[GOAL] More Fallout From Finch Folly: Springer Silliness

Tue Jun 18 17:02:49 BST 2013

On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 5:49 AM, Didier Pélaprat
<didier.pelaprat at inserm.fr>wrote:

> Thank you Stevan, ****
>
> for your always clear explanations, straightforward analyses … and very
> practical solutions.
>

Dear Didier, here is an updated version with links, plus the reply to
another (anonymous) query received subsequently.

SH

*More Fallout From Finch Folly: Springer
Silliness*<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1013-More-Fallout-From-Finch-Folly-Springer-Silliness.html>

*On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 3:42 PM, Didier Pélaprat wrote on
GOAL<http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2013-June/001905.html>
:*

***"Springer, which defined itself some months ago as a "green publisher"
in an advertisement meeting to which they invited us (they call that
"information" meeting) and did not ask any embargo for institutional open
repositories (there was only an embargo for the repositories of funders
with a mandate), now changed its policy (they call this a "new
wording<http://www.springer.com/open+access/authors+rights?SGWID=0-176704-12-683201-0>")
with a 12-month embargo for all Open repositories.

This is now displayed in
Sherpa/Romeo<http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php?id=74&fIDnum=|&mode=simple&la=en>.
It was stated that this new policy was settled "in reaction to the US,
Europe and RCUK policy".

I figured out that this would make some "buzz", but for the moment I did
not see any reaction. Did you hear of one?*"

------------------------------

No buzz, because the change is inconsequential:

"Authors may self-archive the author’s accepted manuscript of their
articles on their own websites. Authors may also deposit this version of
the article in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available
12 months after official publication or
later<http://www.springer.com/open+access/authors+rights?SGWID=0-176704-12-683201-0>
."

*1. There is no difference between the authors' "own websites" and their
own institution's "repository." *

Authors' websites are sectors of their own institution's diskspace, and
their institutional repository is a sector of their own institution's
diskspace. Way back in 2003 U. Southampton had already laid this
nonsensical pseudo-legal distinction to rest pre-emptively by formally
declaring their authors' sector of their institutional repository their
personal website:

"3e. Copyright agreements may state that eprints can be archived on your
personal homepage. As far as publishers are concerned, the EPrint Archive
is a part of the Department's infrastructure for your personal
homepage.<http://roarmap.eprints.org/1/>
"

*2. As to institution-external OA repositories, many green publishers try
to forbid them, but this too is futile nonsense: External repositories can
simply link to the full-text in the institutional repository. *

Indeed this has always been the main reason I have been strongly advocating
for years that self-archiving mandates should always stipulate
institutional deposit rather than institution-external
deposit<http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#q=institutional+central+deposit+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=active&hl=en&tbm=blg&tbas=0&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=jHe_UbP0CKXH0gH1m4HgDw&ved=0CBsQpwUoAA&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47883778,d.dmQ&fp=e842c107f9c204e7&biw=1136&bih=788>.
(Springer or any publisher has delusions, however, if they think any of
their pseudo-legal double-talk can get physicists who have been
self-archiving directly in Arxiv
<http://arxiv.org/show_monthly_submissions> for
over two decades to change their ways!)

*3. But, yes, Finch/RCUK's persistence in its foolish, thoughtless and
heedless policy is indeed having its perverse consequences, exactly as
predicted<http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html>,
in the form of more and more of this formalistic FUD from publishers
regarding Green OA embargoes.*

Fortunately, HEFCE/REF<http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#lr=&c2coff=1&safe=active&hl=en&tbm=blg&sclient=psy-ab&q=hefce+ref+blogurl:http%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&oq=hefce+ref+blogurl:http%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&gs_l=serp.3...968901.970989.1.971714.9.9.0.0.0.1.173.950.5j4.9.0...0.0...1c.1.17.psy-ab.CCrY4O5668o&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47883778,d.dmQ&fp=e842c107f9c204e7&biw=1136&bih=788>
has
taken heed. If their proposed immediate-(institutional)-deposit mandate is
adopted, not only is all this publisher FUD mooted, but it increases the
likelihood that other OA mandates. too, will be upgraded to HEFCE's
date-stamped immediate-deposit as the mechanism for submitting articles to
institutional research performance review or national research assessment.

*4. If a publisher says you may self-archive without embargo if you do it
voluntarily, but not if your funder requires you to do it: Do it, and, if
ever asked, say, hand on heart, "I did it voluntarily."*

This ploy, which Springer too seems to have borrowed from
Elsevier<http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#q=elsevier+double-talk+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=active&hl=en&tbm=blg&tbas=0&source=lnt&sa=X&ei=jn_AUcSFPIX94APIo4GQDg&ved=0CBsQpwUoAA&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47883778,d.dmg&fp=e842c107f9c204e7&biw=1136&bih=788>,
consisting of pseudo-legal double-talk implying that
"you may deposit immediately if you needn't, but not if you must" is pure
FUD and can and should be completely ignored. (Any author foolish enough to
be taken in by such double-talk deserves all the needless usage and impact
losses they will get!)

If there's to be "buzz," let the facts and contingencies at least be got
straight!

------------------------------

*Off-line query from [identity removed]:*

*"This email expresses my current confusion about green open access and
Springer. Forgive my concreteness, but I don’t “get it.” I now self-archive
my publications on sites such as
ResearchGate<https://www.researchgate.net/home.Home.html>
 and academia.edu.

"I simply don’t understand the Springer mandate! Can you refer me to some
text somewhere which expresses all of this in really plain English?"*

Springer says you can self-archive your final, refereed draft on your own
website (which includes your institutional repository) immediately, without
embargo.

Springer also says that in institution-external repositories you can only
deposit it after a 12-month embargo.

This means, technically and formally, that ResearchGate or academia.edu can
*link to* the full text in the institutional repository, but they cannot *
host* the full text itself till after the 12-month embargo.

(In principle, RG/AE could also link to the Closed Access deposit during
the embargo, thereby enhancing the scope of the institutional
repository's eprint-request
Button<http://www.google.ca/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=button+request+open+access&oq=button+request+open+access&gs_l=hp.3..33i29i30l2.3451.11029.0.11173.26.22.0.4.4.0.314.2607.8j13j0j1.22.0...0.0...1c.1.17.psy-ab.CZJCFxwTyDE&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47883778,d.dmQ&fp=5cec2c936a07764f&biw=1136&bih=788>
.)

But the practical fact is that *there's nothing much that Springer or
anyone can do about authors sharing their own papers before the embargo
elapses through social sharing sites* like RG or AE or others. Publishers'
only recourse is send individual take-down notices to RG/AE, with which
RG/AE can duly comply -- only to have the authors put them right back up
again soon after.

OA is unstoppable, if authors want it, and they do. They're all just being
too slow about realizing it, and doing it (as the computer scientists and
physicists saw and did 20 years ago, no questions asked).

That's why the OA mandates <http://roarmap.eprints.org/> are needed. And
they're coming...

SH
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