OA Primer for the Perplexed: II

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SUMMARY: There are two forms of OA: free access online, and free access plus re-use licenses of various kinds. The first is provisionally called "OA1" and the second "OA2". These are place-holders pending better terms to be proposed shortly. Green OA self-archiving can in principle provide either OA1 or OA2. All authors [of peer-reviewed journal articles] want OA1 (i.e., all authors want their published articles freely accessible online). Nevertheless, most authors still think it is not possible to make their articles freely accessible online (for at least 34 reasons, each of them leading to Zeno's Paralysis, all of them groundless, the most frequent ones being that authors think it would violate copyright, bypass peer review, or entail a lot of work on their part). So although all peer-reviewed journal article authors (and definitely not not true of all book authors, software authors, music authors, video authors) do want their work to be freely accessible to all would-be users, not just those who can afford the access tolls, most (85%) of them still don't make their articles freely accessible online (by self-archiving them). That is why Green OA self-archiving mandates by researchers' universities and funders are needed: To cure Zeno's Paralysis.

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[See also: OA Primer for the Perplexed: I]

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Talat Chaudhri wrote:

TC: "The argument made by Stevan Harnad... is marred by the repeated assertion that "all authors want OA1" (his term, i.e. what we have hitherto been asked to call Green OA self-archiving)."

(1) As announced on this list, there are two forms of OA, free access online, and free access plus re-use licenses of various kinds. The first is provisionally called "OA1" and the second "OA2". These are place-holders pending better terms to be proposed shortly. Green OA self-archiving can in principle provide either OA1 or OA2.

(2) All authors [of peer-reviewed journal articles] want OA1 (i.e., all authors want their published articles freely accessible online) is true (and I challenge Talat to find an author who would not want his article freely accessible online).

But what is also true is that most authors still think it is not possible to make their articles freely accessible online (for at least 34 reasons, each of them leading to Zeno's Paralysis, all of them groundless, and the most frequent ones being that authors think it would violate copyright, bypass peer review, or entail a lot of work on their part).

So it is not hard at all to see that it is true of all peer-reviewed journal article authors (and definitely not not true of all book authors, software authors, music authors, video authors) that they want their work to be freely accessible to all would-be users, not just those who can afford the access tolls.

It's also easy to see why: Because refereed journal-article authors write for research impact, not for royalty income.

It is likewise not hard to see that even though all journal authors, without exception, would want their articles to be freely accessible online, most (85%) of them still don't make their articles freely accessible online (by self-archiving them).

That is precisely why Green OA self-archiving mandates by researchers' universities and funders are needed: To cure refereed journal article authors of the 34 unfounded phobias of Zeno's Paralysis:

Harnad, S. (2006) Opening Access by Overcoming Zeno's Paralysis, in Jacobs, N., Eds. Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic Aspects, chapter 8. Chandos.

Zeno wanted to walk across the room too: He just (wrongly)

TC: "The experience of a repository manager quickly shows that many academics do not want it, largely because they are afraid of what it may entail and very badly informed about the benefits to themselves and to their disciplines."

You are stating the objective facts incorrectly: Most academics do not do it (self-archive). That is not evidence that they do not want their articles freely accessible. It is merely (as you note) evidence that they are informed and afraid. This in no way contradicts what I said (that these authors all want OA for their articles -- whereas other kinds of authors, of other kinds of work, do not all want OA).

TC: "In fact, when it is asserted that "all authors" want Green OA, in fact all that seems to be true is that all respondents to the studies cited in fact want it."

No, it is much stronger than that. But Alma Swan's sizable international, interdisciplinary studies are pretty good evidence of it too (and so is the latest study, from Australia:

Anthony Austin, Maree Heffernan, and Nikki David (2008) Academic authorship, publishing agreements and open access: Survey Results, a new report from the OAK Law Project.

The question to ask is not "do you think it is possible to make your article OA?" but "Would you want your article to be OA if it were possible?" Refereed-journal article authors would all reply Yes; other authors, of other kinds of work (or the same authors, wearing different hats) would reply No. (The rest is just Zeno's Paralysis.)

TC: "I have encountered whole departments that contained maybe only one member of staff who was favourable towards OA and otherwise showed ignorance of the issues. This is not their fault but ours for failing to accompany efforts towards mandates with the appropriate grass-roots advocacy. These mandates are necessary, I agree (as stated in the past)."

You are quite right that grass-roots advocacy and reliable information is important. But your conclusion is dead wrong. Ignorance about the possibility of OA is not at all evidence that refereed journal article authors would not all want their articles to be freely accessible to all would-be users. Until this token drops for you, Talat, you still don't quite get the point.

TC: "I wonder if Stevan can substantiate the comment that "all authors want OA1" that I see repeated here, and reconcile that opinion to the statement that I have made about my own practical experience as a repository manager that it isn't in fact the case across all disciplines."

To repeat, you are talking about apples and I am talking about oranges.

You have no evidence that there exist any (journal article) authors who would not want OA1 for their articles (though there is plenty of evidence that there are plenty of other kinds of authors of other kinds of work who would not).

OA1 means free access online. Don't ask your authors whether they think it is legal to self-archive their articles. Don't ask them whether they think doing so will destroy publishing. Don't even ask them whether they think it is possible. Don't ask them whether they think it would be complicated or time-consuming. They are uninformed and afraid, as you say. Just ask them whether -- if it were possible, and quick and easy, and not illegal, and would not destroy publishing -- then would they self-archive?

And then ask authors of other kinds of works (book, software, audio, video) whether they too would give away their writings free online if it were possible, easy, legal and would not destroy publishing. Then you will have a clearer idea of what people really have on their minds.

TC: "I find it impossible to believe that my university is so exceptional!"

Your university is not exceptional: You are simply taking false beliefs about OA1 as evidence of lack of desire for OA1, and that is simply a logical non sequitur.

TC: "I might add that these are largely arts departments, at whom OA advocacy has never been primarily targeted."

As I said, OA is not (yet) about books, and arts are book-intensive disciplines. But they do published in refereed journals too, so ask them only about their journal articles, and they will be no different from any other discipline.

Your point is a non sequitur if what you want to say is that because authors in book-based (or audio- or video- software-based) disciplines consider their books (audio, video, software) more important than their journal articles, they are somehow exceptions to the universal desire of refereed journal article authors in all disciplines for OA1 to their articles.

As to the kinds of work these disciplines don't want to give away: They are simply not relevant to this discussion. (Nor will "targeting" them make much difference, at least for now.)

TC: "Quite rightly, they feel that they have been treated as an add-on to the needs of science disciplines in evolving new forms of academic publishing."

This is a non sequitur and has nothing to do with OA.

TC: "This has been directly stated in print by a member of our English department (their English Association newsletter) - sadly and ironically I don't think an online version exists for me to give you the link. It makes a rather interesting, albeit local, case study. But perhaps Stevan will argue that this is just one unrepresentative case. If so, the lady doth protest too much."

No, what I argue is that I have no idea what this member of your English department was complaining about, but I am pretty sure it is not the topic under discussion here, which is that all authors of peer reviewed journal articles want OA1 for their articles (but 85% of them believe it is not possible).

TC: "I'm sorry, by no means would I mean to wreck the party. Nonetheless, my above point entirely vitiates the article."

Talat, we have absolutely no idea what your English department author was complaining about when he said he felt like an add-on to the needs of science. You haven't told us. But we can be pretty sure it is irrelevant to what we are talking about here.

TC: "In simple terms that I feel can be useful to those actually engaged in advancing Green OA, I feel that both parties in this argument"

There are no two parties, and there is no coherent argument, as far as I can see.

TC: "...correctly support different forms of OA,"

What different forms of OA are we talking about? OA1 (free online access) and OA2 (free online access plus licensed re-use)? Or something else? (Books? Irrelevant.)

TC: "that advancing the cause of one in no way need undermine the other"

Until you state clearly what the one and the other is, and who is arguing what, why, there is neither advancing nor undermining, just talking past one another.

TC: "(these fears are a phantom and a paranoia in my view) and that very little of the debate below is of practical use in putting OA into practice."

I'm lost. We were formerly speaking of practical things (access, impact, mandates, peer review, and the question of whether there are any individuals or disciplines that are exception to the obvious truism that the impact-seeking authors of journal articles differ fundamentally from the royalty-seeking authors of just about anything else), but now we seem to be talking about unspecified gripes of one English department member regarding "science publishing."

TC: "In fact, it took me a long time to read and digest while I could have been engaging in targeted advocacy aimed at departments and management in achieving both voluntary archiving in the meantime and mandates as soon as possible. If a post contains misinformation, as I submit above, how are we repository managers to make sense of the argument and make any use of it? I am certainly perplexed, as primed by Stevan's most recent post."

I recommend giving it some more serious thought.

TC: "Stevan, you don't answer the point. I have several departments most of whose members do not want their articles published on open access, as stated directly to me. Your idea that they want it but are afraid to do it is in direct conflict with what they themselves state. (I'm not in a position to give you a list of their names! This would clearly not be in the interests of advocacy in my institution.) It may well be because they are uninformed, but nonetheless the truth is clearly that at present they do not want OA for these reasons, whether or not they are afraid of it. The distinction you make is absolutely fallacious and does not serve your analysis.

"I am clearly not alone in this experience as a repository manager. Let's not post fiction on the list, it is risible to suggest as you do that all academics are of one mind in any respect as regards OA, which is patently untrue. This said, I regret that there is no point addressing the rest of your email at all.

"As stated many times, I support Green OA entirely, constant alterations to the terminology notwithstanding."

With all due respect, I think Talat Chaudri, is not only mistaken, but has not yet understood the fundamental point at issue, concerning the profound difference between give-away and non-give-away writings -- the very cornerstone of OA.

The question is not whether, if one took an opinion poll, one would not indeed find that the vast majority (85%) of researchers do not currently want to provide OA to their articles by self-archiving them. That is already abundantly apparent from the fact that they are not doing it! (That is why the Green OA mandates were needed.)

The question is whether or not those researchers would want their articles to be accessible to all users (rather than just those whose institutions could afford subscription access) if it were possible/feasible (despite the many worries they may have about whether it is possible, legal, etc).

The answer to that question is not a self-serving counterfactual tautology; rather, it reveals a genuine, fundamental and profound PostGutenberg distinction, the one that gave birth to the OA era itself.

The answer to that specific, conditional question, by those specific authors (refereed research journal authors), is needed to reveal the real underlying distinction between their special case, and the case of the authors of the many other kinds of content one can list (books, textbooks, music, video, software, even data): The answer of the authors of the latter kinds of content would definitely not be the same as the answer of the refereed research article authors. The authors of other kinds of content (though not necessarily all of them!) do not create their content purely for the sake of research usage and impact, but for the sake of potential sales-royalties. Hence they would definitely not want those contents to be accessible free for all.

I am certain that there are plenty of vague, uninformative and even misleading ways of putting or understanding this question, ways that will merely engage researchers' factual uninformedness or unfounded assumptions about the consequences of making their research articles freely accessible online. It is of no interest, Talat, if you keep replying to me on the basis of such answers to such questions.

But as it is, you do not even reply at all. You quote anonymous replies to unspecified questions as if they were the result of an actual poll on the actual point I keep making, which is that all authors of of one specific kind of content do want their documents accessible to all users, regardless of whether they pay, whereas some authors of other kinds of content do not.

Until you are prepared to be more specific, we are talking at cross purposes.

There is no reason, however, for anyone else to be deterred or misdirected by this persistent incomprehension, as there are plenty of public surveys that have already been conducted, across disciplines, across institutions, across countries and across languages (several by Alma Swan and co-workers, the latest a recently announced one by the OAK Law Project in Australia). They all find exactly the same thing: A virtually universal desire by research article authors that everyone should be able to access their papers for free, but a desire that is suspended in inaction for 50-85% of these authors by (1) unawareness of objective, verifiable facts, (2) unfounded legal worries, and (4) unfounded worries about whether their article would be accepted for publication if it were made OA, (5) unfounded worries about peer review, (6) unfounded worries about the amount of effort it would require to make their articles OA, even if it were possible, legal, etc.

Talat is well aware of all this misinformation, and the need to dispel it through valid information and advocacy, but there is one fundamental, underlying reality he himself has failed to understand, which is that there is something profoundly different about refereed research journal articles, something that is invariant across all disciplines, and that distinguishes this sort of content from all other forms of content, and that is that it is author give-away content, written only to be used, applied and cited, not to be bought and sold behind toll-access barriers. I continue to point out that this alone is the fundamental reality distinguishing OA content (or rather, OA's  would-be target content!) from other kinds of content, and the reality underlying the inevitability and optimality of OA itself (for this special target content).

Talat has been influenced by vague, uninformed opinions expressed by some of his institutional colleagues in some disciplines concerning what is actually possible and what ought to be the case, and why. We already know (and agree) that the  vast majority of researchers -are factually misinformed. Talat recognises the need to inform them, but does not recognise that truth-valued propositions that are made about matters of fact, on the basis of the presence of incorrect information or the absence of correct information, are in fact untrue propositions! That is why the only way to ask researchers about what they truly want is first to dissociate their answers from these incorrect facts, which they falsely believe.

Sorry to have had to take all this space to explicate the logic of the disagreement with Talat's point, longhand. But unfortunately, if unchallenged, Talat's statement that he has evidence (from un-named informants) that they would not, in fact, want their refereed research articles to be free for all (and hence that they do not differ from most other authors of other kinds of content in this regard) would simply add to the (already excessive) volume of misinformation (that Talat is himself committed to dispelling).

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum