[BOAI] Re: The definitive answer from Wiley-Blackwell

[Stevan Harnad]

On 8-Jun-09, at 11:07 AM, C.J.Smith wrote:

> While I acknowledge that the Author Rights page on the Wiley- 
> Blackwell website states that authors can deposit their final  
> accepted manuscripts in institutional repositories, I remain  
> concerned by the communication I received direct from their  
> permissions department:
>
> “The [submitted] version is the only version we allow to be placed  
> into institutional repositories. We do not allow the post-peer- 
> review[ed] article, the author’s final draft, or any other version  
> to be deposited.”

Colin, with all due respect, I think you may be making a big and  
needless strategic and practical mistake here.

If a publisher has publicly posted a statement,  "All authors may do  
X"  and seems to have contradicted it elsewhere -- "All authors may  
not do X" -- (whether orally or in writing), it is definitely not the  
author's or the repository manager's responsibility to resolve which  
of the publisher's mixed messages to heed: Heed the one that is more  
favorable to whatever you want to do. If it is X, then do X.

> This seems to me to be a pretty clear and unambiguous statement, and  
> it leaves me wondering why I was told this if their policy really is  
> as stated on their Author Rights page. I could of course have had  
> the misfortune of speaking to a misinformed Wiley-Blackwell employee.

I cannot understand why one would want to give the same weight to a  
verbal opinion by a single employee over a written policy statement,  
visible to all.

> However, I also remain concerned by the terms in their (most widely  
> used) copyright assignment form:http://media.wiley.com/assets/1540/86/ctaaglobal.pdf 
> . Under C.1.a (Submitted Version), mention is made of the right to  
> self-archive in an institutional repository. However, under C.2  
> (Accepted Version), no mention of this is made. Indeed, it states  
> that “re-use of the accepted and peer-reviewed (but not final)  
> version of the Contribution shall be by separate agreement with  
> Wiley-Blackwell”. This does not appear to reflect the notion that  
> all Wiley-Blackwell authors can automatically deposit their accepted  
> versions in their institutional repositories.

Again. If there is a formal statement "Authors may do X," with no  
mention that they have to pay to do it, or beg to do it, then go ahead  
and do X rather than seeking or heeding  at contradictory statements  
elsewhere.

Let us not forget that all that is at issue is whether or not the  
author one day receives a take-down request from the publisher -- at  
which time he can decide whether or not to honor it. But all this  
advance anxiety to actively solicit unanimity when when there is at  
least one formal affirmative is hard to fathom/

> I would certainly echo SHERPA’s advice that, where possible, it is  
> best to consult individual journal policies.

No one has suggested that it is SHERPA's statement that one should go  
by!  If the publisher states that its blanket policy does not cover  
all of its individual journals then by all means consult the policy of  
the individual journal. (But that does not appear to have been what  
was at issue above: It was not publisher's general policy vs. an  
individual journal policy, but one (published) statement of the  
publisher's policy vs. another one contradicting it.)

> This is particularly relevant in the case of Wiley-Blackwell, which  
> publishes a lot of journals on behalf of learned societies, who may  
> have their own policies on open access archiving built into their  
> publishing agreements.

It is fine to consult the formal, published statement of individual  
journals if the publisher's blanket statement does not apply to all of  
its individual journals. (But once you have the journal's written  
statement, don't then go on and phone their permissions phone-answerer  
to ask if it's true!)

Stevan Harnad

> Colin Smith
> Research Repository Manager
> Open Research Online (ORO)
> Open University Library
> Walton Hall
> Milton Keynes
> MK7 6AA
>
> Tel: +44(0)1908 332971
>
> Email: c.j.smith at open.ac.uk
> Web: http://oro.open.ac.uk
> Blog: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/oro
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/smithcolin
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK 
> ] On Behalf Of Jane H Smith
> Sent: 28 May 2009 16:11
> To: JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: Re: The definitive answer from Wiley-Blackwell
>
> While reviewing all of the recent comments regarding the Wiley- 
> Blackwell policies, I came across the following under Author Rights  
> and Benefits>important Author Rights: http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/author_rights.asp
>
> This appears to be a re-branding of the pervious Blackwell  
> Publishing policy, but it does clearly state that it applies to 'All  
> Wiley-Blackwell Journals' albeit taking into account that policies  
> vary between journals.
>
> In summary, in general you can deposit the following (including in  
> an institutional repository)
> - authors version prior to acceptance
> - authors final version
> - but not the final published version
>
> Of course because of the variation between journals on policy and  
> embargoes, the best information is still going to come from each  
> journals own policy.
>
> SHERPA are now actively working on the changes needed to RoMEO for  
> it to hold and display journal level policies, which will be of the  
> greatest benefit for publishers such as Wiley-Blackwell, where the  
> policy varies so much.
>
> Regards
>
> Jane H Smith B.Sc (Hons) M.Sc MCLIP
> SHERPA Services Development Officer
>
> SHERPA - www.sherpa.ac.uk
> SHERPA/RoMEO - www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
> OpenDOAR - www.opendoar.org
> Juliet - www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet
> Nottingham E-Prints - http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/
>
> SHERPA
> Greenfield Medical Library
> University of Nottingham,
> Queens Medical Centre
> Nottingham
> NG7 2UH
>
> Phone: 0115 951 4341
> Fax: 0115 823 0549
>
>
>
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