Patience Is a Virtue? Some Reflections on Mandate Implementation and Uptake

Please use the link above to access a pdf of the article published in the open access journal ‘sciecominfo - Nordic-Baltic Forum for Scientific Communication.’ The mission of the journal is “to [1] To inspire new activities and facilitate knowledge exchange between Nordic/Baltic stakeholder, and to increase the international visibility of Nordic and Baltic policies and initiatives [2] To stress the importance of Open Access in the Nordic and Baltic countries and to describe both theoretical and best-practice models for financing, rights management and other fundamental issues. [3] To disseminate to both a Nordic/Baltic and an international readership information about successful initiatives and other activities in the Nordic and Baltic countries.” The journal “is an Open Access web journal covering current developments in scientific communication in the Nordic/Baltic countries and all aspects of scientific and scholarly communication...” The current article opens as follows: “What expectations concerning uptake and compliance are realistic when you are implementing an open access mandate? There are several recent studies that can provide useful information and comparative examples, but I believe, that one also needs a practical apprehension of the local level to be able to plan what resources and strategies that are adequate. You will have to interpret and present the progress to your stakeholders: are we doing good or not-yet-good enough? When can we expect to reach a tipping point and to see that the policy uptake gains momentum? Not least there is a need to prepare yourself and your team for an assiduous work ... . I remember one colleague with several years’ experience advocating open access, saying in a discussion that ‘open access isn’t a suitable work if you don’t have the patience’. I can see that this is true to a large extent, and it is also clear, that patience alone won’t be enough to achieve what we want ... One of the reasons for this is, I believe, intrinsic to the way mandates/policies are being formulated. They can contain requirements as well as recommendations and also, I would say, even prayers: You shall deposit your manuscript in the repository; You are recommended to do your original publishing in an open access journal, and please, Dear Researcher, don’t sign away your copyright... However, the main reason for the dynamics in this process is that not all of the players in the field are playing the same game. While universities, researchers, libraries and funders are playing one game according to one set of rules, the publishers are playing another game.I think it would have been easy (or at least more comprehensible from a pedagogical point of view) if we were just opposite teams, but that is clearly not the case. Instead it can now sometimes look like we are aiming at the same goal, but in reality it is different games being played out on the one and same field. And, as can be observed from any schoolyard during a break, this leads to a wide array of dynamic interactions...”