[Open-access] @ccess versus open access

Thu May 31 14:44:16 UTC 2012

On 31 May 2012 14:35, Tom Olijhoek <tom.olijhoek at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Just finished the Skype call of the @ccess group.
> We agreed to use this mailing list to discuss the idea of abandoning @ccess
> as the term for "BOAI compliant open access"  and start using BBB-open
> access or B3 Open Access.

Thank you for raising this.  The following is from an incomplete draft
of a lbog entry I've been writing for SV-POW! for some time now. (It
would have been posted a week ago had Access2Research not blown
everything else out of the water.)

---- begin excerpt ----
HEADING: BOAI, BBB, "full open access", @ccess

To be more explicit about what particular rights are readers are given
regarding an open-access article, several terms have been used.

* The one I like best is BOAI-compliant, which refers explicitly back
to the Budapest initiative (and has the advantage of using an acronym
that can't be confused with anything else).

* You might also see BBB, which stands for Budapest/Berlin/Bethesda,
the names of three very similar open-access declarations.

* You occasionally even see the redundant BOAI/BBB.  Please don't.

* Phrases such as "full open access" and "true open access" are
sometimes used, but I'm not sure they help much because they are just
as prone to abuse as unadorned "open access".

* Finally, the @ccess group has started to use the term @ccess to
refer to BOAI compliance.  Although I am part of the @ccess group, I
am not convinced that adding yet another term has helped greatly.

So the unfortunate consequence of the unfortunate broadening of the
meaning of "open access" has been the coining of four or five
different terms all intended to indicate what was originally mean by
the original term.  Very unhelpful.
---- end excerpt ----

I prefer BOAI-compliant over BBB-compliant because when a single
definition is used, it's more explicit, there are other BBBs but no
other BOAIs, there is no scope for running into a dark corners where
the three Bs don't quite agree, and (maybe most important) there is a
single definitive place to link to when you want to tell people "this
is what the BOAI defined Open Access to be.

-- Mike.