[GOAL] Peter Suber: "The UK can do better..."

[Stevan Harnad]

Mark Thorley: "Stevan, ...As an advocate of Open Access I would like to
think that you appreciate the fact that the UK is leading the world here..."


Mark, no, the UK is no longer leading the world with its new Finch/RCUK/BIS
OA policy.

It's time to heed OA advocates that have been at this far longer than you,
and fix the RCUK Policy.

Peter Suber <http://bit.ly/SuberRCUK>: "The UK can do better. In fact, the
RCUK can do better. Its 2006 policy was better than the new policy. It only
needed to be enforced."


The RCUK Policy is fixable. Indeed it can be made much better than the old
RCUK policy. And the UK can once again take the worldwide lead in OA Policy:

*I. Drop the 9 words that make the RCUK Policy say the opposite of what it
means.*

*II. Adopt an effective compliance-verification mechanism for Green OA
self-archiving:*

*(IIa)* *Deposit must be in the fundee's institutional
repository<http://roar.eprints.org/>
*.

 (This makes each UK institution responsible for monitoring and verifying
timely compliance.)

*(IIb)* *All articles must be deposited
immediately<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html>
upon
acceptance for publication*.

(Publisher embargoes apply only to the date on which the deposit is made
OA.)

*(IIc)* *Repository deposit must be designated the sole
mechanism<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/864-Integrating-Institutional-and-Funder-Open-Access-Mandates-Belgian-Model.html>
for
submitting publications for UK research assessment
(REF<http://www.eprints.org/ref2014/>)
with articles' deposit URL required in all requests for RCUK funding or
renewal.*


It is still widely hoped that RCUK will act in a flexible, constructive way
rather than a rigid, dogmatic one, in the face of the growing expression of
the concerns of the research community and its OA advocates, in the UK and
worldwide, about the new RCUK OA Policy.

Stevan Harnad

*BOAI-10 RECOMMENDATIONS<http://www.soros.org/openaccess/boai-10-recommendations>
***

*-- 1.1. Every institution of higher education should have a policy
assuring that peer-reviewed versions of all future scholarly articles by
faculty members are deposited in the institution’s designated repository...

-- Deposits should be made as early as possible, ideally at the time of
acceptance, and no later than the date of formal publication.

-- University policies should respect faculty freedom to submit new work to
the journals of their choice. [emphasis added]

-- University policies should encourage but not require publication in OA
journals [emphasis added] ...

-- 1.3. Every research funding agency, public or private, should have a
policy assuring that peer-reviewed versions of all future scholarly
articles reporting funded research are deposited in a suitable repository
and made OA as soon as practicable.

-- Deposits should be made as early as possible, ideally at the time of
acceptance, and no later than the date of formal publication...*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20120929/2911490b/attachment.html