Copyright

Klaus Graf writes:

"1. time of free access (the embargo-question): This is the only question Stevan Harnad is interested in. If we can call the OA-FREE journals of DOAJ 'OA' we should also... call [self-archived articles that are] freely accessible articles after an embargo 'OA'."

This is incorrect. OA means immediate, permanent, free, full-text access online to published journal articles, webwide. ("Immediate" means immediately upon acceptance for publication.) Hence embargoed access means embargoed access, not OA.

I am interested in OA but it has become quite evident across the past 13 years that not nearly enough authors make their articles OA spontaneously, of their own accord (only about 15% do), despite its demonstrated benefits. It is also quite evident that the only real barrier to 100% OA is the keystrokes that it takes to deposit the article and its metadata into the author's Institutional Repository.

It is for this reason that my own focus is currently on (1) institutional (and research funder) mandates that ensure that those keystrokes are executed as a matter of institutional/funder policy and on (2) developing the OA metrics that will quantify and reward those benefits. Administrative deposit mandates of course only ensure deposit, not OA. But the benefits of OA themselves will ensure that all those deposits will be made free as worldwide deposits approach 100%, and new deposits will not long thereafter be OA ab ovo.

And during the brief life of embargos, Institutional Repositories will provide "almost OA" via their "Fair Use" Button, allowing would-be users to request -- and authors to provide -- an email version almost instantly, with a click from the requester and then a click from the author.

American Scientist Open Access Forum

We are simply repeating ourselves, at greater and greater length, so my reply to Peter Murray-Rust's latest will just be a brief recap: Green Open Access (OA) (free online access) to journal articles is fully within reach: The only thing authors need to do is self-archive and the only thing their universities and funders need to do is mandate that they self-archive (and some are at long last starting to do it). Peter Murray-Rust wants more, and so he wants to complicate the definition of OA as well as the means of attaining it. He wants us to do something more complicated and not immediately attainable (reform copyright/licensing, reform publishing) when we are not yet doing the simple thing that is immediately attainable (because many already find even that too complicated!). I say we should put all our efforts behind simply attaining the immediately attainable. The rest will come soon enough, with the OA territory. Otherwise we are merely compounding our already unconscionable delay in reaching the optimal and inevitable, at long last.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

If you are put off by the endless jeremiads of your weary archivangelist then please do listen to the gentler, ecumenical voice of the Prophet Peter!

Here is Peter Suber's comment in Open Access News on the University of Illinois Provost Linda Katehi's letter to UI faculty that encouraged them to use the CIC author addendum [on retaining copyright] as recommended by the CIC Statement on Publishing Agreements and an Addendum to Publication Agreements for CIC Authors.

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Peter's Comment:

"The U of I is right to encourage faculty to use the CIC author addendum.

"But in the June SOAN, I hoped that CIC institutions would go further:

"...[I]t's not clear what form the encouragement will take. Will it be limited to the abstract encouragement of passing a resolution in the Faculty Senate? Or will there also be some case-by-case encouragement? ...In a standoff between a publisher and faculty member, what will universities do to support their faculty member?

"Here's the bigger question: What else will these universities do to encourage OA archiving? If they take the step of adopting an author addendum, they should also adopt a policy to require OA archiving. If permission is not a problem (because publishers already give it or because an addendum worked), what will these institutions do to insure that faculty postprints are actually archived? ...

"The permission problem is worth solving, but we have to remember that solving it is only a means to the end of OA. Universities adopting an author addendum are moving in the right direction, but they must keep moving. Permission for OA isn't yet OA itself...."

-- Peter Suber, OA News

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Now, for the historically minded, here are some of the past unminded jeremiads on this very point from the American Scientist Open Access Forum, starting as early as 1998, to the effect that while copyright retention is desirable, it is not a prerequisite for OA or OA self-archiving, and hence that university self-archiving policy should not be contingent on retaining copyright. It is much harder to get authors to agree to and comply with a mandate to retain copyright (because it [appears to] put their choice of journal at risk) than it is to get authors to agree to and comply with a mandate to deposit their accepted final drafts in their institutional repositories (the ID/OA mandate). Therefore the weaker mandate should be adopted first, rather than the stronger one. (Copyright retention can wait: OA should not.)

"Copyright retention is not a prerequisite for self-archiving" + 1, 2, 3.

"What Provosts Need to Mandate" + 1, 2.

"Optimizing MIT's Open Access Policy" + 1, 2.

"Cornell's Copyright Advice: Guide for the Perplexed Self-Archiver"

"How to Word Institutional Self-Archiving Policy" + 1, 2, 3.

"US University OA Resolutions Omit Most Important Component"

"Well-Meaning Supporters of "OA + X" Inadvertently Opposing OA"

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum