More Elsevier hassles about open access

Recent correspondence, beginning with the last of a series of emails about a form that had gone astray:

Hi Elsevier Support Person (I'll won't use this person's name),

I've attached pdfs of the signed sponsorship form and the purchase
order to this email. I'm also cc'ing the email to the Sponsored
articles address,

Thanks,

Rosie

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Dear Dr Redfield,

Thank you for your reply.

The funding body listed on your sponsorship article form is not a
body Elsevier currently has a policy with, therefore we cannot
process this.

For more information and a full list of our Funding Bodies, please
see below link:

http://epsupport.elsevier.com/article.aspx?article=1261&p=3

Yours sincerely,

Elsevier Support Person

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Dear Elsevier Support Person,

Are you saying that, because Elsevier does not have an explicit
agreement with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, we do not
have the option of making our article available to non-subscribers?
That was not the impression I got from reading the posted information
on sponsored access (pasted below).

"Worldwide approximately 10 million scientists, faculty members and
graduate students can access Journal of Molecular Biology through
institutional subscriptions. In addition, Elsevier's ScienceDirect
licenses permit all public users who are permitted by the library to
walk in and use its resources to access all journals to which the
institution subscribes. In a few instances, authors have requested to
make their articles freely available online to all non-subscribers.
Journal of Molecular Biology offers authors the option to sponsor an
article and make it available online to non-subscribers via Elsevier's
electronic publishing platforms.

Authors can choose this option for all articles accepted after May
2006. Authors can only select this option after receiving
notification that their article has been accepted for publication.
This prevents a potential conflict of interest where Journal of
Molecular Biologywould have a financial incentive to accept an article.

The author charge for article sponsorship is $3,000. This charge is
necessary to offset publishing costs - from managing article
submission and peer review, to typesetting, tagging and indexing of
articles, hosting articles on dedicated servers, supporting sales and
marketing costs to ensure global dissemination via ScienceDirect, and
permanently preserving the published journal article. The fee
excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges
which are additional.

Authors who have had their article accepted and who wish to sponsor
their article to make it available to non-subscribers should complete
and submit the order form.

When calculating subscription prices we plan to only take into account
content published under the subscription model. We do not plan to
charge subscribers for author sponsored content."

Thanks,

Rosie

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Dear Dr Redfield,

Thank you for your reply.

No you have not read this incorrectly, you can have your article available as "Open Access" as the "Journal of Molecular Biology" is one of the journals covered under this policy by Elsevier.

Please note however, that as Elsevier do not have a policy with the "Canadian Institutes of Health Research, you must agree to cover the cost of US$3000, this will not be refunded to you by the funding body

More information on the Open Access policy can be found below:

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/sponsoredarticles

Before we arrange for this to be done, we need to make you aware of this procedure, therefore if you agree to cover the cost the article will be made available. Please confirm.

Elsevier Support Person

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Dear Elsevier Support Person,

The web page you direct me to says nothing about the sponsored-access option being limited to specific funding agencies. Let us try again to clarify this policy. Would the following be a correct explanation of the policy?

Elsevier has explicit agreements with some funding agencies, stating that grant funds provided by these agencies may be used to cover the $3000 cost of sponsoring open-access publication in the Elsevier journals offering this option. These are the agencies listed on the Elsevier page that your previous email pointed me to.

Funding agencies with which Elsevier has no explicit agreement could refuse to authorize use of their funds in this way. If this should happen, Elsevier would hold the author of the article personally responsible for the $3000.

Your latest email says that, because Elsevier does not have an agreement with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), CIHR will not cover the cost of sponsored access publishing in Elsevier journals. Do you know that this is indeed the case, or is it only a possibility that I need to check for myself with CIHR? If you know that CIHR will refuse this expense, can you direct me to the source of this information?

Thank you,

Rosie