[GOAL] Re: [sparc-oaforum] The direction of travel for open access in the UK

[Christoph Bruch]

Thanks Fred for this account of the current situation in the UK!

 

According to my understanding there will be no open access without a
dedicated open access infrastructure.

 

The set of journal websites will not be that infrastructure.

 

Open Access needs a combination of institutional repositories and a group of
infrastructures (not only repositories in the classical meaning)
aggregating, enhancing, preserving and disseminating content with a long
term perspective.

 

APCs and subscription fees plus green road are only two approaches  to
provide funding for services and thus enable authors/publishers to feed
content into the infrastructure which will provide the actual open access.

 

APCs and subscription fees plus green road only pay to make information
available at an initial stage.

 

Open access is a long term service based on the provision of content.

 

The minister should be educated that even if the British government decides
a preference for gold there is a need for investment in an open access
infrastructure on top of that.

 

Institutional repositories for publications and data have vital function for
their hosting institutions and as a mechanism to channel content into the
next layer of the open access infrastructure.

 

Regards,

 

Christoph

 

 

Von: Friend, Fred [mailto:f.friend at ucl.ac.uk] 
Gesendet: Samstag, 9. März 2013 17:49
An: goal at eprints.org; SPARC-OAForum at arl.org
Betreff: [sparc-oaforum] The direction of travel for open access in the UK

 

 

Open access in the UK is coming to a crossroads. Pointing in one direction
are members of the political and scientific Establishment, working hard to
convince the UK research community that a preference for APC-paid open
access is the way to go, while wishing to travel down another road to open
access are many senior people in universities and also many of the younger
researchers, understanding the value in institutional repositories which the
political and scientific Establishment refuse to support. Standing in the
middle of the crossroads are many of the society publishers the Government
wishes to protect, liking the Government’s policy in principle but not
liking the uncertainties surrounding the implementation of that policy.

A discussion and dinner held at the Royal Society one evening this week
illustrated the determination of the political and scientific Establishment
in the UK to force through an APC-preferred open access policy: 

· No supporter of the repository route to open access was invited onto the
panel at the meeting and the few dissenters from the Government/RCUK policy
invited to the meeting found it very difficult to catch the Chairman’s eye. 

· The repository route to open access was only mentioned as a threat to the
publishing industry and not as opportunity to introduce an academic-friendly
and cost-effective business model for scholarly communication. 

· Opposition to the Government/RCUK policy came from a society publisher, on
the grounds that the UK Government has not fully-funded a policy that will
enable the publishing industry to survive in an open access world. 

· The unwillingness of the UK Government to consult with supporters of open
access repositories is also illustrated by a response received this week to
an FOI Request asking for details of a meeting held by Minister David
Willetts on 12 February 2013. This meeting was attended by 12
representatives from publishers and learned societies with publishing
interests and only 4 representatives from Higher Education. 

· The UK Government bias towards consultation with publishers was first
illustrated by the response to an FOI Request in 2005, which revealed that
the then Minister Lord Sainsbury had more meetings on open access with
publisher representatives than with research representatives. 

Most UK universities are continuing to support their institutional
repositories and adding versions of research papers to those repositories.
Universities unable to afford the cost of the Government/RCUK preferred
policy may decide to use the RCUK’s promise that institutions will have
discretion to choose for themselves between the various open access models
and opt for more green than gold. The only beneficiaries from the
Government’s preferred policy appear to be the high-profit STM publishers -
who will continue to dominate both subscription and open access markets -
and a small number of open access publishers with strong academic support.
Amongst the losers may be the smaller society publishers without the breadth
of support to secure a significant share of the open access publishing
market. It is to be hoped that the promised monitoring of both the Finch
Report Recommendations and the RCUK policy will take a broader view of open
access and of the effect of policies than has been evident to date. 

Fred Friend 

Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk   

 

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