Re: Repository: publication or archive?

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:22:03 +0100

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Warburton, Lisa wrote:

> Here at NTU we are trying to sort out our repository policies regarding
> submission, metadata etc and we've used the OpenDOAR policy framework as
> a starting point. What has caused considerable debate is the statement
> found in the Data Policy "This repository is not the publisher; it is
> merely the online archive." Are we the only ones who've struggled with
> this? The EPrints FAQs
> (http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10635/01/index.html#self-archiving-vs-publ
> ication) on self-archiving quite strongly says that self deposit is
> not publishing, but s175 of CDPA says, if I've interpreted it correctly,
> that making copies available to the public by means of an electronic
> retrieval system is publishing. Your thoughts, decisions and reasons
> for those decisions would be most welcome!

The answer is very simple:

(1) For academic purposes (CVs, promotion, etc.) putting something on
the web is certainly not publishing. You cannot list a paper that has
merely been put on the web under "Published Articles."

(2) An article that has already been published has already been
published. Hence putting it on the web is not publishing it, not even
re-publishing it, but merely providing access to it -- just as putting it
up on your bulletin board would be.

(3) For the purposes of asserting copyright to a work, however, putting
it on a piece of paper, a bulletin board, or the web is enough in order
to assert copyright. (This is especially useful for asserting copyright
as well as primacy for the text.) This too is called "publishing" in a
legal sense (but it still does not mean you can call an unpublished
preprint that you have put on the web a "publication" on your CV).

(4) For published postprints, the optimal policy, the one that moots all
legal worries of the kind Lisa probably has in mind, is this:
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html

    (4a) Deposit *all* published postprints, regardless of copyright
    agreement or publisher policy, in your Institutional Repository (IR).

    (4b) For those of the postprints published in the 62% of journals that
    are Green on immediate Open Access Self-Archiving by their authors,
    set access to all of those deposits as Open Access.
    http://romeo.eprints.org/stats.php

    (4b) For the remaining 38%, set access as Closed Access (and let
    the IR's "Email Eprint Request" Button tide over any would-be user
    needs during any embargo period).
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/274-guid.html

Stevan Harnad
AMERICAN SCIENTIST OPEN ACCESS FORUM:
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
tml
    http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/

UNIVERSITIES and RESEARCH FUNDERS:
If you have adopted or plan to adopt a policy of providing Open Access
to your own research article output, please describe your policy at:
    http://www.eprints.org/signup/sign.php
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html

OPEN-ACCESS-PROVISION POLICY:
    BOAI-1 ("Green"): Publish your article in a suitable toll-access journal
    http://romeo.eprints.org/
OR
    BOAI-2 ("Gold"): Publish your article in an open-access journal if/when
    a suitable one exists.
    http://www.doaj.org/
AND
    in BOTH cases self-archive a supplementary version of your article
    in your own institutional repository.
    http://www.eprints.org/self-faq/
    http://archives.eprints.org/
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/
Received on Thu Oct 25 2007 - 18:33:26 BST

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