Danny,
Some journals like to control the way information is being published about new
papers, and therefore impose a strict press embargo period (another embargo,
nothing to do with green OA embargo period). This sometime referred to as the
"Ingelfinger rule" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingelfinger_rule).
All of this is well orchestrated, with a press pack made available so that
coverage is reflecting accurately the research, and is advertised to authors as
the added value offered by the publishers if they chose to submit their paper
to them. This explains why you often see papers published in Nature, or
Science, all making the headlines of daily press on the same day. The downside
of course is that they do act as "gagging orders", which can make it tricky for
researchers to talk about their research once the paper has been accepted, but
not yet published (which can go for weeks/months).
One of the issues with the HEFCE requirement to add article metadata to a
repository at the acceptance stage, was that this could inadvertently breach
such publishers' embargo by release some (even if not much) information about
the paper ahead of time. I believe this is what your researcher is concerned
about. I am not sure that at this stage there is a way around it, but it would
deserve a wider conversation. Less traditional journals such as eLife have
deliberately done away with such embargo, and indeed encourage authors to
discuss their research as soon as they wish, which seems to be better aligned
with "open science" principles.
You'll find more details for the journal you named here
http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/embargo.html
http://www.nejm.org/page/author-center/embargo
http://www.cell.com/cell/authors#prepub
and eLife's policy
http://elifesciences.org/elife-news/authors-the-media-and-elife
Best wishes
Geraldine
Geraldine Clement-Stoneham
Knowledge and Information Manager
Medical Research Council
Tel: +44 (0) 207 395 2272
Mobile: +44 79 00 136 319
geraldine.clement-stone...@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk<mailto:geraldine.clement-stone...@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk>
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