[BOAI] Re: Message from Emerald for Librarians

[Stevan Harnad]

*Rebecca Marsh *Director of External Relations and Services* *| Emerald
Group Publishing Limited

& *Tony Roche *Publishing Director* *| Emerald Group Publishing Limited have
posted their defence of the Emerald policy changes reported by Richard
Poynder: "Open Access: Emerald's Green Starts to
Fade"<http://poynder.blogspot.ca/2013/06/open-access-emeralds-green-starts-to.html>


First, a paraphrase of what Marsh & Roche wrote:


"(1) All Emerald authors may do immediate, unembargoed open access
self-archiving if they *wish*, but (2) not if they *must*. If they must
self-archive, they must wait 24 months or ask individually for permission."


The sensible Emerald author will self-archive immediately, and ignore
clause (2) completely. It is empty, unverifiable, unenforceable,
pseudo-legal FUD
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt> that
has been added as a perverse effect of the folly of the UK Finch
Committee<http://www.google.ca/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=harnad+finch+folly&oq=harnad+finch+folly&gs_l=hp.3...2883.5878.0.6372.18.18.0.0.0.0.169.1777.13j5.18.0...0.0...1c.1.17.psy-ab.bMKSMmcpmzo&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.48293060,d.dmg&fp=b516a1fd1cf6ebe7&biw=1137&bih=688>recommendations.


The Emerald policy tweak is obviously to cash in on the money that the UK
has decided to squander on pre-emptive "Fools Gold" OA, as well as to try
to fend off universal Green OA as long as is humanly possible.


Below I reproduce the Emerald representatives' posting's text, cutting out
the empty verbiage, to make the double-talk clearly visible and
comprehensible.

 *Apologies for cross-posting*****
>
>  ****
>
> "...Emerald has had a Green Open Access [OA] policy for over a decade.
> [All Emerald] authors who personally wish to self-archive the pre- or
> post-print version of their article on their own website or in a
> repository... can do this immediately upon official publication of their
> paper. This principle continues to underpin our Green OA policy and remains
> unchanged....
>
**
>
>  ****
>
> "...[Emerald] has provided an alternative route to OA for researchers who
> are mandated to make their papers Open Access immediately, or after a
> specified period. We also set the Article Processing Charge (APC) at a
> relatively low level to assist authors...
>
****
>
>  ****
>
> "Emerald has... requested that authors wait 24 months before depositing
> their post-prints if a mandate is in place. Where a mandate exists for
> deposit immediately on publication or with a shorter mandate but no APC
> fund is provided, we invite all authors to contact us..."
>

Plans by universities and research funders to pay the costs of Gold OA
pre-emptively today are premature.

Funds are short; 80% of journals (including virtually all the top journals)
are still subscription-based, tying up the potential funds to pay for Gold
OA. Hence, for institutions, paying pre-emptively for Gold OA today means
double-paying -- subscriptions for their incoming articles plus APCs for
their outgoing articles-- and in the case of "hybrid Gold," when both sums
are paid to the very same journal, it also means double-dipping by
publishers.

Even apart from double-paying and double-dipping, the asking APC price per
article for Gold OA today (whether "pure" or "hybrid") is still inflated;
and there is concern that paying to publish may also inflate acceptance
rates as well as lower quality standards to maximize revenue in the case of
"pure Gold" OA.

What is needed now is for all universities and funders worldwide to mandate
OA self-archiving (of authors' final peer-reviewed drafts, immediately upon
acceptance for publication) ("Green OA").

That will provide immediate OA; and if and when universal Green OA goes on
to make subscriptions unsustainable (because users are satisfied with just
the Green OA versions) that will in turn induce journals to cut costs
(phasing out the print edition and online edition, offloading
access-provision and archiving onto the worldwide network of Green OA
Institutional Repositories), downsize to just providing the service of peer
review, and convert to the Gold OA cost-recovery model; meanwhile, the
subscription cancellations will have released the funds to pay this
residual service cost.

The natural way to charge for the service of peer review then will be on a
"no-fault basis," with the author's institution or funder paying for each
round of refereeing, regardless of outcome (acceptance,
revision/re-refereeing, or rejection). This will minimize cost while
protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality
standards.

This is the difference between today's pre-emptive pre-Green double-paid,
double-dipped over-priced pre-Green "Fools Gold" and tomorrow's affordable,
sustainable, post-Green Fair Gold.

Harnad, S. (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of Selectivity
Need Not Be Access Denied or
Delayed<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july10/harnad/07harnad.html>.
D-Lib Magazine 16 (7/8).

Houghton, J. & Swan, A. (2013) Planting the Green Seeds for a Golden
Harvest: Comments and Clarifications on "Going for
Gold"<http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january13/houghton/01houghton.html>.
D-Lib Magazine 19 (1/2)
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