David Stern's Blog on Energy, the Environment, Economics, and the Science of Science
Thursday, January 12, 2012
SHERPA/RoMEO
In economics there is a very strong tradition of working papers and journals do not have a problem with a working paper version of the paper (a "preprint") already having been "published". But this can be a real problem in some other disciplines. Putting up a working paper on the web could preclude publication in a refereed journal. Usually, in biology you can assume that a preprint is not OK. For interdisciplinary researchers working out what they are allowed to do in this regard could be a real problem. Fortunately, there is a really useful website called SHERPA/RoMEO that lists journal's policies on preprints and posting of final versions of papers. Information is missing on some journals, but it does provide a huge amount of information on most.
Publishing scientific journals has become very profitable. The for-profit publishers are attempting to capture rents, by restricting access to scientific papers.
ReplyDeletehttp://svpow.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/do-your-bit-to-oppose-the-evil-research-works-act/
It seems to me that this particular bit of rent-seeking will have more than ordinarily harmful effects in the long run.