Posted on by Jill Cirasella

Emerald Not So Sparkling Green

Emerald 21x30mm spot

If your field is management, economics, healthcare, education, or library science, chances are you’re familiar with the journal publisher Emerald.  For a long time, true to its name, Emerald was a “green” open access publisher — that is, it allowed authors to immediately make their articles open access by self-archiving them in an online repository.  A shining, sparkling example of greenness.

But Emerald has changed its policy.  Now, if self-archiving is “voluntary,” authors may immediately self-archive their articles on their personal websites or ininstitutional repositories (but not, notably, in subject repositories).  But if authors are subject to a mandatory open access policy, they may not self-archive immediately — they must wait 24 months!  Sparkling emerald green no more, Emerald! (Read more here: Open Access: Emerald’s Green starts to fade?)

Is it not possible that someone affected by a mandatory open access policy is also a supporter of open access and thus a voluntary self-archiver?  Since when are individual interest in open access and institutional interest in open access incompatible?

Apparently, since the Research Councils UK released its new open access policy, which favors gold open access (that is, articles made open access by the publisher itself — often contingent on paying a fee) so strongly that it incentivizes publishers to add or extend embargoes on green open access.  (Read more about the flawed RCUK policy.)

Emerald is not the first publisher to try to make a distinction between “voluntary” and “mandated” self-archiving.  Elsevier has tried the “self-archive if you wish but not if you must” trick too: Some Quaint Elsevier Tergiversation on Rights Retention.

Nice try (and by “try” I mean “desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable”), publishers, but nope.  No matter who my employer is and no matter what agencies fund my research, I will always voluntarily make my work open access!

21 Replies to “Emerald Not So Sparkling Green”

  1. Thanks for this, Jill! I find it all confusing, but surely the worst of it is having some corporation dictate the digital geographic limits of where my work can reside and when. I am a huge self-archiver.

    Perhaps one take away for folks who are frustrated by this is the use of bit.ly links (or other similar services) that allow you to provide a link to track the number of clickthroughs from your site to the piece. This still doesn’t allow you to track the number of reads/downloads of your piece. Any word on if Emerald and others, shiny as they try to seem to be, will share that data with us? I can imagine it will be quite key for job applications someday soon.

    Reply

  2. Good questions, Jack! One good thing about institutional repositories is that many (including Digital Commons, the IR platform we’re getting for the GC) provide users with download stats. So self-archiving there can lead to increased information about readership. Also, some journals provide authors with stats. Interestingly, the only two that have ever provided me with stats are open access journals — one that uses the platform OJS and one that’s housed on Digital Commons. I truly don’t know if Emerald or other biggies provide such stats.

    Reply

  3. And I wonder if this policy applies retroactively. If so, I’ll have to pull one of my articles from two different repositories.

    Ironically, Emerald sent me a link to this white paper today: “Facilitating access to free online resources: challenges and opportunities for the library community.”

    Reply

  5. FOOLS GOLD FROM EMERALD

    Rebecca Marsh, Director of External Relations and Services, Emerald Group Publishing Limited & Tony Roche, Publishing Director of 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.
    Emerald:
    “…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)

    Reply

  6. Here’s a message from Stevan Harnad that he sent to the SERIALST listserv:

    Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 09:15:56 -0400
    From: Stevan Harnad
    Subject: Re: Message from Emerald for Librarians

    *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
    Committeerecommendations.

    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)

    Reply
  7. Pingback: Springer Also Losing Some OA Sparkle | Open Access @ CUNY

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