Dear Kim,

The points you raise are all apposite.

Open Access, particularly the Gold model, has been widely opposed by academics. Its introduction will have all the effects that you outline. It will also have a potentially dire effect on some of our top journals, which aspire to be of international quality, as the UK is looking to lead the way on Gold Access. As Editor of Work, Employment and Society I can say we have been concerned about this for some time, and we have been in discussion with the BSA (which owns the journal) and Sage (the publisher). The publishers will turn their profit whatever happens, but it will seriously hit associations that get income from journals and it will cause widespread inequality and even more managerialism and monitoring of research in universities.

One option will be increased publication by universities themselves, with more 'in house' journals and outlets; though this will come with its own form of segmentation. There is a current discussion about archiving that is pertinent here. At its core the idea of open access is a good one, but the general pay to get a paper published model is not (though this has long been the case for some journals). 

It is important to keep campaigning against the Gold model to the Research Councils and the government. There is likely to be some movement on this until the criteria for the next REF are established. At present, as I understand it, the proposal is indeed around Gold access and that only papers published in open access journals will be permissable. The problems this will create will be large. Within Universities this is being widely debated and models of good and fair practice established will need to be shared. There is already discussion about 'capping' the number of papers that can be supported etc. Support for early career researcher and many other relevant cases will need to become enshrined in formal agreements - the UCU needs policies on this for bargaining. More generally, there is also a logic that we will also all publish less, in refereed journals at least. This could be an opportunity to explore new forms of dissemination.

Whether this complies with the equality duties is a good question. I doubt it. But the government's contempt for equality and the duties is sadly self evident, and an area also likely to be further depreciated. 

This is an important issue.

Best wishes

Mark

Professor Mark Stuart
Editor: Work, Employment and Society
Montague Burton Professor of Industrial Relations
University of Leeds


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-----Original Message-----

From:         Dr Kim Allen <[log in to unmask]>

Sender:       Critical Labour Studies <[log in to unmask]>

Date:         Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:50:00 

To: <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:     Dr Kim Allen <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Open Access - equity issues



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

--

Dr. Kim Allen

Research Fellow

The Education & Social Research Institute (ESRI)

Manchester Metropolitan University

799 Wilmslow Road

Didsbury

Manchester

M20 2RR