On Sat, 29 Jan 2000, Diana Deutsch wrote:
> I just noticed that you listed Nature as a journal that does not have
> embargo policies. However, they write in their Instructions to
> Contributors that authors need to state with their submissions that the
> work they report has not been disseminated in any way (for example, no
> press releases). Recently I decided not to submit a recent finding to
> Nature for publication, because the work had received considerable media
> attention following a talk I gave at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of
> America, and a lay-language version that the ASA (indeed a branch of the
> enlightened AIP) posted for this meeting.
>
> I'd be grateful if you had any information about
> Nature's 'real' policy on this.
It seems to me that based on Nature's own announced Embargo Policy
<
http://www.nature.com/author/embargo.html>, you had no reason not
to submit it to Nature anyway:
Nature does not wish to hinder communication between scientists.
For that reason, different embargo guidelines apply to work that
has been discussed at a conference or displayed on a preprint
server and picked up by the media as a result. (Neither
conferences nor preprint servers constitute prior publication.)
Our guidelines for authors and potential authors in such
circumstances are clear-cut in principle: communicate with other
researchers as much as you wish, but do not encourage premature
publication by discussion with the press (beyond your formal
presentation, if at a conference).
Science's policy is much more regressive insofar as online self-archiving
of preprints is concerned, and that difference is crucial here:
<
http://www.sciencemag.org/misc/con-info.shtml#prior>
Science will not consider any paper or component of a paper that
has been published or is under consideration for publication
elsewhere. Distribution on the Internet may be considered
previously published material and may compromise the originality
of the paper as a submission to Science.
However, they too are reasonable when it comes to inadvertent press
coverage of a conference by the media.
In addition, the main findings of a paper should not have been
reported in the mass media. Authors are, however, permitted to
present their data at open meetings but should not overtly seek
media attention. Specifically, authors should decline
participation in news briefings or coverage in press releases and
should refrain from giving interviews or copies of the figures or
data from their presentation or from the manuscript to any
reporter unless the reporter agrees to abide by Science's press
embargo. If a reporter attends an author's session at a meeting
and writes a story based only on the presentation, such coverage
will not affect Science's consideration of the author's paper.
I might add that I see nothing objectionable about Nature and
Science's press embargos: Authors should not seek press coverage for
unrefereed findings. But there is zero justification for trying to
prevent the online self-archiving of unrefereed preprints for
fellow-researchers. (And, a fortiori, less than zero justification for
trying to prevent the online self-archiving of REFEREED reprints, which
Science also does. I am not sure what Nature's current policy is on
this.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stevan Harnad harnad_at_cogsci.soton.ac.uk
Professor of Cognitive Science harnad_at_princeton.edu
Department of Electronics and phone: +44 23-80 592-582
Computer Science fax: +44 23-80 592-865
University of Southampton
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/
Highfield, Southampton
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
NOTE: A complete archive of this ongoing discussion of "Freeing the
Refereed Journal Literature Through Online Self-Archiving" is available
at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99):
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT