Encouraging authors to place their papers into open repositories

So if one habitually places one's papers in the PubMed Central repository there is no need for OA journals, right?

DM: in order to be placed in PMC, a paper first has to be published by a journal. Might as well be an OA journal, so that the paper can go straight into PMC instead of waiting 12 months.

What Bill says. Gold OA is the goal. Green OA will do in the interim period.

The goal is 100% OA -- Green or Gold or a mix of both, whatever works. The embargo would not be an insurmountable obstacle to 100% Green if we could get publishers to agree to ID/OA with the Fair Use Button. And since the customer is always right, in theory we could get them to agree -- but then, we could have pretty close to 100% Green OA now if we'd just reposit the damn articles already.

The trouble with Green is that, without mandates, it flat-out doesn't work; researchers just don't habitually reposit. The NIH request got about 5% compliance. While I am in favor of OA mandates from funding bodies and govts, the rise and rise of OA journals makes me think we might just get to 100% Gold before Green ever gets its act together.

errr, did either of those answer my question?

DM: To quote directly from my blog under discussion.

"The message here is that I would encourage people generally to, where there is no mandate in place to do so, encourage individuals to archive their work regardless if it is published via the TA or OA model."

Graham Steel

Bora, my second response has got spammified because it had a couple of links in it.

"The trouble with Green is that, without mandates, it flat-out doesn't work; researchers just don't habitually reposit. The NIH request got about 5% compliance."

That was then, this is now. In the anecdote of me, back when those data were taken I didn't have any of my stuff deposited. Now, I find that journals have defaults where you just check a box or something and it is unbelievably freakin' easy to dump my older stuff on the odd 10 min when you are trying to take a break from real work. so i'm working on the back catalog. for things that i'm the communicating on, I'm hitting 100% after a certain date and I'm working backwards.

My point is that it would be helpful for the supposed mission (access to the science) to work on this end of things instead of merely tilting at the open journal thing as a sole strategy.

In the anecdote of me, back when those data were taken

I was under the impression that the data were relatively up to date, and (laudable though they certainly are!) your habits do not seem to be representative...

journals have defaults where you just check a box or something

Unless you're publishing OA, that would be the embargoed content -- you really want to wait 12 months to have your stuff available to nonsubscribers?

By the way, where are you "dumping" your older stuff -- and what do the publishers think about that? I have a bunch of stuff that I'm not allowed to archive except as an author's preprint, which means I have to find the last version I submitted to the journal, which in turn means that most of my back catalogue is still not OA.

The thing is, to put your work in PMC, you must be funded by an organization with a mandate already in place:

In general, a participating journal must deposit in PMC the final, published version of an article as it appears on the journal's own web site. However, in the instance where PMC serves as the repository for a funding agency's access program, PMC will accept an author's final, peer reviewed manuscript of an article.

Which means that I have to find an institutional repository that will take my papers -- even if the journals in question participate in PMC, I can only imagine the world of hurt waiting for me if I try to get them to deposit my papers.

"your habits do not seem to be representative..."

My point was that my current habits are not representative of my prior habits and I'm willing to extend a little confidence to people like myself who don't have a whole lot of time to screw with stuff. I've been finding that my "usual" journals (ok, a ton of them are Elsevier) are increasingly having some sort of default checkbox at submission. that will improve things. Once I figured out how easy NIHMS submission is, that right there put a couple more up on coffee break. Others may find this as well. I'm arguing that the past is not going to predict the future with respect to the 5% number.

"you really want to wait 12 months to have your stuff available"
6 mo for many journals, I'll note. but yeah, it isn't really a huge deal that the more general public has to wait 6 mo. I mean anyone really interested can email me for a reprint you know! The lag between me finishing collecting data and pub or even conference presentation and pub is generally longer than this anyway. In short, I don't work with stuff that has immediacy on that scale. others' MMV of course.

"where are you "dumping" your older stuff -- and what do the publishers think about that? I have a bunch of stuff that I'm not allowed to archive except as an author's preprint, which means I have to find the last version I submitted to the journal,"

I've been putting up the last version of the MS, yes. Not the formatted-for-journal version. My reading is that this is ok. It isn't pretty, true, but the information is the same. Since this is what was sent to the journal, the only thing they can argue is being provided by them is the peer-review stamp of approval. And since they get free service from scientists on that, they are on slippery ground there. I'd rather be on this side of the argument than trying to say that they should give up their graphic layout contribution for free.

I've been a bit dodgy, I suppose about trying to figure out historical "permissions". So if a journal I've published in 10 yrs ago has a current policy allowing deposit of the manuscript, then I'm doing so without trying to figure out if I should be governed by past "rules" of the journal. Do you know whether this is considered ok or not?

"Which means that I have to find an institutional repository that will take my papers -- even if the journals in question participate in PMC, I can only imagine the world of hurt waiting for me if I try to get them to deposit my papers."

I'll confess to NIH-funded blindsight on this one. From what you are saying it appears that if you use the "myNCBI" (which I assume is for anybody) option, you cannot submit a MS but only the formatted final version PDF?

But that's just informational since it really doesn't apply to what I'm after in this thread. Which is whether y'all OA Nozdrul are still after those of us who do use the NIHMS system. For me it helps to parse whether the goal here is access to the science (i'm with ya) or breaking the back of the established publishing system (more neutral on that one).

Nozdrul

Nazgul?

I can't speak for other undead minions of the Dark Lord of course, but my goal is access to the science: not just access for one pair of eyeballs at a time (though that's essential) but also access for textmining and data collation and so forth. Think about what has happened since genetic data became, more or less, 100% OA -- and imagine that kind of power applied to the entire knowledgebase. That can't happen while we have 5% compliance with an OA suggestion, and it can't happen while free-for-one-set-of-eyeballs-at-a-time is considered "close enough to OA".

Now, how we get to 100% OA is a matter of practical expediency, not ideology, for me (and, I think, for most of my fellow Ringwraiths). If you're using the PMC system, I'm not "after" you in any way -- I will keep trying to get rid of the embargo period, but other than that we're pretty much on the same page. (As I said, right now you're actually doing better with your back catalog than I am with mine!)

Similarly, I have no interest in breaking any backs, though I do think that, as a practical matter, some publishers will have to rethink their profit margins as OA spreads and the community gets used to better value for money. Personally, I'd prefer that publishers adapt rather than die -- there's enormous value in having peer review managed by outside interests, science being something of a hotbed of corruption these days (stem cell fraud, anyone?). That's to say nothing of the other value-added services that publishers offer -- job ads, databases, Nature Precedings, and so on and on.

Other answers:

The thing I didn't make clear is that, as an individual researcher, you can't use the PMC system as a repository for your work without a mandate. If your funding body does not mandate deposit, PMC will not accept anything from you -- it has to come from a journal. I simply cannot put most of my own papers into PMC, and since the journals that published them won't do it for me, they're never going to appear in that database.

(I have a "MyNCBI" account, but what does that have to do with uploading mss? Am I missing something? -- I just poked around my account and didn't see anything.)

As for 5% not predicting the future, I just plain disagree. Without significant added force, I think the inertia in the present infrastructure will keep that figure in the single digits indefinitely.

Regarding the delay -- afaik most journals will let you deposit in an IR after 6 months, but won't do it for you (into PMC) for 12 months. Either way, I don't care for the delay. How many experiments can you get done in six months?! Seriously -- when the public pays for this work, why should they put up with a 6 or 12 month delay in having it made available as a basis for further work? Especially when that delay exists only to protect private profit margins. Sure, anyone can email you -- and then wait for you to post them a reprint, if you even have one, and if you're still at that institution and answering that email address and so on. I don't know about you but most of the reprint requests I've sent have rec'd no reply at all, let alone the requested paper. (I mentioned ID/OA and the Fair Use Button above -- that's a good interim fix, and if in the end we're stuck with a 6 mo embargo, well, I could live with that -- so long as the Fair Use Button is available for eyeballs and everything ends up OA and so accessible to machines.)

With regards historical permissions, I think most journals regard their back catalog as being covered by their current rules -- but that's not always the case, for instance an NAR subscription won't get you papers before 199something, for those you have to pay extra and so I don't know whether the authors of those papers would be allowed to put them in an IR. I'd say don't worry about it though, since the worst that could happen is the journal finds your deposited ms and asks you or PMC to remove it -- what else can they do, that won't be a PR disaster?

"Nozdrul

Nazgul? "

Heh. Gotcha. here's a clue "they spurred their farting porkers and sped away in a cloud of dust and dung".

"I have a "MyNCBI" account, but what does that have to do with uploading mss? Am I missing something? -- I just poked around my account and didn't see anything."

In NIHMS, there's an initial screen that asks you to log in before submitting a manuscript. NIH, HHMI, Publishers and MyNCBI are options. I thought that this latter one could be used by anyone. 'Course, I guess the NIHMS elves might reject you after submission since it is a multi step process....

okay, as a followup on MyNCBI. When logged in that way, I can submit a ms just fine but then it notifies you that the submission must be approved by the "communicating author" (not what they really mean, since it was YHN anyway). then what you come to find out is that approval must come from the "PI", meaning in this case the NIH PI. So I guess the MyNCBI option is just for postdocs or admins to put the paper up whereas the BigCheez with a NIH account still needs to approve the submission.

so Bill was apparently right on this front.

What's being done to sign up other research sponsors? I note that Welcome is now on board. Others in progress? INSERM maybe?