The Jump THE article was revealing, as was the recent ACSS meeting on Implementing Finch, judging from the reports from the DisorderofThings blog (http://thedisorderofthings.com/2012/12/04/open-access-news-and-reflections-from-the-acss-conference/) and the presentations that are beginning to emerge on the official ACSS site for that meeting http://www.acss.org.uk/docs/Open%20Access%20event%20Nov%202012/OAWorkshop.htm.
Specifically on Fred's point about responses to questions about the policy, DisorderofThings says: "what I mainly learned was that no one was really prepared to take any real responsibility for a policy to which a lot of eminent and well-informed people had very serious objections. Finch insisted that she had to stick to a brief which did not involve ‘destabilising’ the publishing system. No one was there to answer from either BIS or RCUK, who both adopted the policy immediately upon the publication of the report in July. HEFCE, who have not formally announced a position yet, however indicated at the conference that they are very likely to adopt the RCUK model for REF2020." "One of the most curious things about this policy which emerged throughout the day is that it is ostensibly now ‘orphaned’ by its commissioners and designers – the Department for Business, Industry and Skills, and the Finch Working Group. ‘Implementation’ throughout this process has apparently been treated entirely separately to the actual policy itself. Finch herself clearly repudiated any responsibility for the outcomes of the policy, arguing that this is now something for institutions and researchers to negotiate, and insisting that the report recommended a ‘mixed economy’ between ‘green’ and ‘gold’. "I say ‘apparently’, since it is clear that the Working Group clearly did not wash their hands of the consequences of the policy when it was relevant to the policy that they chose – they formed views about what they understood as the sustainability of the publishing industry, of journals and of learned societies, and dismissed options that in the implementation in their view would have had negative consequences. Similarly, they argue that they did not have a mandate to ‘destabilise’ the system. "However, as commented by one audience member, much of the report itself seemed to be based on speculation rather than evidence from comparator countries with different policies. Moreover, it is clear that from the perspectives of scholarly authors however, the proposed ‘pay-to-say’ system may be highly destabilising, compromising academic freedom, draining tight research budgets and excluding a wide number of scholars from publishing. These huge issues are however nowhere discussed in the Finch Report, and have not made an impact on the direction of Government policy either. They were raised repeatedly by a number of the speakers and audience members at the conference, but there was no one there who would answer for these specific problems." You can judge for yourself the degree to which this is reporting or opinion, but the THE suggests a possible retreat that is not good for OA in the UK, whether you are for this particular policy approach or not. Noting that all involved are in it together in wanting open access, we currently inhabit a murky area between an imbalanced, expensive and possibly unsustainable policy that could antagonise researchers, and a policy retreat that would leave little to build on with academic policy makers scarred by this process. We need to tread carefully. Steve On 6 Dec 2012, at 15:32, Frederick Friend wrote: > Stevan summarises the current situation on UK OA policy very well. It is > surprising after almost six months of criticism of the Finch Report that > there has been so little defence of the Finch/RCUK/BIS position and (to my > knowledge) no response to the criticism voiced. Of all the parties involved, > RCUK have been the most communicative in defending their policy, although > largely repeating the Finch Group’s position. I have only seen one e-mail > from one member of the Finch Group (Martin Hall of Salford University) > explaining his personal position. There has been no response at all from HM > Government, although BIS civil servants must be monitoring the blogs and > lists and the articles by Paul Jump in “Times Higher Education”. I myself > have addressed three e-mails to Rt Hon David Willetts MP through a message > system on the BIS web-site for those taxpayers who “want to get in touch with > a BIS Minister”, receiving no reply to any of the three messages within the > 15 working days promised. He is a busy man, no doubt, but the failure of BIS > civil servants to send even an acknowledgement illustrates the determination > of UK Government to ignore any criticism. > > Equally surprising is the lack of any dialogue with journal publishers. Are > not those smaller OA publishers who must have been hoping that the UK > Government policy would give them a bigger share of public expenditure on > academic journals not wondering whether the goldmine is a mirage? We rarely > hear anything to do with business models from the big international STM > publishers. Are they feeling secure in the knowledge that libraries will > continue to pay high prices for big licensing deals even if insufficient > money is available to pay for all APCs? > > One of the benefits from OA to research publication is that OA enables a > broader dialogue on the outcomes from academic research than is possible in a > toll-access publication system, enabling other researchers to comment on > published research and taxpayers to see the results from the research they > have funded. It is sad that no such dialogue appears to be allowed on the > policy to implement OA in the UK. > > Fred Friend > Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL > http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk > > > From: Stevan Harnad > Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 3:17 AM > To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) > Cc: LibLicense-L Discussion Forum ; Lib Serials list > Subject: [GOAL] The UK Gold Rush: "A Hand-Out from the British Government" > > Re: "Finch access plan unlikely to fly across the Atlantic" > (Times Higher Education, 6 December 2012) > It's not just the US and the Social Sciences that will not join the UK's Gold > Rush. Neither will Europe, nor Australia, nor the developing world. > > The reason is simple: The Finch/RCUK/BIS policy was not thought through. It > was hastily and carelessly cobbled together without proper representation > from the most important stake-holders: researchers and their institutions, > the providers of the research to which access is to be opened. > > Instead, Finch/RCUK/BIS heeded the lobbying from the UK's sizeable research > publishing industry, including both subscription publishers and Gold OA > publishers, as well as from a private biomedical research funder that was > rather too sure of its own OA strategy (even though that strategy has not so > far been very successful). BIS was also rather simplistic about the > "industrial applications" potential of its 6% of world research output, not > realizing that unilateral OA from one country is of limited usefulness, and a > globally scaleable OA policy requires some global thinking and consultation. > > Now it will indeed amount to "a handout from the British government" -- a lot > of money in exchange for very little OA -- unless (as I still fervently hope) > RCUK has the wisdom and character to fix its OA mandate as it has by now been > repeatedly urged from all sides to do, instead of just digging in to a doomed > policy: > > Adopt an effective mechanism to ensure compliance with the mandate to > self-archive in UK institutional repositories (Green OA), in collaboration > with UK institutions. And scale down the Gold OA to just the affordable > minimum for which there is a genuine demand, instead of trying to force it > down the throats of all UK researchers in place of cost-free self-archiving: > The UK institutional repositories are already there: ready, waiting -- and > empty. > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL@eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
