Evidence-based advocacy

Stevan Harnad, Hypotheses Non Fingo, Open Access Archivangelism, October 10, 2006. Excerpt:

J.W.T.Smith...wrote in JISC-REPOSITORIES: "My basic interpretation of the 'Harnad model' is that Stevan wants every researcher to locally (or remotely) make available an open copy... in parallel with the current journal model and [using] quality control services of existing journals. [This is] parasitic on the current model. What Stevan does not want to acknowledge is that this parasitism will ultimately destroy the current journal model... mandates (for self archiving) will not not only increase the number of research articles freely available (a good thing) but will also accelerate the end of the 'traditional' journal and force the evolution of a new form of academic publishing to replace it (in my opinion also a good thing...)."

Hypotheses non fingo. There is no "Harnad model":

Research is published in c. 24K peer-reviewed journals (c. 2.5M articles annually).
            (Datum, not hypothesis.)

Not all would-be users can access all those articles online.
             (Datum, not hypothesis.)

Self-archiving supplements access, for those would-be users.
            (Datum, not hypothesis.)

Self-archiving is correlated with higher and earlier download and citation impact.
            (Datum, not hypothesis.)

Self-archiving is explicitly endorsed by 93% of journals.
            (Datum, not hypothesis.)

Only c. 15% of annual articles are being spontaneously self-archived today.
            (Datum, not hypothesis)

95% of researchers surveyed report they will self-archive if it is mandated.
            (Datum, not hypothesis.)

When self-archiving is mandated, it rapidly rises toward 100%.
            (Datum, not hypothesis.)

No evidence has been reported to date that self-archiving causes cancellations.
            (Datum, not hypothesis.)

[*Self-archiving might (or might not) eventually cause cancellations and a change in journal publishing model.

(Hypothesis) Mea maxima culpa!] ...