Re: The definitive answer from Wiley-Blackwell

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 16:18:06 -0400

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I don't think anything like a definitive answer has been reached,
insofar as Wiley's Green-status is concerned (i.e., whether or not
Wiley endorses immediate author self-archiving of the final, refereed
draft (postprint).
First, there appear to be three Wileys:

John Wiley & Sons (GREEN)
Wiley-VCH Verlag Berlin (GREEN) 
Wiley-Blackwell (GRAY)

Second, the three Wileys have inconsistent self-archiving policy
statements -- inconsistent among the three of them, and inconsistent
within each.

Wiley-Blackwell says this:

      Wiley-Blackwell journal authors can use their accepted
      article in a number of ways, including in publications of
      their own work and course packs in their institution. An
      electronic copy of the article (with a link to the online
      version) can be posted on their own website, employer's
      website/repository and on free public servers in the
      subject area. For full details see
      authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/faqs_copyright.asp.


Wiley-VCH says this (sample from one of its journals):

      [IMAGE]


and  John Wiley & Sons  says this (sample from one of its journals):

      [IMAGE]


Now let me give some sensible practical advice to authors and
Repository Managers alike:

      (1) Under all circumstances, deposit the final, refereed,
      accepted draft of your journal article (postprint) in
      your Institutional Repository (IR), immediately upon
      acceptance for publication. There is no need whatsoever
      to make a single exception.

      (2) Unless you are certain that you have reason not to,
      set access to that deposited draft as Open Access (OA)
      immediately upon deposit. (Otherwise, you can set access
      as Closed Access, for the duration of any publisher
      embargo you wish to honor.)

      (3) The only thing even remotely at issue is whether or
      not, if you deposit a document in your IR and make it OA,
      you receive a take-down notice from the publisher.

      (4) If you receive a take-down notice and you wish to
      honor it, set access as Closed Access for the duration of
      any publisher embargo you wish to honor.


And remember that if the millions of articles that have been made OA
(by computer scientists, physicists, economists, and all other
disciplines) since the 1980's had waited (or asked) for a clear,
unambiguous green light from each publisher, we would have virtually
none of those millions articles accessed, used and built upon across
those decades by the many users whose institutions could not afford
access to the publisher's subscription edition.

A word to the wise,

Stevan Harnad

On 21-May-09, at 6:58 AM, C.J.Smith wrote:

      [Apologies for cross-posting]
 
In the Wiley-Blackwell copyright assignment form, which most
authors publishing in this company?s journals will sign, it
states (under item ?C.2. Permitted Uses by Contributor >
Accepted Version?) that:
 
?Re-use of the accepted and peer-reviewed (but not final)
version of the Contribution shall be by separate agreement with
Wiley-Blackwell?
 
I took this to mean that authors can, if they want to, approach
Wiley-Blackwell on an article-by-article basis for permission
to deposit their final draft manuscripts in their institutional
repository.
 
However, having chased up permission with Wiley-Blackwell on
behalf of an author here at the Open University, I received
(after a number of email exchanges) the following (apparently
definitive) answer from their Associate Permissions Manager:
 
?The submission version is the only version we allow to be
placed into institutional repositories. We do not allow the
post-peer review article, the author?s final draft, or any
other version to be deposited. Therefore, I can confirm that
permission is hereby refused in this case.?
 
So, unfortunately, given the size of Wiley-Blackwell (fourth
largest academic journals publisher?), it seems we have a
disappointing barrier to Green OA. Of course, Wiley has always
not permitted final draft self-archiving, but it now appears
that in merging with Blackwell they have stuck with this policy
rather than embracing Blackwell?s.
 
Although Wiley-Blackwell do offer compliance with the ?major?
funder mandates (e.g. NIH), it leaves me wondering how they
intend to serve their authors who are mandated (for example) by
one of the UK Research Councils. Have they thought this
through? Are they prepared to lose authors who (in theory at
least) could not possibly publish with them because they are
not permitted to self-archive?
 
 
 
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
Web: http://oro.open.ac.uk
Blog: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/oro
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/smithcolin
 
 
 

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registered in Scotland (SC 038302).




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Received on Thu May 21 2009 - 21:21:19 BST

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