[BOAI] Re: In Defence of Elsevier

Jean-Claude Guédon jean.claude.guedon at umontreal.ca
Wed May 27 20:46:29 BST 2015


There is no need to defend Elsevier. Without a doubt, Elsevier has the
wherewithal to defend itself. And mentioning Elsevier's defence when
gradualism is really the objective does not make much sense.

We can all agree with Stevan that CC_BY-NC-ND is enough for now without
abandoning the objective of CC-BY a little further down the line.

But what do we lose if we ask for CC-BY and, for the moment, get only
CC-BY-NC-ND: is Stevan worried that we might not even get CC-BY-NC-ND?
But, if true (which is far from being proved) that means two things:

1. Elsevier would show its true colours at last;

2. The request button remains to circumvent this bullying risk.

In short, what we need, as a community, is not to defend Elsevier, but
rather agree on gradualism, relentless gradualism, until we get what we
all want to have in the end: complete libre and gratis OA everywhere.
-- 

Jean-Claude Guédon
Professeur titulaire
Littérature comparée
Université de Montréal



Le mercredi 27 mai 2015 à 13:44 -0400, Stevan Harnad a écrit :
> I beg the OA community to remain reasonable and realistic.
> 
> 
> 
> Please don't demand that Elsevier agree to immediate CC-BY. If
> Elsevier did that, I could immediately start up a rival free-riding
> publishing operation and sell all Elsevier articles immediately at cut
> rate, for any purpose at all that I could get people to pay for.
> Elsevier could no longer make a penny from selling the content it
> invested in.
> 
> 
> CC-BY-NC-ND is enough for now. It allows immediate harvesting for
> data-mining.
> 
> 
> 
> The OA movement must stop shooting itself in the foot by
> over-reaching, insisting on having it all, immediately, thus instead
> ending up with next to nothing, as now.
> 
> 
> As I pointed out in a previous posting, the fact that Elsevier
> requires all authors to adopt CC-BY-NC-ND license is a positive step.
> Please don't force them to back-pedal!
> 
> 
> Please read the terms, and reflect.
> 
> 
> SH
> 
> 
>         Accepted Manuscript 
>         Authors can share their accepted manuscript:
>         
>         
>         Immediately 
>         
>         
>               * via their non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
>               * by updating a preprint in arXiv or RePEc with the
>                 accepted manuscript. 
>               * via their research institute or institutional
>                 repository for internal institutional uses or as part
>                 of an invitation-only research collaboration
>                 work-group.
>               * directly by providing copies to their students or to
>                 research collaborators for their personal use.
>               * for private scholarly sharing as part of an
>                 invitation-only work group on commercial sites with
>                 which Elsevier has an agreement.
>         
>         After the embargo period 
>         
>         
>               * via non-commercial hosting platforms such as their
>                 institutional repository.
>               * via commercial sites with which Elsevier has an
>                 agreement.
>         
>         In all cases accepted manuscripts should:
>         
>         
>               * Link to the formal publication via its DOI.
>               * Bear a CC-BY-NC-ND license – this is easy to do, click
>                 here to find out how. 
>               * If aggregated with other manuscripts, for example in a
>                 repository or other site, be shared in alignment with
>                 our hosting policy.
>               * Not be added to or enhanced in any way to appear more
>                 like, or to substitute for, the published journal
>                 article.
>         How to attach a user license
>         Elsevier requires authors posting their accepted manuscript to
>         attach a non-commercial Creative Commons user license
>         (CC-BY-NC-ND).  This is easy to do. On your accepted
>         manuscript add the following to the title page, copyright
>         information page, or header /footer: © YEAR, NAME. Licensed
>         under the Creative Commons [insert license details and URL].
>         
>         
>         For example: © 2015, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative
>         Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
>         International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 
>         
>         
>         You can also include the license badges available from
>         the Creative Commons website to provide visual recognition. If
>         you are hosting your manuscript as a webpage you will also
>         find the correct HTML code to add to your page
>         
>         
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 12:37 PM, Kathleen
> Shearer <m.kathleen.shearer at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>         (sorry for any cross-posting)
>         
>         
>         In its recently released “Sharing and Hosting Policy FAQ”,
>         Elsevier “recognize(s) that authors want to share and promote
>         their work and increasingly need to comply with their funding
>         body and institution's open access policies.” However there
>         are several aspects of their new policy that severely limit
>         sharing and open access, in particular the lengthy embargo
>         periods imposed in most journals- with about 90% of Elsevier
>         journals having embargo periods of 12 months or greater. This
>         is a significant rollback from the original 2004 Elsevier
>         policy which required no embargos for making author’s accepted
>         manuscripts available; and even with the 2012 policy change
>         requiring embargoes only when authors were subject to an OA
>         mandate.
>         
>         
>         With article processing charges (APCs) that can cost as much
>         as $5000 US dollars for publishing in one of Elsevier’s gold
>         open access titles or hybrid journals, this is not a viable
>         option for many researchers around the world. Furthermore, the
>         rationale for lengthy embargo periods is to protect Elsevier’s
>         subscription revenue. We do not believe that scientific,
>         economic and social progress should be hindered in order to
>         protect commercial interests. In addition, there is currently
>         no evidence that articles made available through OA
>         repositories will lead to cancellations. 
>         
>         
>         Elsevier’s new policy also requires that accepted manuscripts
>         posted in open access repositories bear a CC-BY-NC-ND license.
>         This type of license severely limits the re-use potential of
>         publicly funded research. ND restricts the use of derivatives,
>         yet derivative use is fundamental to the way in which
>         scholarly research builds on previous findings, for example by
>         re-using a part of an article (with attribution) in
>         educational material. Similarly, this license restricts
>         commercial re-use greatly inhibiting the potential impact of
>         the results of research.
>         
>         
>         Elsevier’s Director of Access & Policy, Alicia Wise states
>         that they “have received neutral-to-positive responses from
>         research institutions and the wider research community.” Yet,
>         since the “Statement against Elsevier’s sharing policy” was
>         published just one week ago (on Wednesday May 20, 2015), it
>         has been signed by close to 700 organizations and individuals,
>         demonstrating that there is significant opposition to the
>         policy.
>         
>         
>         Elsevier has indicated that they “are always happy to have a
>         dialogue to discuss these, or any other, issues further.”  We
>         would like to offer the following concrete recommendations to
>         Elsevier to improve their policy:
>         
>              1. Elsevier should allow all authors to make their
>                 “author’s accepted manuscript” openly available
>                 immediately upon acceptance through an OA repository
>                 or other open access platform.
>                 
>              2. Elsevier should allow authors to choose the type of
>                 open license (from CC-BY to other more restrictive
>                 licenses like the CC-BY-NC-ND) they want to attach to
>                 the content that they are depositing into an open
>                 access platform.
>                 
>              3. Elsevier should not attempt to dictate author’s
>                 practices around individual sharing of articles.
>                 Individual sharing of journal articles is already a
>                 scholarly norm and is protected by fair use and other
>                 copyright exceptions. Elsevier cannot, and should not,
>                 dictate practices around individual sharing of
>                 articles.
>                 
>                 
>         We strongly encourage Elsevier to revise their policy in order
>         to better align with the interests of the research
>         community. We would also be pleased to meet to discuss these
>         recommendations with Elsevier at any time.
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         Kathleen Shearer, Executive Director, COAR
>         
>         
>         Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         > 
>         > 
>         > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 12:05 PM, Wise, Alicia
>         > (ELS-OXF) <A.Wise at elsevier.com> wrote:
>         > 
>         >         Hello everyone –
>         >         
>         >         
>         >          
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         Just a quick note to draw your attention to our
>         >         article, posted today in Elsevier Connect and in
>         >         response to yesterday’s statement by
>         >         COAR: http://www.elsevier.com/connect/coar-recting-the-record.  I’ll also append the full text of this response below.
>         >         
>         >         
>         >          
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         You might also be interested in this Library Connect
>         >         webinar on some of the new institutional repository
>         >         services we are piloting
>         >         (http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/articles/2015-01/webinar-institutional-research-repositories-characteristics-relationships-and-roles) and reading our policies for yourselves:
>         >         
>         >         
>         >          
>         >         
>         >                 
>         >               * Sharing
>         >                 – http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/article-posting-policy
>         >               * Hosting
>         >                 - http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/hosting
>         >                 
>         >          
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         With best wishes,
>         >         
>         >         Alicia
>         >         
>         >         COAR-recting the record
>         >         
>         >         We have received neutral-to-positive responses from
>         >         research institutions and the wider research
>         >         community. We are therefore a little surprised that
>         >         COAR has formed such a negative view, and chosen not
>         >         to feedback their concerns directly to us.  We would
>         >         like to correct the misperceptions.
>         >         
>         >         Our sharing policy is more liberal in supporting the
>         >         dissemination and use of research: 
>         >         
>         >               * At each stage of the publication process
>         >                 authors can share their research: before
>         >                 submission, from acceptance, upon
>         >                 publication, and post publication.  
>         >               * In institutional repositories, which no
>         >                 longer require a formal agreement to host
>         >                 full text content
>         >               * Authors can also share on commercial
>         >                 platforms such as social collaboration
>         >                 networks
>         >               * We provide new services to authors such as
>         >                 the share link which enables authors to post
>         >                 and share a customized link for 50 days free
>         >                 access to the final published article  
>         >               * For authors who want free immediate access
>         >                 to their articles, we continue to give all
>         >                 authors a choice to publish gold open access
>         >                 with a wide number of open access journals
>         >                 and over 1600 hybrid titles 
>         >         
>         >         Unlike the claims in this COAR document, the policy
>         >         changes are based on feedback from our authors and
>         >         institutional partners, they are evidence-based, and
>         >         they are in alignment with the STM article sharing
>         >         principles.  They introduce absolutely no changes in
>         >         our embargo periods.  And they are not intended to
>         >         suddenly embargo and make inaccessible content
>         >         currently available to readers – as we have already
>         >         communicated in Elsevier Connect.
>         >         
>         >         In fact, we have been developing services, in
>         >         partnership with libraries, to help institutional
>         >         repositories track research output and display
>         >         content to their users. This includes:
>         >         
>         >         •      Sharing metadata: In order to showcase an
>         >         institutions’ work, an institutional repository must
>         >         identify their institution’s research output. By
>         >         integrating the ScienceDirect metadata API into the
>         >         repository, this task becomes simple. Even in cases
>         >         where the repository doesn’t hold the full text
>         >         manuscript, the article information and abstract can
>         >         be displayed..
>         >         
>         >         •      Sharing user access information and embedding
>         >         final articles: We are testing a workflow in which a
>         >         user’s access level to the full text is checked on
>         >         the fly, and if full text access is available, the
>         >         user will be served the final published version,
>         >         instead of the preprint or manuscript hosted by the
>         >         repository. Users who are not entitled to view the
>         >         full text of the final article will be led to the
>         >         version available in the repository, or- if this is
>         >         not available- to a page where they can view the
>         >         first page of the article and options for accessing
>         >         it (including via interlibrary loan). This ensures
>         >         that users will always be served the best available
>         >         version. This also enables the repository to display
>         >         the best available version to their users even if no
>         >         self-archived manuscript is available.
>         >         
>         >         We have not only updated our policies, we are active
>         >         in developing and delivering technology that enables
>         >         research to be shared more widely.
>         >         
>         >         COAR states that the addition of a CC-BY-NC-ND
>         >         license is unhelpful.  Feedback suggests that
>         >         clarity about how manuscripts can be used is
>         >         welcome, when asked in surveys often choose NC ND of
>         >         their own volition (see the T&F study from 2014
>         >         athttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/explore/open-access-survey-june2014.pdf ), and it works across a broad range of use cases.
>         >         
>         >         Our refreshed policies are about green OA, and some
>         >         elements of this – for example the use of embargo
>         >         periods – are specifically for green OA when it is
>         >         operating in tandem with the subscription business
>         >         model.  Here time is needed for the subscription
>         >         model to operate as libraries will understandably
>         >         not subscribe if this material is available
>         >         immediately and for free. 
>         >         
>         >         In closing, we appreciate an open dialogue and are
>         >         always happy to have a dialogue to discuss these, or
>         >         any other, issues further. 
>         >         
>         >         Dr Alicia Wise
>         >         
>         >         Director of Access and Policy
>         >         
>         >         Elsevier I The Boulevard I Langford Lane I
>         >         Kidlington I Oxford I OX5 1GB
>         >         
>         >         M: +44 (0) 7823 536 826 I E: a.wise at elsevier.com
>         >         
>         >         Twitter: @wisealic
>         >         
>         >         
>         >          
>         >         
>         >          
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         ____________________________________________________
>         >         
>         >         Elsevier Limited. Registered Office: The Boulevard,
>         >         Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, United
>         >         Kingdom, Registration No. 1982084, Registered in
>         >         England and Wales. 
>         >         
>         >         
>         >         
>         > 
>         > 
>         > 
>         > 
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