[Air-l] Fwd: The Patchwork Mandate (fwd) (harnad on self-archiving policies)
Jeremy Hunsinger
jhuns at vt.edu
Sat Nov 11 05:05:11 PST 2006
i thought some of you would be interested in this discussion of self-
archiving policies.
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Stevan Harnad <harnad at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
> Date: November 11, 2006 7:23:48 AM EST
> To: VPIEJ-L at LISTSERV.VT.EDU
> Subject: The Patchwork Mandate (fwd)
> Reply-To: Stevan Harnad <harnad at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK>
>
> ** Apologies for Cross-Posting **
>
> Below is yet another brilliant and timely stroke from the
> Archivangelist
> of the Antipodes (who is rapidly gaining worldwide moral hegemony!):
>
> Arthur Sale is so right: Where the university's senior management are
> momentarily immovable, the right target is a promising individual
> department or two: The focussed outcome of a departmental mandate
> can be
> even faster and more dramatic than a university-wide one, serving as
> an irresistible stepping stone toward a university-wide mandate.
>
> And there is supporting evidence: The outcome of the Tasmania CS and
> Southampton ECS departmental mandates, there to prove it works (and
> both
> of them leading to university-wide mandates thereafter):
>
> http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2006 15:15:25 +1100
> From: Arthur Sale <ahjs at OZEMAIL.COM.AU>
> To: JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: The Patchwork Mandate
>
> Over the last few months this list has been inundated by people
> looking for
> policies to adopt for their institutional repositories, and
> frustrated by
> their management's inability to see that a mandate is required. I
> haven't
> been very helpful to the enquirers, because all of the
> encouragement type
> policies are known to be quite inadequate. However, I have done some
> thinking and have now put together a short paper (4 pages) on an
> option for
> repository managers wanting to fill their repositories under unhelpful
> conditions - The Patchwork Mandate.
>
> I encourage you to download the working paper from
> http://eprints.utas.edu.au/410/, as it has nice typesetting and
> readability [and hyperlinks] in a pdf file. You can even show it to
> your
> senior managers. However, if you can't or don't want to, I have pasted
> the text below.
>
> Arthur Sale
> Professor of Computing (Research)
> University of Tasmania
>
> - > PASTED PAPER BEGINS
>
> The Patchwork Mandate
> Technical Report
> Arthur Sale, 11 November 2006
>
> Policies for Repository Managers
>
> This document is written mainly for repository managers who are at
> a loss
> as to what policies they (or their universities or research
> institutions)
> ought to deploy. I make no bones about stating that there are only two
> "pure" policies:
>
> * requiring (mandating) researchers to deposit, and
> * voluntary (spontaneous) participation.
>
> The institutional mandate
>
> The obvious and no-risk solution is for the institution to require
> researchers to deposit their publications in the institutional
> repository.
> There is ample evidence that this is acceptable to over 95% of
> researchers,
> both in pre-implementation surveys and in post-implementation
> evidence. One
> Australian university is leading the world in collecting 70% of its
> annual
> research output and the fraction is rising. This is not surprising,
> since
> the researcher's world is hemmed in with the requirements to teach,
> to ask
> for student evaluations, to write and mark examinations, to
> supervise PhD
> students, to publish research, to report to granting bodies, etc.
> However
> because of the age of senior executives (Rectors, Vice-Chancellors,
> Presidents or the Research Vice-Presidents, Pro Vice-Chancellors,
> etc) it
> may be difficult to convince them that they have been carried into
> a new era
> of scholarly dissemination while they weren't looking, and that their
> attitudes are horribly obsolescent.
>
> An institutional-wide requirement to deposit in the IR is the
> logical and
> inevitable end-point. In fact it is exactly what is needed. Once
> such a
> policy is in place the IR manager's approaches to researchers and
> heads of
> centers and all the plethora of feel-good activities actually work.
> People
> who are required to deposit their publications are grateful for
> advice. The
> occasional chase-up call is not resented. Just about everything
> that the
> university can put in place (for example publicity for deposits,
> awards for
> the best author or paper, assistance with self-archiving, download
> statistics, etc) will begin to work as it resonates with every
> academic in
> fulfilling their duty.
>
> A mandatory policy will approach a capture rate of 100% of current
> research
> publications, but over a couple of years. Figures of 60-90% can be
> expected
> in a short time. See
> http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_10/sale/index.html for
> some data
> on how mandates actually work.
>
> Voluntary participation
>
> The 'everything else' policies are not worth talking about for
> long. In the
> absence of mandates, every encouragement policy known to Man fails to
> convince more than 15% to 20% of researchers to invest the 5
> minutes of time
> needed to deposit their publications. The percentage does not grow
> with
> time. When you look at this closely, all these encouragement policies
> (awards to top authors, regular articles in the house magazine, great
> feedback, personal approaches, download statistics, seminars,
> explanation of
> the OA advantages, etc) fail. This is a global experience, but I
> have plenty
> of Australian examples. The reason is easy to grasp: these
> activities appeal
> to the converted and the practicing self-archivers, not the
> skeptics or the
> lazy. In other words they simply pass over the heads of over 80% of
> the
> potential contributors without engagement with the little grey cells.
>
> I must emphasize that such policies are known to achieve no greater
> deposit
> rate of current research than 30% and more usually around 15%. The
> evidence
> can be produced and is absolutely clear. At such deposit rates, one
> wonders
> why it is worth bothering having a repository or undertaking the
> proselytizing activities, except simply to have a repository in
> place (a
> yes/no tick).
>
> It is also useless to look at growth rates of documents in the
> repository
> without taking their publication and deposit dates into account. The
> evidence shows that many 'converted' depositors busy themselves with
> mounting all their old papers. This is not to be discouraged and makes
> repository managers think they are achieving something, but it is
> not a
> significant performance indicator. The only important performance
> indicator
> is 'How much of your institution's annual research output appears
> in your
> repository by (say) 6 months after year end?'
>
> The Patchwork Mandate
>
> So, many repository managers find themselves between a rock and a hard
> place. They can't convince the senior executives to bring in a
> mandate, and
> they know that voluntary deposition does not work. Fortunately
> there may be
> a middle way or even a transitional way ahead. I call it the patchwork
> mandate for reasons that will become obvious. Unfortunately we
> don't have
> any evidence yet that this policy works on an institutional scale,
> though
> there are significant pointers to indicate that it will.
>
> So what is the patchwork mandate? Simply this:
>
> 1 Knowing that you have been unable to convince the senior
> executives, you nevertheless personally commit to having a mandate
> across
> your institution.
>
> 2 You aim to pursue a strategy that will achieve an
> institutional
> mandate in the long term. It is highly recommended that you
> register your
> intention to do this in ROARMAP so as to encourage other repository
> managers
> caught in the same dilemma.
>
> 3 Since you can't get an institutional mandate, you work
> towards
> getting departmental (school/faculty) mandates one by one. Each
> departmental
> mandate will rapidly trend towards 100% and needs little activism to
> maintain this level.
>
> Let's look at this a bit more closely. We have solid evidence that
> departmental mandates work, and much faster than university-wide
> mandates. A
> year or so suffices to achieve a substantial acquisition rate of
> current
> research. This is because there are fewer people involved, and the
> researchers tend to trust their leaders more. It is also easier to
> achieve
> conversion at the departmental level. Two documented examples are
> ECS at
> Southampton University and the School of Computing at the
> University of
> Tasmania (mine). Again see
> http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_10/sale/index.html.
>
> What is a departmental mandate? A decision by the Head of
> Department (or a
> Research Director or a democratic staff meeting) that all peer-
> reviewed
> articles in the department must be deposited in the IR as a
> postprint, at
> the time of acceptance. See
> http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/sign.php for a draft
> policy
> you can adapt. Its effect is immediate, and most members of the
> department
> comply quite easily. The 'enforcement' of the policy (if any is
> needed) is
> in the hands of the responsible person of the department, and all
> it needs
> is to watch what people claim they have published and ask "have you
> archived
> that yet?" That is enough - no punitive action is required.
>
> How do you achieve this? Well what you don't do is try a scatter-gun
> approach across the institution. Nor only does it waste effort, but
> it puts
> people's back up. You analyze all your departments and research
> centers. You
> decide which senior people in them might be amenable to persuasion.
> A high
> research profile is a good indicator, as is a discipline where
> online access
> is already widespread. Another pointer is an area where a funding body
> mandate is going to affect many people. You know your institution
> better
> than I do, so choose your own criteria.
>
> Then you concentrate on the leader of a department and possibly people
> around him or her to firstly deposit their own current research,
> show them
> what they can get out of it (for example download statistics), and
> then
> persuade them that their whole department should deposit. Give them
> the
> words to use. Suggest implementation. Provide support. Run
> seminars. Provide
> monthly deposit data summaries. But all of this strictly targeted
> at the
> selected department. Once you have a mandate from that department,
> keep up
> your support, publicize successes across the institution, and move
> on to the
> next target. Of course you might tackle a few targets at the same
> time, but
> not too many. Successful departmental mandates are what you are
> after..
>
> You will end up with an odd collection of mandated departments, and
> the rest
> being voluntary. Hence the term patchwork mandate, like a calico or
> tortoiseshell cat. You won't achieve 100% deposit rates yet, but
> you may
> begin to escape from the 20% ceiling of voluntary deposit.
>
> When you as repository manager have (say) 40-50% of the departments
> with
> departmental mandates, go back and argue with your senior
> executives. If
> they still don't agree to bring in an institutional mandate, tell
> them that
> you are going to tackle the remaining more difficult departments,
> and that
> they (the executives) are now looking like very silly neo-Luddites.
> Carry
> out your promise if you do say that.
>
> Conclusion
>
> I think that the patchwork mandate strategy will probably work. We are
> trialing it in Australia. It won't achieve 100% content instantly,
> but it is
> a clear way to work towards that. You can even explain it to your
> senior
> executives and they probably won't stop you. They may even
> encourage you to
> try it.
>
> Just remember that voluntary persuasion of individuals is known not
> to work
> beyond a pitiful participation level. Self-archiving needs to be
> made part
> of the routine academic duty, and this requires a policy
> endorsement by
> someone.
Jeremy Hunsinger
School of Library and Information Science
Pratt Institute
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