Don't Risk Getting Less By Needlessly Demanding More

---

[Update: See new definition of "Weak" and "Strong" OA, 29/4/2008]

SUMMARY: The BBB "definitions" of OA still need some tweaking to get them right. OA means free online access to the full-text of refereed journal articles. With that comes the capability of linking, reading, downloading, storing, printing off, and data-mining, and that is what is urgently needed by researchers today. Let the Green OA mandates provide that, and the rest will all come naturally of its own accord. We'll never get self-archiving mandates adopted if we insist in advance that they include 3rd-party re-use rights. Nor does demanding machine-readable XML make sense when most authors still aren't even doing the few keystrokes it takes to deposit the drafts they already have. Let's not risk getting less by needlessly insisting on more.

---

I think it would be a big strategic mistake if today, when the cupboards are still 85% bare, we were to start insisting that deposits must all be Cordon Bleu ****.

OA just means free online access to the full-text of refereed journal articles. Please let's not risk getting less by needlessly insisting on more. The rest will come in due time, but what is urgently needed today, and what is still 85% overdue by more than 10 years today, is free online access. Let the Green OA mandates provide that, and the rest will all come naturally with the territory soon enough of its own accord.

But over-reach gratuitously now, and we will just delay the optimal and inevitable, already within our reach, still longer.

Ceterum Censeo: The BBB "definitions" (which were not brought down to us by Moses from On High, but puttered together by muddled mortals, including myself) are not etched in stone, and need some tweaking to get them right.

"Time to Update the BBB Definition of Open Access"

OA is free online access. With that comes, automatically, the individual capability of linking, reading, downloading, storing, printing off, and data-mining (locally).

The further "rights" for 3rd-party databases to data-mine and re-publish will come after universal Green OA mandates generate universal OA (free online access). But you'll never get universal Green OA mandates if you insist in advance that the 3rd-party re-use rights must be part of the mandate! (Notice that the Harvard mandate has an opt-out, which means it's not a mandate.)

"On Patience, and Letting (Human) Nature Take Its Course"

And as to demanding machine-readable XML from authors: 85% of authors cannot now be bothered to do even the few keystrokes it takes to deposit the drafts they already have: Does this sound like a reasonable time to ask them to upgrade their drafts to Cordon Bleu XML?

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum