Disambiguating RCUK's Open Access Policy Statement
Amsciforum 2013-03-10
Summary:
A perfectly clear and unambiguous way to state the intended policy would be:
An RCUK-suitable journal is one that offers
(i) GREEN only or (ii) GOLD only or (iii) BOTH (i.e., hybrid GREEN+GOLD).
An RCUK author may choose (i), (ii) or (iii).
If the choice is (iii), the RCUK author may choose GREEN or GOLD.
That would dispel all ambiguity.
But what the current RCUK policy actually states instead is:
An RCUK-suitable journal is one that offers (i) GOLD, or, if it does not offer GOLD, then an RCUK-suitable journal is one that offers (ii) GREEN OA...