Updated: 17 October 2017
Collaboration is a vital part of research and scholarly activity, STM publishers constantly innovate and explore ways to enhance collaboration and facilitate sharing which benefits researchers, institutions and society as a whole. Wiley Content Sharing is a recent example of Wiley’s commitment to the sharing of research content. As a means to share, Scholarly Collaboration Networks (SCNs) have become widely used within the research community, with researchers using SCNs to interact, collaborate and share their results online across institutional and geographical boundaries. The proliferation of SCNs has however led to some complications that need to be addressed. Sharing of journal content can involve the copying and distribution of copyrighted material. Wiley believes that the sharing of content on SCNs should be simple and seamless for researchers while upholding the principles of copyright.
Wiley supports the guidelines laid out by the Voluntary Principles for Article Sharing on Scholarly Collaboration Networks (SCNs) as a framework for sharing. The principles serve as a basis for how to facilitate the sharing of articles in ways which meet the individual needs of our researchers while enabling a sustainable research ecosystem. Despite having been invited multiple times to join and engage with publishers, ResearchGate is not a signatory to these principles which were agreed by fifty different publishers as well as other leading SCNs. ResearchGate, a for-profit company funded by venture capital, is building a business through the distribution of scientific articles in which it has made no investment. While it generates income from these articles, it makes no contribution to the costs of publishing the articles which it uses to generate traffic.
Wiley has no objections to commercial organizations providing services to authors but third parties do not have the right to re-use subscription publications for commercial gain without agreements or licenses. ResearchGate illegally hosts and redistributes several million journal articles without such agreements*. This practice undermines publishers and scientific and scholarly societies who invest in editorial leadership, peer review workflows, journal brands and the dissemination of research; and libraries who have paid to license the content from publishers.
The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has offered ResearchGate a user-friendly solution that would make sharing seamless and easy for researchers. The solution automatically provides feedback upon uploading a document informing the researcher whether they can share a document in private working groups, or publicly. ResearchGate has shown no interest in this solution and instead requested that publishers issue takedown notices in respect to copyright-infringing articles on its site. Wiley, along with a number of publishers as part of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing, are agreeing to ResearchGate’s request. It is important to note that these takedown notices are directed at ResearchGate and not at researchers themselves. The full statement and background can be found here.
Wiley believes that publishers and SCNs can and should co-exist to the mutual benefit of their authors and users, with each respecting the other’s contribution to scholarly communications. We hope that our actions here strike the right balance between ensuring that published research reaches the widest possible audience while respecting the rights of those organizations who have invested in the creation and dissemination of those publications.
* The Coalition for Responsible sharing acknowledges that ResearchGate recently removed from public view a significant number of copyrighted articles. ResearchGate has not shared any information with the Coalition about this change. At this point, not all violations have been addressed and ResearchGate will need to take additional steps to cease unauthorized distribution of research articles.
As concerns remain regarding content still available on ResearchGate takedown notices will go ahead as planned and requested by ResearchGate. Members of the Coalition for Responsible Sharing have stressed in previous communication that they strongly support responsible sharing of research and we are prepared to work with ResearchGate to ensure that sharing respects the needs of all stakeholders, especially those of the research community. There are solutions available that will benefit all stakeholders and provide seamless access to high-quality, peer-reviewed research.
A full list of FAQs can be found here.