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Dear Pól, Thank you for this timely reminder that we need a response to Open Access. I agree with all the points Ritchie makes about the problems for us with the gold option. The issue about publishing in journals outside the UK seems especially pertinent for German Studies, of course, but it's definitely worrying colleagues in other disciplines. AGS members might like to know that the same issue has recently been highlighted by colleagues in Film Studies, in discussion on the British Association for Film, Television and Screen Studies list. Leo Enticknap wrote on 28 February: What this (the gold option - EC) will mean is that academics working in areas whose top journals are based outside the UK and/or not open access, will be deterred from working in the UK higher education. It will also filter through into the selection of topics for PhDs, and create a situation whereby UK-based open access journals basically get to set the research agenda....The two leading journals in my specialism (archival film preservation and restoration) are published in Brussels and Minneapolis respectively, and neither is open access..... Leo's comments may be an exceptionally grim interpretation of the effects of open access (which I am personally in favour of, though not in the form in which it's being railroaded through). But he does highlight issues that we need surely to flag up as especially relevant to German. Erica Department of German School of Arts and Humanities King's College London Strand London WC2R 2LS Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 2128 FAX: +44 (0)20 7848 2089 [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> ________________________________ From: JISCmail German Studies List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Ritchie Robertson [[log in to unmask]] Sent: 08 March 2013 16:49 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Fwd: Call for advice on open access Dear Pól, Below are some points to be made against open access. They come partly from a meeting of learned societies which I attended (representing the MHRA) at the Royal Historical Society on Monday. I hope you can work them into your submission. Best wishes Ritchie It is abundantly clear that Gold OA, with journals supported by APCs instead of subscriptions, is not suitable and would be severely damaging for HSS subjects. While some HSS journals are published by large commercial publishers such as Taylor & Francis, many, including some of the most respected, are published by learned societies (e.g. the Modern Language Review by the MHRA) that are not primarily concerned with profit. Such journals will face difficulties even under Green OA. The case against APCs does not need stressing: in HSS they are likely to be much higher than the Wellcome Trust’s figure of £1450 which the Finch Report used as a guide, and they will be taken from research funds made available by a block grant, with the prospect of huge bureaucratic complications in managing internal competitions for such scarce funds. The Finch and HEFCE proposals threaten academic freedom by preventing authors from publishing their work in what they consider the most suitable venue (i.e. a journal with the appropriate readership); they also thereby threaten the effective dissemination of work. With Green-compliant or hybrid journals, incoming articles (i.e. by authors overseas) will not be a problem, but outgoing articles (by British scholars in overseas journals) remain a problem. Many foreign journals do not have an online presence. Those that do are unlikely to move to OA. We need to press hard for an exemption (cf. §17 of the HEFCE consultation document). The HEFCE document suggests that compliance with Green OA can be secured by placing peer-reviewed work in an institutional repository. The problem is that institutional repositories are often difficult to access. We need a national platform from which all can be accessed. In addition, private scholars and some ECRs do not belong to institutions. Licensing: CCBY licenses effectively allow plagiarism, since an article can be ‘on the basis of’ previous work without having to identify the previous work by quotation or exact references. We need NCND licensing (no commercial and no derivative use). Without such a safeguard, third parties are unlikely to allow their work to be reproduced (e.g. art galleries providing illustrations). The HEFCE document only partially addresses the question of making monographs available online. If books are made available online, far fewer people will buy the print edition. This matters particularly with books intended for a general audience, but all publishers need to make money, and it is difficult to distinguish clearly between commercial and academic publication. The issue demands much further thought. Professor Ritchie Robertson, FBA Taylor Professor of German Faculty of Modern Languages University of Oxford 47 Wellington Square Oxford OX1 2JF On 05/03/2013 19:35, Ó Dochartaigh, Pól wrote: Colleagues, See below. If you wish to forward comments to me by next Monday, 11 March, I will try to formulate a coherent AGS response. Apologies for the early deadline, but I have a very full week next week and am on leave the week after. Best wishes, Pól. Prof. Pól Ó Dochartaigh, MRIA, FRHistS, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ulster. Tel: +44 28 7012 4517. Sent from my iPhone. Begin forwarded message: From: The REF Team <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Date: 5 March 2013 12:44:27 GMT To: <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Subject: Call for advice on open access Reply-To: Updates on the Research Excellence Framework <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> HEFCE is inviting advice on developing the four UK funding bodies’ joint policy on open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF). This advice will contribute to the development of consultation proposals on implementing an open access requirement in the next REF exercise. The consultation will run later in 2013. The deadline for responses to our letter is 25 March 2013. Advice is welcomed from anyone with an interest in research and academic publishing. To read this item and the letter in full visit: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2013/name,78750,en.html ________________________________ This email and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the use of the addressee and may contain information which is covered by legal, professional or other privilege. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager at [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> and delete this email immediately. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the University of Ulster. The University's computer systems may be monitored and communications carried out on them may be recorded to secure the effective operation of the system and for other lawful purposes. The University of Ulster does not guarantee that this email or any attachments are free from viruses or 100% secure. 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