[GOAL] Double-Clicking Instead of Double-Paying

[Stevan Harnad]

Jack Stilgoe ("*Open Access
Inaction*<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2013/jun/18/science-policy>
," *Guardian* 18 June 2013) has the indignation but not the information:

*1.* UCL has a Green OA Self-Archiving Mandate<http://roarmap.eprints.org/138/>
:

*In May 2009, UCL Academic Board agreed two principles to underpin UCL’s
publication activity and to support its scholarly mission:

-- That, copyright permissions allowing, a copy of all research outputs
should be deposited in the UCL repository in Open Access

-- That individual UCL academic researchers should be directly responsible
for providing and maintaining details of their publications in relevant UCL
databases so as to support both Open Access and the requirement for UCL to
keep an accurate record of its research outputs

UCL, therefore, has a ‘Green’ Open Access policy, by which copies of UCL
research are deposited in UCL Discovery <http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/>, UCL’s
Open Access repository. This UCL policy informs UCL’s approach to the open
access requirements of research funders.*

*2.* Elsevier's self-archiving policy is "Green," meaning all Elsevier
authors retain the right to make their final, refereed drafts OA
immediately (without embargo) by self-archiving them in their institutional
repository.

*3. *The Elsevier self-archiving
policy<http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/green-open-access>
contains
double-talk to the effect that "authors may self-archive without embargo if
they wish but not if they must":

*"Accepted author manuscripts (AAM): Immediate posting and dissemination of
AAM’s is allowed to personal websites, to institutional repositories, or to
arXiv. However, if your institution has an open access policy or mandate
that requires you to post, Elsevier requires an agreement to be in place
which respects the journal-specific embargo periods."*

The "agreement" in question is not with the author, but with the author's
institution. Unless UCL has been foolish enough to sign such an agreement
(in order to get a better deal on Elsevier subscription prices), authors
can of course completely ignore this absurd
clause<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=4qnBUaHsOtO14AO7q4GgAw&ved=0CBsQpwUoAA&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47883778,d.dmQ&fp=e842c107f9c204e7&biw=1137&bih=690>
.

*4. *Even if UCL has foolishly signed such an agreement with Elsevier, the
refereed final draft can nevertheless be deposited immediately, with access
set as Closed Access instead of Open Access during the embargo. During that
period, the UCL repository's facilitated eprint request
Button<https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy> can
provide Almost-OA almost-instantly with one click from the requester and
then one click from the author.

*5. *Surely even double-clicking is preferable to double-paying Elsevier
(subscription plus Gold OA fees), as RCUK/Finch foolishly prefers? Even if
"robust knowledge is expensive to curate" (which is false) surely it
needn't be that expensive...

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).

Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2012) Open
Access Mandates and the "Fair Dealing"
Button<http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18511/>.
In: *Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online* (Rosemary J.
Coombe & Darren Wershler, Eds.)
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