Dear Katie Mantell:
As you requested, I have transmitted widely your announcement about
SciDevNet's coverage of open access:
http://www.scidev.net/ms/open_access/
As you also ask for my comments, Here they are:
(1) The SciDevNet's coverage is very helpful and welcome, but at the
moment it is *extremely* lop-sided, covering only one of the two roads
to open access -- open-access journal publication -- but not the other
road: open-access self-archiving of toll-access journal publications:
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/harnad.html
(2) You do cite the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) but you do
not note that the BOAI consists of *two* open-access strategies, of
which the second (BOAI-2) is open-access journal publication but the
first (BOAI-1) is open-access self-archiving:
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
(3) This is an important omission, because in actual numbers, open-access
self-archiving is generating far more open access articles per year than
open-access journal-publishing, and open-access via this road is also
able to grow much sooner and faster. In fact, in all likelihood, the
"green" road of open-access self-archiving is itself also the surest
way to reach the "golden" road of open-access journal-publishing!
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0026.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0021.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0024.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0028.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0022.gif
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving_files/Slide0030.gif
Complete series:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving.htm
or
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/self-archiving.ppt
(4) This is why it is so important not to represent "open-access" as
merely being synonymous with "open-access-publishing"!
(5) In your key reports and documents, you have mostly BOAI-2 reports and
documents. May I suggest adding the following BOAI-1 reports and
documents:
(i) The BOAI-1 (self-archiving) FAQ:
http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
(ii) The original self-archiving proposal (Okerson & ODonnell 1995)
http://www.arl.org/scomm/subversive/toc.html
(iii) The University self-archiving policy model:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html
(iv) The Research-Funder open-access policy model:
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue35/harnad/
(v) The Berlin Open Access Declaration:
http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html
(vi) SPARC Institutional Repository Checklist & Resource Guide
http://www.arl.org/sparc/IR/IR_Guide.html
(6) Among "Open Access Initiatives" could I suggest adding
(i) The SHERPA Project
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/
(ii) The DARE Project
http://www.surf.nl/en/themas/print/index2.php?oid=7
(iii) The Australian initiative
http://alia.org.au/publishing/incite/2002/10/eprints.html
(iv) French initiatives:
http://www.tours.inra.fr/tours/doc/comsci.htm
(v) The cross-institutional archive, OAIster
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/
(7) To "Open Access Literature" I suggest adding:
Harnad, S. (2001) The self-archiving initiative
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/harnad.html
Pinfield et al (2002) "Setting up an institutional e-print archive"
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue31/eprint-archives/intro.html
And to links I would add:
Core metalist of open access eprint archives
http://opcit.eprints.org/archive-core-metalist.html
as well as the following resources:
Very large harvested cache of open-access arcticles in Computer
Science: http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs
GNU Open-Source Self-Archiving Software:
http://www.eprints.org/
Citation-Impact-Measuring Search Engine for Open-Access Achives:
http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/search
Citation-Seeking Engine (looks for open-access full-texts)
http://paracite.eprints.org/
American Scientist Forum (discussion of open access since 1998)
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html
Open Archives Initiative
http://www.openarchives.org/
Powerpoints for promoting open access:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/berlin.ppt
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/berlin.htm
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/openaccess.ppt
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/openaccess.htm
These recommendations are all intended so as to make the SciDevNet
site's contribution to open-access complete, rather than being, as it is
now, merely a review of the open-access journal-publishing portion of
the overall movements and initiatives toward open access.
Sincerely,
Stevan Harnad
On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Katie Mantell wrote:
> Dear Stevan Harnad
>
> Many thanks for your email in response to the editorial on communicating
> science in an electronic era.
>
> We have posted it on our letters to the editor page
> (http://www.scidev.net/EditorLetters/) and have also taken the opportunity
> to post it on a special section of the website that we are launching today
> on "Open Access and Scientific Publishing" under 'Feedback and Debate'.
>
> In this section (http://www.scidev.net/open_access) we have drawn together
> resources on access to scientific information in the developing world.
>
> It includes:
> · Up-to-date news, features and opinion articles on the issues
> surrounding open access and scientific publishing
> · Descriptions of (and links to) current open access initiatives
> · Access to free scientific literature
> · Links to key reports
> · Comprehensive events section with the latest meeting proceedings and
> future events.
> · An opportunity for you to comment and give your views
>
> We hope that this guide will be a useful and important resource for all
> those interested in open access to scientific information, and will provoke
> further critical thinking and discussion on the key issues.
>
> I would therefore be grateful if you could pass this message on to
> colleagues and friends who might be interested (www.scidev.net/open_access).
> Also, do let me know if you have any comments on the section.
>
> Best regards
>
> Katie Mantell
>
> ============================================
> Katie Mantell
> News Editor
>
> SciDev.Net
> 11 Rathbone Place
> London
> W1T 1HR
> United Kingdom
>
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7291 3695
> Fax: +44 (0)20 7291 3697
> ============================================
> SciDev.Net - found at www.scidev.net - is a free-access website providing
> news, views and information on science, technology and the developing world.
NOTE: Complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing open
access to the peer-reviewed research literature online is available at
the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01 & 02 & 03):
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html
Posted discussion to: september98-forum@amsci-forum.amsci.org
Dual Open-Access Strategy:
BOAI-2: Publish your article in a suitable open-access journal
whenever one exists.
BOAI-1: Otherwise, publish your article in a suitable toll-access
journal and also self-archive it.
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/berlin.htm
