Re: Self-Archiving in a Repository is a Supplement, not a Substitute, for Publishing in a Peer-Reviewed Journal

From: C.J.Smith <C.J.Smith_at_OPEN.AC.UK>
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:04:12 -0000

Stevan,

 

In terms of journal papers, what do you advise if somebody wants to
reference a quote from a particular page of a final accepted
peer-reviewed manuscript they've found in a repository? Obviously the
page numbers may differ to the final published PDF, but if they don't
have access through a subscription to that final published version
then they cannot find out what the equivalent page numbers are. I've
recently created the following FAQ for our repository, but I'd be
interested to hear whether you agree this is the best approach:

 

<start>

 

How do I cite articles I find on ORO?

 

When you click on an item in ORO, you will see (under the main title
in blue) a reference to the official published version. Always cite
this published version, as this will result in the author(s)
receiving proper recognition through services that track citation
counts (e.g. Thomson's Web of Science).

 

While you should always cite the published version when referencing
the article as a whole, there may be instances (for example if you
need to refer to a specific page of the article for a quote), where
you will need to cite the ORO version. This is because the page
numbering in the ORO version might not match the page numbering in
the final published version. If you need to do this, here's how:

 

Smith, C (2009). How to reference papers in ORO. Open Research
Online. Available at: http://oro.open.ac.uk/xxxxx. Replace the
'xxxxx' with the item ID from the URL.

 

In such cases, if you or your institution has access, the preference
would be to click through and use the specific page reference from
the published version. However, even if citing the ORO version,
please try to cite the published version as well so that the
author(s) receive proper recognition, as mentioned above.

 

<end>

 

I suspect this issue has been discussed at length on this list and
others in the past, so if you'd prefer to reply personally rather
than clog the list up with previously-discussed items that's fine by
me!

 

Thanks,

 

Colin

 

 

Colin Smith
Research Repository Manager
Open Research Online (ORO)
Open University Library
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA

Tel: +44(0)1908 332971
Email: c.j.smith_at_open.ac.uk
http://twitter.com/smithcolin
http://oro.open.ac.uk


____________________________________________________________________________


From: American Scientist Open Access Forum
[mailto:AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG]
On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 04 March 2009 20:15
To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
Subject: Re: Self-Archiving in a Repository is a Supplement, not a
Substitute, for Publishing in a Peer-Reviewed Journal

 

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Klaus Graf <klausgraf_at_googlemail.com>
wrote:

2009/3/4 Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_gmail.com>:


>SH: 

> Repository deposit is definitely not for papers that
      cannot meet the
> peer-review standards of journals; the "preprint" is
      not a preprint if it
> will never be acceptable to a journal.


KG: 

      (2) Repositories are not only for journal articles.

 

 The query was, as was plain from what was asked, from someone who
had tried and and failed to meet the peer-review standards of the
several journals to which they had submitted their paper, and wanted
to know whether deposit in an OA repository like CogPrints  would
count as a publication. I replied, quite correctly, that a repository
is not a publisher but an access-provider, hence it is not a
substitute for publishing. An unpublished paper, deposited in an OA
repository, remains an unpublished paper.

 

      (3) OA isn't only for journal articles and scientific
      data.

 

 I stated in my reply that an OA IR isn't only for published
documents and data (which in some fields includes multimedia):

 

      "An OA Repository is also a good way to provide
      supplementary information about a published article; it
      can also provide access to postpublication revisions, and
      updates, and even unpublished commentaries on other
      articles and commentaries -- but the rather is more like
      blogging than formal publication.... In addition, before
      publication, even before submission, one can deposit the
      unrefereed "preprint: of the article in an OA Repository,
      in order to elicit feedback as well as to establish
      priority. The preprint too can be cited, as always, as
      "unpublished manuscript", but its repository URL can be
      added for access purposes."

 

You can put your diary and your family pictures in an OA IR too, but
that's not the reason OA IRs were created, and that is not the raison
d'ętre of the OA movement.

       

      (4) Not all disciplines and countries have journals with
      formal peer review.

 

 And your point is?

 

Of course published books are welcome in OA IRs too, and so are
preprints of books to be published or submitted. Nor will (or should)
IRs try to legislate about whether a journal (or book) is refereed or
vanity-press. That's for the assessors of one's CV to judge. The
essence of the query was simply whether deposit of an unpublished
document thereby constitutes publication, eo ipso. And the reply was
that it does not.

 

Moreover, the query was about a Central Repository (for the cognitive
sciences), called CogPrints, and CogPrints is very specifically
reserved for papers that have been refereed or are being refereed. It
is not a repository for unpublishable documents, first, because
authors can put those on their own websites or on commercial
vanity-sites, and, second, because OA (at 15%) has not yet had
notable success in inducing authors to deposit OA's primary target
content, refereed journal articles. It does not enhance the
probability of capturing OA's primary target content if mostly empty
repositories today are instead filled with unpublished and
unpublishable "grey literature." (Once the mandates have done their
work, and OA's target content is reliably speeding toward 100%, the
superaddition of the grey literature -- and diaries and family photos
-- will do no harm; that's what metadata are there to sort out. But
right now, the just introduce noise where we need signal.)


      (5) It is misleading to speak of "peer-review standards
      of journals"
      because they differ from journal to journal and
      discipline to
      discipline.

 

And your point is?

 

Stevan Harnad

 

       

 

 

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Received on Thu Mar 05 2009 - 12:07:50 GMT

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