Re: The Green and Gold Roads to Open Access

From: Jan Velterop <jan_at_BIOMEDCENTRAL.COM>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 12:33:54 -0000

I fully agree with David Goodman that clarity of terminology is needed
(whether or not we can agree on 'standard' terminology).

Below an attempt to clarify some terms. It goes without saying that
constructive suggestions for further clarification or for better terms are
welcomed.

At BioMed Central we speak of two categories of articles:
-'Research articles' ('primary' articles, 'fact-oriented') and
-'Other articles' (which includes reviews, comments, and other
'opinion-oriented' articles as well as news and the like)

'Open Access'
This DOES apply to ALL the Research articles; it MAY apply to Other articles
-- if they have somehow been paid for, e.g. by sponsorship or a subvention.
Otherwise they are...

'Subscription-Paid'.
Much of the 'added-value' for these articles either comes from, or is made
possible, by the publisher, there is choice (no 'publish-or-perish pressure;
publishing comments or review articles is rarely a 'must'), and subscription
charges or sponsorship, or a combination of those, are sensible ways of
recovering the costs).

'Input-Paid'
We avoid the term 'author-paid', because that is rarely true, and it is
certainly not expected that authors pay from their own pocket. We speak of
'input-paid' (suggestions for a better term are always welcome) and we
regard...

'Article Processing Fees'
(NOT 'author-fees') as an integral part of the research expenditure, as
publishing the results is necessary and integral to a research project.

'Deposit'
is what we do with all the Open Access articles immediately, in several
trusted Open Access Repositories, such as PubMed Central (and INIST in
France, and Potsdam University in Germany). 'Other' articles are deposited
and 'opened' after two years.

'Preserve'
is what the Dutch Royal Library (Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KB) does for us.
They have committed to 'preserve' the content in case format changes should
be neccessary in the future. The KB archives and preserves material from
other publishers, such as Elsevier and Kluwer, as well, but in contrast to
that material, the BioMed Central articles and journals are not bound by any
restrictive contracts and freely available from the KB.

We host the material ourselves on the BioMed Central platform and, in
addition, the Repositories mentioned above function as mirrors.

Jan Velterop
BioMed Central


> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Goodman [mailto:David.Goodman_at_liu.edu]
> Sent: 22 March 2004 01:24
> To: AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG
> Subject: What is Open Access?
>
>
> In our discussions of OA, I feel there is a need for better
> terminology
> to distinguish between the arXiv-like database or repository model,
> in any of its modifications, and the two types of journals those paid
> at the reader end, and those paid for at the journal-production end.
>
> For journal-production-end journals, I particularly dislike
> author-paid,
> as it is not the intention of any of the proponents that the author
> personally will pay for the publication of the article. I think
> sponsor-paid also bad, as the research sponsor pays through indirect
> costs a good deal of the convention system's costs. (And of course
> the same goes for university-paid, researcher-paid, and so forth).
>
> For the current type of journal, library-paid is not really correct,
> as the library pays from money it receives from elsewhere, (and as it
> has been proposed earlier that the library might pay the costs of the
> new system). Reader paid or user-paid is also not right, as the reader
> or user almost never directly pays.
>
> For the various database or repository models, I particularly
> dislike the
> term "archive", because this is widely used in another meaning, though
> a closely related one: an ultimate reference copy--which
> would be only a
> part of such a system. Database is a very general term, and
> has been used
> by the aggregators like Ebsco to mean their databases of
> journal articles
> republished from the original journals, which is certainly
> not the intent.
>
> I am not making suggestions, just hoping for them.
> Arbitrary numerical , color, or place-name designations are out of
> bounds--we need meaningful names, not code.
>
> To distinguish the pseudo-open access as used to mean open access to
> part of the journal: I think full open access and partial open access
> are sufficient , and non-pejorative.
>
> Dr. David Goodman
> Associate Professor
> Palmer School of Library and Information Science
> Long Island University
> dgoodman_at_liu.edu
>
> (and, formerly: Princeton University Library)
>
Received on Tue Mar 23 2004 - 12:33:54 GMT