Academics thrash out open access details

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: kelley <kelley () rakfoundry com>
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 16:04:00 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Academics thrash out open access details

Dave,

I support this in principle, but as all of us in higher education
experience firsthand, plagiarism is rampant. And, as The Chronicle of
Higher Education reported not too long ago, it happens far too often
_among_ professionals. I wonder what the ramifications might be on that
front? Uni administrations aren't likely to care: they want numbers so they
can measure output. I'm from a number-crunching profession myself, but...!!


Kelley
--
http://www.inkworkswell.com


Academics thrash out open access details
Donald MacLeod
Wednesday March 02 2005
The Guardian

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,9865,1428634,00.html


International open access to research papers on the internet has taken
a crucial step closer after a meeting at Southampton University this
week, supporters have said.

A gathering of 60 academics, publishers and university librarians this
week thrashed out practical steps to promote open access - something
backed last year by the Commons science and technology committee but so
far rejected by the UK government after strenuous lobbying by
publishers.

But Stevan Harnad, a professor of cognitive science at Southampton and
a leading advocate of open access, believes that universities have found
a way around previous objections by encouraging academics to
self-archive their research papers in repositories at their own
universities. These papers would then be accessible by anyone via the
internet, providing the author agrees.

He told EducationGuardian.co.uk that the spread of the new arrangements
would bring great benefits to scientists and other researchers, while
funders, universities and even publishers stood to gain. Among
publishers, including the giant Elsevier, 92% were in favour of
self-archiving, he added.

Since a declaration in Berlin two years ago in favour of the principle
of open access, there have been efforts to promote open access journals,
backed by the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) in the UK and
the Public Library of Science in the United States, but progress has
been slow.

The Southampton meeting was called to put flesh on the bones of the
Berlin declaration. Speaking after the meeting, Professor Harnad said it
was the "optimal and inevitable solution". He added: "Everybody will
benefit from it - researchers will be able to access what they could not
before and the impact of their research will go up. At last those who
agree open access is a good thing know how to provide it."

He said French and German research institutions, the Cern European
particle physics lab in Switzerland, and all 12 major universities in
the Netherlands were already adopting open access, as well as some
British universities like Southampton.

The plan is for each university to encourage researchers to place the
full text of each paper, along with the title, publication etc (the
"metadata") in a repository where, if the author agrees, it can be
accessed by fellow researchers all over the world.

The carrot (or stick) is that academics will be "invisible" for
research assessment purposes if their articles are not in the repository
- the institutional repository will be the data on which their
performance assessment and the institution's own record-keeping of its
own research output will be based. Professor Harnad believes that once
researchers have got used to archiving their papers they will agree to
open access rather than be pestered with email requests for copies.

He argues the availability of the researcher's paper will not hit sales
of academic journals and will in fact increase their "impact" (the
number of times a paper is cited by other researchers in the field).

Researchers will also be encouraged to publish in the few open access
journals that exist (5% of titles).


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