[GOAL] Re: RCUK Policy: query over any requirement to deposit

Fri Sep 28 13:14:06 BST 2012

The Finch report incorrectly stated that Green OA self-archiving has failed.

In reality, RCUK failed to create any deposit compliance verification mechanism.

The new RCUK OA Policy, in its anxiety to comply with BIS/Finch/Willets has again, 
instead of fixing ghe obvious problem with the existing mandate -- adding an Green 
deposit compliance mechanism -- has again focussed on compliance with the rush 
to pay for Gold:

If the UK wants 100% UK OA within two years, it need only add 
the following simple, cost-effective compliance verification mechanism: 

(1) Deposit must be in the fundee's institutional repository. 
(This makes each UK institution responsible for monitoring 
and verifying timely compliance.) 

(2) All articles must be deposited immediately upon acceptance for publication. 
(Publisher embargoes apply only to the date on which the deposit is made OA.) 

(3) Repository deposit must be designated the sole mechanism for 
submitting publications for UK research assessment (REF).

(4) Provide authors with rich metrics on usage and citations,
as a reward for deposit and as evidence of its benefits for 
usage and imact.

And settle for Gratis Green OA initially, rather than over-reaching
for CC-BY: It's much less urgent, has far bigger publisher-opposition,
and will come, by and by, once we have mandated global gratis Green OA.

Stevan Harnad

On 2012-09-28, at 7:49 AM, BISSET J. wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> At an event last night held at Imperial College (http://scicommforum.eventbrite.co.uk/ , great discussion about OA, RCUK policy, purpose of repositories etc.) I raised a question I had previously asked RCUK directly via email (see below) but had received no response.
> 
> Question:
> 
> (i) From the context of an institution with an open access mandate in place requiring self-archiving in the institutional repository, but which like many other institutions still has some work to achieve 100% compliance...
> 
> (ii) Taking into account the explicit requirement for deposit from, for example, Wellcome and some of the Research Councils...
> 
> Have myself and colleagues (a) misunderstood RCUK policy, (b) is the wording not as tight as it should be or (c) or is it as it is and that is what is intended when the policy seems to:-
> 
> 1) Require authors to publish in 'compliant' journals
> 
> 2) Indicate that to be compliant, journals must allow deposit in other repositories
> 
> but...
> 
> 3) there appears to be no explicit push (although implied) to actually require deposit, nor an indication of where this responsibility should lie to make the deposit or check that deposit has occurred.
> 
> Response
> 
> This followed on from several questions about green OA, self-archiving, publisher archiving and repositories.
> 
> Mark Thorley's response included comment about RCUK "thinking about being more co-ordinated ... still a piece of work to be done ... watch this space" and later a Tweet from Alexandra Saxon, head of Comms at RCUK:
> 
> "...When we announce details of the block grant we will clarify wording in policy / guidance #icoa"
> 
> Mike Taylor from Bristol also kindly did a quick check and came back with:
> 
> "#icoa Actually wording IS clear: RCUK "will accept a delay of no more than six months between on-line publication and a paper becoming OA"
> 
> ... admitting it was 'by the skin of their teeth'. I thought "great" - we just must have really misread it.
> 
> Still unclear
> 
> But having now re-read the policy (again), I still don't think it is as clear as it could be if RCUK do expect deposit to be made (either following Gold or green route).
> 
> Now, there is a much wider discussion around this about usage licences, institutional vs subject repositories, green vs gold, whether publishers or authors should deposit, visbility of repository material and hybrid OA articles. That has been plenty discussed elsewhere, and still is, and needs to be.
> 
> But can I please clarify with anyone else if others take the same reading as we have from the policy as it stands:-
> 
> a) Section 3 clearly states the requirements on researchers, which include to publish in compliant journals. No mention of deposit required.
> 
> b) Section 4 then goes on to describe how a journal can be considered 'compliant'. Through either of the two options given, it states that "the journal must allow deposit".
> 
> As Mike Taylor points out, it also then goes on to say (under the second, green oa option)...
> 
> "the journal must allow deposit of Accepted Manuscripts that include all changes resulting from peer review ... Research Councils will accept a delay of no more than six months between on-line publication and a research paper becoming Open Access, except in the case of research papers arising from research funded by the AHRC and the ESRC where the maximum embargo period is 12 months."
> 
> But the way we have read this is that, in order to be compliant (it is in the section on how an author can identify if a journal is compliant, and follows on from the start of the sentence which says a journal must allow, not act upon) research councils will accept no delay longer than 6/12 months when a journal will allow deposit.
> 
> We cannot see any clearly expressed requirement or allocation of responsibility either for:-
> 
> i) the journal to deposit in a specific subject respository, or
> 
> ii) the author to then act upon the journal deposit policy and self-archive, or
> 
> iii) the author to be responsible for ensuring deposit has occurred (either by self-archiving or publisher archiving).
> 
> I therefore think there is a risk that this aspect of the policy would be difficult to enforce as it is currently phrased.
> 
> I'd be very interested to hear others thoughts or readings on this. It is of course very picky, and I concur with Professor Stephen Curry in congratulating Mark Thorley and RCUK, but as a means of trying to make sure OA is pursued with vigour, the current phrasing appears to be not as tight as it could be.
> 
> Kind regards
> 
> James
> 
> James Bisset
> Academic Liaison Librarian (Research Support)
> Durham University Library
> Stockton Road
> Durham DH1 3LY
> 
> Twitter: @bissetjm
> Tel: +44 (0)191 334 1586
>  
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>  
> From: BISSET J.
> Sent: 26 July 2012 14:07
> To: 'info at rcuk.ac.uk'
> Subject: Open Access policy: Cllarification of our uinderstanding - no explicit requirement to deposit o authors or publishers.
> 
> Dear RCUK,
> Apologies, I was not sure which contact address might be preferable. Following a meeting with colleagues, we are concerned/confused by one aspect of the recent announcement on access to research outputs. Could we please ask for clarification of our understanding, and if in fact there might be an omission from the statement.
> Your statement stipulates that researchers in receipt of funding from Research Councils must be published in journals which are compliant with your policy on open access.
> The policy then indicates the two requirements for recognition as the journal being considered to be compliant:-
> The Research Councils will recognise a journal as being compliant with their policy on Open Access if:
> 1) The journal provides via its own website immediate and unrestricted access to the publisher’s final version of the paper (the Version of Record), andallows immediate deposit of the Version of Record in other repositories without restriction on re-use. This may involve payment of an ‘Article Processing Charge’ (APC) to the publisher. The CC-BY license should be used in this case.
> Or
> 
> 2) Where a publisher does not offer option 1 above, the journal must allow deposit of Accepted Manuscripts that include all changes resulting from peer review (but not necessarily incorporating the publisher’s formatting) in other repositories, without restrictions on non-commercial re-use and within a defined period. In this option no ‘Article Processing Charge’ will be payable to the publisher. Research Councils will accept a delay of no more than six months between on-line publication and a research paper becoming Open Access, except in the case of research papers arising from research funded by the AHRC and the ESRC where the maximum embargo period is 12 months.
> 
> Our confusion is this:-
> The policy seems to place an emphasis on publishers that they must allow articles to be deposited in other repositories (either with or without a fee and embargo). However, there is no actual explicit direction for publishers or authors to actually take action to make that deposit. This section (4) of the policy stipulates the criteria which will lead to the Research Councils recognising a journal as being compliant.
> Whilst the embargo limitation does stipulate:-
> ”Research Councils will accept a delay of no more than six months between on-line publication and a research paper becoming Open Access, except in the case of research papers arising from research funded by the AHRC and the ESRC where the maximum embargo period is 12 months.”
> … we could see two potential issues:-
> 
> 1) If published via option 1, gold open access is provided and green access permitted and expected, but not explicitly enforced on either the publisher or author.
> .. and more worryingly,
> 2) If published via option 2, the publisher may allow green after 6/12 months, and RCUK may expect a journal to not prevent deposit within this time… but we cannot see any explicit wording to indicate where the responsibility lies to ensure deposit occurs. If this was to be used to block funding to a researcher as a penalty for not depositing, could an author argue that the requirement is only stated as an indication as to compliance by the journal, and not a requirement for specific action by the author?
> We would very much like to see RCUK’s statement used as a means to encourage 100% compliance with making research council funded research open access and deposit in appropriate repositories, but if we have not misread the policy, we are concerned that we will in fact still face the same difficulties in encouraging authors and/or publishers to actually take the actions required to deposit.
> Has this been deliberately, or mistakenly, omitted from the policy, or have we just missed this in our reading of the policy? Any clarification would be much appreciated?
> Kind regards
> James
> James Bisset
> Academic Liaison Librarian (Research Support)
> Durham University Library
> Stockton Road
> Durham DH1 3LY
> Tel: +44 (0)191 334 1586

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