From: Stevan Harnad <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 22:47:00 -0400

Rebecca Marsh Director of External Relations and Services | Emerald
Group Publishing Limited

& Tony Roche Publishing Director | Emerald Group Publishing Limited
have posted their defence of the Emerald policy changes reported by
Richard Poynder: "Open Access: Emerald's Green Starts to Fade"

First, a paraphrase of what Marsh & Roche wrote:

"(1) All Emerald authors may do immediate, unembargoed open access
self-archiving if they wish, but (2) not if they must. If they must
self-archive, they must wait 24 months or ask individually for
permission."

The sensible Emerald author will self-archive immediately, and ignore
clause (2) completely. It is empty, unverifiable, unenforceable,
pseudo-legal FUD that has been added as a perverse effect of the folly
of the UK Finch Committee recommendations.

The Emerald policy tweak is obviously to cash in on the money that the
UK has decided to squander on pre-emptive "Fools Gold" OA, as well as
to try to fend off universal Green OA as long as is humanly possible.

Below I reproduce the Emerald representatives' posting's text, cutting
out the empty verbiage, to make the double-talk clearly visible and
comprehensible.

> *Apologies for cross-posting*
>
> "...Emerald has had a Green Open Access [OA] policy for over a decade. [All Emerald] authors who personally wish to self-archive the pre- or post-print version of their article on their own website or in a repository... can do this immediately upon official publication of their paper. This principle continues to underpin our Green OA policy and remains unchanged....
>
>  "...[Emerald] has provided an alternative route to OA for researchers who are mandated to make their papers Open Access immediately, or after a specified period. We also set the Article Processing Charge (APC) at a relatively low level to assist authors...
>
> "Emerald has... requested that authors wait 24 months before depositing their post-prints if a mandate is in place. Where a mandate exists for deposit immediately on publication or with a shorter mandate but no APC fund is provided, we invite all authors to contact us..."

Plans by universities and research funders to pay the costs of Gold OA
pre-emptively today are premature.

Funds are short; 80% of journals (including virtually all the top
journals) are still subscription-based, tying up the potential funds
to pay for Gold OA. Hence, for institutions, paying pre-emptively for
Gold OA today means double-paying -- subscriptions for their incoming
articles plus APCs for their outgoing articles-- and in the case of
"hybrid Gold," when both sums are paid to the very same journal, it
also means double-dipping by publishers.

Even apart from double-paying and double-dipping, the asking APC price
per article for Gold OA today (whether "pure" or "hybrid") is still
inflated; and there is concern that paying to publish may also inflate
acceptance rates as well as lower quality standards to maximize
revenue in the case of "pure Gold" OA.

What is needed now is for all universities and funders worldwide to
mandate OA self-archiving (of authors' final peer-reviewed drafts,
immediately upon acceptance for publication) ("Green OA").

That will provide immediate OA; and if and when universal Green OA
goes on to make subscriptions unsustainable (because users are
satisfied with just the Green OA versions) that will in turn induce
journals to cut costs (phasing out the print edition and online
edition, offloading access-provision and archiving onto the worldwide
network of Green OA Institutional Repositories), downsize to just
providing the service of peer review, and convert to the Gold OA
cost-recovery model; meanwhile, the subscription cancellations will
have released the funds to pay this residual service cost.

The natural way to charge for the service of peer review then will be
on a "no-fault basis," with the author's institution or funder paying
for each round of refereeing, regardless of outcome (acceptance,
revision/re-refereeing, or rejection). This will minimize cost while
protecting against inflated acceptance rates and decline in quality
standards.

This is the difference between today's pre-emptive pre-Green
double-paid, double-dipped over-priced pre-Green "Fools Gold" and
tomorrow's affordable, sustainable, post-Green Fair Gold.

Harnad, S. (2010) No-Fault Peer Review Charges: The Price of
Selectivity Need Not Be Access Denied or Delayed. D-Lib Magazine 16
(7/8).

Houghton, J. & Swan, A. (2013) Planting the Green Seeds for a Golden
Harvest: Comments and Clarifications on "Going for Gold". D-Lib
Magazine 19 (1/2)