Whoops, quick correction of an order-of-magnitude slip of my own: That's "this BIS largesse would just be a hand-out to pay for Gold OA (voluntarily) for 1000 UK research papers: 1/6th of the UK's annual research output."
Not: "1/6th of the UK's annual research output" (Same consequence, though, even if not quite as grotesque.) On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Stevan Harnad <amscifo...@gmail.com> wrote: > ** Cross-Posted ** > > On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Frederick Friend <ucyl...@ucl.ac.uk>wrote: > > Is it not amazing how, even in these difficult economic times, >> governments can find extra cash to smooth over the mistakes in their own >> policies! The extra £10 million for 30 UK universities to pay APCs to >> publishers is a political gesture to counter the opposition to the UK >> Government’s mistaken endorsement of the Finch Report proposals. Never mind >> that the money could have been spent far more effectively in supporting >> open access repositories! Never mind that the effect will be inflationary, >> enabling publishers to raise the level of charge for APCs! Never mind that >> the UK Government made exactly the same mistake 25 years ago in giving >> university libraries £10 million to pay for the higher cost of journal >> subscriptions, generosity which only poured petrol on the flames of journal >> inflation and within a couple of years left libraries no better off! Never >> mind that the UK Government has not thought through what to do when the £10 >> million is used up and we are left with a publisher-led open access >> infrastructure costing the UK taxpayer much more than an improved >> repository OA infrastructure would do! In brief this extra money is a >> short-term gesture still leaving the UK open access infrastructure worse >> off then it was pre-Finch. >> >> For the UK Government announcement see >> http://news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Government-invests-10-million-to-help-universities-move-to-open-access-67fac.aspx. >> >> Fred Friend >> Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL >> http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk >> > > Fred is so right. > > At first, researchers will applaud: "More money for us [sort of]! Hurrah!" > > Then they will think: "But that money could have been spent on funding > more research, of which there is already too little to go round…." > > And then they will realize that: > > - they are being steered toward journals they don't want to publish in, > > - forced to pay for an OA that they could have had with just a few gratis > Green keystrokes, > > - forced to reach into their grants (or pockets!) when the 10M pounds run > out, > > (since the UK, although it produces only 6% of the articles published > annually worldwide, produces a lot more than what 10M will pay for at 1K > per paper for Gold OA publishing fees: do the arithmetic, even assuming > that the world only publishes a million refereed research journal papers > per year, and then see how far £10M takes you for the UK's 60,000 papers at > (say) £1K for Gold OA fees per paper: an order of magnitude shortfall) > > - and not only that they are gaining no more OA to the other 94% of > research from the rest of the world, to which they need OA, > > - but that the UK's shift from mandating cost-free Green OA self-archiving > to paying publishers extra for pricey Gold OA > > is actually making it harder for the rest of the world to mandate and > provide the cost-free Green OA that everyone needs... > > The BIS's largesse would just be another case of (mostly) wasted funds > (which should not be our main concern) if it weren't coupled with the > completely gratuitous and self-injurious undermining of a virtually > cost-free means of achieving the same local end -- and also achieving far > more, globally, in an affordable, scaleable and sustainable way. > > But all of this would be fixed, if one 9-word clause were expunged from > the new RCUK OA policy: the one forcing researchers to choose Gold over > Green. For then this BIS largesse would just be a hand-out to pay for Gold > OA (voluntarily) for 1000 UK research papers: 1/60th of the UK's annual > research output. > > http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/930-Simple-9-Word-Strike-Out-Tweak-to-Fix-RCUK-Open-Access-Mandate.html > > I will be discussing this (and how to make Green OA mandates more > effective) in Oxford on Tuesday: > http://digital-research.oerc.ox.ac.uk/programme/tues-am-keynote > > Stevan Harnad > > >
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