[OAI-eprints] The Patchwork Mandate (fwd)

[Stevan Harnad]

        ** 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.