[orgprints]
- From: Hugo Fjelsted Alrøe <Hugo.Alroe@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <orgprints@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:40:36 +0100
Some time ago, Jessica wrote to me with questions about copyrights. I thought
this question should be discussed in a broader circle, so I started looking for
a platform for an email list. It took a bit longer than I expected, but now the
list is finally in place...
Jessica asked (in swedish, hence no quote) what to do with scientific articles
that are copyright protected and how this is handled by the 'old' partners in
Organic Eprints. The question has several aspects.
1. There are different versions of articles - preprints (pre-review),
postprints (post-review, that is, the content is the same as in the published
version) and reprints or offprints (which look the same as the published
version, with pagenumbers and all). Copyrights are different for different
versions, preprints are not copyrighted and publishers have different policies
on the archiving of postprints and reprints. The matter is discussed in some
detail on http://orgprints.org/openaccess.html. Here you will also find links
to lists of publisher copyright policies.
2. There is an option to restrict access to documents (to registered users -
this means that the document will not be visible search engines such as Google
- or to depositor and staff) if copyrights demand so. It is possible to put up
an access restricted postprint or reprint, and also upload an open access
preprint to allow people to get an impression of the document and whether it is
of use to them. If they think it is, they can ask the contact person for a copy
or order it in their library (if it has been published).
3. Why put up an article if it is access restricted, you may ask. Well, there
are several reasons. First of all, Organic Eprints is an archive - it is not a
list of references. The purpose and policy of the archive is to improve access
to research in organic agriculture, and to do that we need to include the
material in the archive and to work to disseminate it. Secondly, if copyrights
change, it is much easier to lift the access restrictions on a range of
documents than to go back to the authors and find them. If a span of time has
gone, the latter will often not be possible - archiving access restricted
documents is also a matter of preserving them. And copyright policies do change
- for instance, a year ago or so the big publisher Elsevier changed its
policies to allow for archiving of postprints. And there is a trend in
publishers policies to have copyright policies that only restrict public
archiving for a limited time span. Thirdly, no eprint is totally restricted -
it is still open to some usages. In DARCOF, for instance, we have used the
archive in an international evaluation, where a small group of evaluators were
granted access to all the research products from DARCOF to better enable them
to evaluate the research. And the progress in the different projects can be
followed by the research director if he wants to do so.
Jessica suggested to remove the obligation to add a document to the eprint, due
to problems with copyrights. But as you can see from the above, I don't think
that this is a good idea.
4. An important factor in 'filling the archive' is how to motivate authors to
contribute their papers. In DARCOF we have a policy that all research products
financed by DARCOF must be put into the archive, based on the device "public
research should be publicly available". This idea is gaining foothold in the UK
and the US (university archives, Public Library of Science, NIH policy). We may
all contribute to the purpose of the archive by working for this idea in our
own countries and organisations, in whatever modest way we can - first of all
by introducing the idea.
Does this clear up the issue for you, Jessica?
Other thoughts on this issue?
--Hugo
-----Original Message-----
From: Jessica Alm
Sent: Tue 11/8/2005 1:44 PM
To: Hugo Fjelsted Alrøe
Subject: synpunkter Organic eprints
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