The Cyberprof email list hosted a lively discussion yesterday and today regarding whether SSRN behaves fully as an open access repository for scholarship when it requires registration and sign-on in order to download some papers. Dan Hunter (Wharton) led off the conversation, wondering what SSRN is doing, and Bernie Black (Texas) replied, for SSRN. The back-and-forth is interesting and important for its own sake, and also because it lifts the curtain a bit on some nuances of what “open access” means.
With the permission of Dan and Bernie, I’ve posted the key emails on a separate page, which is available (no registration required) at https://madisonian.net/ssrn_exchange.htm.