Harvard's OA initiative

[Gary Richmond]

Some scholars here might be interested in this on Harvard's OA initiative:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6532658.html?nid=2673#news1

Gary

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[John F. Sowa]

Gary,

Thanks for the pointer.  Just one comment:  the acronym OA is
not self explanatory.  I think that it's a fantastic policy,
which should give all academic fields the same benefits that
the physicists have enjoyed since the beginning of the WWW.

It's so important that I include the opening section below.

John
______________________________________________________________

http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6532658.html?nid=2673#news2
Harvard passes OA mandate - Library Journal

A Shot Heard 'Round the Academic World: Harvard FAS Mandates Open Access

In a historic measure, the Harvard University Faculty of Arts and
Sciences (FAS) Tuesday unanimously approved a motion that compels
Harvard researchers to deposit their "scholarly articles" in an open
access (OA) repository to be managed within the library and to be made
freely available to anyone via the Internet. Faculty members, however,
can opt-out of compliance by obtaining a waiver, a point some OA
advocates say could potentially undermine the policy's effectiveness.
Nevertheless, the Harvard vote provided a resonant "shot heard 'round
the world" for the open access movement.

"This is a large and very important step," said Stuart Shieber,
professor of computer science at Harvard, who put forth the motion. "It
should be a very powerful message to the academic community that we want
and should have more control over how our work is used and
disseminated." In a statement released following the vote, Shieber cited
serials costs that have "risen to such astronomical levels," forcing
cancellations and "reducing the circulation of scholars' works."

Specifically, the Harvard motion resembles a publishing contract of
sorts; it compels faculty to give Harvard non-exclusive, irrevocable
permission to distribute their articles online, which Harvard intends to
do, as well as permitting others to use the works as well, as long as
those uses are non-profit. In legal terms, the permission granted by
each Faculty member is "a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide
license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each
of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others
to do the same, provided that the articles are not sold for a profit."
Faculty members retain their copyrights in the articles, subject to the
university's license and are free to publish in other journals. The
legislation does not apply to articles completed before adoption of the
motion, and does not apply to Harvard's professional schools.



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[<Mary Keeler>]

Here's a background story for OA from the Association of Research
Libraries, in 2004, FYI.  (Remember, Harvard has now a 34.9 billion dollar
endowment, and is currently trying to avoid the scrutiny of the US
Congress.  They are even offering free tuition to low-income students.)

http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/SPARC_CELJ.pdf

The paper at this site was delivered at a program entitled, "Scholarly
Journals: Our Futures in the Digital Soup," presented by the Council of
Editors of Learned Journals on December 30, 2004, but is more recently
titled "The Future of Scholarly Communication in the Humanities:
Adaptation or Transformation?," by Richard K. Johnson Director, SPARC
(Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition).

Johnson examines the fundamental purposes of scholarly publishing in terms
of "several enduring functions"

o Registering the intellectual priority of an idea, concept, or research;
o Certifying the quality of research and the validity of a claimed
finding;
o Disseminating new research to potential users;
o Preserving the scholarly record for future use; and
o Rewarding scholars for their work.

He analyzes some implications of the disintegration of these functions
from their current integrated journal model.

"The traditional print publishing model (Figure 1) integrates these
functions in journals. Each of the functions actually comprises multiple
elements of the scholarly publishing "value chain" -- the many individual
processes that cumulatively add value to information as it moves from
creation to consumption. These publishing elements -- including
production, editorial processing, and distribution -- have a significant
impact on the costs of scholarly journals under the existing system. The
integration of these many processes in journals has several implications.

First, the melding tends to disguise the fact that most of the direct
labor and much of the indirect cost required for each of the components
derives from the academic institutions that ultimately bear the cost of
scholarly journal subscription fees. Consequently, the value of the
journal may derive less from the cost of creation than from its monopoly
control over unique articles -- conveyed via copyright assignment -- and
from the prestige associated with the research it certifies.

A second implication of this integrated publishing model is that increased
cost efficiencies in any one component of the scholarly publishing value
chain do not translate into reduced journal prices. But deconstructing the
value chain, fragmenting it into multiple businesses, makes the value
added by publishers more apparent and separable and helps eliminate
inefficiencies."

He then offers an "unbundled model" ("the deconstructed journal") that
separates content from services components, and explains:

"This separation allows for distributed open-access content repositories
to be maintained independently of value-added services fulfilled
discretely by multiple service providers. Once the components of scholarly
publishing are logically separated, the registration, certification,
dissemination, preservation, and rewarding functions can be undertaken by
any organization with sufficient resources, intellectual prestige,
organizational standing, and market position."

[See the article for his graphical representations of these models.]

After covering examples of the open-access journal movement (the directory
lists over 1400 peer-reviewed journals) in the sciences and medicine,
primarily (where the government pays the tab), Johnson concludes (not
surprisingly) that "The toughest issues we face today revolve around
business models -- who pays the tab in a disaggregated environment?
Perhaps toughest of all, how is the certification process supported?"

These challenges remain, perhaps not for some (like John), but for anyone
in the academic world. Journals have been depended upon to maintain high
standards of quality in both content and presentation.  That role has been
declining for several decades under their current business model, with
much of the work done by the authors themselves and by unpaid contributing
editors.  Can these challenges be addressed in any sort of technological
solution, within the Creative Commons?  --Mary

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[Gary Richmond]

More on Harvard's OA mandate, "the first in the US, /the first to be
adopted by faculty rather than administrators/, the first adopted policy
to focus on permissions rather than deposits, and the first to catch the
worldwide attention of the press and blogosphere." [emphasis added]
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/03-02-08.htm

In a nutshell:

>
> Harvard's new OA policy is not the first university-level OA mandate,
> but it's the first in the US, the first to be adopted by faculty
> rather than administrators, the first adopted policy to focus on
> permissions rather than deposits, and the first to catch the worldwide
> attention of the press and blogosphere.
>
> Here's the heart of it:
>
>     Each Faculty member grants to the President and Fellows of Harvard
>     College permission to make available his or her scholarly articles
>     and to exercise the copyright in those articles. In legal terms,
>     the permission granted by each Faculty member is a nonexclusive,
>     irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license to exercise any and all
>     rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly
>     articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same,
>     provided that the articles are not sold for a profit. The policy
>     will apply to all scholarly articles written while the person is a
>     member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the
>     adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty
>     member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment
>     agreement before the adoption of this policy. The Dean or the
>     Dean's designate will waive application of the policy for a
>     particular article upon written request by a Faculty member
>     explaining the need.
>
>     To assist the University in distributing the articles, each
>     Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of the final
>     version of the article at no charge to the appropriate
>     representative of the Provost’s Office in an appropriate format
>     (such as PDF) specified by the Provost's Office. The Provost's
>     Office may make the article available to the public in an
>     open-access repository.
>
>     The Office of the Dean will be responsible for interpreting this
>     policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and
>     application, and recommending changes to the Faculty from time to
>     time.
>

Gary

<Mary Keeler> wrote:

>
> Here's a background story for OA from the Association of Research
> Libraries, in 2004, FYI. (Remember, Harvard has now a 34.9 billion
> dollar endowment, and is currently trying to avoid the scrutiny of the
> US Congress. They are even offering free tuition to low-income students.)
>
> http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/SPARC_CELJ.pdf
>
> The paper at this site was delivered at a program entitled, "Scholarly
> Journals: Our Futures in the Digital Soup," presented by the Council
> of Editors of Learned Journals on December 30, 2004, but is more
> recently titled "The Future of Scholarly Communication in the
> Humanities: Adaptation or Transformation?," by Richard K. Johnson
> Director, SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition).
>
> Johnson examines the fundamental purposes of scholarly publishing in
> terms of "several enduring functions"
>
> o Registering the intellectual priority of an idea, concept, or research;
> o Certifying the quality of research and the validity of a claimed
> finding;
> o Disseminating new research to potential users;
> o Preserving the scholarly record for future use; and
> o Rewarding scholars for their work.
>
> He analyzes some implications of the disintegration of these functions
> from their current integrated journal model.
>
> "The traditional print publishing model (Figure 1) integrates these
> functions in journals. Each of the functions actually comprises
> multiple elements of the scholarly publishing "value chain" -- the
> many individual processes that cumulatively add value to information
> as it moves from creation to consumption. These publishing elements --
> including production, editorial processing, and distribution -- have a
> significant impact on the costs of scholarly journals under the
> existing system. The integration of these many processes in journals
> has several implications.
>
> First, the melding tends to disguise the fact that most of the direct
> labor and much of the indirect cost required for each of the
> components derives from the academic institutions that ultimately bear
> the cost of scholarly journal subscription fees. Consequently, the
> value of the journal may derive less from the cost of creation than
> from its monopoly control over unique articles -- conveyed via
> copyright assignment -- and from the prestige associated with the
> research it certifies.
>
> A second implication of this integrated publishing model is that
> increased cost efficiencies in any one component of the scholarly
> publishing value chain do not translate into reduced journal prices.
> But deconstructing the value chain, fragmenting it into multiple
> businesses, makes the value added by publishers more apparent and
> separable and helps eliminate inefficiencies."
>
> He then offers an "unbundled model" ("the deconstructed journal") that
> separates content from services components, and explains:
>
> "This separation allows for distributed open-access content
> repositories to be maintained independently of value-added services
> fulfilled discretely by multiple service providers. Once the
> components of scholarly publishing are logically separated, the
> registration, certification, dissemination, preservation, and
> rewarding functions can be undertaken by any organization with
> sufficient resources, intellectual prestige, organizational standing,
> and market position."
>
> [See the article for his graphical representations of these models.]
>
> After covering examples of the open-access journal movement (the
> directory lists over 1400 peer-reviewed journals) in the sciences and
> medicine, primarily (where the government pays the tab), Johnson
> concludes (not surprisingly) that "The toughest issues we face today
> revolve around business models -- who pays the tab in a disaggregated
> environment? Perhaps toughest of all, how is the certification process
> supported?"
>
> These challenges remain, perhaps not for some (like John), but for
> anyone in the academic world. Journals have been depended upon to
> maintain high standards of quality in both content and presentation.
> That role has been declining for several decades under their current
> business model, with much of the work done by the authors themselves
> and by unpaid contributing editors. Can these challenges be addressed
> in any sort of technological solution, within the Creative Commons?
> --Mary
>
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> For additional commands, e-mail: cg-help@...
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