Open Access Archivangelism

Stuart Shieber's reply to Matt Welsh's worries about the Harvard Open Access policy is spot-on in every respect.

No one could be a more fervent well-wisher for the success of the Harvard OA policy than I am. But the crucial criterion for the success of an OA policy is how much OA it actually generates.

It is splendid that 95% of Harvard authors have not opted out of the copyright reservation clause. But what percentage have been complying with the no-opt-out deposit clause by actually depositing or providing a deposit-copy of their articles?

Stuart is certainly right that it is hard to imagine that providing the articles is "a huge pain." But is it clear to Harvard authors that they are required to do it?

Here are the relevant portions of the the FAS OA Policy:

I. Copyright Reservation Clause:

"Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles….The Dean or the Dean’s designate will waive application of the policy for a particular article upon written request by a Faculty member explaining the need."

II. Deposit Clause:

"To assist the University in distributing the articles, each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the final version of the article at no charge to the appropriate representative of the Provost’s Office in an appropriate format (such as PDF) specified by the Provost’s Office."

Is it clear to Harvard authors that a formal opt-out from Clause I is not an opt-out from Clause II (i.e., that deposit must be done in any case)?

The answer to this question would be implicit in the annual percentage of Harvard's refereed research output that is actually being deposited in DASH. If that percentage does not approach or match the 95% non-opt-out rate for Clause I, then perhaps the contingencies need to be made a lot clearer.

Here's are four suggestions:

1. Place the Deposit Clause first, and state explicitly that there is no opt-out or waiver from this deposit requirement, only from the copyright-reservation clause that follows. All articles must be deposited in DASH. Access to those for which the Copyright Reservation Clause has been waived will be set as Closed Access instead of Open Access. (And, to prevent the deposit requirement from being a vague, open-ended one that can be left to be complied with in 2022, state explicitly that the deposit must be done immediately upon acceptance for publication.)

This clarification is all the more important, since universities are beginning follow Harvard's example by adopting the Harvard model as their OA policy: This makes it all the more crucial to make sure that the policy model is clear, understood, and actually works.

Here are the three further suggestions, that have both already been demonstrated to make an immediate-deposit (ID/OA) requirement more attractive and better complied with:

2. Designate deposit in DASH as henceforth the sole mechanism for submitting refereed research for performance review (the "Liège Model" OA mandate.)

3. Implement the automatized "email eprint request" Button in DASH, to allow individual users, via one click, to request a single copy of a Closed Access deposit for research purposes; the author can then likewise, via one click, fulfill or decline each individual request. This will help tide over research needs for embargoed deposits.

4. Provide download and citation statistics like IRstats to demonstrate for authors the benefits of depositing their articles.

Stevan Harnad
EnablingOpenScholarship