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** cross-posted ** Thierry Chanier is very right to express his concern about publisher control over Heloise, the French counterpart of the SHERPA/Romeo directory of publisher policies on author Open Access (OA) self-archiving. The fundamental function of such an OA policy directory is to inform authors about whether or not a journal to which they are contemplating submitting a paper has given its green light to make their peer-reviewed final draft OA immediately upon deposit -- or, if not, the length of the journal's embargo on making the deposit OA. Some supplemental information may be useful too (e.g., publisher OA policy on the unrefereed preprint or the publisher's PDF, locus of deposit -- institutional or institution-external -- and further re-use rights). But the primary purpose of such a directory is to inform authors on whether and when they have a given journal's green light to make a peer-reviewed deposit OA. This is what needs to be foregrounded and made crystal clear. Heloise instead seems to be a portal for publishers to dictate practice to authors on a variety of matters. This is likely to confuse rather than clarify matters for authors on the one paramount question on which they need a clear, straightforward answer. It is fine for publishers to provide the requisite parametric information for Heloise (the directory is, after all, meant to inform authors about publisher OA policy), but very far from fine for Heloise to be placed at publishers' disposal to formulate or dictate practice to authors. Thierry is quite right to ask that Heloise be put under the control of a committee composed exclusively of researchers and academics. Publishers can provide the data, as they do for SHERPA/Romeo, and then Heloise can present the data according to the parameters needed by authors who want to know whether and when they have the journal's green light to make what OA, where. I suggest that the coding be a dark green tick for those publishers or journals that give their green light to immediate OA. (A pale green tick could, optionally, indicate that the publisher or journal gives its green light to immediate OA for unrefereed preprints.) If there is an embargo, it's length can be stated (with a gray X). If there are condition on locus of deposit, these could be stated (institutional or non-institutional). And if there are re-use rights over and above free online access, those too can be stated. Any further publisher recommendations should be consigned to an appendix or as links to the publisher's website. The research community can never remind itself too often what it repeatedly seems to forget: Peer-reviewed journal publishing is a service industry. It is performing a service to the research community (for which it is paid, abundantly, via subscriptions). Research is not funded by the public, nor conducted and published by researchers as a service to the publishing industry. Researchers give their papers to publishers for free, and peer-reviewers (also researchers) give their refereeing services to publishers for free, in exchange for maximal access to their work. OA provides maximal access. If publishers are trying to put constraints on authors providing OA, this should be made crystal clear in Heloise, so the authors can then make informed choices. Stevan Harnad On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Thierry CHANIER < [log in to unmask]> wrote: > [some may already have received the first message, but for other > people it failed because of format problem - HTML, etc. -, sorry for > this inconvenience] > > We all know the Romeo Sherpa web site ( http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ > ) where academics display the policies of hundreds of international > publishers on author deposit of articles in open archives at various > stages of the workflow in the scientific research/publication cycle. > These criteria have been defined by the academic world and are related > to the explanation of good practice for making research results > accessible. > > One might have expected that Heloise ( http://heloise.ccsd.cnrs.fr/) > would be a French version of Romeo Sherpa, but it is decidedly not. As > recalled by Ghislaine Chartron (see extract hereafter) it is under the > control of French commercial publishers (FCP). On a public server > (see hereafter) FCP develop their own viewpoints. FCP set up their own > criteria in a way that tends to dictate to researchers how they should > publish and communicate their results, see for example the policy for > the journal "Revue d'histoire litteraire de la France" (left menu > "Auteurs" > "Rechercher une revue") where they express their view not > only on Open archives but also on personal websites and even Intranets > (with a five year embargo) ! > > A large majority of French commercial publishers have never been > listed in Romeo Sherpa. > > Relying on the usual pretext of French Language or difference, > convenient when leading an autarchic policy which seeks public funding > for their commercial business, FCP negotiated the opening of the > Heloise site with the French Minister of Research. They may have done > it through the GFII consortium, where private institutions are > predominant, but also, very surprisingly, a consortium in which one of > the heads of the CNRS (Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique ; > a very large public research institution in France) sits on the > governing body ( http://www.gfii.fr/fr/legfii/conseil-d-administration > ). > > In addition, it should be noted that Heloise web site is hosted by the > public institution CCSD (http://ccsd.cnrs.fr/, governed by the CNRS) > which controls and manages HAL ( http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/), > the main national open archive, upon which many other open archives > depend. > > In order to come back to a situation where the publication / > dissemination of research results is under the responsibility of > researchers, we suggest that the design and control of Heloise should > be entirely in the hands of a scientific committe composed exclusively > of researchers and academics. > > This committee may ask all scientific publishers what their policies > are on author deposit of articles into open archives according to > Romeo / Sherpa classification. This information can then be translated > and incorporated into Romeo. The site should mainly display > information about good practice for providing open access to research > results. It may also emphasize the necessity for editorial boards of > research journals to require publishers to adopt copyright agreements > (such as http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/ ), i.e. agreements where > authors keep full rights over their production. > > Thierry Chanier Clermont Universite > > ****** extract of Chartron email on ADBS list > ([log in to unmask]) March 2012 ; diacritics have been removed > *************** > > Le groupe du GFII-SNE qui a reuni editeurs et documentalistes connait > bien l'initiative Sherpa, le projet Heloise a ete concu pour palier > certaines lacunes de Sherpa: > > 1. Ce sont les editeurs qui deposent dans Heloise et certifient > l'information (et non dans Sherpa) > > 2. Heloise a introduit un ensemble d'options demandees par les > editeurs et non presentes dans Sherpa > > [...] > > Ghislaine Chartron > > ******************************************** > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > [log in to unmask] > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal >