Nature Publishing Group Keeps Misdescribing Itself As "Liberal" On Open Access

Apart from offering to sell its authors immediate (gold) Open Access publishing for an extra fee, Nature Publishing Group (NPG) continues to embargo (green) Open Access self-archiving by its authors until 6 months after publication.

Yet in its promotional press release, NPG writes of itself:

"Our liberal self-archiving policy and free manuscript deposition service remain an important part of our open access offering and service to authors."

From NPG's License to Publish [emphasis added]:

"When a manuscript is accepted for publication in an NPG journal, authors are encouraged to submit the author's version of the accepted paper (the unedited manuscript) to PubMedCentral or other appropriate funding body's archive, for public release six months after publication. In addition, authors are encouraged to archive this version of the manuscript in their institution's repositories and, if they wish, on their personal websites, also six months after the original publication.

"NPG recognizes the balance of rights held by publishers, authors, their institutions and their funders (Zwolle principles, 2002), and has been a progressive and active participant in debates about access to the literature. In 2002, NPG was one of the first publishers to allow authors to post their contributions on their personal websites, by requesting an exclusive licence to publish, rather than requiring authors to transfer copyright. NPG actively supports the self-archiving process, and continues to work with authors, readers, subscribers and site-license holders to develop its policy."

Yes, NPG was indeed in 2002 among the first publishers to request an exclusive license to publish instead of requiring a copyright transfer from its authors.

But what did that mean?

That new policy was at first clouded in uncertainty as to whether or not it meant that NPG was endorsing immediate, unembargoed author self-archiving of the author's final, refereed, accepted draft (green OA).

Then in January 2003 NPG indicated that it did indeed endorse immediate, unembargoed author self-archiving of the author's final draft (green OA), as over 60% of journals (including almost all the top journals -- including, notably -- Nature's rival, Science) have likewise done since.

But then in January 2005 NPG back-slid, imposing a 6-month embargo on self-archiving (and instead liberally offered to help ensure that the self-archiving was not done by NPG authors any earlier than 6 months after publication, by offering its authors a free "Manuscript Deposition Service" to take the self-archiving entirely out of the hands of its authors, with NPG doing the self-archiving in their place, for free -- after the embargo!). For authors who nevertheless desired immediate OA for their papers, some NPG journals went on to offer the option of paying NPG about $3000-$5000 (over and above all the subscriptions already generously paying OA for publication) for immediate (hybrid gold) OA.

That means NPG is today among the minority of journals (and the even tinier minority of the top journals) not to endorse immediate OA self-archiving.

If NPG wishes to promote itself as "liberal on OA," it needs to drop its embargo on green OA, like the rest of the majority of journal publishers that are genuinely on the side of the angels in their policy on green OA (such as APS, IOP, APA, ACS, the Royal Society, Springer and Elsevier).

If not, then NPG's embargo on green OA, its paid gold OA option, and its "liberal" willingness to take the chore of self-archiving out of the author's hands is more accurately construed as a marketing strategy to restrict green OA and increase extra revenues from selling gold OA in its place.


Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum