Four More Questions For Mark Thorley About RCUK Open Access Policy

Amsciforum 2013-03-10

Summary:

Mark Thorley has posted "RCUK Open Access Policy – When to go Green and When to go Gold" on the RCUK site. Here are four further questions about the policy: 1. Policy Wording. As repeatedly mentioned at the Imperial College Forum, the wording of the present RCUK policy is confusing and leads to the misunderstanding that fundees may not choose (free) Green (6-12) unless the journal does not offer (paid) Gold (CC-BY). Isn't the place to prevent this confusion and misunderstanding in the wording of the policy itself, rather than just in accompanying guidance to the interpretation of the wording of the policy? 2. Perverse Effects. Is RCUK not concerned that only allowing fundees to publish in journals that offer either (paid) CC-BY Gold or (free) 6-12 Green (or both) will induce subscription journals (60% of which currently allow immediate, unembragoed Green) to now offer hybrid (paid) CC-BY Gold while increasing their Green option to 13+ to make sure UK authors must pay for Gold? 3. Benefits of 6% CC-BY. The UK produces 6% of worldwide research output. What benefit is it to UK industry, or UK wealth creation, or UK research, to pay (hybrid) publishers 6% extra in order to make the UK's own 6% of the worldwide research output CC-BY Gold? Is it worth the extra research money, or the loss of potential Green OA from the remaining 94% of the world, because RCUK induces publishers to increase Green embargo lengths (and the rest of the world cannot afford -- or does not wish -- to subsidize hybrid publishers over and above what they are already paying them in subscriptions, as the UK is planning to do)? 4. Green Compliance Mechanisms. There seem to be plans in the making for verifying compliance with RCUK's paid Gold option. What are RCUK's plans for verifying compliance with the Green OA option?

Link:

http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/940-Four-More-Questions-For-Mark-Thorley-About-RCUK-Open-Access-Policy.html

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » Amsciforum

Tags:

oa.new oa.gold oa.mandates oa.green mark thorley oa.finch_report oa.rcuk oa.repositories oa.policies oa.journals

Authors:

stevanharnad

Date tagged:

03/10/2013, 12:21

Date published:

09/28/2012, 18:44