Posted in Open Access News by Peter Suber at 10/13/2005 10:26:00 AM.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2005_10_09_fosblogarchive.html#a112921386371455883
The British Academy comment on the draft RCUK policy
The British Academy has publicly released its August comment
http://www.britac.ac.uk/reports/rcuk-2005/rcuk-html.html
on the draft RCUK open-access policy.
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/index.asp
(Thanks to Gerard Lowe.)
Excerpt:
"[1]...The British Academy responds as the UK national academy for
the humanities and social sciences, as a funder of research (with
both public and private funds), and as a learned society with its own
publishing programme.
[2] In April 2005 the Academy published a policy review document
on E-resources for research in the humanities and social sciences,
http://www.britac.ac.uk/reports/eresources/index.html which addresses
the issues raised in the RCUK statement. The report supported "the
principle of wide and ready access to research outputs and other
research resources". In particular it stressed how important it
was for the humanities and social sciences to engage with open
access issues, so that the agenda was not over-dominated by the
natural sciences.
[3] The RCUK position statement appears to be driven primarily
by considerations that relate to the natural sciences....In the
humanities, the dissemination of scholarship is less dominated by
journal articles and conference proceedings: monographs continue to
play a key role. Scholarship can be less driven by the very latest
published findings: articles published 30-50 years ago remain
important....
[4]...The RCUK position implies that an alternative system will have
to be devised and implemented. The statement acknowledges that new
models will require new solutions, but provides little firm evidence
in support of its optimism that these solutions will be found. There
are doubts that need to be addressed.
[5] The cost in money and time of establishing and maintaining
institutional or other repositories should not be underestimated. The
statement is vague about likely costs, where the funding will come
from, and indeed whether this will be more cost-effective than the
existing model....[W]ill there be adequate support for individual
researchers seeking to deposit their material? And it is surely
doubtful whether learned societies across the humanities and social
sciences are equally willing or geared up to take on any '?kite
marking' responsibilities -- at least without any reimbursement of
the associated costs.
[6] The statement is also vague about the costs associated with
open access journals. A typical 'author-pays' fee of £1500 might
not constitute a significant addition to a typical research grant
in the natural sciences, but it would form a significant percentage
increase on the small individual grants that are common in the
humanities and social sciences. Where is this additional funding
to come from? Indeed much output in the humanities does not derive
from research grant funding at all: is it likely that funds will be
available just for fees?
[7]...There is also the question as to whether institutional
repositories are best suited to meet the needs of individual
researchers, and whether parts, or even all, of the academic
community might be better served by subject repositories....
[8] With such doubts about future models, one would expect
that the existing publishing model should not be undermined in
the meantime. The RCUK position accepts that articles should be
deposited in e-print repositories 'subject to copyright and licensing
arrangements', but makes clear its view that such restrictions should
be as liberal as possible. The Academy is not surprised that some
university presses are continuing to assert limitations to defend
the value that they provide through the peer review process -- for
example, imposing a delay in access....
[9] An equivalent requirement to deposit articles is not being
imposed on British Academy research grants awarded in the academic
year 2005/06 because the terms and conditions have already been
set and publicly announced. The position will be kept under review,
particularly in light of the availability of suitable repositories."
Comment [from Peter Suber]: "Four quick replies. (1) On #4: The
RCUK isn't seeking a solution yet to be found. It's funding a
solution that it's already found. (2) On #5: The cost in time
and money of maintaining institutional repositories should not
be overestimated. Repositories not already funded are likely to
be funded by JISC. Moreover, since the network of interoperable
repositories will supplement, not supplant, "the existing model", the
call for a comparison of their cost-effectiveness is misleading. (3)
On #7: Nothing in the RCUK policy rules out subject repositories or
the simultaneous deposit of RCUK-funded research in more than one
repository. (4) On #8: We'll have to agree to disagree about whether
RCUK should close the copyright loophole in the current draft. Since
it allows publishers to impose embargoes of arbitrary length,
the loophole effectively removes the teeth from the OA "mandate"
and thereby puts publisher prosperity ahead of research productivity."
Peter Suber's comments are on target with everything. I would add
only that Plan B -- mandating immediate deposit upon acceptance for
publication and attaching any further contingencies only to whether the
access is set immediately at open access (OA) or provisionally only to
institution-internal access (IA) -- would still be a mandate. Of course
an immediate (or even 6-month) OA-setting mandate would be optimal, but
an immediate-deposit mandate with the "loopholes" applying only to the
access-setting would still leave the RCUK mandate a policy model worthy
of emulation by the rest of the world. -- And it would still succeed
in generating 100% open access with certainty and swiftness, worldwide.
Stevan Harnad
Received on Thu Oct 13 2005 - 19:10:32 BST