Rejuvenating Green OA for a Greener Pasture

Abstract

This paper is a critical sequel to John Dove’s paper titled “Maximum Dissemination: A possible model for society journals in the humanities and social sciences to support Open while retaining their subscription revenue”, presented at the Charleston Conference 2019. Dove’s OA advocacy has included both gold and green. Dove’s innovative model, which makes full use of the green route to achieve maximum dissemination of authors’ works through open repositories, suggests a switch in the functional responsibility for depositing author’s manuscript from author to publisher. The model has publishers to act as agents of the authors as much through the green route as their subscription route. Dove has suggested this maximum use of the green path by the publisher for specific journals in specific disciplines. This paper looks to examine the feasibility of green OA model in this context, and then to consider other ways to expand on this idea to other green OA supporting publishers. It further looks at the possibilities of the model driving the re-emergence of green OA as a favoured option for facilitating immediate and parallel dissemination of authors’ papers through both green and subscription channels.