injuryupdate
18-05-2005, 04:15 PM
Recent review in the BMJ suggests that many authors post copies of their own articles on the internet to enable them to be freely downloaded. This increases their 'impact' and likelihood of being cited. 80% of journals apparently allow their authors to do this, but authors apparently tend to do it whether or not they are allowed to.
The BMJ attitude is that open access publication is 'good' for science. The only objections would come from companies that have been assigned the copyright for an article and feel that the publication at an alternate site is a breach of copyright.
It is ironic that most authors don't get paid for their contributions (some even pay the journal in the form of 'page charges') get the journal gets to keep all royalties from internet sales of the article, in most cases.
Because the copyright agreements are so unfairly biased in favour of the journals (and because competition for publication spots is fairly intense so journals would generally not agree to vary their copyright agreements), authors probably take the view that they have an ethical right, and perhaps also a legal one, to publish a copy at the site of their choosing.
You may have noticed that many 'Orchard et al' papers are freely available at this site. Other sites in sports medicine that self-archive include: http://www.ostrc.no/ostrc.asp?s=main&lang=en (Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre).
Any author in the sports medicine who has a paper he or she would like to archive at this site, where the journal policy allows, should email: info@injuryupdate.com.au
BMJ links:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7500/1097?ehom
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7500/1128?ehom
The BMJ attitude is that open access publication is 'good' for science. The only objections would come from companies that have been assigned the copyright for an article and feel that the publication at an alternate site is a breach of copyright.
It is ironic that most authors don't get paid for their contributions (some even pay the journal in the form of 'page charges') get the journal gets to keep all royalties from internet sales of the article, in most cases.
Because the copyright agreements are so unfairly biased in favour of the journals (and because competition for publication spots is fairly intense so journals would generally not agree to vary their copyright agreements), authors probably take the view that they have an ethical right, and perhaps also a legal one, to publish a copy at the site of their choosing.
You may have noticed that many 'Orchard et al' papers are freely available at this site. Other sites in sports medicine that self-archive include: http://www.ostrc.no/ostrc.asp?s=main&lang=en (Oslo Sports Trauma Research Centre).
Any author in the sports medicine who has a paper he or she would like to archive at this site, where the journal policy allows, should email: info@injuryupdate.com.au
BMJ links:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7500/1097?ehom
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7500/1128?ehom