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We all know the Romeo Sherpa web site
(<a href="http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/">
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/</a> ) where academics display the policies
of hundreds of international publishers on author deposit of articles in
open archives at various stages of the workflow in the scientific
research/publication cycle. These criteria have been defined by the
academic world and are related to the explanation of good practice for
making research results accessible.<br><br>
One might have expected that Héloïse
(<a href="http://heloise.ccsd.cnrs.fr/" eudora="autourl">
http://heloise.ccsd.cnrs.fr/</a>) would be a French version of Romeo
Sherpa, but it is decidedly not. As recalled by Ghislaine Chartron (see
extract hereafter) it is under the control of French commercial
publishers (FCP). On a public server (see hereafter) FCP develop
their own viewpoints. FCP set up their own criteria in a way that tends
to dictate to researchers how they should publish and communicate their
results, see for example the policy for the journal "Revue
d'histoire littéraire de la France" (left menu "Auteurs"
> "Rechercher une revue") where they express their
view not only on Open archives but also on personal websites and even
Intranets (with a five year embargo) !<br><br>
A large majority of French commercial publishers have never been listed
in Romeo Sherpa. <br><br>
Relying on the usual pretext of French Language or difference, convenient
when leading an autarchic policy which seeks public funding for their
commercial business, FCP negotiated the opening of the Heloise site with
the French Minister of Research. They may have done it through the GFII
consortium, where private institutions are predominant, but also, very
surprisingly, a consortium in which one of the heads of the CNRS (Centre
Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique ; a very large public research
institution in France) sits on the governing body
(<a href="http://www.gfii.fr/fr/legfii/conseil-d-administration">
http://www.gfii.fr/fr/legfii/conseil-d-administration</a> ).<br><br>
In addition, it should be noted that Heloise web site is hosted by the
public institution CCSD
(<a href="http://ccsd.cnrs.fr/">http://ccsd.cnrs.fr/</a>, governed by the
CNRS) which controls and manages HAL
(<a href="http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/">
http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/</a>), the main national open archive,
upon which many other open archives depend.<br><br>
In order to come back to a situation where the publication /
dissemination of research results is under the responsibility of
researchers, we suggest that the design and control of Heloise should be
entirely in the hands of a scientific committe composed exclusively of
researchers and academics.<br><br>
This committee may ask all scientific publishers what their policies are
on author deposit of articles into open archives according to Romeo /
Sherpa classification. This information can then be translated and
incorporated into Romeo. The site should mainly display information about
good practice for providing open access to research results. It may also
emphasize the necessity for editorial boards of research journals to
require publishers to adopt copyright agreements (such as
<a href="http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/">
http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/</a> ), i.e. agreements where authors
keep full rights over their production.<br><br>
Thierry Chanier<br>
Clermont Université<br><br>
****** extract of Chartron email on ADBS list (adbs-info@listes.adbs.fr)
March 2012 ***************<br><br>
Le groupe du GFII-SNE qui a réuni éditeurs et documentalistes connait
bien l'initiative Sherpa, le projet Héloïse a été conçu pour palier
certaines lacunes de Sherpa:<br>
1. Ce sont les éditeurs qui déposent dans Héloïse et certifient
l'information (et non dans Sherpa)<br>
2. Héloïse a introduit un ensemble d'options demandées par les éditeurs
et non présentes dans Sherpa<br><br>
[…]<br><br>
Ghislaine Chartron<br><br>
********************************************<br>
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