[Open-access] new open access initiative

Tue Jan 31 16:01:40 UTC 2012

Hi,

I totallly agree with you, Jenny! We want cooperation wherever possible and
we want to concentrate on the countries / groups of people in need. These
are the basic purposes we have to communicate.
 That said, I am not so afraid of becoming just another initiative in the
OA ocean.  I feel the need for a new initiative for all the reasons that
have been brought up .If we can engage formerly quiet people like malaria
researchers in Africa, and like the activists from the HIFA forum that
Jenny talks about in the other mailing our initiative will represent
something unique. I think we need to be very careful to communicate all our
purposes in a clear way, see whaT OTHER GROUPS ARE DOING  and decide what
we want to do. The initiative must  have a bottom-up structure: I see a
main task in coordinating various efforts and offering a communication
platform for community building. I think someone like Peter Suber could go
along with this. Another unique selling point for our Initiative could be
the promotion of (the usage of) an OA Index.  This could .become a valuable
PR tool to encourage scientific publishers to adopt OA, to encourage
scientists to publish in OA journals and for others to get involved in the
movement..

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com> wrote:

> Just wanted to add a hearty +1 to everything Jenny says here.
>
> Whatever happens, we don't want to end up becoming the People's Front of
> Judea.
>
> -- Mike.
>
>
>
> On 31 January 2012 13:38, Jenny Molloy <jcmcoppice12 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 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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> >> > open-access at lists.okfn.org
> >> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-access
> >> >
> >>
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>
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