A couple of issues here, I think –

 

I don’t know if the blog post has been edited since you visited it, but I can’t see a link there to the LRA page, or any indication that the article is Open Access (I haven’t seen the original tweet, however). I agree that the PDF link visibility is an issue, and that any login requirements should be identified earlier in the repository.

 

You certainly don’t have to log in to view all PDFs on LRA, so I assume the login only appears where Leicester are hosting a non-OA file. There’s no information about this on the LRA page, so I’d be confused to successfully access several open PDFs and then suddenly be hit with a login screen.

 

So unless I’m missing something – and that’s entirely possible, and apologies if so – I don’t think this is an Open Access issue, but rather about how repositories identify or handle various access models – should they only be hosting OA files, and if not how best can they identify the various access models?

 

If repos are to host a mix of OA and non-OA files, we need to take care not to cause disillusionment with OA or repositories through users not understanding the situation (by not having it clearly explained at the point of access)…

 

Nick

 

Nick Dimmock

Research Information Specialist

Library and Learning Services

University of Northampton

nectar.northampton.ac.uk

[log in to unmask]/ 01604 893514

 

 

 

I followed a tweet to a blog post about a paper that caught my eye this morning…

 

Student attitudes to academic use of social networks

http://lebioscience.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/student-attitudes-to-academic-use-of.html

 

The blog post has a link to the ‘open access version’ of the paper - https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/27783

 

Great I thought… just what I need, I thought.

 

The link goes to one of those dreadful repository jump-off pages – all metadata and no action.

 

All the obvious links on the page go to the publisher’s website - http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439884.2013.777077 and thence to http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17439884.2013.777077.

 

£23.50 a shot to read the paper – hey, I’m interested… but not that interested!

 

So, back to the jump-off page. There must be an open access version somewhere – after all, I followed a link marked open access.

 

Ah, there it is… small print, right at the bottom. (It’s the only thing I’m really interested in, so why is it right at the bottom?).

 

LRA.pdf – not exactly the most obvious link text?

 

I followed the link to https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/27783/2/LRA.pdf

 

Oh, another blockage… “Choose a Login Method”.

 

I followed the link marked “New, non-University of Leicester user? Click here to register.”

 

OK… I go thru a very confusing registration process…

 

At the end of which…

 

Still no access – “You do not have permission to perform the action you just attempted.”

 

Back to the jump-off page.

 

Ah, deep in the metadata is the text “Embargo on File Until: 2014-03-08”

 

Does that mean I can’t get access for a whole year? :-(

 

I gave up.

 

I appreciate that this is a sample of one – but it is my only recent sample so I have to draw my own conclusions from it. If this is the brave new world of open access, I think we’ve failed.

 

Yours,

 

Disappointed of Bath

 

Andy Powell

Head of Product Research

 

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