[GOAL] Re: Finch Report - commentary

[Jan Velterop]

Marcin Wojnarski has just added some comments to the PDF of the Finch Report (at 'executive summary' in the full version) via Utopia Documents. He asked me: "Why don't you send info to GOAL list about this possibility? I think many people might be interested, as it's a very convenient way to share comments - and to put all one's comments in a single place."

So here it is: If you open the PDF of the report in Utopia Documents, you can comment on any portion of the text and submit them. There is no need for the comments or for the PDF to be sent around. It's just like magic, though the magic trick in this case is that the comments are being held, with information on what in the PDF is commented on, and separately from the PDF, which is not being held, on the Utopia Documents server and then shown, on the fly, if the PDF is opened with Utopia Documents.

You can add your own comments, of course. Utopia Documents is free and available, for Mac and Windows (an older Linux version is available and a new one is expected this summer) from http://utopiadocs.com

Jan Velterop

On 20 Jun 2012, at 12:43, Marcin Wojnarski wrote:

> Below is my comment posted originally on Cameron Neylon's blog. Can be of interest for GOAL.
> 
> On publicity front the Finch Report is a good news, as it restates that Open Access is the way to go.
> On the more important policy-making front, it's a complete failure and more of a harm than an aid in establishing universal OA. Being the govt, I'd throw away this entire report and start again from scratch, but with renowned OA expert as a leader of the group and no publishers on the board (let them write a separate report if they wish). My general feeling is that Dame Janet Finch either didn't withstand the big pressure of corporate interests; or she completely misunderstood the aim of the study and her role as a chair.
> 
> The report contains very few quantitative facts - especially when it comes to drafting conclusions for the policy - but lots of gobbledygook, doubletalk and publishers' marketing stuff aimed at obstructing OA. Even worse, it doesn't deliver on its essential and most important promise: to give policy guidelines for govt on how to make OA into mainstream. Instead, it provides a long list of "Key actions" (see Executive         Summary) which are a perfect example of buzzword-compliant non-speak: 
> "Make a clear commitment", "Put in place arrangements", "Keep under review", "Renew efforts to sustain and enhance", "Establish effective and flexible mechanisms", "Provide clear information", "continue to develop", consider, discuss, extend, ensure, rationalise, examine, find ways, support, ... and do it "carefully" and "in consultation"! - that's a brief but complete summary of what Dame Finch recommends to the government.
> 
> I think they should withdraw her remuneration, because she simply didn't do her job. And then make a new study, hopefully more insightful than this one.
> 
> ------------
> Besides this report being incomplete and sloppy, it also poses a serious threat to OA policy-making, because up to now it is the most formalized and authoritative voice of scientific community and thus the government can't just ignore it. The OA community should make a very clear and unambiguous statement addressed to the govt saying that this report is bad, non-actionable in terms of policy making, and doesn't have acceptance of the community.
> 
> BTW, note a funny thing: Dame Finch doesn't provide any clear plan of what has to be done, but she knows (!) that this will cost £50-60M. How can it be?!
> 
> 
> Marcin Wojnarski
> 
> 
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