[GOAL] Re: Elsevier updates it article-sharing policies, perspectives and services

[Stevan Harnad]

On May 1, 2015, at 7:30 AM, Wise, Alicia (ELS-OXF) <A.Wise at elsevier.com>
> wrote:
> Dear Stevan –
>
> Elsevier supports the need for researchers to share their research and
> collaborate effectively. In light of the recent STM consultation on the
> principles for article sharing,
> <http://www.stm-assoc.org/stm-consultations/scn-consultation-2015/> I
> wanted to reach out to you directly to let you know about some changes we
> are making which will enable Elsevier published content to be shared more
> widely. To underpin these efforts we have updated our approach – informed
> by very constructive input from institutions, authors and funders we work
> with - and are now launching new guidelines. I invite you to read our
> article hosting <https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/hosting/_nocache>
>  and article sharing
> <http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/article-posting-policy> guidelines
> on Elsevier.com <http://elsevier.com/>.
>
> We have published an article on Elsevier Connect
> <http://www.elsevier.com/connect/elsevier-updates-its-policies-perspectives-and-services-on-article-sharing>,
> our online communication platform to explain some further details behind
> the changes and the new technologies and exciting pilots we are deploying
> to facilitate sharing. As always, we welcome comments or suggestions, and
> are happy to discuss any questions or concerns.  Please do not hesitate to
> contact me.
>
> With very kind wishes,
>
> Alicia
>
> Key highlights
>
>    - We continue to support sharing of preprints, accepted manuscripts,
>    and final publications and provide simple guidelines for authors about how
>    they can share at each stage of their workflow.
>
>
>    - We are providing a range of options for researchers to share their
>    work publicly, including a newShare Links
>    <http://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/share-link> service which
>    provides 50 days free access to the final article on ScienceDirect.
>
>
>    - We are making it clear that we want to work with hosting platforms,
>    such as institutional repositories, to make sharing easy and seamless for
>    researchers.  We will no longer require an agreement with institutional
>    repositories and instead clarify that self-archived accepted manuscripts
>    can be used under a CC-BY-NC-ND license and that they can be hosted and
>    shared privately during the embargo and publically shared after embargo.
>
>
>    - We are also providing a wider range of ways for researchers to share
>    their work privately during the journal’s embargo period, such as in
>    private workgroups on sites such as Mendeley and MyScienceWork.
>
>
> 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*


Dear Alicia,

I've looked over the latest Elsevier revision of its policy on author OA
self-archiving, as requested.

The essential points of the latest policy revision are two:

*I.* Elsevier still endorses both immediate-deposit and immediate-OA, for
the pre-refereeing preprint, anywhere (author's institutional home page,
author's institutional repository, Arxiv, etc.).

*II.* Elsevier still endorses immediate-deposit and immediate-OA for the
refereed postprint on the author's home page or in Arxiv, *but
not immediate-OA in the author's institutional repository, where OA is
embargoed.*


You asked for my comments. Here they are:

(1) Elsevier should state quite explicitly that its latest revision of its
policy on author OA self-archiving has taken a very specific step backward
from the policy first adopted in 2004
<http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/3771.html>:

*An author may post his version of the final paper on his personal web
site *
*and on his institution's web site (including its institutional
respository). *
*Each posting should include the article's citation and a link to the *
*journal's home page (or the article's DOI). The author does not need our *
*permission to do this, but any other posting (e.g. to a repository *
*elsewhere) would require our permission. By "his version" we are
referring *
*to his Word or Tex file, not a PDF or HTML downloaded from ScienceDirect
- *
*but the author can update his version to reflect changes made during the *
*refereeing and editing process. Elsevier will continue to be the single, *
*definitive archive for the formal published version. *


Elsevier has withdrawn its endorsement of immediate-OA in the author's
institutional repository. It's best not to try to conceal this in language
that makes it sound as if Elsevier is taking positive steps in response to
the demand for OA.

(2) The distinction between the author's institutional home page and the
author's institutional repository is completely arbitrary and empty. Almost
no one consults either a home page or a repository directly. The deposits
and links are simply *harvested* by Google and Google Scholar (and other
harvesters), and that's where users search and retrieve them. (Hence all an
institution need do is designate the institutional disk sector containing
the author's publicatiosn in the "repository" to be part of the author's
"home page.")

(3) If an author (foolishly) decides to comply with an Elsevier OA embargo,
there is the automated copy-request Button, with which the author can
provide a copy almost-immediately, with one click from the requestor and
one click from the author. (Elsevier's reputation is not enhanced by the
fact that many users and authors will now have to do two extra clicks to
get a copy, because Elsevier was not happy to let them do it with one
click.)

My advice is accordingly to go back to the original 2004 policy. You had it
right the first time. The rest has only muddied Elsevier's reputation.

With best wishes,

Stevan
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