What does ‘green’ open access mean? Tracking twelve years of changes to journal publisher self-archiving policies

What is it about?

This paper traces the open access policy journey of 107 journal publishers over 12 years from 2004-2015. It reveals how policies have become increasingly complex and restrictive despite an increase in the number of publishers allowing authors to place some version (pre-print, post-print or both) of their journal paper on the internet.

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Why is it important?

The paper suggest that the colour codes 'green', 'blue', and 'yellow' applied by the RoMEO Database of publisher open access policies to describe whether a publisher allows the pre-print, post-print or both to be made available on the web, no longer adequately define a publisher's commitment to open access. The paper calls for Open Access advocates to redefine what it means to be 'green' to ensure it rewards those who fully support community-agreed definitions of Open Access.