Finch Group reviews progress in implementing open access transition amid ongoing criticisms. | Impact of Social Sciences

"The working group which first released the Finch Report on expanding access to published research in June 2012 has issued a new progress update. Following the UK government’s unilateral acceptance of these recommendations, criticisms have mounted against this so-called ‘push for Gold Open Access’. Stevan Harnad responds below to the new document from the Finch Group (hereafter referred to as Finch II), arguing that this review has largely failed to address the most pressing criticisms of the original ... The most important amendment grudgingly admitted by Finch II is that UK researchers are now free to choose between providing OA via the Green route (of publishing articles in any journal at all, by making the article OA in a repository after any allowable publisher embargo has expired) or via the Gold route (by paying the publisher [pure Gold or hybrid] to make the article OA immediately [with a CC-BY license])."