

Elsevier charges authors to make items "Open Access", then charges to read them. - ColinWright
http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2012/08/05/elsevier-replies-about-hybrid-openacess-i-am-appalled-about-their-practices-breaking-licences-and-having-to-pay-to-read-open-access/

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cs702
If true, this is despicable. I can barely fathom what kind of messed-up
corporate culture and labyrinthine decision-making process would lead a
company to charge authors for making their articles 'open access' only to turn
around and put those exact same articles behind a pay-wall.

Edit: Yes, it appears to be true.

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robertwalsh0
Tales like this are exactly what has inspired us at Scholastica
(<https://scholasticahq.com/>) to make it easy for academic journals to
publish Open Access. I'm a member of the team and would encourage anyone
interested in OA publishing to take gander at what we're doing. You can find
an example of what an OA journal looks like on Scholastica here:
<https://scholasticahq.com/the-scholastica-example-journal>

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podperson
Some responses to this post have stated that there was no open-access logo on
the linked article:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900210...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900210008910)

When I first clicked the link: (a) no open-access logo, (b) button offering me
the article for $35.95.

I did not at the time know what the open-access logo was supposed to look
like, so I went back to the article, found it, and clicked the link again: (a)
open-access logo, (b) article in its glory.

My guess is that in response to this article someone fixed something and the
article is now properly open access.

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czr80
Or did you perhaps follow this link the first time:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900207017020

This is the link that is (apparently incorrectly) used as an example of an OA
article in the email that seems to have led to most of the confusion.

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streptomycin
This seems rather sensationalist. Where, exactly, am I supposed to find these
open access articles that Elsevier is charging people to read? Besides that
unsubstantiated claim, the rest of the blog post seems to be nitpicking about
how Elsevier makes shitty websites that are confusing.

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cs702
streptomycin: why do you say this?

Unless I misunderstood the blog post, when the author contacted Elsevier, the
company's Director of Universal Access wrote back on an email that 'open
access' articles can be distinguished by (quoting from the email) "an open
access symbol and link in the top right of the article. For an example see
here
([http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900207...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900207017020))."

As I write this, that article costs $35.95 -- that's pretty convincing
evidence, no?

Edit: as some comments below posit, it's also possible that the Elsevier
executive provided the wrong link.

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powera
I don't see any evidence the linked article is actually Open Access.

It seems possible that the response just had the wrong link, and they article
they are charging for isn't open access.
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900210...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900210008910)
is clearly Open Access, has a clear mark of that, and has full text available
for free.

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SeanDav
Elsevier is a monopoly in this space. Monopolies do this kind of thing because
they can, which is why they should be broken up or legislated to enforce fair
behaviour.

~~~
czr80
Seems this isn't true, from the other comments - it does seem that the guy who
sent the email just copied the wrong link.

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junktest
[http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-
in-i...](http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-
downfall/)

<http://thecostofknowledge.com/>

