Boston University has become the first major US higher education institution to post its academics' research online, bypassing the traditional route of publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals, which it said restricts public access. ...
But John Tagler, director of the professional and scholarly publishing division of the Association of American Publishers, said this was an overstatement. Most scholarly publishers give extensive rights to authors to reuse the intellectual content they provide. "It's not as restrictive as they're positioning it here."
Mr. Tagler said the validation process that research must go through to be published in journals is essential to maintain standards.
"There's a real difference between posting (research) on your university website versus going through a peer review, which gives it certification among international experts."
As more data go online, peer review will become more vital, he said.
"How (else) will you separate the wheat from the chaff?"
Comments.
It's hard to find an interpretation of "Boston University has become the first major US higher education institution to post its academics' research online" that would make it an accurate statement. Dozens of IRs for U.S. institutions are listed on OpenDOAR or ROAR. Boston also isn't the first university to adopt a policy supportive of OA or encouraging its faculty to self-archive. If it had adopted a university-wide OA mandate, it would have been the first in the U.S., but it didn't.
Moreover, no part of the Boston policy "bypass[es] the traditional route of publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals". In fact, the policy specifically recommends "publication in peer-reviewed Open Access journals".
And the AAP continues to wage its disinformation campaign equating OA with a lack of peer review -- claims which Peter has thoroughly rebutted previously, and which the article doesn't counter.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 3/05/2009 11:38:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
