Re: RCUK policy on open access

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

     ** Apologies for Cross-Posting **

The UK -- which had the undisputed leadership of the world in 
setting Open Access policy worldwide -- may now be losing that 
lead, allowing itself instead to get needlessly side-tracked and 
bogged down in irrelevant diversions and digressions, designed 
solely to delay the optimal and inevitable (and obvious, and 
already long overdue).

Peter Suber's comments (quoted below) are spot-on, and say it 
all. The ball, already dropped by NIH in the US and perhaps now 
by the RCUK in the UK too, will now pass to the European 
Commission 
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-study_en.pdf 
and -- more importantly -- to the distributed network of 
individual universities and other research institutions 
worldwide. The leaders now are the institutions that have not sat 
waiting for national funder mandates in order to go ahead and 
mandate OA self-archiving, but have already gone ahead and 
mandated it themselves: 
http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php

What we should remind ourselves is that if the physics community 
-- way back in 1991, and the computer science community from even 
earlier -- had been foolish enough to wait for the outcome of the 
kind of vague, open-ended study now planned by RCUK/RIN, instead 
of going ahead and self-archiving their research, we would have 
lost 500,000 (physics) plus 750,000 (computer science) OA 
articles'-worth of research access, usage and impact for the past 
decade and a half.

The Wellcome Trust -- http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/node3302.html -- 
has had the vision and good sense to go ahead and mandate what 
had already empirically demonstrated its positive benefits for 
research with no negative effects on publishing on the basis of 
15+ years worth of objective evidence.

The RCUK seems to prefer endless open-ended dithering...

                               -- Your Impatient Archivangelist

-----------
Excerpted from Peter Suber's Open Access News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_04_23_fosblogarchive.html#114605658767880491

     The RCUK has announced an Analysis of data on scholarly journals
     publishing to be undertaken jointly with the RIN (Research
     Information Network) and DTI (Department of Trade and Industry).
     http://www.rin.ac.uk/?q=data-scholarly-journals

Comments by Peter Suber:

     "(1) The RCUK has not said whether it will wait to announce the
     final version of its OA policy until the new study is complete and
     fully digested. But it looks as though it will. It looks as though
     the voices calling for delay have prevailed.

     "(2) Remember that the RCUK's draft OA policy --
     http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/index.asp -- is already
     based on extensive fact-finding from the House of Commons
     Science and Technology Committee and summarised in its
     well-known report, "Scientific Publications: Free For All?":
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm

     "(3) The only relevant evidence not yet unearthed by previous
     studies is on the effect of high-volume OA archiving on journal
     subscriptions -- outside physics, where we already know that
     high-volume OA archiving is either harmless or synergistic with
     journal subscriptions. But we cannot gather evidence on this question
     until we stimulate high-volume OA archiving in a field other than
     physics, e.g. by adopting a policy something like the RCUK's draft OA
     policy. Let's get on with it, adopt the policy, monitor the effects
     carefully, and be prepared to amend as needed.

     "(4) Why does the list of "all the key stakeholders" omit researchers
     and universities?"

                                              -- Peter Suber, OA News
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_04_23_fosblogarchive.html#114605658767880491

----
Excerpts from the RCUK announcement:

     "This study got off the ground in mid-April 2006 and should conclude
     by the middle of summer.  It is being undertaken on behalf of the
     three joint funders by Electronic Publishing Services Ltd (EPS), in
     association with Loughborough University Department of Information
     Science.  The aim is to assist in UK domestic policy-making, by
     reviewing information about scholarly journal publishing, assessing
     the data available about the process and the reliability of that data.

     "The main purpose of the study is to gain more reliable information
     about the operation of the journal publishing aspects of the
     scholarly communications process and its costs.  The study focuses
     specifically on journal publishing, but it should be viewed in the
     context of a projected body of work involving all key stakeholders
     in the context of the scholarly communications framework.  This is
     likely to include related but separate studies of other aspects of
     scholarly communications, including for instance the development,
     funding and viability of digital repositories.

     "The key objective of the project is to provide the three sponsors of
     the study, and other stakeholders in the scholarly journals industry,
     with an accurate review of reliable and objective information about
     the journals publishing process....

     "Scholarly journal publishing is a key component of the spectrum
     of functions and activities that form part of the scholarly
     communications process.  This has been the focus of much interest
     lately, in particular because of the considerable interest generated
     by recent debates on open access.  Although this level of debate has
     provided a welcome opportunity to consider challenges relating to the
     dissemination of research outputs, it has also been characterised by
     a degree of mutual suspicion and misunderstanding stemming from the
     often conflicting positions of the different actors and stakeholders
     with an interest in these issues. There has also been tension over
     the quality and completeness of the information and data that the
     different stakeholders have used in support of their respective
     positions.  As a result of these tensions and suspicions, it has
     been difficult to achieve a consensus on how best to exploit
     the potential of new technology for enhancing the scholarly
     communications process and its cost-effectiveness.  This has had
     implications for the development of public policy, as evidenced by
     the debates surrounding the Wellcome Trust's policy on open access,
     and the delay in agreeing a definitive RCUK position statement.

     "In this context, there is a clear need for objective information that
     all stakeholders can agree upon as a means of defining and achieving
     common goals in scholarly communications.  The DTI-sponsored Research
     Communications Forum has provided a useful arena for the exchange of
     information and views.  The recently-created scholarly communications
     group facilitated by the RIN will work collaboratively to identify key
     issues in scholarly communications and gaps in our understanding,
     and to develop a better, evidence-based understanding of these
     issues - for instance, the development, funding and viability of
     digital repositories - as a basis for informing public policy.
     This group includes representatives of all the key stakeholders
     (notably the Research Councils, the library community, publishers,
     the RIN and key Government Departments such as the DTI and OST).
     The current study, focused on scholarly journal publishing - which
     has been the focus of some of the more lively debate - will be timely
     contribution to the development of understanding in the field of
     scholarly communications as a whole."

###