[Open-access] new open access initiative

Tue Jan 31 13:38:09 UTC 2012

From: Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:40 PM

> My only reservation is that I fear the possibility that starting a new
> initiative will further fragment the already fragmented OA landscape
>rather than serving as a condensation point for a more unified voice.
>(I think of the many attempts to unify document formats by making a
>simple metaformat that can be translated into HTML, RTF, etc., with
>the inevitable consequence that the new format becomes just one more
>format that needs supporting.)

>What can we do to avoid this?

I agree that we should do everything we can to not be a 'splinter group'.
The only thing on which we need to be immovable is sticking to the BOAI
definition of OA for our own projects and initiatives, beyond that it
should be about dialogue. I think we avoid splintering by:

1) Ensuring that whatever we do is not a redundant effort, if someone else
is doing it already we should start a dialogue with them to push things
forward, not start a rival initiative (unless our efforts fail and there is
no viable alternative that captures what we want to do e.g. if SPARC
decided that they wouldn't exclude CC-NC from their OA label criteria -
this is a hypothetical situation as I don't know what their current
criteria are!).

2) Focusing on open access for all, not just the scholarly community. We're
not interested in the academic debate per se, we're interested in actively
making things happen and building tools/apps/resources that are genuinely
useful for evaluating the state of open access as it stands or increasing
the production and consumption of OA materials, especially in terms of
access and usefulness for the scholarly poor. Reclaiming OA as per BOAI is
fundamental to what we do but that doesn't exclude us from working on
practical things with people who hold different views and I think that
pragmatic slant is what will stop us being just another group of people
with a slightly different message shouting to be heard.

3) Making efforts to bring in people who to some extent are excluded from
the OA movement by its academic nature. We have Graham and Gilles who have
by their hard work already made an impact there and represent a lot more
people from their respective groups. In this way we're adding people into
the community rather than taking them away and one would hope that
providing a platform and prominence to these voices within the more
established OA groups would be a unifying feature in terms of expanding the
goals of the current OA movement rather than splitting our work into a
separate stream.

We can discuss further on the call on Thursday, there are probably many
more things we can do, but these are the main ones I thought about.

Jenny

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 11:44 AM, Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com> wrote:

> If SPARC already offer certification then rather than splinter OA
> certification we should get on board with their effort and see what we
> can do to push it along.  We do NOT want to get into a
> NetBSD-vs.-FreeBSD-vs.-OpenBSD situation here!
>
> -- Mike.
>
>
> On 31 January 2012 11:40, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 11:14 AM, Tom Olijhoek <tom.olijhoek at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 4:32 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> I don't see why we need to have the rest of the community involved from
> >> the very beginning. Why couldn't we start with a small group and get
> >> community support in the process? It would probably be better to not
> have
> >> too many factions involved in the beginning since this would be more
> >> difficult to manage ( this has been said before we started this mailing
> >> list: keep it small for the moment).
> >> If we seek collaboration with the originators of the BOAI (and I am all
> >> for that to happen) we wouldn't challenge anybody, except for the
> people who
> >> do not want "real" open access. And I would think that we want to
> challenge
> >> them, that is one point of the whole exercise. If we don't get the
> >> collaboration, "at least we have asked" (as I remember this has also
> been
> >> said before in our group).
> >> In my view a logical  first step in reclaiming the term Open Access is
> to
> >> use it in the name of the new Initiative, especially if we want to
> start a
> >> kind of certification with an OA-LOGO.
> >> I cannot judge whether using the term Foundation would imply that we
> have
> >> a big organisation. As far as I know you can start a Foundation with as
> few
> >> as 3 people. I read in Wikipedia that the term does not carry legal
> clout at
> >> least not in the UK. In  NL we would have to be registered. A foundation
> >> Initiative though would not be much of a problem anyway, or am I wrong?
> >>
> >>
> > This all makes sense. I carry a lot of history and that probably
> distorts my
> > judgment pessismistically. So everything here seems reasonable.
> >
> > SPARC offer certification, though I don't get the impression it's as
> active
> > as it should be. Maybe we should start with areas they don't cover.
> >
> > Yes - in the UK it doesn't take much to set up a Foundation in the
> > beginning. Getting support is probably more difficult. It will be quite a
> > lot of work. Yes, ask the original members and see what happens. We
> aren't
> > asking their permission - we are asking their support.
> >
> > I'm happy to be part of this - probably a good idea if there are fresh
> > drivers. There's more detail we need to work out
> >
> > P.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Peter Murray-Rust
> > Reader in Molecular Informatics
> > Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> > University of Cambridge
> > CB2 1EW, UK
> > +44-1223-763069
> >
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> >
>
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