what is "blue" open access?

[rossmounce]

I notice from the README that you have green, gold, and blue options for oa_color.

The oaDOI API seemingly only returns gold & green(?): https://oadoi.org/api

I'm guessing "blue" OA might be equivalent to when is_boai_license is TRUE but I couldn't find this explicitly stated anywhere. So at the very least some clarification is needed.

Personally I'm not a fan of the terms 'gold' and 'green' - they are oft misunderstood and aren't very fitting words for things they describe ('gold' often implies expensive, but it doesn't have to be). But gold and green are popular terms and thus are probably here to stay whether I like it or not.

The same can't be said for blue OA. I think very few people in the world know what blue OA is and thus I'd urge you not to use that term in this package. The functionality is great - keep that, it's good to know what subset of gold OA is BOAI-compliant. Just rename it BOAI-compliant OA or something like that?

[njahn82]

Thanks for bringing this up. I also wondered what is meant by blue OA. I found the following example

https://api.oadoi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2012.11.2487

{
  "results": [
    {
      "_best_open_url": "http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2012.11.2487",
      "_closed_base_ids": [],
      "_closed_urls": [],
      "_green_base_collections": [],
      "_open_base_ids": [
        "crelsevierbv:10.1016/j.bpj.2012.11.2487"
      ],
      "_open_urls": [
        "http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2012.11.2487",
        "http://www.cell.com/article/S0006349512037332/pdf"
      ],
      "_title": "Surface Immobilization of Cardiac Thin Filaments",
      "doi": "10.1016/j.bpj.2012.11.2487",
      "doi_resolver": "crossref",
      "evidence": "hybrid (via crossref license)",
      "found_green": false,
      "found_hybrid": true,
      "free_fulltext_url": "http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2012.11.2487",
      "is_boai_license": false,
      "is_free_to_read": true,
      "is_subscription_journal": true,
      "license": "elsevier-specific: oa user license",
      "oa_color": "blue",
      "oa_color_long": "gold_hybrid",
      "reported_noncompliant_copies": [],
      "url": "http://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2012.11.2487",
      "year": 2013
    }
  ]
}

My guess, it is somehow related to hybrid, but I am not sure. Pinging @impactstory What is meant by blue OA?

[rossmounce]

I've had a bit more of a dig around the unpaywall site and I think the explanation is there:

"Blue tab for articles available on the current page, but lacking license information (often that's because you're browsing from behind the paywall)"

http://unpaywall.org/faq

In practise this appears to mark articles where there is a moving wall of delayed free availability, say 6-months, 12-months or 24-months. But I guess there might be circumstances outside of the moving-wall scenario that also fall into apparent "blue".

[njahn82]

Good to know, will add it to documentation together with a note that oa colour blue is quite unusual.