On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 matt.hodgkinson_at_biomedcentral.com wrote:
> I'm not sure that this policy is as ideal as Stevan states.
>
> "Elsevier-published authors employed by
> corporations may post their revised personal
> manuscript versions of their final articles to
> their corporate intranets if they are secure
> and do not allow public access".
>
> Companies aren't allowed to publicly
> self-archive. This means that readers cannot
> access a free version of any of these articles,
> and the companies need to buy reprints from the
> journal if they want to distribute their article.
Readers may be surprised to hear their impatient archivangelist
counselling patience and proportionateness, but that is exactly the right
stance to take here: This "restriction" is so trivial and arbitrary that
it is hardly worthy of being given a second thought. So a commercial
company's repository is not ok for self-archiving? Let the company
baptise a non-profit educational foundation, appoint the employee a
fellow, and dub the Repository the educational foundation's IR.
> "To preserve the integrity of the official record
> of publication, the final published version of an
> article as it appears (in PDF or HTML) in an
> Elsevier journal will continue to be available
> only on an Elsevier site"
>
> This is an amusing argument. Does the integrity
> of the publication record really increase by
> insisting that authors post versions that must
> differ from the 'official' published version?
No problem. The peer-reviewed draft is what's needed, not the publisher's
PDF of HTML.
> "Note such posting may not be for commercial
> purposes and may not be to any external, third-party website".
>
> Posting to PubMed Central or another central
> repository is not allowed. This reduces the
> likelihood that readers will be aware that the
> self-archived version exists.
Not at all:
(1) Deposits are just as discoverable if they are in the author's own
OAI IR or in some central repository (or several).
(2) Central repositories can harvest the IRs' metadata (if you really
think that's necessary, and enhances discoverability -- though I';;
neither is the case, once it's all in the IRs and OA!).
> Aren't these angels' wings just a bit grubby?
Not at all: It is the research community that is flat-footed and
(as history will show) egg-faced!
> p.s. "some Elsevier clinical and biomedical
> journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals,
> follow the guidelines of the International Committee of
> Medical Journal Editors and do not consider for
> publication papers that have already been posted publicly"
>
> This is not Elsevier's fault, but does anyone
> know whether the ICMJE guidelines really do
> prohibit pre-prints? Their guidelines say that
> "Most journals do not wish to receive papers on
> work that has already been reported in large part
> in a published article or is contained in another
> paper that has been submitted or accepted for
> publication elsewhere, in print or in electronic
> media". Many journals do not consider pre-prints
> to be 'publication'; is the prohibition by the
> Lancet and Cell Press simply an illiberal reading
> of those guidelines?
Actually, there might still be some troglodytes who imagine that the
obsolete (and never justified) "Ingelfinger Rule" rules out preprints
too. But that rule never even had the pseudo-legal justification that
the attempts to oppose self-archiving purported to have (thanks to the
superstition and credulity of the publish-or-perish-paranoid researcher
community!). The Ingelfinger Rule was always about as justifiable (and
enforceable) as a rule that would refuse publication of an article by
any author with a blue-eyed maternal uncle!
Harnad, Stevan (2000) Ingelfinger Over-Ruled: The Role of the Web in
the Future of Refereed Medical Journal Publishing. The Lancet 256:s16.
http://cogprints.org/1703/index.html
ABSTRACT: Under the editorship of Franz Ingelfinger, the New England
Journal of Medicine adopted a policy of declining to referee or
publish research that had been previously published or publicised
elsewhere. Other biomedical journals, as well as broad-spectrum
journals such as Science, have since adopted this "Ingelfinger
rule". The four rationales underlying this rule, formulated in the
Gutenberg era, are examined here to see which of them are still
valid post-Gutenberg.
Stevan Harnad
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPARC Open Access Forum [mailto:SPARC-OAForum_at_arl.org]On Behalf Of
> Stevan Harnad
> Sent: 15 July 2007 00:35
> To: SPARC Open Access Forum
> Subject: [SOAF] Elsevier Still Solidly on the Side of the Angels on Open
> Access
>
>
> The following re-posting from Peter Suber's OA News
>
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_08_fosblogarchive.html#66675142481419092
> reconfirms that Elsevier is squarely on the side of the angels insofar
> as OA is concerned: Elsevier is and remains solidly Green on author
> self-archiving. So if there is any finger of blame to be pointed,
> it is to be pointed straight at the research community itself, not at
> Elsevier. If researchers desire Open Access, and fail to provide it
> by self-archiving their own articles, it is entirely their own fault,
> certainly not Elsevier's.
>
> And if researchers' institutions and funders are aggrieved that their
> researchers are not providing OA, yet they have failed to mandate that
> they do so, there is again no one else to fault but themselves.
>
> Read on. And then if you are a researcher and minded to complain about
> the absence of OA, please don't waste keystrokes demonizing publishers
> like Elsevier, or signing pious declarations, statements, manifestos,
> or boycott-threats: Direct your keystrokes instead toward the
> self-archiving of your own articles in your own Institutional Repository!
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Elsevier restates its self-archiving policy
>
> Ways to Use Journal Articles Published by Elsevier: A Practical Guide,
> Elsevier, Version 1.0, June 2007. (Thanks to Rea Devakos.)
> http://www.elsevier.com/framework_editors/pdfs/waystousearticles.pdf
>
> Elsevier compiled this guide for its journal editors, but it may also
> be useful for authors and readers.
>
> Excerpt:
>
> Elsevier believes it is important to communicate clearly about our
> policies regarding the use of articles we publish....However, this guide
> does not amend, replace or cancel any part of an existing license with
> Elsevier....
>
> Authors publishing in Elsevier journals retain wide rights to continue
> to use their works to support scientific advancement, teaching and
> scholarly communication.
> An author can, without asking permission, do the following after
> publication of the author's article in an Elsevier-published
> journal:
>
> Make copies (print or electronic) of the author's article for
> personal use or the author's own classroom teaching.
> Make copies of the article and distribute them (including via email) to
> known research colleagues for their personal use but not for commercial
> purposes as described below [PS: omitted here].
> Present the article at a meeting or conference and distribute copies of
> the article to attendees.
> Allow the author's employer to use the article in full or in part
> for other intracompany use (e.g., training).
> Retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any process or
> procedure described in the article.
> Include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation.
> Use the article in full or in part in a printed compilation of the
> author's, such as collected writings and lecture notes.
> Use the article in full or in part to prepare other derivative works,
> including expanding the article to book-length form, with each such work
> to include full acknowledgment of the article's original publication
> in the Elsevier journal.
> Post, as described below, the article to certain websites or servers....
> Web posting of articles
>
> Elsevier understands researchers want widespread distribution of their
> work and supports authors by enabling such distribution within the
> context of orderly peer review and publication.
>
> Most journals published by Elsevier will consider (for peer review and
> publication) papers already posted in pre-publication versions to the
> Web. Pre-publication posting is common practice in, for example, physics
> and mathematics. However, some Elsevier clinical and biomedical
> journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals, follow the
> guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and
> do not consider for publication papers that have already been posted
> publicly. Anyone with a question regarding pre-publication posting and
> subsequent submission of a paper to an Elsevier journal should consult
> that journal's instructions to authors or contact the editor.
>
> An author can, without asking permission, do the following with the
> author's article that has been or will be published in an Elsevier
> journal:
>
> Post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites including
> electronic pre-print servers, and retain indefinitely this version on
> such servers or sites (unless prohibited in a specific Elsevier
> journal's instructions to authors).
> Post a personal manuscript version of the article on the author's
> personal or institutional website or server, provided each such posting
> includes a link to the article's Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and
> includes a complete citation for the article. This means an author can
> update a personal manuscript version (e.g., in Word or TeX format) of
> the article to reflect changes made during the peer-review and editing
> process. Note such posting may not be for commercial purposes and may
> not be to any external, third-party website.
> Elsevier-published authors employed by corporations may post their
> revised personal manuscript versions of their final articles to their
> corporate intranets if they are secure and do not allow public access.
>
> This policy permitting open posting of revised personal manuscript
> versions applies to authors publishing articles in any Elsevier
> journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals.
>
> If an article has multiple authors, each author has the same posting
> rights.
>
> To preserve the integrity of the official record of publication, the
> final published version of an article as it appears (in PDF or HTML) in
> an Elsevier journal will continue to be available only on an Elsevier
> site....
>
> Peter Suber, OA News
>
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_07_08_fosblogarchive.html#66675142481419092
> ---------------
>
> Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Thread:
> "Elsevier Gives Authors Green Light for Open Access Self-Archiving"
> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3771.html
>
> Cf: "Poisoned Apple"
> http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#32.Poisoned
>
> "A Keystroke Koan For Our Open Access Times"
> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3062.html
> http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/
>
> Stevan Harnad
> AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
>
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/
>
> UNIVERSITIES and RESEARCH FUNDERS:
> If you have adopted or plan to adopt a policy of providing Open Access
> to your own research article output, please describe your policy at:
> http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html
>
> OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
> BOAI-1 ("Green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal
> http://romeo.eprints.org/
> OR
> BOAI-2 ("Gold"): Publish your article in an open-access journal if/when
> a suitable one exists.
> http://www.doaj.org/
> AND
> in BOTH cases self-archive a supplementary version of your article
> in your own institutional repository.
> http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
> http://archives.eprints.org/
> http://openaccess.eprints.org/
Received on Thu Jul 19 2007 - 21:21:52 BST