Self-Archiving Mandates

DSpace follows (not quite "leads"!) EPrints in providing access (not quite "Open Access"!) to research during publisher OA embargo periods (via the facilitated Request-Copy Button):

http://duraspace.org/node/2133
Just in time, I hope, to help shape the implementation of the US Public Access Policy by ensuring that mandatory deposit is (1) immediate (not waiting to deposit only after the allowable OA embargoes of publishers have elapsed) and (2) institutional (not institution-external).

Institutions can then (a) monitor and ensure compliance with the US Public Access Policy and (b) implement the institutional repository's facilitated Request-Copy Button which allows the author to provide an individual copy to an individual requestor with a single click on a case by case basis during the publisher's OA embargo period.

(Both metadata and full-texts of institutional deposits can then be automatically exported to or harvested by any central repositories desired: disciplinary, national, or even funder-based.)

To derive the full benefit of the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (FIRST) Act, it is now extremely important that all universities and research institutions implement the faciltated copy-request Button in their institutional repositories. (The repository software as well as the Button are free for all.)

The Button ensures that even during a publisher embargo on Open Access (OA) any researcher worldwide can immediately request and any author can immediately provide a single copy of any embargoed deposit for research purposes with just one extra click each — just as long as the author’s final, peer-reviewed draft has been deposited in the repository immediately upon acceptance for publication, rather than only after a publisher OA embargo period has elapsed.

This is not OA. It is only “Almost-OA.” But the copy-request Button ensures that the immediate-deposit does not lie fallow during any allowable OA embargo period. And that’s what research and researchers need most.

For DSpace Repositories: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy
For EPrints Repositories : http://wiki.eprints.org/w/RequestEprint

Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2014) Open Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing" Button. In: Coombe, RJ Wershler, D & Zellinger, M (Eds) Dynamic Fair Dealing. U Toronto Press

Cambridge University has provided a very clear step-by-step statement of how to comply with the new HEFCE/REF OA Policy, as well as the RCUK OA policy, and they are implementing it immediately:

"This policy comes into force on 1 April 2016. Yet at the University we want to  ensure this shift is managed sooner rather than later to ensure no research is omitted.” 

To derive the full benefit of the HEFCE/REF immediate-deposit policy it is important that all UK universities also implement the email copy-request Button:

For DSpace: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy
For EPrints: http://wiki.eprints.org/w/RequestEprint

This ensures that researchers worldwide can immediately request (and authors can  immediately provide, with one click each) a single copy of closed-access deposits  for research purposes even during a publisher OA embargo period.

What makes the HEFCE/REF OA policy so important and powerful is that it ensures that all final drafts are deposited immediately, rather than only after a publisher OA embargo period has elapsed.

The Request-Copy Button in turn ensures that the immediate-deposit does not lie  fallow for a year.

Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2014) Open Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing" Button. In: Coombe, RJ Wershler, D & Zellinger, M (Eds) Dynamic Fair Dealing. U Toronto Press


Stevan Harnad

Presentation: "How to Formulate Effective Policies to Open Access to Research Worldwide" Professor Stevan Harnad of Université du Québec à Montréal on a Conference "Opening Science to Meet Future Challenges", 11 March 2014, Warsaw.

Created by Dorota Jarosławska,