Of course the only people who benefit from this shambles in UK policy are the “big deal” publishers, who can be assured that UK libraries will renew their contracts yet again as the proportion of content available on OA fails to reach the level needed to dispense with the “big deals”. RCUK cannot be blamed too much for the shambles, which is not of their making, but both the UK Government (for a hasty decision to go with paid gold OA) and the Finch Group (for making Recommendations based upon shaky “evidence”) must acknowledge their mistakes. Particularly revealing is the statement by Dame Janet Finch in the Paul Jump article that “it will be a long time if ever we get 100 per cent gold open access”. Very true - so why did the Finch Group recommend priority be given to gold open access and why did the UK Government rush to accept the Group’s Recommendation? The losers in the shambles will not only be UK researchers and taxpayers but also those smaller OA publishers who thought that enough money would be made available by the UK Government to pay for the gold OA policy.
Fred Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk
From: Stevan Harnad
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 5:03 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Cc: jisc-repositories
Subject: [sparc-oaforum] RCUK Still Sleep-Walking on Open Access (Wake-Up Call)
** Cross- Posted **
CARROT & STICK NEEDED FOR GREEN OPEN ACCESS
comment on
"Carat and stick: no hard targets for gold open access"
(Paul Jump, Times Higher, 2 Dec 2012)
RCUK is increasingly confirming that it is sleep-walking ("Implementing Finch" Academy of Social Sciences, 29-30 Nov 2012).
All this talk about how to spend the Gold OA money, how much there is of it, how it is to be monitored -- but not a word about how cost-free Green OA is to be monitored.
And now a leisurely 5 years in which to discover what a big, unnecessary mistake RCUK is making if it does not shore up its Green OA mandate (for which there has already been a 5-year "acculturation" period). The rest of the world -- focussed on doing just that -- will meanwhile leave the UK far behind in its wake if RCUK does not wake up.
(Wake up call:
Attention Douglass Kell & Mark Thorley)
"Why the UK Should Not Heed the Finch Report"
"Testing the Finch Hypothesis"
"How and Why RCUK Open Access Policy Needs Revision"
"There's no justifying RCUK's support for [hybrid] gold open access"
"Planting the green seeds for a golden harvest"
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