Field of Science

Open access frustration more powerful than principles

I give up. No, Elsevier, I am not going to give you $3000. Principles be damned.

Dear Dr Redfield,

Thank you for your reply.

A purchase order is for your benefit only, Elsevier do not require one, please see below link:

http://epsupport.elsevier.com/article.aspx?article=1296&p=3

Elsevier accept 3 methods of payment, please see below link:

http://epsupport.elsevier.com/article.aspx?article=1718&p=3

As previously advised your article can be made available via open access, however you must cover the cost of USD$3,000.

Please confirm if you wish to proceed, I will update our system and send the forms for invoicing.

Elsevier Support Person

5 comments:

  1. Dare I say this highlights the value of open access journals?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Heartily agree with you, much as I personally would like access to research papers, I'd rather you spent the money on research.

    Throughout your conversation with Elsevier they claim that the $3000 is to cover their costs. Would be nice if they just admitted it is to make profit, either directly or by gaining subscriptions.

    Too many years ago, in the UK, it was the case that photocopies of anything could be made for research purposes. If this is still the case, could you supply copies of your paper on request?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rosie, while $3000 is ridiculously overpriced for what Elsevier is offering, based on your previous posts I don't understand why you can't at this point pay the $3k and have your JMB article made more accessible.

    "My grant budget explicitly included a line item for open-access publication charges; this was not questioned when the application was approved." -- RR

    So it was written into the grant budget; sounds like CIHR are happy to pay for increased visibility of your research. Is there some bureaucratic difficulty that means you cannot pay Elsevier from a particular account, or have you just decided not to be screwed by them after all ?

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's unfortunate that the helpline was not able to provide clearer responses to your questions, but it's frustrating to those of us working on the journal that your blog has been entirely negative about JMB and has never acknowledged your correspondence with the journal manager who has done everything possible to resolve these problems. It has also never acknowledged our correspondence over the copyright/posting policy and the reasoning behind it. To me, it seems like you've presented an intentionally negative and biased view.

    Yes, you can pay for sponsored access with your own or an institutional credit card. Whether this money comes from your grant, is reimbursd by the instituion, or comes from another source is up to your institute.

    ReplyDelete
  5. As others have said, darn good argument for publishing in a journal that is fully OA to start out with, like PLoS or BMC journals.

    ReplyDelete

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