OhioLINK has made a very welcome recommendation to self-archive.

What is missing from the otherwise useful information that OhioLINK lists, curiously, is a link to the BOAI Self-Archiving FAQ, which has been in place since 2002! And whereas it is always good to negotiate the retention of rights if an author can and wishes, it is erroneous to imply that that is a necessary precondition for self-archiving.

Ninety-four percent of journals already endorse immediate (non-embargoed) OA self-archiving; for articles published in the remaining 6% there is the readily available optionof depositing their full-texts and metadata immediately upon acceptance for publication, but making only their metadata immediately accessible webwide, while provisionally setting access to their full-text as "Closed Access" during any publisher embargo period: Meanwhile almost-immediate, almost-OA for each individual would-be user can still be provided by the author on one-on-one basis, via the semi-automatic EMAIL EPRINT REQUEST button now being added to the principle Institutional Repository (IR) softwares.

Hence it is now possible to self-archive 100% of the final drafts of peer-reviewed journal articles whether or not the author can or wishes to successfully negotiate the retention of rights. Do not wait for successful rights negotiation before self-archiving -- or before mandating self-archiving. Self-archive now, for the sake of research impact and progress (and negotiate after, if you wish).

And on no account feel that you need to switch journals in order to do this!

Original American Scientist Open Access Forum Thread began:
"Self-Archiving the Refereed Journal Literature" (Apr 1999)

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum