[GOAL] Re: Clarification of the new OA policy from the RCUK

[Heather Morrison]

Question: does the RCUK policy have an option for authors or  
institutions to opt out of gold OA on the basis of excessive charges?  
I don't see one, so the policy reads to me like a blank cheque for  
publishers. If this is correct, I would anticipate that publishers  
would charge more than if there were an option, raising the cost of  
gold OA which would have a negative impact on OA publishing worldwide.  
Unless I'm missing something - perhaps universities have the right to  
say no under due diligence or something along those lines?

best,

Heather Morrison


On 22-Aug-12, at 5:53 PM, Stevan Harnad wrote:

> Many thanks to Peter Suber for this further information about Finch,  
> RCUK, and the close relationship between them.
>
> Peter makes no value judgments in conveying this information, so it  
> is unclear what he agrees or disagrees with.
>
> I will be much more explicit. I think this is a terrible policy  
> which will have extremely bad effects, both in the UK and globally,  
> if Finch/RCUK are inflexible about taking critical feedback into  
> account and are unwilling to revise the policy in response.
>
> I will summarize the essence of the extra information provided. It  
> confirms my worst worries:
>
> (1) Finch and RCUK are in agreement; there are no nontrivial  
> differences.
>
> (2) Finch/RCUK are prepared to require UK authors to publish only in  
> a journal that offers either Gold OA (Gratis or Libre, hybrid or  
> "pure") OA or Green OA within a maximal 6-month embargo.
>
> (3) If the journal offers both paid Gratis hybrid Gold and 6-month  
> Green, the author may choose either option.
>
> (4) If the journal offers both paid Libre hybrid Gold and 6-month  
> Green, the author must choose paid Libre hybrid Gold (or not publish  
> in that journal).
>
> (5) If the journal offers paid Gratis hybrid Gold or Green with a  
> longer embargo than 6 months, the author must choose paid Gratis  
> hybrid Gold (or not publish in that journal).
>
> (6) Finch/RCUK are aware that this policy may provide an incentive  
> for journals that currently offer a 6-month Green option to increase  
> their Green embargo to an unallowable length and offer Gratis hybrid  
> Gold instead, knowing that RCUK authors must take that option if  
> they wish to publish in the journal at all.
>
> (7) In other words, Finch/RCUK have decided, a priori, that Libre  
> hybrid Gold OA is worth UK's paying for, come what may, and that  
> Gratis hybrid Gold OA is worth requiring UK authors to choose and to  
> pay for, even if it makes the journal impose an impermissible  
> embargo length on Green OA.
>
> (8) In addition, it is not clear that even UK researchers will be  
> given enough of a top-sliced subsidy ("block grants") to allow them  
> to pay for Gold OA without having to reach into their research funds  
> or their pockets in order to comply with Finch/RCUK.
>
> (9) All these a priori value judgments have been made by Finch/RCUK  
> without taking into account researchers' views on placing  
> constraints on their journal choice, their need or desire for Libre  
> OA, and the diversion of already scarce funds from research to  
> paying publishers extra for Gold OA (Libre or Gratis).
>
> (10) Nor have Finch/RCUK taken into account the consequences this  
> policy may have for the rest of the world, which may not be able to  
> afford -- and may not wish -- to pay extra for Gold OA (Libre or  
> Gratis, hybrid or "pure"), and may now see embargoes on cost-free  
> Green OA lengthened by publishers in order to gain the extra hybrid  
> Gold revenue the UK promises.
>
> This would be an extremely bad outcome.
>
> I will continue to do my best to persuade Finch/RCUK to revise this  
> terrible policy -- http://digital-research.oerc.ox.ac.uk/programme/tues-am-keynote 
>   -- and I hope others who understand its implications will do so too.
>
> If the RCUK policy is not changed, I predict that UK researchers  
> will not comply, and many years of confusion and indecision will  
> ensue, during which the UK will lose a lot of potential (Green) OA,  
> a lot of money, and its historic worldwide leadership role in OA.
>
> I am not so pessimistic about the rest of the world. There is a much  
> more realistic and effective option, and that is to strengthen and  
> extend Green OA mandates. Even if the unfortunate Finch/RCUK policy  
> has the perverse effect of inducing publishers to increase the  
> lengths of their Green OA embargoes, the ID/OA (Immediate-Deposit/ 
> Optional-Access) mandate coupled with the automated "email-eprint- 
> request" Button is immune to embargoes and was designed specifically  
> with this contingency in mind.
>
> The UK only publishes 6% of the world's research output. The other  
> 94% can still mandate ID/OA and move forward toward universal Green  
> OA while the UK learns from sad experience what a short-sighted, ill- 
> informed, profligate -- and, if no one listens to the critical  
> feedback, pig-headed -- decision the UK has made in 2012, eight  
> short years after the historic Parliamentary Select Committee  
> recommendation that has until now made the UK the vanguard of the  
> global OA movement: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm
>
> I will now quote/comment Peter's account of his discussion with  
> RCUK's Mark Thorley, but those who do not wish to enter into the  
> details now have the gist of what is so wrong with Finch/RCUK's  
> proposed policy:
>
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 5:50 PM, Peter Suber <peter.suber at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>
> On July 25, 2012, I had a long, helpful phone conversation with Mark  
> Thorley, convenor of the RCUK Research Outputs Network (RON), the  
> group responsible for developing and implementing the RCUK Open  
> Access policy...
>
> On the role of green, Mark said that the RCUK had the same  
> preference for gold as the Finch Group. The reason is that they want  
> libre OA under CC-BY licenses, for example to support text-mining  
> and to enable immediate OA without any publisher imposed embargo.
>
> How urgent is text-mining of the UK's 6% of world research output,  
> compared to Gratis Green OA for all of the world's research output?
>
> And what are these urgent text-mining and other Libre OA functions?  
> All authors need and want their work to be accessible to all users,  
> but how many need, want or even know about Libre OA?
>
> ...the Finch Group may expect that the primary role for repositories  
> will be for theses, grey literature, and data. But the Finch Group  
> would definitely accept green OA for research articles when a  
> journal offered no gold option.
>
> In other words, having ruled out Green OA as an option for UK  
> authors if a journal has the sense to offer Gratis hybrid Gold and  
> to crank its Green embargo up to infinity, Finch is not *forbidding*  
> whatever Green might still be able to slip through a barrier as  
> massive as that...
>
> According to Mark, the RCUK and Finch Group share this position:  
> When publicly-funded researchers publish in a journal with a  
> suitable gold option (where suitability is about its willingness to  
> use a certain open license), then those authors should pursue that  
> gold option.
>
>  I take this to mean that if the journal offers paid Libre hybrid  
> Gold, the author must choose that, even if the journal also offers 6- 
> month Green.
>
> If the journal offers no suitable gold option but does offer a  
> suitable green option (where suitability is about the maximum length  
> of the embargo period), then grantees should pursue the green option  
> instead.
>
> If a journal has the option to offer paid hybrid Gold and crank up  
> Green embargoes to unallowable limits, but is foolish enough to  
> offer 6-month Green instead, then Finch/RCUK do not forbid the  
> author to choose 6-month green...
>
> Don't count on many publishers turning down the more attractive  
> option.
>
> If a given journal offers no suitable gold or green option, then  
> those researchers must look for another journal, one which complies  
> with the RCUK policy.
>
> ID/OA mandates not only moot publisher embargoes but make it  
> unnecessary to dictate authors' journal choice.
>
> When a journal offers both suitable green and suitable gold options,  
> the PI may choose the option he or she thinks most appropriate.
>
> This is ambiguous, because it is unclear what is meant by "suitable  
> gold options". I take it to mean:
>
> (3) If the journal offers both paid Gratis hybrid Gold and 6-month  
> Green, the author may choose either option.
>
> though I am not sure of even that interpretation.
>
> If a journal with a suitable gold OA option levies an Article  
> Processing Charge (APC), then RCUK is willing to pay the APC. The  
> RCUK will provide block grants to universities for paying APCs,  
> which they will manage through the establishment of publication  
> funds, and universities will decide how to spend the money to best  
> deliver the RCUK policy.
>
> And what happens to journal choice (and publication) when the "block  
> grants" have run out?
>
> Mark concedes that managing a publication fund and establishing  
> rules on what papers will be funded, will be a big challenge for  
> many institutions, and obtaining faculty APC funding could be a  
> major change of working for many authors.
>
> It may do a good deal more than that. Let us not forget that the  
> only thing Green OA mandates require of authors is keystrokes. Finch/ 
> RCUK is now (1) constraining journal choice, (2) redirecting scarce  
> research funds, and perhaps eventually (3) leaving authors without  
> the money to publish at all (if they comply).
>
> Great confusion and non-compliance are likely. (And I have to admit  
> that I find this policy so ruinously wrong-headed that I cannot even  
> wish it well: If the policy is not fixed in response to informed  
> advance feedback, then author confusion and non-compliance may be  
> the only way to bring the policy-makers to their senses that they  
> have made a huge mistake.)
>
> However, he added that journals offering a suitable gold OA option  
> would probably not want to offer a compliant green option as well.  
> Hence, as more journals start offering gold options to make  
> themselves eligible for RCUK funding, many that permit green OA  
> today may stop permitting green, or might only provide a green  
> option with an embargo period to be too long to be compliant with  
> the RCUK policy. Hence, authors turned down for APC funding may not  
> have a green option to exercise at a given journal, even if those  
> authors and their universities wanted to exercise it.
>
> This is the very core of Finch/RCUK's folly, and its perverse  
> consequences are here shrugged off matter-of-factly as if they were  
> just some minor contingency.
>
> I mentioned the rights-retention OA policies at funders like the  
> Wellcome Trust and the NIH, and at universities like Harvard and  
> MIT....he added that "this might well be something we would consider  
> in the future...
>
> The rights-retention policies have an opt-out clause: Finch/RCUK do  
> not.
>
> Moreover, the success of rights retention policies alone is not  
> known. At Harvard, they are coupled with a variant of ID/OA, with no  
> opt-out on deposit. This of course takes care of all opt-out or  
> embargo problems.
>
> 4. If there are differences between the RCUK policy and the Finch  
> recommendations, they are minor. The RCUK will go forward with its  
> current policy, and has no plans to revise it to conform more  
> closely to the Finch report.
>
> But let's hope that RCUK may still revise it in response to critical  
> feedback like what I've tried to provide above.
>
> I close with my recommendation on how to revise the RCUK policy:
>
> Revising RCUK. There is still hope that RCUK will have the sense and  
> integrity to recognize its mistake, once the unintended negative  
> consequences are pointed out, and will promptly correct it. The  
> current RCUK policy can still be made workable with two simple  
> patches, to prevent publisher-imposed embargoes on Green OA from  
> being used to force authors to pay for hybrid Gold OA:
>
> RCUK should:
>
> (1) Drop the implication that if a journal offers both Green and  
> Gold, then RCUK fundees must pick Gold
>
> and
>
> (2) Urge but do not require that the Green option must fall within  
> the allowable embargo interval.
>
>
> (The deposit of the refereed final draft would still have to be done  
> immediately upon publication, but the repository’s “email-eprint- 
> request” Button could be used to tide over user needs by providing  
> “Almost-OA” during the embargo.)
>
> That way RCUK fundees (i) must all deposit immediately (no  
> exceptions), (ii) must make the deposit Green OA immediately or as  
> soon as possible and (not or) (iii) may pay for Gold OA (if the  
> money is available and the author wishes):
>
> Green OA:
>
> (a) Immediate repository deposit of (at least) the final draft is  
> required
> (b) Making access to deposit Gratis OA immediately is urged
> (c) Maximal Gratis OA embargo of 6 months (12 months for AHRC &  
> ESRC) is allowed
> (d) Libre OA license adoption wherever possible, and desired by  
> author, is recommended
>
> OR
>
> Gold OA:
>
> (e) Immediate repository deposit of (at least) version of record is  
> required
> (f) Making access to deposit OA immediately is required
> (g) Adoption of Libre OA License (if desired by author) is urged
>
> This ensures that publishers (1) cannot use embargoes to force  
> authors to pay for hybrid Gold and that authors (2) retain their  
> freedom to choose whether or not to pay for Gold, (3) whether or not  
> to adopt a license allowing further re-use rights (where it is  
> possible) and (4) which journal to publish in.
>
> Stevan Harnad
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