Fred Friend has once again incisively said it all. <div><br></div><div>The following data support the point Fred makes. The figure illustrates that Green OA mandates can do at least as well as Wellcome's 60% OA deposit rate, without any extra payment whatsoever to publishers for Gold OA (and hence without using 1.5% of scarce UK research funds to double-pay for publication,): <div>
<br></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><b><a href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/905-Finch-Fiasco-in-Figures.html">Finch Fiasco in Figures</a></b></div>
</blockquote>.</div></blockquote><div><div><div>What is needed is a sensible, affordable, scalable and sustainable RCUK OA mandate, with: </div><div><br></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px">
<div>(1) <b>Compliance Verification</b>. An effective Green OA <i>compliance-verification mechanism</i> is imperative in order to ensure that deposit rates -- <i>by fundees</i> -- are at least as high as the rates in the above figure. (Such compliance verification mechanisms are completely absent from both the old RCUK mandate and the new one.). </div>
<div><br></div></blockquote></div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div><b><a href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/369-guid.html">How to Integrate University and Funder Open Access Mandates</a></b></div>
</div></blockquote></div></div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div><br></div></div></blockquote></div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div><b><a href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/864-.html">Integrating Institutional and Funder Open Access Mandates: Belgian Model</a></b></div>
</div></blockquote></div></blockquote><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><br></div><div>(2) <b>Free choice of Green or Gold</b>. Free choice by UK authors as to whether they wish to comply with RCUK's OA mandate via cost-free Green self-archiving or via paying publishers for Gold is also essential for the success of the RCUK OA mandate. Mandating that the deposit be done in institutional IRs rather than institution-externally is a core component of a successful compliance-verification mechanism. (And on no account should publishers -- who are, after all, not RCUK fundees -- rather than RCUK fundees be doing the depositing.) </div>
<div><br></div></blockquote></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div><b><a href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/916-.html">On Robert Kiley (Wellcome Trust) on Finch Report and RCUK Mandate</a></b></div>
</div></blockquote></div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><b><br></b></div></blockquote></div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><a href="http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/673-.html"><b>On the Wellcome Trust OA Mandate and Central vs. Institutional Deposit</b></a></div>
</blockquote></div></blockquote><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><br></div></blockquote><div>(As to the recent JISC-Repositories subscriber's posting requesting an end to double-posting of GOAL messages to JISC-Repositories because this subscriber was "getting bored" with the discussion of Green vs Gold: May I suggest that this subscriber use the delete key to assuage his boredom, rather than urging that UK repository managers be deprived of information highly pertinent to the future of their domain -- or that they be obliged to subscribe to a second list that also carries a good deal of content that is not pertinent to the future of their domain -- in order to assuage this subscriber's boredom?)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Stevan Harnad<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 6:40 AM, Frederick Friend <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk" target="_blank">ucylfjf@ucl.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:</div>
<div class="gmail_quote"><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Calibri'">
<div>FRED FRIEND: I am grateful to Robert Kiley for clarification of Wellcome’s policy in a
message which – with his permission – is reproduced below:</div><font face="Times New Roman">
<div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">ROBERT KILEY: ”Can I just make it clear that though the Trust requires publishers to
deposit content which has attracted an APC fee directly in PMC (which is then
mirrored to UKPMC/Europe PMC) we do not pay any extra for this service?
Publishers charge the Wellcome (via the grant holders and their institutions)
the published APC fee. In terms of the fee paid to publishers, we currently
spend around £4m pa on OA publication fees -- this figure includes publication
fees levied by both hybrids and full OA journals. Compliance with our OA policy
is around 60 per cent. Calculations continue to show that if all WT-funded
research was routed via the gold route, and assuming that the Trust picked up
100 per cent of OA costs (even though most WT funded research has another funder
supporting the research), at current levels of APC, the cost to the Trust would
be between 1.25 percent and 1.5 percent of our annual research spend.<br>Hope
this helps. Robert.”</blockquote></div>
<div> </div>
<div><font face="Calibri">FRED FRIEND: What this extra information tells me is that the payment
by Wellcome has never been a payment to meet the cost of deposit but a payment
to the publisher for access and re-use rights, just as an APC does. Wellcome had
every right to begin to make such payments but the issue remains whether this
model – which Wellcome have the money to pay for – is suitable for transfer into
policies paid for from the national funds for research administered by the RCs.
Spending 1.5% of RCUK funds on APCs may have a very different effect upon other
national research priorities than spending 1.5% of Wellcome research funds on
APCs has upon Wellcome’s priorities, and we do not even know whether 1.5% of
RCUK funds will pay for all RC-funded UK research outputs. I am still left with
the impression that the Wellcome model has been accepted without question by the
Finch Group and then by HM Government. </font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Calibri">One question which needs to be asked – if this situation
is carried through into all UK research outputs - is what happens to the 40% of
articles not gathered in by this route? The UKPMC deposit rate of 60% is clearly
higher than UKPMC was achieving through author-deposit alone, but open access
statistics show that one open access model on its own cannot ensure that 100% of
research content is made open access. In fact to date the repository deposit
model has been more successful than OA journal publication in increasing the
volume of open access. In blocking the use of institutional repositories for
access to and re-use of current research output, HM Government has given us a
situation where we may be paying more for less open access. </font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Calibri">Fred Friend</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri">Honorary Director Scholarly Communication
UCL</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri"><a href="http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk" target="_blank">http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk</a>
</font></div>
<div><font face="Calibri"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Calibri"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Calibri"></font><br></div></font>
<div style="font-size:small;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:'Calibri';display:inline;font-weight:normal"><b>From:</b>
<a title="ucylfjf@UCL.AC.UK" href="mailto:ucylfjf@UCL.AC.UK" target="_blank">Frederick Friend</a>
</div>
<div style="FONT:10pt tahoma">
<div style="BACKGROUND:#f5f5f5">
<div><b>Sent:</b> Monday, October 08, 2012 1:01 PM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a title="JISC-REPOSITORIES@JISCMAIL.AC.UK" href="mailto:JISC-REPOSITORIES@JISCMAIL.AC.UK" target="_blank">JISC-REPOSITORIES@JISCMAIL.AC.UK</a>
</div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> Europe PubMed as a home for all RCUK research
outputs?</div></div></div>
<div> </div></div>
<div style="font-size:small;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:'Calibri';display:inline;font-weight:normal">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Calibri'">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><strong>PAUL JUMP/MARK THORLEY: “Admitting that RCUK was "thinking about" mandatory repository
deposit, Mr Thorley said that one idea was to expand the Europe (formerly UK)
PubMed Central repository, which currently covers only biomedicine, to encompass
all subjects to help publishers automate deposits.” Mark Thorley of RCUK quoted
in an article by Paul Jump in “Times Higher Education” of 4 October 2012.
</strong></blockquote>
<div><strong></strong> </div>
<div>FRED FRIEND: I wonder whose idea this was! I can make one or two guesses, but whoever
suggested it, it is a bad idea! I welcomed the development of UK PubMed Central,
until the point when Wellcome Trust started to pay some publishers to make the
deposit on behalf of authors and funders. I do not know whether Wellcome will
disclose the sums paid to publishers, but my impression is that whatever is
being paid more than covers the cost of making the deposit and is in effect a
payment to publishers for open access and re-use rights. When people I know who
are not in academia ask me about my work and I explain that I am working for
open access to taxpayer-funded research, this is welcomed by whoever I am
speaking to – until I say that many publishers are asking to be paid by
taxpayers for making articles open access, at which point the welcome from my
listener turns to incredulity. Even more incredulity if I mention the level of
payments being requested for APCs. So, if RCUK were to go down the road of
paying publishers to deposit in Europe PubMed Central, they should be prepared
for challenges on such a mis-use of public money, especially if the deposit
payment were to be in addition to the payment of an APC. Presumably the existing
funders of UKPMC – some of them charities – would also expect a contribution
from the non-biomedical RCs towards the high cost of running Europe PMC. This
“idea” could cost a lot of money. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>I suspect that there will also be objections from subject groups who see
their repository needs as being very different from those of the biomedical
community. How many times in my long career have I heard that other such
all-embracing proposals will not work for subject x or y! UKPMC is a wonderful
service for the biomedical community, a service for which they are prepared to
pay and have the resources to pay, but its design will not fit all subjects
without major modification. Already I hear some concern about the undue
influence of the biomedical community and Wellcome in particular upon the Finch
Report and thus upon Government policy. The suspicion is that the open access
policy of the Wellcome Trust, which works very well for the Trust and for the
biomedical community, is being adopted for all UK research outputs without
consideration of the way the Trust’s open access decisions can be applied
within other very different academic structures.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>RCUK: please think again! It is good that you are considering mandatory
repository deposit, but there are other repositories which can provide better
value for the service you need. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Fred Friend</div>
<div><a href="http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk" target="_blank">http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk</a>
</div></div></div></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br></div></div></div>