Finch inquiry's open access tune won't resonate in Australia

"A committee convened to examine how UK-funded research could be made more accessible released its report this week. The committee, chaired by Dame Janet Finch, was set up last year by Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts.

The main thrust was: “The principle that the results of research that has been publicly funded should be freely accessible in the public domain is a compelling one, and fundamentally unanswerable”. This has been universally welcomed.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the Committee, which included universities, librarians and publishers among others, has favoured the “gold” approach for facilitating access to research. It downplays the less costly option of making work available through public databases - called repositories. This is often referred to as the “green” route to open access...."