[GOAL] Spoiled But Readily Fixed

[Stevan Harnad]

Bravo to Fred Friend Friend for his trenchant account of the UK/OA saga: "How
did the UK government manage to spoil something as good as open
access?<http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/10/17/uk-government-manage-to-spoil-open-access/>
".

(Only one item was missing from his list of 9 perverse effects of the
Willetts/Finch sell-out -- that it also runs roughshod over UK authors'
freedom of choice as to which journal to publish in -- but Fred has
informed me that it was in his original list and had to be cut to meet the
word-limit!)

Whether or not BIS and the UK goverrnment have the good sense to follow the
wise and timely advice of their own 2013 BIS Select
Committee<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1040-UK-BIS-Committee-2013-Report-on-Open-Access.html>
on
how to repair the RCUK OA Mandate, nothing prevents
HEFCE<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/985-With-New-REF-Mandate-Proposal,-UK-Rejoins-OA-Vanguard.html>
 and RCUK <http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/991-.html> from
following that advice (just as they followed the advice of the 2004 Select
Committee<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm>and
mandated OA even though the government rejected the advice).

And irrespective of any of this, nothing prevents UK researchers from
publishing in their journal of choice and depositing their final drafts in
their institutional repositories immediately upon acceptance for
publication, as Fred suggests, releasing them either immediately as OA, or
after an embargo of 6 or 12 months. RCUK has already stated that it will
not be enforcing the Green OA embargoes for at least the five
years<http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/rcuk-fails-to-end-green-embargo-confusion/news/research-councils-green-open-access-policy-will-not-be-enforced/2001275.article>
.

(And meanwhile the repositories' facilitated copy-request
Button<https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy> will
be making it possible for authors to provide individual
copies<http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/268511/> of
embargoed deposits to requestors for research purposes with one extra click
per request, if they wish -- if, but only if, the paper is deposited
immediately <http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september12/harnad/09harnad.html> upon
publication rather than after the embargo.)

*Stevan Harnad*
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/1065-.html
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