Maybe we need more information about the actual size of the
access problem. Publishers tend, I think, to report fairly
low
levels of 'turnaways' - those who try to access full text
but
can't. If any publishers reading this can contribute
figures,
that would be useful.
A very, very small percentage of accesses to BMJ's free
research
articles are from patients and the general public; see
http://miranda.ingentaconnect.com/vl=6377737/cl=15/t
t=885/ini=alpsp/nw=1/fm=docpdf/rpsv/cw/alpsp/09531513/v16n3/
s1/p163.
In OUP's recent study of NAR
(http
://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/oa_report.pdf) only eight
to
twelve percent of increased access was attributable to its
going
OA; far, far more was due to opening up to search engine
crawlers.
Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
Email: sally.morris alpsp.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stevan Harnad" <harnadecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: <liblicense-llists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 12:27 AM
Subject: Maximising research access vs. minimizing
copy-editing errors
> On Wed, 5 Jul 2006, Anthony Watkinson wrote:
>
>> I suppose Professor Harnad thinks that if he
constantly
>> promulgates the idea (see below) that the only
difference
>> between the accepted paper and the final published
version is
>> a matter of formatting he will get those not
involved in
>> publishing to accept this as a "fact".
In fact there is
>> something called "copyediting". There
are some publishers who
>> do very little copy-editing or even none at all.
However many
>> publishers, especially those who have important
journals, do a
>> lot of copy-editing which is not just a matter of
house style
>> but can pick up serious errors. The difference
between the
>> versions can be significant and this difference is
(I
>> understand) being recognised by the current NISO
groups
>> working on version. Journal editors of course know
this very
>> well too.
>
> The trouble is that Anthony Watkinson and I are
addressing two
> completely different problems, hence two completely
different
> user populations.
>
> Mr. Watkinson is thinking of the user who has a
subscription to
> the journal, with its copy-edited, proofed PDF, and is
weighing
> the use of this against the use of the author's final,
accepted
> draft -- revised and accepted, but not copy-edited. He
is quite
> right that the copy-edited version is to be preferred:
I too
> would prefer it, if I had access to it.
>
> But the problem I -- and the OA movement -- are
addressing is
> not that one at all. We are concerned with the
population of
> would-be users who cannot, today, access the journal
version,
> because it is not in one of the journals they or their
> institutions can afford to subscribe to. And the choice
*they*
> are facing is access to the author's final, refereed,
accepted
> (but not copy-edited) draft, versus no access at all. I
very
> much doubt that all those would-be users would be very
> appreciative of Mr. Watkinson's concern to protect
them from
> access to the author's final draft on the grounds of
potential
> errors that might arise from the lack of copy-editing.
>
> I think Mr. Watkinson may have both the immediate needs
of
> researchers and the immediate motivation for Open
Access rather
> out of focus and proportion if he imagines that his
very
> legitimate scholarly concern to minimize all errors
that a
> copy-editor might catch carries any weight at all in
the
> context of the overarching research concern that
would-be users
> should not continue to be denied access to the final,
refereed
> drafts of research findings.
>
> And if Mr. Watkinson is curious about the size and
scope of
> this would-be user population, and of the research
access
> problem that the OA movement is addressing (compared to
the
> copy-editing error-risk problem that he is addressing),
a good
> estimate is provided by the 25%-250% higher citation
impact of
> research for which the author supplements access to the
journal
> version by self-archiving his final draft in his
institutional
> repository. That's quite a dramatic difference, but I
expect it
> will prove to be even bigger, once we have not only
citation
> data, but also usage (download) data comparing
self-archived
> and non-self-archived articles (in the same journal and
year).
>
> If anyone has any comparative data on the research
impact of
> undetected copy-editing errors, I would be very happy
to see
> it...
>
> Stevan Harnad
> American Scientist Open Access Forum
> http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/arch
ives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
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