[BOAI] Call for sector to unite behind open access

[Iryna Kuchma]

[Forwarding from JISC]


Call for sector to unite behind open access

UK Open Access week and the JISC Future of Research conference have seen
persuasive
calls for the sector to unite on key issues facing UK higher education and
research. Now ten
leading organisations from the higher education and research sector have
joined forces to drive
the implementation of open access in the UK, both in terms of policy and
promoting a deeper
understanding of the opportunities it offers for the UK to maintain its
world-wide reputation and
impact.

Open access is a part of a movement toward more openness and transparency in
the public
sector and in universities, which promises significant benefits for
universities and the UK
economy as papers, educational resources and data are more widely available
to support
teaching, research and innovation.

 While the adoption of open access is growing, some researchers and
institutions still worry that
it amounts to a “Robin Hood” approach that gives away research freely. The
evidence, however,
shows that opening up access to research outputs provides substantial gains
for both. These
gains vary across an increasingly differentiated sector but, to be more
fully realised, policy and
infrastructure need to be better coordinated across the sector. This is the
role the UK Open
Access Implementation Group will take on.

At the moment the group consists of senior representatives of two UK
universities (Edinburgh
and Salford), Universities UK, Research Libraries UK, the Society of
College, National and
University Libraries, JISC, the UK Research Councils, Wellcome Trust, the
Association of
Research Managers and Administrators UK, and a leading open access publisher
in the Public
Library of Science. It will coordinate evidence, policies, systems, advice
and guidance, to make
open access an easy choice for authors and one that benefits all
universities. The group have
asked JISC to map out a programme of practical work to make progress in
these areas.

Meeting at the Wellcome Trust and chaired by Martin Hall, Vice Chancellor at
the University
of Salford, the group agreed that existing evidence and guidance on open
access should
be brought together and presented as a coordinated summary of why and how to
adopt an
open approach. The group noted that the ways in which research excellence
and impact are
measured play a key role in influencing behaviour. Where necessary, for
example around the
practical arrangements for paying open access publication charges, further
work should be done
to clarify what is possible at the moment and where further provision might
be needed.

The group were united in their support for innovation and will encourage
debate in the sector
around new publication models. “If we don’t collaborate across publicly or
semi-publicly funded
institutions and if we don’t take hold of the agenda as a sector then we
will be pushed into an
environment where we increasingly compete for diminishing resources”, Hall
summed up the
debate. “The UK has consistently led the way in opening access to research.
A UK alliance is
now established at the highest level to ensure that we don't lose that lead,
and that the impact
of UK research (and therefore the contribution of UK universities to the
economy and society) is
maximised.”

To find out more about Open Access and JISC's work in this area, go to
www.jisc.ac.uk/openaccess
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/boai-forum/attachments/20101028/77046302/attachment.html