[GOAL] Kudos to the UK BIS Committee: important steps in the right direction

[Heather Morrison]

My comments on the recently released UK Business, Innovation & Skills Committee's report on open access have been posted here:
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2013/09/kudos-to-uk-business-innovation-skills.html

Highlights

Following are the Conclusions and Recommendations themselves in full, and my comments. In brief, the BIS report is a welcome correction to the problems brought forward by the RCUK push for gold open access. I would like to highlight the BIS suggestion that more research is needed on the impact of APCs; my preliminary research suggests that a $3,000 APC is equivalent to the full-time salary for an Associate Professor in a country like Ethiopia, for example. The BIS emphasis on market correction is welcome, however two of the most promising approaches for cost-effective scholarly publishing (direct subsidy for publishing and peer-review overlay on repositories) are not included. The RCUK approach actually lends itself to decreasing access by encouraging the development of longer embargoes on free access. Like BIS, I am concerned that the RCUK approach takes needed dollars away from researchers to further fund an already distorted market. Finally, while the BIS committee notes the absence of voices of SMEs, no doubt appropriate for their mandate, I would like to add that the major group whose voices are not heard in open access policy discussions is academics. It is our work, after all.

best.

--
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca<mailto:Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>

ALA Accreditation site visit scheduled for 30 Sept-1 Oct 2013 /
Visite du comité externe pour l'accréditation par l'ALA est prévu le 30
sept-1 oct 2013

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
http://www.esi.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html



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