Author Posting of Accepted Manuscripts to Public Websites
Elsevier has a long tradition of liberal copyright policies and for many years has permitted both the posting of preprints on public servers and the posting of manuscripts accepted for publication on secure internal servers. Now authors of articles published in Elsevier journals may also post the final version of their manuscript, as accepted by the journal, publicly on their personal website or their institution's website (including institutional repository). The “final version” is the author’s Word (or Text or similar word processing) file, which can be updated by the author to incorporate changes made during peer review.
Authors do not need to ask Elsevier’s permission to do this. They need to include in each such posting a full citation of the published journal article (once known) and a link to the homepage of the journal on ScienceDirect or, better, the DOI of the published article.
The posting cannot be for commercial purposes (such as systematic distribution or creating links for customers to articles) and it is not permitted to post to websites outside of the author's institution (other than their own personal Web pages). Similarly, posting of the journal's PDF or HTML files is not permitted and any exception would require permission from Elsevier. We believe it is important to preserve the integrity of the official record of publication at the publisher. Therefore, the final published version (PDF or HTML) of articles as they appear in the journals will continue to be available only on an Elsevier site.
As of June 2007, there are no Elsevier journal exceptions to this policy. Cell Press and The Lancet have policies that differ as to preprints, as they will not consider for publication articles already posted publicly. This is a rule agreed upon by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. However, both Cell and The Lancet welcome Elsevier's policy on post-publication posting and follow it for their journals.
Elsevier has a very liberal copyright policy with respect to authors and their rights to their material.
[Last revision: 2006]
ScienceDirect Archiving Policy
The following sets out Elsevier’s policies and indicates what would result if a subscriber’s relationship with ScienceDirect changes. Following the policy statements, there is a description of the third party archival agreements that Elsevier maintains.
NOTE: This policy applies only to journals published by Elsevier. Journals on the online service not published by Elsevier may have different terms and conditions.
BASIC POLICY
• Elsevier maintains a digital archive of the journals it owns and makes available over ScienceDirect.
• It is Elsevier’s intention to maintain the digital files of Elsevier journals in perpetuity, converting them as appropriate if the technology used for storage or access changes. The current format standards are XML and .pdf; most files are being retained in both formats.
• Elsevier understands the permanent availability of these archival files is of critical concern to its customers. Therefore, Elsevier made the commitment that, in the unlikely event that neither it nor ScienceDirect could assume responsibility for maintaining the archive, Elsevier would assure access to the archive via one or more repositories mutually acceptable to Elsevier and its independent board of library advisors. There are currently three such independent third party agreements.
• Elsevier publishes many journals owned by scientific and medical societies. To the extent it has the right to do so, Elsevier includes these journals in ScienceDirect and maintains them in its digital archives in the same manner in which it maintains Elsevier journals. Should Elsevier cease to be the publisher for such a journal or cease to have electronic rights, it will use reasonable efforts to ensure that either the volumes published remain available through the ScienceDirect or that the owner makes them available on the same access terms via a new host and that the journal archive remains in the designated independent third party archives. Elsevier cannot guarantee the permanent availability of journals owned by others.
• If Elsevier sells or otherwise transfers ownership of an Elsevier journal to another publisher, it will use reasonable efforts to retain a non-exclusive copy of the digital archive for that title and make it available through ScienceDirect to existing subscribers. The title will also be retained in third party archives.
• If Elsevier ceases publication of an Elsevier journal, the digital archive will be maintained at Elsevier and be made available through ScienceDirect. Again, it would also remain in the third party archives.
ACCESS TERMS
• The ScienceDirect Content Fee provides certain entitlements to the journal issues for that publication year for the subscribed titles, including Backfiles. Under present policy, the subscriber is also given access to the archive of all issues from the previous four years of the journals even if they were unsubscribed. In all cases, the term “subscription” relates specifically to electronic, not paper, subscriptions.
• If the subscriber does not renew its electronic subscription to a particular title in the agreement but remains a ScienceDirect customer, then the subscriber’s access to the lapsed title is limited to the publication year(s) for which the subscriber paid a fee for an electronic subscription. This backfile access will be offered through the normal online system consistent with access to current subscribed content.
• If the subscriber’s relationship with ScienceDirect expires, is not renewed or is terminated by the subscriber or ScienceDirect (except for violation of content integrity provisions), the subscriber may, at its option, acquire electronic copies of all or part of subscribed content that is still made available through the service for the year(s) for which the subscriber paid for an electronic subscription, provided it defrays the costs of preparing the data sets sought. Terms and conditions for licensing the data continue to apply including access and security. The electronic archive copy will be provided in the then-current format and may not contain all links and other features associated with the online version. Alternatively, the subscriber may continue to access the titles and years for which it paid a full subscription price online via the ScienceDirect platform for a modest annual fee based on the number of full text downloads in the immediately preceding year. Finally, subscribers that are participants in the Portico archiving program may use Portico to access the subscribed journals, again limited to the subscribed years. Note that titles to which the subscriber had access via a Subject or Freedom Collection do not have archival entitlements.
[Last revision: 19 August 2008]
Independent Digital Archives
In 2002 Elsevier entered into an agreement with the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands), which agreed to be a digital archive for all Elsevier journals. This archive is available now for onsite access and would be made generally available to the public on a remote basis should we (or a successor) no longer be providing access.
Then in 2005 Elsevier entered into an agreement with Portico, an independent not-for-profit organization maintaining dark digital archives. All ScienceDirect Elsevier journals and the eBook Collection are being deposited permanently with Portico, and all libraries can decide to join Portico and have assured access through Portico should access via the publisher no longer be possible. In addition, as noted above, Elsevier has authorized Portico to offer post-termination access in the event a library ceases to be a ScienceDirect subscriber.
Following a two-year beta test, in 2008 Elsevier also agreed to participate in CLOCKSS, a distributed publisher-library community archive system. This international program provides for locally-held dark archives around the world for journals published 2008 and following.
Finally, since 1996 Elsevier has licensed its ScienceDirect service for local hosting (ScienceDirect OnSite) and there are approximately ten major library centers around the world that hold all or virtually all Elsevier titles locally. While these libraries are not official archives, their possession of the digital files provides significant reassurance that these files will not disappear or otherwise be inaccessible to the research community.
[Last revision: 19 August 2008]
ScienceDirect Interlibrary Loan Policy
The Interlibrary Loan Policy for electronic journals is included in each institution’s agreement with Elsevier for ScienceDirect. In short, the provision allows and provides for the use of electronic journal articles as a source for the fulfillment of Interlibrary Loan (ILL) requests with some provisions. A summary of the current ILL policy is below.
INTERLIBRARY LOAN CONDITIONS
This grant applies only to journals published by Elsevier. Other publishers have different conditions or may not permit interlibrary loans.
The licensor grants the subscriber the right to use articles from subscribed content in the case of ScienceDirect as source material for interlibrary loans subject to the following conditions:
The ILL request comes from an academic or other non-commercial, non-corporate research library located in the same country as the subscriber.
The requested article is printed by the subscriber and mailed, faxed or transmitted by Ariel (or a similar ILL system) to the requesting library.
A Note on National Boundaries
Interlibrary loan and document delivery activities, and the legal basis for such activities, vary from country to country. As an international publisher, Elsevier has worked hard to establish an international level playing field, where all libraries can provide documents to libraries on the same terms and conditions. Those terms are intended to support domestic ILL. They are also intended to reign in those libraries who have abused ILL and provide what is more accurately described as document delivery to anyone anywhere in the world in the name of ILL.
In the US, ILL operates within the CONTU guidelines, which provide a balance between free ILL and payments to publishers. The responsibility for adhering to CONTU rests with the requesting, not the fulfilling, library. Requesting libraries located outside of the US are not part of the CONTU agreement and have no restriction on the number of copies requested on a free (no royalty) basis. That is not a level playing field.
Elsevier recognizes that there are poorer countries in the world and libraries that cannot afford to purchase subscriptions or individual articles. For that reason we were a founding partner in the HINARI/AGORA/OARE programs and continue to give them our strong support. Under these programs libraries in 69 countries have completely free access to Elsevier journals (and the journals of more than 110 other publishers). In an additional 44 countries, a single annual fee of $1000 (which does not go to the publisher but supports the program administrators) assures access to the journals of all publishers participating in these programs.
If a ScienceDirect subscriber library has a partner library in one of these countries, we believe that it will help that partner library the most to introduce that library to the HINARI/AGORA/OARE programs (www.who.int/hinari/en/; www.aginternetwork.org/en/; www.oaresciences.org/), and even, if necessary, pay the annual fee on their behalf. That action opens the library to a wealth of information that they can access themselves on an unrestricted basis. We strongly believe that is in the best interest of all libraries and researchers. It is for that reason, for example, that Elsevier made a $80,000 grant to the Medical Library Association for Hinari training. We hope others will join in this effort.
[Last revision: 7 February, 2008]
Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal
It is a general principle of scholarly communication that the editor of a learned journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which articles submitted to the journal shall be published. In making this decision the editor is guided by policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
An outcome of this principle is the importance of the scholarly archive as a permanent, historic record of the transactions of scholarship. Articles that have been published shall remain extant, exact and unaltered as far as is possible. However, very occasionally circumstances may arise where an article is published that must later be retracted or even removed. Such actions must not be undertaken lightly and can only occur under exceptional circumstances, such as:
Article Withdrawal: Only used for Articles in Press where errors or accidental duplicates have been found, or infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.
Article Retraction: Infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submission, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like.
Article Removal: Legal limitations upon the publisher, copyright holder or author(s).
Article Removal or Replacement: Identification of false or inaccurate data that, if acted upon, would pose a serious health risk.
ARTICLE WITHDRAWAL FOR ARTICLES IN PRESS
Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication but which have not been formally published and will not yet have the complete volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are discovered to be accidental duplicates of other published article(s), or are determined to violate our journal publishing ethics guidelines in the view of the editors, may be “Withdrawn” from ScienceDirect. Withdrawn means that the article content (HTML and PDF) is removed and replaced with an HTML page and PDF simply stating that the article has been withdrawn according to the Elsevier Policy on Article in Press Withdrawal with a link to the current policy document.
ARTICLE RETRACTION BY THE SCHOLARLY COMMUNITY
The retraction of an article by its authors or the editor under the advice of members of the scholarly community has long been an occasional feature of the learned world. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this best practice is adopted for article retraction by Elsevier:
A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the editor is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.
In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.
The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.
The original article is retained unchanged save for a watermark on the .pdf indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”
