Re: Open Access and ISI-indexed journals and articles

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 12:17:51 +0000

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004, C.Oppenheim wrote:

> I am with David on this one. There are some publishers who are still very
> aggressive on copyright and Stevan's approach is close to incitement to
> infringe their copyright, which is an offence in many jurisdictions.
>
> Sorry Stevan, I know this is a bore, but a more softly, softly approach is
> necessary - such as the Oppenheim-Harnad solution (so-called).

Here is the algorithm, written out long-hand:

    (1) Author looks up the journal's self-archiving policy in
    http://romeo.eprints.org/

    (2) If journal is (postprint) green, self-archive final refereed draft
    (postprint).

    (3) If journal is (preprint) pale-green, use the so-called Oppenheim-Harnad
    strategy (preprint + corrigenda)
    http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/#copyright1

    (4a) If the journal is gray (8%), self-archive preprint + corrigenda
    and inform the journal.

    (4b) If the journal responds to (4a) with an objection, negotiate or remove.

(Peter [Suber], if my memory does not fail me, you too have recommended
something along the lines of 4a/4b: Is there a URL?)

Compare this algorithm with the "Subversive Proposal" of 10 years ago (and
actual journal-author practice, since the dawn of the Internet):

    "If every esoteric [read: refereed-journal-article] author in the
    world this very day established a globally accessible local ftp
    archive for every piece of esoteric [read: author give-away] writing
    from this day forward... [and hence]

    "If all scholars' preprints were universally available to all
    scholars by anonymous ftp (and gopher, and World-Wide Web, and
    the search/retrieval wonders of the future), NO scholar would ever
    consent to WITHDRAW any preprint of his from the public eye after
    the refereed version was accepted for paper "PUBLICation." Instead,
    everyone would, quite naturally, substitute the refereed, published
    reprint for the unrefereed preprint."

    Harnad, Stevan (1995) Universal FTP Archives for Esoteric Science and
    Scholarship: A Subversive Proposal. In: Ann Okerson & James O'Donnell
    (Eds.) Scholarly Journals at the Crossroads; A Subversive Proposal
    for Electronic Publishing. Washington, DC., Association of Research
    Libraries, June 1995. http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/

The only refinement since has been "add the corrigenda" in place of
"swap the reprint" (a good practice in any case, because it is better
for the scholarly record not to remove but to add).

(Note: The "don't-ask/don't-tell" strategy was not being *recommended* but simply
described as the de-facto practice of many authors for over a decade and a half.
No incitement-to-infringe here...)

Stevan Harnad
Received on Wed Nov 03 2004 - 12:17:51 GMT

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