[GOAL] On UK Russell Group on BIS Report

[Stevan Harnad]

The Director General of the UK's Russell Group of universities, Wendy
Piatt, responded<http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/russell-group-latest-news/154-2013/5529-bis-select-committee-report-on-open-access/>
as
follows to the BIS Committee Recommendations on UK OA policy:

*Russell Group: “We welcome the committee’s report, which highlights the
vital role that ‘green’ open access can play as the UK moves towards full
open access... [T]he committee rightly highlights that ‘green’ open access
is a simple and cost-effective way of sharing research. We urge the
Government to take note of the calls to reconsider its preference for
‘gold’ open access during the five year transition period."
      “However, we have real reservations about the committee’s
recommendation to restrict embargo periods to six months for STEM subjects
and 12 months for humanities, arts and social sciences. This will directly
limit where researchers can publish, will constrain academic freedom and
could potentially damage the international standing of UK universities.”*

The substantive recommendations of the 2013 BIS Report
(I<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/9902.htm>
, II<http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmbis/99/99vw01.htm>)
were:

*1. *that the Green OA deposit in the institutional
repository<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html>
should
be *immediate<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html>
* rather than delayed, whether or not Open Access to the deposit is
embargoed by the publisher (during any OA embargo the repository's
eprint-request
Button <https://secure.ecs.soton.ac.uk/notices/publicnotices.php?notice=902>
can
then enable the author to fulfill individual user eprint requests
automatically with one click each *if deposit was immediate*),

*2.* that an effective mechanism for monitoring and ensuring timely mandate
compliance <http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/342647/> should be implemented, and

*3.* that Gold OA
publishing<http://poynder.blogspot.ca/2013/07/where-are-we-what-still-needs-to-be.html>
should
either no longer be preferred or hybrid Gold should no longer be funded.

The only bearing these three recommendations have on author choice of
journal is that they *restore* it: Whereas Finch/RCUK's current preference
for publishing in Gold OA journals would have restricted author freedom of
choice, BIS removes that restriction. Authors can publish in whatever
journal they wish.

As to the BIS suggestion to reduce the maximum allowable Green OA embargo
limit to 6-12 months from 12-24 months: the immediate-deposit mandate (plus
the repository Button) largely moots this. *As long as deposit is immediate*,
there would be nothing wrong with allowing an opt-out or waiver (as in the
American opt-out mandate models <https://osc.hul.harvard.edu/modelpolicy>,
such as Harvard<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/545-guid.html>'s)
from the maximal embargo limit on an individual article basis, if the
author stipulates that it would restrict journal choice to have to comply
with the embargo. The critical thing is that there should be no opt-out
from immediate-deposit (which, if not immediately OA, has no bearing
whatsoever on author freedom of choice of journals). Authors can publish in
whatever journal they wish.
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