[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)

Fri Sep 27 15:13:26 BST 2013

It seems to me that implicit in these discussions is the belief that
Elsevier keeps changing its self-archiving policy (first introduced in
2004). 

The question is whether that assumption is correct. 

Some maintain that the policy *has* changed. In 2011, for instance, the
Steering Committee for OpenAccess.SE issued a statement arguing that
Elsevier had done so.

http://www.kb.se/Docs/about/projects/openaccess/2011/St%C3%A4llningstagaElse
vier%20ENG%20_fin__cs%20recs.pdf

Elsevier, however, maintains that it has not changed its policy, only the
wording. Elsevier’s Alicia Wise responded to the above statement to this
effect here: http://liblicense.crl.edu/ListArchives/1106/msg00098.html.

Nevertheless, many still seem to believe that Elsevier has changed its
policy. In arguing this, they point out that the publisher has responded to
the growing number of OA mandates by introducing a requirement that
institutions and funders who have introduced a mandate sign “systematic
posting agreements” with Elsevier.

They also point out that at some point Elsevier introduced a note in its
author’s agreements stating: “authors at institutions that place
restrictions on copyright assignments or that assert an institutional right
to distribute or provide access to the works of institutional authors, must
obtain an express waiver from those institutions releasing the author from
such restrictions to enable the acceptance of this publishing agreement.”

List members may like to form their own judgement on these matters by
reviewing the following documents:

Elsevier’s original 2004 self-archiving policy:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040622091223/http:/www.elsevier.com/wps/find/au
thored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_00145

Elsevier’s current policy:

http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/article-posti
ng-policy#accepted-author-manuscript

An example of a journal’s Access & Posting Polices in which the need to
request a mandate waiver is expressed:

http://authors.elsevier.com/AccessPostingPolicies/CPM/English

I would welcome comments on these matters.

Richard Poynder

From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf
Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 25 September 2013 23:00
To: jisc-repositories; Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains
Fully Green)

On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:12 AM, Laurent Romary <laurent.romary at inria.fr
<mailto:laurent.romary at inria.fr> > wrote:

With all respect, Stevan, I am not sure it is worth answering publishers'
policy tricks with deposit hacks. The core question is: does Elsevier
fulfill, by making such statements, its duties as service provider in the
domain of scholarly communication. If not, we, as institutions, have to be
clear as to what we want, enforce the corresponding policy (i.e. we
determine what and in which way we want our publications to be disseminated)
and inform the communities accordingly. Such statements encourage us to
increase our communication towards researchers concerning predatory
behaviours. And this is one for sure.

Laurent

Easy to state the principle, Laurent, but not so easy to get institutions to
do it. I am interested in practical results: Effective Green OA Mandates,
not a constraint on authors' choice of journal, not to reform publishers,
nor to teach authors the facts of life.

Institutions and funders can and should all adopt immediate-deposit
mandates. Then there is the question of which immediate-deposits to make
immediate (unembargoed) OA.

This posting about Elsevier was to inform authors and institutions that
Elsevier is still Green, as it has been since 2004, and that they can and
should make their immediate-deposits immediately OA.

That is a clear, simple, doable message. 

Yours, I'm afraid, is not.

Let's agree to this: Institutions and funders can and should all adopt
immediate-deposit mandates. They can and should make all their Elsevier
immediate-deposits immediate OA.

Having done all that, they can follow your advice too, about what to do if
they feel "Elsevier is not fulfilling its duties as a service provider" (if
they can figure out what, exactly, it entails their doing -- and if they
feel like doing it: (1) Immediate OA (already covered above)? (2) Don't
publish with Elsevier? (3) Cancel Elsevier?

Stevan Harnad

Le 25 sept. 2013 à 07:56, Stevan Harnad a écrit :

Here's Elsevier's latest revision of the wording of its author rights
agreement stating what rights Elsevier authors retain for their "Accepted
Author Manuscript [AAM]
<http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/author-rights-and-responsibilities?
a=105167#accepted-author-manuscript> ".

Elsevier believes that individual authors should be able to distribute their
AAMs [Accepted Author Manuscripts] for their personal voluntary needs and
interests, e.g. posting to their websites or their institution’s repository,
e-mailing to colleagues. However, our policies differ regarding the
systematic aggregation or distribution of AAMs... Therefore, deposit in, or
posting to, subject-oriented or centralized repositories (such as PubMed
Central), or institutional repositories with systematic posting mandates is
permitted only under specific agreements between Elsevier and the
repository, agency or institution, and only consistent with the publisher’s
policies concerning such repositories. Voluntary posting of AAMs in the
arXiv subject repository is permitted.

Please see my prior analyses of this  <http://j.mp/ElsevierDoubletalk>
Elsevier double-talk about authors retaining the right to make their AAMs OA
in their institutional repositories "voluntarily," but not if their
institutions mandate it "systematically." Here's a summary: 

1. The author-side distinction between an author's self-archiving
voluntarily and mandatorily is pseudo-legal nonsense: Authors can truthfully
safely assert that whatever they do, they do "voluntarily." 

2. The institution-side distinction between voluntary and "systematic"
self-archiving by authors has nothing to do with rights agreements between
the author and Elsevier: It is an attempt by Elsevier to create a
contingency between (a) its "Big Deal" journal pricing negotiations with an
institution and (b) that institution's self-archiving policies. Institutions
should of course decline to discuss their self-archiving policies in any way
in their pricing negotiations with any publisher.

3. "Systematicity" (if it means anything at all) means systematically
collecting, reconstructing and republishing the contents of a journal --
presumably on the part of a rival, free-riding publisher, hurting the
original publisher's revenues; this would constitute a copyright violation
on the part of the rival systematic, free-riding publisher, not the author:
An institution does nothing of the sort (any more than an individual
self-archiving author does). The institutional repository contains only the
institution's own tiny random fragment of any individual journal's annual
contents.

All of the above is in any case completely mooted if an institution adopts
the
<https://www.google.be/?gws_rd=cr&ei=HXZCUoeuCM3HsgbIioG4Cg#q=%22immediate-d
eposit%22+harnad+mandate> ID/OA mandate, because that mandate only requires
that the deposit be made immediately, not that it be made OA immediately.
(If the author wishes to comply with a publisher OA embargo policy --which
Elsevier does not have -- the repository's "Almost-OA"
<https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy> eprint-request
Button can tide over researcher needs during any OA embargo with one click
from the requestor and one click from the author.)

Stevan Harnad

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GOAL at eprints.org <mailto:GOAL at eprints.org> 
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Laurent Romary

INRIA & HUB-IDSL

 <mailto:laurent.romary at inria.fr> laurent.romary at inria.fr

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