Degrees of secrecy in an open environment. The case of electronic theses and dissertations
Journal Title: ESSACHESS - Journal for Communication Studies - Year 2013, Vol 6, Issue 2
Abstract
The open access (OA) principle requires that scientific information be made widely and readily available to society. Defined in 2003 as a “comprehensive source of human knowledge and cultural heritage that has been approved by the scientific communityâ€, open access implies that content be openly accessible and this needs the active commitment of each and every individual producer of scientific knowledge. Today, the success of the open access initiative cannot be denied. Yet, in spite of the growing success of the open access initiative, a significant part of scientific and technical information remains unavailable on the web or circulates with restrictions. Even in institutional repositories (IR) created to provide access to the scientific output of an academic institution and central vector of the so-called green road to open access, more or less important sectors of the scientific production are missing. This is because of lack of awareness, embargo, deposit of metadata without full text, confidential content etc. This problem concerns in particular electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) that are disseminated with different statuses – some are freely available, others are under embargo, confidential, restricted to campus access (encrypted or not) or no available at all. While other papers may be available through alternative channels (journals, monographs etc.), ETDs most often are not. Our paper describes a new and unexpected effect of the development of digital libraries and open access, as a paradoxical practice of hiding information from the scientific community and society, partly while sharing it with a restricted population (campus). We try to explain these different shades of grey literature in terms of different degrees of secrecy related to intellectual property, legitimate interests, expected exploitation and trade secrets, and suggest some ways of increasing availability of ETDs in an open environment (inter-lending loan and document supply, alternative format etc.). The study builds on a review of recent papers on ETDs in institutional repositories and provides empirical evidence on this reality. The study also includes an overview of the thesis mandate policies of IR as mentioned in the ROARMAP directory and an evaluation of the availability of ETDs in a small panel of European and American academic IR, networks and institutions.
Authors and Affiliations
Joachim SCHÖPFEL| Senior lecturer, director of ANRT, GERiiCO, Charles-de-Gaulle University of Lille 3, FRANCE, Hélène PROST| Information professional, INIST CNRS, associated member GERiiCO, Charles-de-Gaulle University of Lille 3, FRANCE
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP9141
- DOI -
- Views 312
- Downloads 22
The dilemma of secrecy in the study of three ethnic groups from the South American Gran Chaco
From an epistemological perspective, ethics poses a problem that goes beyond the issue of the stakeholders’ rationality or irrationality. Besides, it refers to the conceptual framework of knowledge, practices, and e...
A tourist survey on the Romanian seaside
The Romanian seaside, a magnet for Scandinavian tourists in the past, encounters nowadays difficulties in finding its own place in the regional context of the Black Sea. Despite stagnation in modernising tourism str...
Broadcasting of the technological innovation in networks of actors. For a combinatory approach of jobs with strong added value: the case of the « thrifty building »
From local investigation about building‘s different actors, the object of present study which is coming onwant to characterize constrains on building energy performing devices in building activities. We have to id...
The symbolic process of the tourist attractiveness of a city through the notion of empowerment: an asset of the community tourism
This research note analyzes the interpretative permanent process of the symbolism through the spaces in community-based tourism and local development. The goal of this tourism processes is to empower the local communit...
The semiotics of the sacred
What is called sacred is an identity, a practice or a social actor who escapes ordinary social practices. In the 18th century, Kant call transcendancy a non religious way of sublimying identities, independant from spac...