Scientists, not publishers, are in the best position to develop a fair evaluation process for scientific papers. (…) “Peer reviews should be made public information, like the scientific papers themselves.” (says Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Univesity of Cambridge, UK).
A colour guide by Bill Hubbard project manager of the SHERPA Repositories Support Project, University of Nottingham, UK.
Unless universities are bolder, open-access policies will leave control of publicly funded research in commercial publishers’ hands, says Debby Shorley, director of library services at Imperial College London:
Maybe the real benefit of the Finch report is not that it gives us a solution—it doesn’t—but that it has sparked discussion in high places. It may make those involved in publicly funded research bold enough to turn the current scholarly communications model on its head and allow our universities to regain control of their intellectual capital by disseminating the research they produce. (…) Publishing skills are publishing skills. What stops us from bringing them in-house, and using the prestige of our universities as brands?
The Guardian gives a round up of some of the main views on the controversial plans concerning opening up publicly funded science and research.
See also the article “A Push Grows Abroad for Open Access to Publicly Financed Research” in The Chronicle.
All studies funded by Department for International Development after 1 November will be freely available for anyone to read.
The Guardian.
Change in academic research is overdue according to Mark Henderson, Head of Communications at the Wellcome Trust since January 2012 and author of “The Geek Manifesto: Why Science Matters” in
The Telegraph.
Stephen Curry on the costs of research referring to all reports recently published on opening up science.
Letter to Dame Janet Finch on the Government Response to the Finch Group Report: “Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications”.
See also comment by Stephen Curry.
Research Councils UK (RCUK) has today, 16th July 2012, unveiled its new Open Access policy. Informed by the work of the National Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, chaired by Professor Dame Janet Finch, the policy at once harmonises and makes significant changes to existing Research Councils’ Open Access policies.
See also blogpost on nature.com.
Radical shakeup of academic publishing will allow papers to be put online and be accessed by universities, firms and individuals.
The Guaridian.
The U.K. Wellcome Trust enters a decisive strategy to promote and sustain their open access policies.
The Wellcome Trust plans to withhold a portion of grant money from scientists who do not make the results of their work freely available to the public, in a move that will embolden supporters of the growing open access movement in science. In addition, any research papers that are not freely available will not be counted as part of a scientist’s track record when Wellcome assesses any future applications for research funding.
The Guaridan.
Undertaken on the behalf of the Research Councils UK in partnership with JISC, the Royal Society and Sciencewise-ERC1, this public dialogue explored views on open data, data reuse and data management policies within research.
Key Findings are:
1. The principal arguments for open data – around catalysing innovation and building trust – were contested.
2. Open data was an abstract issue for participants to engage with.
3. Main concerns around open data relate to promoting the public interest and protecting personal data.
4. Current practices around open data seen as mixed and contingent on the interests of researchers.
5. The public identified 8 key principles that could be used to promote more effective open data policies. Defining the public interest was key in this context.
6. There was a series of social and ethical issues associated with rights and responsibilities of different stakeholders around open data. These were sometimes in conflict.
7. Different governance structures emerged around open data, which are contingent on how public interest is defined and protected.
8. There were two broad views on what constitutes the public interest around data reuse that emerged from the dialogue, which have distinct and potentially conflicting implications for data governance.
9. Opening data in the public interest can involve direct trade offs for the public – in terms of individual rights around consent and confidentiality and the greater good.
10. There are a number of implications emerging from the dialogue about who gets to define public interest.
11. There is an opportunity to directly build public principles around openness directly into the policies of research funders.
12. Different open data governance structures could be considered by the research councils.
13. Open data, though not unimportant, is unlikely to be a highly significant public issue around the governance of research.
Paul Jump thinks, moving to gold model could cost sector an extra £60m a year like Finch group says.
The group’s long-awaited report, released earlier this week, estimated that the transition to open access would cost UK higher education an extra £50-£60 million a year.
See also comment by Professor Adam Tickell, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Birmingham.
Rather gossip. Still, of interest is that open access is something one can be knighted for also.
UK: Further steps towards full open access environment.
The report of the Working Group chaired by Dame Janet Finch published on 18 June recommends a programme of action to enable more people to read and use the publications arising from research. Better, faster communication of research results will bring benefits for public services and for economic growth.
See also articles by The Guardian and Reuters and comments by Cameron Neylon and Stephen Curry.
A survey on how e-infrastructure in the UK might be built. Questionaire open until June 13th 2012.
The UK public sector spends £135 million a year, made up of subscriptions and time spent trying to find articles, accessing the journal papers it needs to perform effectively. Each extra 5% of journal papers accessed via open access on the web would save the public purse £1.7 million, even if no subscription fees were to be saved.
The UK’s valuable voluntary and charitable sector would also benefit from open access to academic research. For survey respondents, the two most frequently mentioned barriers to accessing research were cost (80%) and lack of time (46%).
David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, UK fosters public access to publicly-funded research. Full speech.
The UK plans to give the public access to academic research via the internet free of charge.
Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales might have agreed to advise the UK government on how to ensure the move would promote “collaboration and engagement”.
BBC.
Friday, 25 May 2012 from 12:00 to 14:00 (GMT) London, United Kingdom.