[Irtalk] Fwd: [GOAL] PURE nonsense

[Hilton Gibson]

FYI.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 18:23
Subject: [GOAL] PURE nonsense
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) <goal at eprints.org>



PURE is a Trojan Horse from Elsevier
<https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/pure> that (some) UK institutions have
allowed to enter their portals. It is a trick, by Elsevier, to insinuate
themselves into and retain control of everything they can: access, timing
of access, fulfillment of mandates, research assessment, everything. The
ploy was to sneak in via CRIS’s, which are systems for institutions wishing
to manage and monitor their metadata on all their functions.

Notice that the following passage from KCL's OA Policy
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/governancezone/Assets/InformationPolicies/Open%20Access%20Policy.pdf>
makes no mention of timing:

In internal evaluation procedures it will be expected that all publications
> considered as part of appraisal or promotional assessments, will have a
> metadata record in the Research Information System, Pure, with either the
> full text article attached and downloadable from the Research Portal, or a
> link to the Open Access article on the journal’s web site.


What Pure is in reality designed to do is to make sure that *the full text
is not openly accessible until after the publisher embargo on Open Access*.

In point of fact, the battle for OA has long shifted to the arena of
timing: The 1-year (or longer) embargo is the one to beat. Access after the
embargo elapses is a foregone conclusion (publishers have already
implicitly conceded on it, without overtly saying so). But *access
embargoed for 12 months is not OA*. Publishers want to make sure (1) there
is no OA before the embargo elapses, (2) the embargo is as long as
possible, and even after the embargo, (3) access should be via the
publisher website, or at least controlled in some way by the publisher.

That’s exactly what PURE + CRIS does.

And (some) UK institutions (under pressure from Finch’s fatal foolishness —
likewise originating from the publisher lobby) have been persuaded that
PURE will not only provide all the OA they want, but will take a lot of
other asset-management tasks off their shoulders.

It’s a huge scam, masquerading as OA, and its only real function is to
strengthen the perverse status quo — of ceding the control of university
research access to publishers — even more than they had before.

It won’t succeed, of course, because HEFCE/REF2020 has nailed down the
timing of full-text deposit as having to be made within 3 months of
acceptance (not publication) for eligibility for REF2020, which a metadata
promissory note from Elsevier will not fullfill. My hope is that
universities will be as anxious as they have been for 30 years now not to
risk REF ineligibility by failing to comply with this very specific
requirement.

(And the institution’s copy-request Button
<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1110-Importance-of-Request-Copy-Button-in-Implementing-HEFCEREF-Immediate-Deposit-Policy.html>
will
take care of the rest, as long as all full-texts are deposited within
Acceptance + 3.)

(I think it was a mistake on HEFCE/REF’s part to state formally that there
is no need to archive the dated acceptance letter that defines the
acceptance date, but again I trust in the anxiety of universities to comply
with REF2020 eligibility requirements to draw the rational conclusion that
is indeed within 3 months of acceptance that deposit must be done for
eligibility, and not 12 months after publication.)

As you will see from the ROARMAP data below, KCL’s OA policy
<http://roarmap.eprints.org/690/> alone is not compliant with the
requirement for REF2020 eligibility, and the above extract does not change
that one bit!

Best wishes,

Stevan


King's College London
GeneralCountry:Europe > Northern Europe > United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland
<http://roarmap.eprints.org/view/country/826.html>Policymaker
type:Research organisation (e.g. university or research institution)Policymaker
name:King's College LondonPolicymaker URL:http://www.kcl.ac.uk/index.aspxPolicy
URL:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/governancezone/InformationPolicies/Open-Access-Policy.aspxRepository
URL:https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/Policy adoption date:16 July 2012Source
of policy:Administrative/management decision
Policy TermsDeposit of item:RequiredLocus of deposit:Institutional
RepositoryDate of deposit:When publisher permitsContent types specified
under the mandate:Peer-reviewed manuscriptsJournal article version to be
deposited:Not SpecifiedCan deposit be waived?:Not specifiedMaking deposited
item Open Access:RequiredCan making the deposited item Open Access be
waived?:Not SpecifiedDate deposit to be made Open Access:When publisher
permits
Other DetailsIs deposit a precondition for research evaluation (the
'Liège/HEFCE Model')?:YesRights holding:Not MentionedCan rights retention
be waived?:Not specifiedCan author waive giving permission to make the
article Open Access?:Not specifiedPolicy's permitted embargo length for
science, technology and medicine:6 monthsPolicy's permitted embargo length
for humanities and social sciences:12 monthsCan maximal allowable embargo
length be waived?:YesOpen licensing conditions:OtherGold OA publishing
option:Permitted alternative to Green self-archivingFunding for APCs where
charged by journals:Funder provides specific additional funding for APCsAPC
fund URL (where available):
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/openaccess/funding.aspx




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