Oxford Scholarly Communications Debate: Open Access Oxford

"The latter half of 2012 was a busy period in terms of open access (OA) to research publications. The Finch report ... was quickly followed by a government response. Hot on its heels came a revised policy from RCUK ... However, these changes have not just been in terms of recommendations and policies – money has been forthcoming. As part of the government response, the University of Oxford has been granted funds via BIS/RCUK ‘to pump prime open access in universities and help with establishing open access policies and funds that will support academics.’ This is excellent. However, the catch is that the time period for spending this tranche of money is very short. There are in fact two funding streams i) a lump sum to pump prime open access, awarded in November 2012, to be spent by mid 2013 and ii) an annual block grant (first instalment in April 2013) to pay for author processing charges (APCs) to pay publishers for publication of open access articles (sometimes referred to as the ‘gold route’ to open access). The University is certainly not letting the grass grow under its feet, and a major programme, OA Oxford, to address open access at Oxford has been initiated in response to the RCUK funding allocation. The programme comprises 10 projects under four main themes. The programme focuses on the ‘green route’ to open access ie using ORA (Oxford University Research  Archive) as the most cost effective method of making the considerable number of Oxford authored publications open access. In tandem, Oxford will set up procedures for managing authors’ payment of article processing charges (APCs) for open access articles published within journals (‘gold route’ to open access).  The University is committed to the widest possible free dissemination of its research, and sees this funding as an opportunity to make rapid progress in this area. The ‘OA Oxford’programme will support improvements to existing services and infrastructure, and new initiatives towards this goal. The programme runs late 2012 until July 2013 and will focus on actions that enable members of the University to comply with the RCUK policy on open access. The Bodleian Libraries are actively involved in this programme. Working in collaboration with colleagues in Research Services, IT Services, academic divisions and across Oxford libraries, projects include areas central to Bodleian services: [1] Support and information services for researchers via a single point of access website and subject librarians [2] Progress with uniquely identifying Oxford authors within ORA [3] As many as possible OA copies of research publications not already OA available via ORA (‘Green route’): [4] A full and re-usable record of publications by Oxford academics and researchers freely available in ORA [5] Enhancements to the ORA online service [6] Extend the existing work taking place in the JISC-funded Damaro project for linking publications with underlying research data [7] Better integration of technical systems used to manage OA at Oxford [8] A managed APC fund for Oxford authors, and recommendations for future provision of such a fund to support ‘gold route’ publishing, managed by the Bodleian Libraries..."