From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:08:04 -0500
From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 13:21:45 -0600
What strikes me about Allington's post is that it argues for just what
the AAP has been arguing for in the U.S. for a long time, viz., that
the most efficient and logical way to make the results of
government-funded research available to the public is to make better
use of the system that already exists whereby government agencies
require reports on research to be submitted (and, in the UK's case,
written in language the public can understand), which then can be
posted immediately to the web with no embargo period involved at all.
His point about the OA system relying on articles written for journals
instead underlines this recommendation because, in his view (which I
share), most of the technical literature is written in a way that
makes it NOT accessible to the general public and devotes space to
discussions of theories, literature reviews, and the like that most of
the public could care less about, since it is the results themselves
that they want to be told about.
*******
Stevan Harnad replies:
The notion that instead of making their peer-reviewed
journal articles OA, researchers should summarize their research in
publcly complrehensible terms and post it online, is a wolf in sheep's
clothing.
The slogan "public access to publicly funded research" has proved
to be a support- and vote-getter for OA, but it is not the core rationale for
OA, which is "research access for all its would-be users." These
consist mainly of the scientists and scholars for whom the
"discussions of theories,
literature reviews, and the like that most of the public could care less about"
-- and the often technical content -- are written for. The status quo is that
this research is accessible only to those whose institutions can afford
subscriptions access to the journals in which they were published. OA is
meant to remedy that.
Mistaking public access to be the core rationale for OA (and swapping
publicly accessible summaries for it) disserves the public who fund the
research, whose main benefit comes from having that research used,
applied and built upon by its primary intended users -- all researchers 00
rather than just subscribers, as now.
Of course public access too comes with the OA territory, and is a welcome bonus.
Publicly accessible summaries would likewise be welcome -- but
they would certainly not be a substitute for researcher access to the articles
themselves -- and they have nothing to do with OA.
Stevan Harnad
From: "Friend, Fred" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 12:34:41 +0000
I welcome Daniel Allington's contribution to discussions about open
access. Having read all through his article, I find it difficult to
understand Kent Anderson's response to the article. In the points
Daniel Allington makes there is much to support the development of
open access as a good way forward for research communication. The
thrust of Daniel's argument is partly about the current situation in
the UK, which is of the UK Government's making, and partly about the
role of open access in solving perceived problems in the research
communication infrastructure.
On the current UK situation it is the UK Government and not open
access supporters who have attempted to impose one particular model
upon a complex academic environment. The rest of the world - and until
recently the UK - has been careful to follow various routes to open
access and has avoided the rushed implementation of one particular
open access model (see my article "How did the UK Government manage to
spoil something as good as open access?"
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/10/17/uk-government-manage-to-spoil-open-access/).
Daniel Allington recognises the UK Government's wish to protect the
publishing industry but fails to recognise the impact of that
motivation upon the rest of the research communication infrastructure.
On the many problems in the current research communication
infrastructure, it is quite true that open access has been - and still
is by many commentators across the world - seen as a more effective
model than the toll-access model which has dominated research
communication for many years. It is not that open access is presented
as a solution to problems but as an alternative way forward arguably
more cost-effective than the present infrastructure. Again open access
supporters recognise the complexity of the research communication
process. The open access principle is sufficiently flexible to be
applied in different ways, using different forms of the model for
different forms of publication, in different cultural environments and
within different research funding structures.
This is the point at which ordinarily I might embark upon a detailed
critique of Daniel Allington's paper, but if I were to do so our
respected Moderator would remind me of the understandable Liblicense
restriction upon length of submissions to the list. Daniel Allington's
points deserve to be taken seriously, and the force of the emotion
which lies behind them is fully understandable. Yet his article cannot
be used to condemn the entire development of open access as a viable
alternative to the flawed research communication system we have had to
live with for many years. It is important for researchers to feel that
they are involved in the solutions to the problems Daniel Allington
identifies.
Fred Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
________________________________________
From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 19:04:49 -0500
Kent Anderson in the Scholarly Kitchen
(http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/11/05/not-the-answer-an-academic-carefully-assesses-the-arguments-for-open-access/)
points to an interesting essay by UK sociologist Daniel Allington, who
takes it for granted that mandated gold OA will prevail in the UK, but
has now had second thoughts about the process and offers an extensive
analysis:
http://www.danielallington.net/2013/10/open-access-why-not-answer/#sthash.643dajcu.dpbs
Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown U.
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