Dear colleagues
I am emailing you to seek some advice.
I am increasingly concerned about the open access policies and, specifically, the implications of this for equality issues if we move to a full 'pay to publish' model. There will not only be growing hierarchies between disciplinary areas, and between elite institutions with funds to support academics to publish in gold access journals and post-92 intuitions without adequate funding to pay publishing charges; but it is likely that institutional and decision-making processes around which academics are 'invested in' to publish open access,will disadvantage phd students, Early career researchers and those on short term or part time contracts (itself gendered, raced etc). This is incredibly worrying if REF 2020 insists all submissions comply with gold access.
I am sure you are all aware of the policies, and there have been some useful blogs and write ups, for example:
http://thedisorderofthings.com/2012/12/04/open-access-hefce-ref2020-and-the-threat-to-academic-freedom/
See also THES story yesterday - Fool's Gold: re. open access publishing
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=422640&c=2
In discussions with colleagues there is a feeling that people have been caught unaware and are not fully clear on the implications of the policy. Likewise, I think *some* institutions have been caught on the back foot somewhat. This is worrying but could also open up a space to lobby and feed into institutional policies so that these are more equitable.
However, while the discussions so far encourage academics to lobby their institutions for 'clear policies' regarding open access, they do not provide any clear recommendations for what an institutional policy regarding the allocation of monies for open access might actually look like which would be more equitable and support academic publishing across the career stage and equality groups. There is an opportunity here to feed into this and so i wondered if colleagues might be able to help - suggesting key things that we should demand feature in an institutional policy.
If anyone has any suggestions, or is even working on developing these policies in their own institution that might serve as a useful template, this would be much appreciated.
Also, legally there must be issues with how the open access policies will comply - or not - with equalities duties. If anyone has any information on this it would be much appreciated.
In addition, I'm trying to get hold of some stats which shows the demographic breakdown of academic staff on different types of contracts. If allocation of funds will favour those on permanent contracts (and maybe in top positions), there are likely to be major equity issues in terms of which groups are clustered in more precarious positions in academia. Would anyone know where I might find this? Unions?
Kind regards
Kim Allen
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Dr. Kim Allen
Research Fellow
The Education & Social Research Institute (ESRI)
Manchester Metropolitan University
799 Wilmslow Road
Didsbury
Manchester
M20 2RR
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