All -
From a selfish point of view my arguments against OA Gold are as follows:
1. COST: on currently declared prices OA Gold would cost my institution at least 3 times more than the current subscription model (I know all gold journals say prices will come down but all evidence of past behaviour by publishers is to the contrary);
2. EASE OF ACCESS: with gold OA availability in many different storage/retrieval systems (1 per publisher) researcher time is wasted doing multiple separate searches. Past attempts by companies to provide a one-stop-shop portal have failed because publishers keep on changing their interfaces / APIs
3. CONTEXT: with gold OA publications in the databases of commercial publishers it is extremely difficult to provide the researcher or other end-user with integrated access from the publication to the research datasets, software etc related to the publication and also to the CRIS (Current Research Information System) data such as project, participants, organisations, facilities, equipment, events, patents, products etc etc which describe the context of the research (see CERIF under www.eurocris.org)
With OA-green NOW all of these difficulties are overcome and researchers (and for that matter innovators/intermediaries/entrepreneurs, research policymakers and the media) get much better access to the research outputs. We currently run a Green IR ( epubs.cclrc.ac.uk ) with pre- and postprints and grey literature. We have tested the linkages mentioned above but they are not yet in full production.
There are other arguments about decomposing the workflow of research output and paying for the parts that are necessary in a competitive open market but if I go down that route Stevan will (rightly) criticise me for speculation!
K
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Prof Keith G Jeffery Director Information Technology and International Strategy
kgj_at_rl.ac.uk CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
T:+44 1235 44 6103 Chilton, Didcot, OXON OX11 0QX UK
F:+44 1235 44 5147
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Received on Fri Jan 26 2007 - 10:25:31 GMT