Today at Elseviergate; more potholes and “bumps” on the “shared journey”; please help us find paywalled OpenAccess Elsevier « petermr's blog
abernard102@gmail.com 2014-03-25
Summary:
I did that on Friday. Now Elsevier are aware of my investigations ... IT’S CHANGED!!
I have two hypotheses: [1] The Director of Access and Policy and the VP of Products spent their weekend trying to patch up the potholes on their “bumpy road”. (translation – the underinvestment and incompetence of their system). If so they’ve made a terribly botched job of the change. See below. [2] The Elsevier system isn’t stable. It’s clearly broken – there is no indication that that Elsevier systems give the same result on different sites, different days, etc.
Take your pick. It’s clear that Wellcome haven’t got value for money (nearly 3000 GBP). Here’s what’s still wrong. [1] The article isn’t labelled Open Access [2] The article has no licence [3] The article doesn’t acknowledge Wellcome Trust funding [4] The article is still (C) Elsevier All rights Reserved [5] The Table of Contents for the issue doesn’t say 'Open Access' [6] Elsevier haven’t made a public apology to the author and Wellcome for stopping the world reading this article ... I’ll note that this is a 1-page editorial. It’s almost certainly not formally peer-reviewed. It’s morally scandalous that Elsevier have the brass neck to charge 3000 quid for it. But, as everyone tells me the purpose of publishing is to make money, not communicate science ..."