By: Andy Pellegrini, a copyediting administrator for STM content

Andy Pellegrini, a copyediting administrator for STM content — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:03:25 +0000

Hi. There’s also another sense of the word “embargo” when it comes to STM journal articles. It has to do with hybrid open access, as opposed to journalistic scoops. It refers to a period of time (usually 6 or 12 months) during which open access to preprints is locked out so that publishers have a chance to collect revenue on the postprint via a paywall. For example, NIH and Wellcome Trust require that articles reporting on research funded by their grants be supplied to them in full-text preprint form as soon as they are accepted for publication; but they agree to prevent open access to the full-text content until 6 or 12 months after the postprint is published, so that the publishers’ business model isn’t undermined. All part of the grand question of DRM, essentially. In other words, how to get paid for content in a world where the pressure is on to give it away! In the case of STM publishers, they have to present a convincing value proposition to readers and authors, because the publishers are truly “only” value-added resellers, not content creators. Since the rise of the Web, this matters a lot, because today anyone can “publish” (make available to the world) a preprint, for free (unlike in the dead-tree-only era). Now things like peer review administration, editing, and data tools (eg, richer markup, semantic markup, data-searching-and-sifting tools, discovering connections between bits of content) become the value that publishers can offer to the STM practitioners. “Step behind my paywall and I’ll make it worth your entrance fee!”

Comments on: Go, Embargo, Go

By: Andy Pellegrini, a copyediting administrator for STM content