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Lucia A Keegan  11/14/2006 10:11:41 AM  From  DB/Inbox:  Lucia A Keegan

Cable 
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UNCLAS        PARIS 07290

SIPDIS
cxparis:
    ACTION: SCI
    INFO:   AGR UNESCO AMBO SCIO LABO ENGO ECSO DCM AMB POL
            ECON ESCI

DISSEMINATION: SCIX
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: SCI:RDRY (EST COMMON
DRAFTED: SCI:MHMASSING
CLEARED: CLEARED:NONE

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DE RUEHFR #7290 3121316
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R 081316Z NOV 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2950
INFO RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC
RHEBAAA/USDOE WASHDC
RUEHMRE/AMCONSUL MARSEILLE 1429
RUEHSR/AMCONSUL STRASBOURG 0243
RUEHZN/EST COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS PARIS 007290 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR OES, EUR/WE 
WHITE HOUSE FOR OSTP 
DOE FOR OFFICE OF SCIENCE 
STATE PASS NSF/INT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: TINT TNGD FR
SUBJECT: HAL - FRANCE'S PORTAL FOR SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS 
¶1.  All major French research organizations, the conference of 
university presidents (CPU), the conference of 'Grandes Ecoles' 
(France's elite universities), and the Pasteur Institute recently 
 
signed a Joint Draft Agreement defining a coordinated approach, at 
the national level, for open-access self-archiving of French 
research output.  The French network of open-access archives is 
known as Hyper Article on Line or, simply, HAL.  Initially created 
by the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 2000, and 
developed by the Center for Direct Scientific Communication (CCSD), 
it will ensure direct scientific communication between academics, 
and long term preservation of deposited documents. 
 
¶2.  The HAL project is in line with the arXive site created in 1991 
by Paul Ginsparg, an e-print service in the fields of physics, 
mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, and quantitative 
biology, owned, operated and funded by Cornell University and partly 
funded by the National Science Foundation. HAL, on the other hand, 
is now open to all scientific disciplines without restriction. 
Approximately 1200 documents are reportedly archived every month, 
which represents roughly 15 percent of French scientific publication 
output. 
 
------------------------------- 
Technically superior to arXive? 
------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  According to HAL's creator, CCSD Director Franck Laloe, HAL 
provides an extensive set of tools and services beneficial to French 
researchers, and "technically superior to arXive," e.g.: 
 
- Automatic document submission with link to an international open 
archive that increases visibility and impact; 
 
- Simplified submission process for scientists (a single submission 
can cover all the researcher's work, evaluation procedures, activity 
reports, and replies to requests for quotations); 
 
- Advanced search engine, classification and searches using multiple 
criteria; 
 
- Automatic online extraction of all works by author, lab, or 
organization, with possible links to the organization's local web 
site; 
 
- Creation of "collections" via buffers for authentication of a 
lab's publications, the articles in a journal, etc.; 
 
- Alert and watchdog system that can be customized with user-defined 
profiles; 
 
- Hal is designed to facilitate the creation of configurable 
interfaces for organizations to create their own environments. 
 
¶4.  The joint draft agreement is considered an important advance in 
the implementation of French national policy in support of open 
access institutional archives.  According to the French CNRS 
Director of Scientific Communication, "the single archive will 
significantly improve the visibility, dissemination, and the 
international impact of French scientific research, as data will be 
indexed by major research engines, such as Google."  Furthermore, 
HAL communicates with other major international archive systems and 
includes a protocol of agreement about metadata to enrich the 
articles. 
 
------------------- 
Benefits and risks? 
------------------- 
 
¶5. According to media, some French scientists do not 
favor HAL out of concern that some scientists might release on the 
network data without peer review.  HAL's organizers, on the other 
hand, argue that articles consulted by other scientists, will 
receive critical review and potential errors will be quickly 
notified. Furthermore, posting an article on the site does not 
prevent its submission for publication to scientific journals with 
peer review.  HAL's promoters now hope that other countries, notably 
within the EU, will join the project, giving France a leading role 
in a large system of international direct scientific communication. 
 
 
STAPLETON