Open Access Archivangelism

Matt Cockerill (publisher of BioMed Central) makes the following comment on "The #1 Myth About Open Access":

You take issue with Mike Dunford's comment: "Just what is open access?... In an open access journal, there's no charge for reading articles..." and note that you feel that author deposit of manuscripts in open access repositories, in parallel to the existing subscription-based pay-to-access journals, is a faster and surer way to achieve open access.

But do you not agree that when a reader of an article spots an interesting item in a reference list, and clicks to follow a link to the article concerned, it does not "feel" like open access when they are faced with a publisher's pay-wall asking for a subscription or per-article fee to view the article. Of course, there are several ways they may be able to view a version of the article without paying. The would-be reader could search the net to see if they can track down a free copy of the article in a repository; they can send an email request to the author (who is hopefully not on holiday and has a legally sharable electronic version to hand); or they can try their luck down at their local library. Fair enough. But you must have some sympathy with a reader who would prefer simply to click a link and get straight to the article concerned, without being challenged to provide credit card details. It's not such a bad definition of open access.

That's exactly why Mike Jewell created Paracite. It would be a piece of cake to set up a bit of software that automatically transformed text that one highlights in a reference list into a Paracite or Google Scholar query. The only reason no one has yet bothered to create that piece of software is that most of that potential content is not yet OA. But Green OA self-archiving and mandates will take care of that...

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

NOTE: Since this posting, Peter Suber has informed me [and since then announced] that Nature had informed him that they were willing to do proxy deposit not just in Central Repositories like PubMed Central, but in Institutional Repositories too, immediately upon acceptance (if it can be done in batch -- and it can: see this link).
     If that is the case, then I withdraw all but one of my criticisms below, with apologies for having impugned Nature's motives. However, the one remaining criticism stands: Nature would do open access a lot more good by dropping its access embargo than by offering to save Nature authors a few minutes worth of keystrokes.
     There is still great and widespread confusion among still mostly passive authors about WHO should deposit WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY and HOW. Publishers doing proxy deposits in diverse repositories at diverse times is not conducive to grasping the home truth that the most natural, reliable and direct way for all authors to self-archive all their articles, simply, systematically, and convergently, is to deposit their own articles in their own institutional repositories, immediately upon acceptance for publication (and leave any further collecting to automatic batch harvesting).
     We are talking about a few keystrokes. Any arbitrary scrambling or complexification of this simple home truth is simply compounding confusion and inaction. (Before you ask: There are also provisional DEPOTs for authors whose institution does not yet have its own repository.)

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SUMMARY: Nature Publishing Group has offered its authors a (free) proxy archiving service that would:
     (1) help lock in embargoed deposit instead of immediate deposit
     (2) help lock in central deposit (which does not scale) instead of institutional deposit (which does).
     (3) help lock out IDOA/DDR mandates and the embargo tide-over Button (again, to Nature's advantage, not OA's)
     (4) help keep deposit in publisher hands instead of author/institution hands, encouraging authors to remain passive instead of proactive about OA
     (5) give the misleading impression that Nature (and other publishers that make such offers) are acting in OA's interests rather than their own.

If Nature really wants to help OA, then dropping its access embargo would be a lot more helpful than saving authors from having to do a few keystrokes.

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Nature has circulated the following Press Release:

NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP TO ARCHIVE ON BEHALF OF AUTHORS

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is pleased to announce the initiation of a free service, launching in 2008, to help authors fulfill funder and institutional mandates.

NPG has encouraged self-archiving, including in PubMed Central, since 2005.

No, as of 2003, Nature had given its green light to immediate author self-archiving of the author's final refereed draft, but in January 2005 Nature abruptly withdrew its green light and instead imposed a 6-month embargo on self-archiving in anticipation of NIH's announcement in February 2005 that it would allow an embargo of 6-12 months on its OA self-archiving recommendation. The NIH recommendation became a mandate 3 years later, but Nature continues to impose a 6-month embargo. I would not call that "encouraging self-archiving." I would call that Nature trying to make the best of what it considers a bad but now inescapable bargain.

Later in 2008, NPG will begin depositing authors' accepted manuscripts with PubMed Central (PMC) and UK PubMed Central (UKPMC), meeting the requirements for authors funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council and a number of other major funders in the US, the UK and Canada who mandate deposition in either PMC or UKPMC. NPG hopes to extend the service to other archives and repositories in future.

In other words, now that there is no choice but to comply with these biomedical funder mandates (all clones of one another, and all pertaining only to biomedical research, all stipulating PubMed Central as the direct locus of the deposit and all allowing an access embargo of 6-12 months), Nature is trying to retain maximal control over the remaining degrees of freedom, by "relieving" authors of the burden of doing the deposit (i.e., taking deposit out of the author's hands), by ensuring that the deposit does not occur before the embargo occurs, and by ensuring that the locus of deposit is PubMed Central rather than the author's Institutional Repository (IR) [this last plaint is mooted if Nature is indeed willing and able to do immediate proxy deposits in authors' IRs too].

The result of this co-opting of self-archiving is:

(1) The self-archiving practice is made less likely to generalize beyond non-NIH/biomedical research.

(2) The self-archiving practice is less likely to be done in the author's institutional repository. [possibly moot]

(3) The self-archiving is less likely to be immediate (rather than after an embargo). [possibly moot if Nature is willing and able to proxy-deposit in the author's IR immediately upon acceptance for publication]

(4) It is less likely that the institutional repository's "Request a Copy" Button will be able to tide over research usage needs during any embargo. [possibly moot]

(5) In general, this proxy-archiving in an external repository makes it less likely that institutions and funders worldwide will converge on institutional self-archiving mandates -- like Southampton's, Liège's, Harvard's and Stanford's -- that will systematically cover all of OA space.

In other words, while appearing to be doing OA a service, this Nature policy is actually doing Nature a service and only giving OA the minimal due that is already inherent in the NIH and kindred mandates.

"We are announcing our intention early in the process to solicit feedback from the community and to reassure authors that we will be providing this service," said Steven Inchcoombe, Managing Director of NPG. "We invite authors, funding bodies, institutions, archives and repositories to work with us as we move forward."

Translation: "We are offering to take over the burden of doing the few extra keystrokes that self-archiving mandates entail in exchange for retaining control over self-archiving and its likelihood of scaling up to universality and immediacy across disciplines and institutions. Let's now hope that the appetite for OA stops there: embargoed, journal-mediated central access to NIH-funded biomedical research in PubMed Central and the like..."

"Optimize the NIH Mandate Now: Deposit Institutionally, Harvest Centrally"

As a researcher, my response would be: "Thank you, but I'll still go ahead and do the keystrokes myself, depositing my own final refereed draft in my own institutional repository, immediately upon acceptance for publication. That way I can provide immediate OA to those of my deposits that are published in the 63% of journals that, unlike Nature, are already fully green. And for the rest, my IR's Request a Copy Button will help me provide almost-instant, almost-OA to fulfill the immediate-usage needs of researchers webwide who cannot afford access to (say) Nature's paid version and cannot afford to wait until Nature's embargo expires. Then, at the end of the Nature embargo, my deposits can also be exported to PubMed Central or harvested by any other central collections that may also want to host them -- but they will already be OA in my IR in any case."

Initially, the service will be open to authors publishing original research articles in Nature, the Nature research titles and the clinical research section of Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine. NPG will then extend the service to society and academic journals in its portfolio that wish to participate.

Let's hope that authors and their institutions will be wise enough not to once again leave their research output entirely in the hands of publishers. In the online age, journal publishers render their essential service in managing peer review and certifying its outcome with their journal-name and its track-record, but there is no longer any earthly reason why they should continue to retain exclusive control over the access-provision process, particularly in order to embargo it!

For eligible authors who opt-in during the submission process, NPG will deposit the accepted version of the author's manuscript on acceptance, setting a public release date of 6-months post-publication. There will be no charge to authors or funders for the service.

Deposit is only a few keystrokes, and the only place it makes sense to deposit upon acceptance is the author's own institutional repository, which hosts all the institution's research output (not just biomedical research funded by NIH and held and embargoed by Nature) and makes it possible for the author to provide immediate almost-OA during any embargo period (thanks to the Button).

"NPG is committed to serving as a partner to the scientific and medical communities," continued Steven Inchcoombe. "We believe this is a valuable service to authors, reducing their workload and making it simple and free to comply with mandates from their institution or funder. We recognise that publishing in an NPG title can be a career high-point for researchers, and want to ensure that our authors enjoy the best possible service from their publisher of choice."

Minus the hype, this is an offer to spare you a few keystrokes in exchange for retaining control over access provision to your work, blocking access for 6 months, and reducing the probability and speed with which self-archiving and self-archiving mandates will scale across all disciplines and all institutions worldwide.

NPG has been an early mover amongst subscription publishers in encouraging self-archiving. In 2002, the publisher moved from requesting copyright transfer for original research articles to requesting an exclusive license to publish. In 2005, NPG announced a self-archiving policy that encourages authors of research articles to self-archive the accepted version of their manuscript to PubMed Central or other appropriate funding body's archive, their institution's repositories and, if they wish, on their personal websites.

After a six-month embargo, rescinding (in 2005) Nature's previous (2003) green light to provide immediate Green OA upon acceptance for publication.

In all cases, the manuscript can be made publicly accessible six months after publication...

And retaining control over that is the real motivation behind this generous offer, along with the brakes it puts on scaling beyond NIH (and kindred) funded biomedical research, destined for PubMed Central, to all research, from all institutions, across all scientific and scholarly disciplines. [possibly moot]

NPG's policies are explained in detail at this web page.

And their consequences are explained above.

Advice to Nature authors: Accept the offer, but deposit your final refereed draft in your IR immediately upon acceptance anyway, allowing you and your institution to retain control of it, as well as to provide almost-OA to it immediately. Once all researchers do this, all access-embargos will die their well-deserved deaths of natural causes soon thereafter.

(Could Nature's announcement be an attempt at damage control after its recent ill-received attack on its competitor, Gold OA publisher PLoS? If so, then some more critical reflection is needed on Nature's part as to why it continues to embargo access to the refereed final draft while its other competitor, Science, is already fully Green. [Science, in turn, might ponder why, unlike Nature, which has abandoned it, Science continues to cling to the obsolescent "Ingelfinger Rule," ruling out the self-archiving of the pre-refereeing preprint before publication: This self-serving edict is neither a legal matter nor an OA matter, but it too is inimical to research progress, and a distinct anachronism.])

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum