Gold on hold
The move towards providing full open access to research papers was undermined last week, but should prevail in the long term.Nature.
The move towards providing full open access to research papers was undermined last week, but should prevail in the long term.Nature.
Early career researchers and other “poor” academics may be disadvantaged under the gold model of open access, evidence submitted to the Lords Science and Technology Committee has suggested.
An emerging preference for Gold Open Access publishing has been stirring emotions. Mike Taylor highlights where the Finch Report goes wrong on cost and argues that academics should redirect their anger at publishers taking $1973 from academia in return for each paper they receive.
A debate on golden open access publishing.
Paul Jump on the Research Council’s open access strategies:
Research Councils UK has insisted it will not punish universities that publish a lower proportion of gold open access papers than it envisaged in its allocation of block grants for article fees – provided the block grants are not misused.
See also the discussion on Implementing Finch.
Some concerning thoughts on the open access publishing method GOLDEN ACCESS by John Charmley, director of employability and professor of History at the University of East Anglia, UK:
By April 2013 all UK academic journals have been told they must sign up to the Gold Standard of Open Access – that is they will have to make their content freely available on-line; so the next time David Willetts writes a book, he can access the articles for free. The problem is there is no such thing as ‘free’. Academic journals have content-management systems and other costs which need paying for. Finch knows that and is suggesting that academics should pay up front for these services when submitting their articles. Here’s the first difficulty. Quite apart from the contested question of ‘how much?’ there are five related ones. How are Universities going to cover this cost? What about those not in tenured University posts? What about those outside the UK? What about the problem of “vanity publishing”– the fact that paying to publish an article undermines the entire notion that publication is a filter for quality? And most important: why does the Finch report recommend that universities continue to pay taxpayers’ money to for-profit academic publishers, at the expense of already-strapped university budgets?
Mike Taylor, Computer programmer with Index Data and palaeontologist with the University of Bristol, gives a definition on Open Access and notes that
the biggest issues that derails constructive discussion of the move to OA is that the term is used in different ways by different groups.
See also part 2: Open Access definitions and clarifications, part 2: Gold and Green.
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Martin Weller, professor at Open University, on the methods of open access publishing via the publishing industries.
Mark Thorley, NERC (Natural Environment Research Council), Head of Science Information and Chair RCUK Research Outputs Network on the Research Councils UK policies concerning open access:
Our policy requires that peer reviewed research papers which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the Research Councils must be published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access.(…) So what does this mean for authors? If the journal they want to publish in only offers policy compliance through a Gold route, they must use that journal’s Gold option. (…) if a journal offers neither a Green nor a Gold compliant route, it is not eligible to take RCUK funded work, and the author must use a different, compliant, journal. (…) The Research Councils are not anti-Green and support a dual approach for delivering OA. However, we do have a strong preference for Gold, and I will explain why in my next blog post.
Stevan Harnad, amongst others co-drafter of the BOAI (Budapest Open Access Initiative), gives statements on misconceptions of open access and reflects on the golden and green open access ways, also saying that a hybrid Gold Open Access would be a Trojan Horse.
Interview by Kerstin Stieg and Karlo Pavlovic in Mitteilungen der Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen & Bibliothekare.
Higher education institutions are currently subsidising publishers at the expense of both the general public and the future standing of UK research, says Stevan Harnad
The Guardian