[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
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. Elseviers 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 authors 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: Elseviers original 2004 self-archiving policy: http://web.archive.org/web/20040622091223/http:/www.elsevier.com/wps/find/au thored_newsitem.cws_home/companynews05_00145 Elseviers current policy: http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/article-posti ng-policy#accepted-author-manuscript An example of a journals 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-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@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.rom...@inria.fr mailto:laurent.rom...@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
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
With all respect, Stevan, I am not sure it is worth answering publishers' policy tricks with deposit hacks. The core question is: does Elsevier fulfills, 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 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]. 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 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 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 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 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal Laurent Romary INRIA HUB-IDSL laurent.rom...@inria.fr ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Laurent Romary laurent.rom...@inria.frwrote: With all respect, Stevan, I am not sure it is worth answering publishers' policy tricks with deposit hacks. The core question is: does Elsevier fulfills, 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. I agree with Laurent. We should assert our rights and - if we could act coherently - we would be able to get them implemented. There is no legal reason why we cannot assert a zero-month embargo - we are just afraid of the publishers rather than believers in our own power. (It wouldn't hurt the publishers as repositories are not yet a credible resource for bulk readership). Libraries (including Cambridge) seem to sign any contract the publisher puts in front of them - they only challenge price, not use and re-use. In a recent mail on OA the process on Green (paraphrased) was we'll see what embargo periods the publishers mandate [and then enforce them]. whereas it should have been we - the world - demand access to knowledge and will not accept embargos. That's a clear starting point. I could believe in Green OA if it were boldly carried out and repositories actually worked for readers (including machines). As it is we have nearly OA - i.e. not visible. And OA/ID - visible at some unspecified time in the future. If the OA community could get a single clear goal then it might start to be effective for the #scholarlypoor, such as Jack Andraka whose parents buy him pay per view for medical papers. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
It is good that Stevan keeps an eye on publisher policies for us, and it is also good that Peter reminds us that universities do have the power to say no to publishers. Stevan is correct that the distinction Elsevier and other publishers attempt to draw between mandated and non-mandated self-archiving is nonsense, and their policy should be resisted. Peter's complaint that libraries do not challenge use or re-use clauses in contracts is not absolutely true, but libraries certainly do not push such issues as strongly as they could or should. When I was involved in big deal negotiations I regularly said that we should say no to an unsatisfactory deal but nobody else was willing to go that far. And yet a very senior publisher once told me that librarians have much more power than they realise. However, librarians cannot bear all of the blame for giving in too easily. My hard stance received no backing from senior academics, and no librarian can refuse to sign an unsatisfactory contract unless they know that they have solid support from within their university. Of course Elsevier and other publishers know this and that is why they want to conclude deals with senior university management, who will probably agree to unsatisfactory clauses even more readily than the librarians. I am sorry to be cynical, but the academic community gets the contracts it deserves. We have to learn to say no and really mean it. Fred Friend Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL From: goal-boun...@eprints.org goal-boun...@eprints.org on behalf of Peter Murray-Rust pm...@cam.ac.uk Sent: 25 September 2013 09:15 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Cc: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum; jisc-repositories Subject: [GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green) On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 8:12 AM, Laurent Romary laurent.rom...@inria.frmailto:laurent.rom...@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 fulfills, 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. I agree with Laurent. We should assert our rights and - if we could act coherently - we would be able to get them implemented. There is no legal reason why we cannot assert a zero-month embargo - we are just afraid of the publishers rather than believers in our own power. (It wouldn't hurt the publishers as repositories are not yet a credible resource for bulk readership). Libraries (including Cambridge) seem to sign any contract the publisher puts in front of them - they only challenge price, not use and re-use. In a recent mail on OA the process on Green (paraphrased) was we'll see what embargo periods the publishers mandate [and then enforce them]. whereas it should have been we - the world - demand access to knowledge and will not accept embargos. That's a clear starting point. I could believe in Green OA if it were boldly carried out and repositories actually worked for readers (including machines). As it is we have nearly OA - i.e. not visible. And OA/ID - visible at some unspecified time in the future. If the OA community could get a single clear goal then it might start to be effective for the #scholarlypoor, such as Jack Andraka whose parents buy him pay per view for medical papers. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
Thanks Fred, At one level it is true that we get the contracts we deserve, but only if the issues are known. And the #scholarlypoor does not get the contracts it deserves. Peter's complaint that libraries do not challenge use or re-use clauses in contracts is not absolutely true, I give two examples - DRM (Digital Rights Management) and TDM (text and data mining). Libraries (including national libraries) have widely agreed to practices that restrict access to and re-use of information. But these issues were unknown to me and the general public before the contracts were signed and the practices implemented. My libraries has signed rights with major publishers that drastically restrict my rights to re-use the information (via TDM) that my library has paid for. No one consulted me and I doubt it anyone consulted a university board or committee. (I might use FOI to find out - anyone can do it). Yet this was done in secret because the publishers insist on secrecy and the libraries agree. Whereas prices may be secrecy sensitive there is no justification for not consulting on rights before signing. Libraries should advertise what they are being asked to sign - only in that way do I have any moral responsibility as an academic. And yet a very senior publisher once told me that librarians have much more power than they realise. Yes, but many librarians see their business with publishers as a fundamental part of their existence. One librarian came to me enthusiastically isn't it wonderful - we can pay for TR's data citation index. [my view is we should be building our own data citation index, not handing control to commercial interests and I am trying to do part of it]. Another anecdote - when asked by an academic to publish his/her dataset we cannot archive academic datasets - our role is to buy datasets from publishers. However, librarians cannot bear all of the blame for giving in too easily. My hard stance received no backing from senior academics, and no librarian can refuse to sign an unsatisfactory contract unless they know that they have solid support from within their university. Of course Elsevier and other publishers know this and that is why they want to conclude deals with senior university management, who will probably agree to unsatisfactory clauses even more readily than the librarians. I have no idea which part of my university signed away my rights. I know it was the librarians in UBC who did a deal with Elsevier to agree to give up Heather Piwowar's rights to TDM and negotiate on a case-by-case basis. I am sorry to be cynical, but the academic community gets the contracts it deserves. We have to learn to say no and really mean it. The #scholarlypoor does not get the contracts it deserves. The issues have to be out in the open. -- Peter Murray-Rust Reader in Molecular Informatics Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry University of Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK +44-1223-763069 ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
Friend, Fred writes I am sorry to be cynical, but the academic community gets the contracts it deserves. We have to learn to say no and really mean it. Say no to what? And how will you make sure what you say is matched by what you do? -- Cheers, Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel skype:thomaskrichel ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
As a reminder, here is how at least some of us academics are saying no to Elsevier, the Cost of Knowledge boycott: http://thecostofknowledge.com/ Signing on to and then acting on the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment is a good step to push back against the impact factor game which makes it difficult for so many academics to say no even knowing we should: http://am.ascb.org/dora/ best, Heather Morrison On 2013-09-25, at 5:42 AM, Thomas Krichel kric...@openlib.org wrote: Friend, Fred writes I am sorry to be cynical, but the academic community gets the contracts it deserves. We have to learn to say no and really mean it. Say no to what? And how will you make sure what you say is matched by what you do? -- Cheers, Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel skype:thomaskrichel ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
Heather Morrison writes As a reminder, here is how at least some of us academics are saying no to Elsevier, the Cost of Knowledge boycott: http://thecostofknowledge.com/ Individual academics have little incentives to carry out a threat like this. And this is specific to Elsevier when other publishers are just as expensive. The only ones who have clout here are libraries. They can cancel subscriptions. It's the only message publishers will understand. Cheers, Thomas Krichel http://openlib.org/home/krichel skype:thomaskrichel ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: Elsevier Keeps Revising Its Double-Talk (But Remains Fully Green)
On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:12 AM, Laurent Romary laurent.rom...@inria.frwrote: 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 Elsevier double-talkhttp://j.mp/ElsevierDoubletalk 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 ID/OA mandatehttps://www.google.be/?gws_rd=crei=HXZCUoeuCM3HsgbIioG4Cg#q=%22immediate-deposit%22+harnad+mandate, because that mandate only requires that the deposit be made immediately, not that it be made OA immediately. (If the
