The week in review – Week 5, 2014 | WoW! Wouter on the Web

The week in review – Week 5, 2014

For a Dutch Open Access advocate there was one event that stood out this week. The speech of @SanderDekker our junior minister Science Policy at the Academic Publishing in Europe 2014 conference this week. His speech ‘Going for Gold‘ was a passionate plea for Open Access that should be achieved through the Golden Road.

Open access is a moral obligation, essential for society and inescapable.

He did not debunk the Green route entirely, but for Dekker the Green Road to Open Access was like coming fourth on a major championship. In the end “if you are going for gold, fourth place is the most frustrating place you can achieve”. As a product manager, responsible for our repository Staff Publications, I see one clear and present danger in the view of our junior minister. If he accepts the Golden Route as the only route, it might lead to the negligence of the Green Route and subsequently the deterioration repository infrastructure in the Netherlands.