University of California announcement renews open-access debate | Science and the Media - Physics Today

"The University of California's new policy for open public access to scholarly research articles has begun drawing media attention—much of it scanting the value that publishers can add and overlooking multiple stakeholders' efforts to develop sustainable internet-age publishing practices. A press release summarizing the new policy begins by asserting that it ensures 'that future research articles authored by faculty at all 10 campuses of UC will be made available to the public at no charge'—through eScholarship, UC's central open-access repository—'in tandem with their publication in scholarly journals.' To protect the peer-review process, nearly every paper submitted to the repository will be under embargo, unless the author pays the journal publisher a processing fee. UC's press release continues: The policy covers more than 8,000 UC faculty...and as many as 40,000 publications a year. It follows more than 175 other universities who have adopted similar so-called 'green' open access policies. By granting a license to the University of California prior to any contractual arrangement with publishers, faculty members can now make their research widely and publicly available, re-use it for various purposes, or modify it for future research publications. Previously, publishers had sole control of the distribution of these articles. All research publications covered by the policy will continue to be subjected to rigorous peer review; they will still appear in the most prestigious journals across all fields; and they will continue to meet UC's standards of high quality. The release doesn't mention the following key stipulation, quoted from UC's FAQs about the policy: Faculty members may 'opt out on a per-article basis' and 'may waive the open access license for each article permanently, or delay appearance of the article (embargo it) for a specified period.' The release calls UC 'the largest public research university in the world,' points out that it accounts for about 8% of all US research funding, and declares that the initiative aligns with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's open-access directive from earlier this year ..."