[open-science] Inside view to the story of an high impact publication

Fri Oct 5 14:10:59 UTC 2012

Hi Toma,

Thanks for sharing this with us. (and great to meet you in person at
OKFestival btw!)

As a young scientist myself with relatively little experience of the
publication process, I did find your post illuminating - particularly the
Mail Trends analyses showing how much 'behind the scenes' work and years(!)
of effort goes into each and every publication! I suspect many outside
academia don't realise quite how much work goes into a paper sometimes.

May I suggest you post a Green OA copy of your published paper online
somewhere so people don't even need to email you for a copy of your work?
[Sometimes I email authors for a copy & they are on holiday, or away on
fieldwork and so don't reply for ages; this slows down the pace of science]

I had a quick look on Sherpa/Romeo about ACS Nano here:
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php and from what I read it said
"subject to Restrictions below, author can archive publisher's version/PDF:

Restrictions:

   - If mandated by funding agency or employer/ institution
   - Must obtain written permission from Editor confirming posting does not
   conflict prior publication policies
   - If mandated to deposit before 12 months, must obtain waiver from
   Institution/ Agency or use AuthorChoice 12 months"

also "General Conditions:

   - Must be accompanied by set statement (see policy)
   - Must link to publisher version"

clearly ACS are using very draconian terms and conditions to impede authors
from doing this easily (as I understand it ACS are
notedly<http://www.nature.com/news/chemical-society-tried-to-block-business-competitor-1.11470>
one
of the least open,morally
questionable<http://www.attemptingelegance.com/?p=1765> Learned
Societies in academia!).

Does Aalto University have an Open Access mandate?

For example, my institution University of Bath recently implemented
one here<http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/services/eprints/deposit-mandate.pdf>.
Not that it's been particularly effective so far (perhaps it needs time to
become effective?) but that's another story...
This has allowed me to post a freely available version of my first
publication here: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/25606/ with no hassle from the
publisher about it.

It's great to see more scientists like yourself thinking about how to make
the process of science more open, even if only in retrospect after
publication - it all does count on some level.

Best,

Ross
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