[GOAL] In Defence of Elsevier

Stevan Harnad amsciforum at gmail.com
Wed May 27 18:42:49 BST 2015 

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 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/> 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
<http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/article-posting-policy#accepted-manuscript>


Authors can share their accepted manuscript:

*Immediately *


   - via their non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
      - by updating a preprint
      <http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/preprint_lightbox>
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
      <http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/lightbox-doi>.
      - Bear a CC-BY-NC-ND license – this is easy to do, click here
      <http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/lightbox_attach-a-user-license>
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
      <http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/hosting>.
      - 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
<http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/lightbox_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 <http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads> 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
> <http://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/121293/external-embargo-list.pdf> 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
> <https://www.elsevier.com/journal-authors/open-access/sponsored-articles> 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
> <http://oaspa.org/why-cc-by/> 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
> <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/9/11/16331/0655> 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
> <https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/advocacy-leadership/petition-against-elseviers-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
>> <http://www.elsevier.com/connect/elsevier-updates-its-policies-perspectives-and-services-on-article-sharing>
>> .
>>
>> 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 at
>> http://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.
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> GOAL mailing list
> GOAL at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> GOAL mailing list
> GOAL at eprints.org
> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20150527/62e20b62/attachment-0001.html

More information about the GOAL mailing list