Wonder of wonders, I actually agree with Stevan about
Harvard's
approach! 
Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press
> ** Apologies for Cross-Posting **
>
> Fully Hyperlinked Version of this Posting:
> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives
/361-guid.html
>
>Optimizing Harvard's Proposed Open Access Self-Archiving
Mandate
>
>Harvard faculty are voting today on an Open Access (OA)
>Self-Archiving Mandate Proposal.
>htt
p://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=521835
>
>The Harvard proposal is to try the copyright-retention
strategy:
>Retain copyright so faculty can (among other things)
deposit their
>writings in Harvard's OA Institutional Repository.
>
>Let me try to say why I think this is the wrong
strategy, whereas
>something not so different from it would not only have
much greater
>probability of success, but would serve as a model that
would
>generalize much more readily to the worldwide academic
community.
>
>(1) Articles vs. Books. The objective is to make
peer-reviewed
>research journal articles OA. That is OA's primary
target content.
>The policy has to make a clear distinction between
journal articles
>and books, otherwise it is doomed to fuzziness and
failure. The time
>is ripe for making journal articles -- which are all,
without
>exception, author give-aways, written only for scholarly
usage and
>impact, not for sales royalty income -- Open Access, but
it is not
>yet ripe for books in general (although there are
already some
>exceptions, ready to do the same). Hence it would be a
great and
>gratuitous handicap to try to apply OA policy today in a
blanket way
>to articles and books alike, covering exceptions with an
"opt-out"
>option instead of directly targeting the exception-free
journal
>article literature exclusively.
>
>(2) Unrefereed Preprints vs. Peer-Reviewed Postprints.
Again, the
>objective is to make published, peer-reviewed research
journal
>articles ("postprints") OA. Papers are only
peer-reviewed after they
>have been submitted, refereed, revised, and accepted
for
>publication. Yet Harvard's proposed copyright retention
policy
>targets the draft that has not yet been accepted for
publication
>(the "preprint"): That means the unrefereed
raw manuscript. Not only
>does this risk enshrining unrefereed, unpublished
results in
>Harvard's OA IR, but it risks missing OA's target
altogether, which
>is refereed postprints, not unrefereed preprints.
>
>(3) Copyright Retention is Unnecessary for OA and
Needlessly
>Handicaps Both the Probability of Adoption of the Policy
and the
>Probability of Success If Adopted. There is no need to
require
>retention of copyright in order to provide OA. 62% of
journals
>already officially endorse authors making their
postprints OA
>immediately upon acceptance for publication by
depositing them in
>their Institutional Repository, and a further 30%
already endorse
>making preprints OA. That already covers 92% of
Harvard's intended
>target. For the remaining 8% (and indeed for 38%,
because OA's
>primary target is postprints, not just preprints), they
too can be
>deposited immediately upon acceptance for publication,
with access
>set as "Closed Access" instead of Open Access.
To provide for
>worldwide research usage needs for such embargoed
papers, both the
>EPrints and the DSpace IR software now have an
"email eprint
>request" button that allows any would-be user who
reaches a Closed
>Access postprint to paste in his email address and
click, which
>sends an immediate email to the author, containing URL
on which the
>author need merely click to have an eprint automatically
emailed to
>the requester. (Mailing article reprints to requesters
has been
>standard academic practice for decades and is merely
made more
>powerful and effective with the help of email, an IR,
and the
>semi-automatic button; it likewise does not require
permission or
>copyright retention.)
>
>This means that it is already possible to adopt a
universal,
>exception-free mandate to deposit all postprints
immediately upon
>acceptance for publication, without the author's having
to decide
>whether or not to deposit the unrefereed preprint and
whether or not
>to retain copyright (hence whether or not to opt out).
>
>This blanket mandate provides immediate OA to at least
62% of OA's
>target content, and almost-immediate, almost-OA to the
rest. This
>not only provides for all immediate usage needs for 100%
of research
>output, worldwide, but it will soon usher in the natural
and
>well-deserved death of the remaining minority of access
embargoes
>under the growing global pressure from OA's and
almost-OA's
>increasingly palpable benefits to research and
researchers. (With it
>will come copyright retention too, as a matter of
course.) It is
>also a policy with no legal problems and no author
risk.
>
>Needlessly requiring authors instead to deposit their
unrefereed
>preprints and to commit themselves to retaining
copyright today puts
>both the consensus for adoption and, if adopted, the
efficacy of the
>Harvard policy itself at risk, because of author
resistance either
>to exposing unrefereed work publicly or to putting their
work's
>acceptance and publication by their journal of choice at
risk. It
>also opens up an opt-out loophole that is likely to
reduce the
>policy compliance rate to minority levels for years,
just as did
>NIH's initial, unsuccessful non-mandate (since upgraded
to an
>immediate deposit mandate), with the needless loss of 3
more years
>of research usage and impact.
>
>I strongly urge Harvard to reconsider, and to adopt the
>Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access mandate (ID/OA) that
is now being
>adopted by a growing number of universities and research
funders
>worldwide, instead of the copyright-retention policy now
being
>contemplated.
>
>Stevan Harnad
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