Self-Archiving Mandates

To help the OA petition grow even faster and bigger, please run the following html banner (or equivalent) on your website (substituting : "<" for "{" and ">" for "}" )

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Many thanks,

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

Tempting as it is to keep chattering about pit-bulls and commercial venality we should perhaps refocus on something far, far more important and substantive that is going on at the moment. This is where today's real historic Open Access (OA) developments are transpiring:

The petition in support of the European Commission's Proposal to mandate OA self-archiving has already amassed 13,000 signatures in 13 days and is still growing. It is being signed not only by individual grassroots researchers but by universities, learned societies, scientific academies:

Rectors/principals of research organisations (51)
Heads of university/research institution departments or schools (44)
International societies or research-based organisations (38)
National societies or research-based organisations (35)
Research-based or research-centred charities/foundations (21)
National or international research funding bodies (8)
National academies (3)
Rectors' Conferences/University associations (2)
Government departments (2)

The petition is also being signed by institutional libraries, research organisations and publishers:

Institutional libraries (144)
R&D-based companies (66)
Publishers (30)
International or national library organisations (26)
National ICT organisations (11)
Museums (research-based) (2)

Please consult the petition's current updates as these figures are changing by the minute. (And if you or your organisation support the OA mandate proposals, please sign too.)

In addition to this petition in support of proposed mandates (of which the EC's is one, but of course the United States has a huge proposed mandate pending too: the FRPAA), the number of actually adopted mandates is growing steadily too (and will no doubt be accelerated by the growth of the EC petition):

ROARMAP now lists 58 registered OA policies, 27 mandates (21 adopted, 6 proposed)

11 institutional and departmental mandates:

AUSTRALIA inst-mandate Queensland U. Technol

AUSTRALIA inst-mandate U. Tasmania

EUROPE inst-mandate Eur Org Nuc Res (CERN)

INDIA inst-mandate Nat Inst Tech Rourkela

INDIA inst-mandate Bharathidasan U

PORTUGAL inst-mandate U. Minho

SWITZERLAND inst-mandate U. Zurich

AUSTRALIA dept-mandate U. Tasmania Sch Comp

FRANCE dept-mandate Lab Psych Neurosci Cog

UNITED KINGDOM dept-mandate U Southampton Dept ECS

UNITED KINGDOM dept-mandate Brunel U Sch Info Sys Comp Maths

10 funder mandates:

AUSTRALIA funder-mandate Australian Res Cncl (ARC)

AUSTRALIA funder-mandate National Health and Medical Res Cncl (NHMRC)

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate Arthritis Res Foundation

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate Biotech Bio Sci Res Cncl (BBSRC)

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate Chief Sci Off (Scottish Exec Health)

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate Economic and Social Res Cncl (ESRC)

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate Medical Res Cncl (MRC)

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate National Environmental Res Cncl (NERC)

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate Particle Phys & Astron Res Cncl (PPARC)

UNITED KINGDOM funder-mandate Wellcome Trust

6 funder mandate proposals:

CANADA proposed funder-mandate Can Insts Health Res (CIHR)

EUROPE proposed funder-mandate European Res Advisory Board (EURAB)

EUROPE proposed funder-mandate European Res Cncl (ERC)

EUROPE proposed funder-mandate European Commission

UNITED STATES proposed funder-mandate Fed Res Pub Access Act (FRPAA)

UNITED STATES proposed funder-mandate Nat Insts Health (NIH)

And the FRPAA proposal already has the support of many of the US universities' presidents and provosts

So let us accelerate OA's now-unstoppable progress toward the optimal and inevitable. The sterile debates of the past are behind us.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

The European Commission, the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) and the European Research Councils have each recently recommended adopting the policy of providing Open Access to research results.

(Very similar recommendations are also being made by governmental research organisations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Asia.)

There are powerful non-research interests lobbying vigorously against these policy recommendations, so a display of support by the research community is critically important at this time.

A petition in support of the European Commission recommendation is now being sponsored by a consortium of European organisations:

JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee, UK),
SURF (Netherlands),
SPARC Europe,
DFG (Deutsches Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany),
DEFF (Danmarks Elektroniske Fag- og Forskningsbibliotek, Denmark).

The petition is to be presented to the European Commission February 15th in Brussels at its conference on "Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area: Access, Dissemination and Preservation in the Digital Age."

The petition's purpose is to demonstrate the broad-based support for the EC recommendations on the part of the European as well as the worldwide research community, particularly

Recommendation A1: "GUARANTEE PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLICLY-FUNDED RESEARCH RESULTS SHORTLY AFTER PUBLICATION"

Establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given time period in open access archives

Signatures may be added by individual researchers or by universities and research institutions.

Institutional signatures, from Europe and worldwide, are fast approaching 1000, while individual signatures are nearing 20,000.

Researchers, lab directors, institutute directors, university research VPs and DVCs, learned society and scholarly/scientific academy presidents are all strongly urged to register your support.

Please sign the OA petition here.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

As OA self-archiving mandates by research funders grow, here is Arthur Sale's timely and useful strategy to help accelerate the complementary growth of self-archiving mandates by universities and research institutions (if the whole institution is not yet ready, start bottom-up with mandates at the laboratory or departmental level):

Sale, A. (2007) The Patchwork Mandate D-Lib Magazine 13 1/2 January/February doi:10.1045/january2007-sale.

Excerpts [interpolations added]:

"This article is written mainly for repository managers who are at a loss as to what policies they (or their universities or research institutions) ought to deploy in order to ensure that most, if not all, of the institution's scholarly output is deposited in the institution's repository. In essence, there are only two pure policies:

requiring (mandating) researchers to deposit, and

relying on voluntary (spontaneous) participation, with or without
encouragement...

"A mandatory deposit policy will approach a capture rate of 100% of current research publications, though it will take a couple of years to achieve that goal. Figures of 60-90% can be expected in a short time. See... for some data on how mandates actually work...:

Sale, A. The acquisition of open access research articles. First Monday, 11(9), October 2006.

"Voluntary deposit policies are known to achieve no greater deposit rate of current research than 30% and more usually around 15%... The evidence for this can be produced and is absolutely clear...:

Sale, A. The Impact of Mandatory Policies on ETD Acquisition. D-Lib Magazine April 2006, 12(4)

Sale, A. Comparison of content policies for institutional repositories in Australia. First Monday, 11(4), April 2006.

"This short article describes a third policy that provides a transitional path between the two.

"What is the patchwork mandate? Simply this:

"Knowing that you have been [as yet] unable to convince the senior executives, you nevertheless personally commit to having a mandate across your institution.

"You aim to pursue a strategy that will achieve an institutional mandate in the long term. (It is highly recommended that you register your intention to do this in ROARMAP so as to encourage other repository managers caught in the same dilemma.)

"Since you haven't been able to get an institutional mandate [yet], you work instead towards getting departmental (school/faculty) mandates one by one. Each departmental mandate will rapidly trend towards 100%, and little activism is needed to maintain this level....

"Conclusion

"I am convinced that the patchwork mandate strategy described in this article will work in most cases. It is being trialled in Australia, and although it won't achieve 100% deposit of content into the institutional repository instantly, it is a clear way to work towards that goal. You can even explain the patchwork mandate approach to your senior executives, and they probably won't stop you from trying it. They may even encourage you in your efforts.

"Just remember that voluntary persuasion of individuals is known not to work beyond a pitiful participation level. Self-archiving needs to be made part of the routine academic duty, and this requires a policy endorsement of mandatory deposit by someone."

Arthur Sale

The ROARMAP Registry of University and Funder Self-Archiving Mandates keeps growing: 56 policies, 20 adopted mandates, and 5 proposed mandates so far, worldwide. But the latest mandate proposal from EURAB is the best of them all: So good that I don't have a single recommendation for improving it! It has all the essential ingredients:

(1) Deposit of peer-reviewed postprint is required
(2) Deposit required immediately upon acceptance for publication (no exceptions, no delays)
(3) Deposit in Institutional or Central Repository
(4) Set access to deposit as Open Access as soon as possible, within 6 months at the latest.

Optimizing OA Self-Archiving Mandates:
What? Where? When? Why? How?

That's it. It's not possible to design a better policy, or one that is surer to get the entire international research community to 100% OA more reliably, quickly or effectively. Here's the policy. Please emulate it at your university, research institution or funding agency and we'll reach the optimal and inevitable at long last.

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Recommendations of the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB)

The European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) has recommended that the European Commission should promote open access publication policies for all their publicly funded research. EURAB was invited by the Commission to examine the issue of scientific publication with particular reference to policy recommendations regarding open access for Framework Program 7 (FP7). It has recommended that a clear policy at European level is required which sets out a number of key high level principles. The Commission can play a role in three respects: as a funding body, as a policy body, as a supporting body.

1. The publication policy should not compromise the freedom of scientists to publish wherever they feel is most appropriate.

2. The effect of the policy should be to increase the visibility of and improve access to the research funded by the Commission.

3. The policy should be based on recognized best practice

4. EURAB recommends that the Commission should consider mandating all researchers funded under FP7 to [deposit] their publications resulting from EC-funded research in an open access repository as soon as possible after publication, to be made openly accessible within 6 months at the latest.

a. The repository may be a local institutional and/or a subject repository.

b. Authors should deposit post-prints (or publisher's version if permitted) plus metadata of articles accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings.

c. Deposit should be made upon acceptance by the journal/conference. Repositories should release the metadata immediately, with access restrictions to full text article to be applied as required. Open access should be made available as soon as practicable after the author-requested embargo, or six months, whichever comes first.

d. Suitable repositories should make provision for long-term preservation of, and free public access to, published research findings.

5. Given the complexity of the issues involved, the Commission should consider implementation of this policy on a phased basis, starting with research funded by the European Research Council.

The Commission should strongly encourage all Member States to promote open access publication policies for all their publicly funded research.

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If your university, research institution, or research funding agency has adopted or proposes to adopt an OA self-archiving mandate, please register it in ROARMAP for others to emulate.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum