Comments on: The new RCUK draft Open Access mandate https://access.okfn.org/2012/03/27/the-new-rcuk-draft-open-access-mandate/ Sharing the results of publicly funded research Sun, 08 May 2016 10:20:40 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 By: Open Access discussed on the radio - Ross Mounce https://access.okfn.org/2012/03/27/the-new-rcuk-draft-open-access-mandate/#comment-410 Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:56:17 +0000 https://access.okfn.org/?p=291#comment-410 […] have written about this policy before and am very supportive of it, just as I am with Open Access in academia in general. I personally […]

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By: Peter Murray-Rust, Unilever Centre for Molecular Informatics, Cambridge https://access.okfn.org/2012/03/27/the-new-rcuk-draft-open-access-mandate/#comment-155 Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:46:04 +0000 https://access.okfn.org/?p=291#comment-155 Comment on “The-new-rcuk-draft-open-access-mandate” by Ross Mounce
Read – Horizon2020 what I said in Rome (and what Neelie said) « petermr’s blog

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By: Mike Taylor https://access.okfn.org/2012/03/27/the-new-rcuk-draft-open-access-mandate/#comment-29 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:46:45 +0000 https://access.okfn.org/?p=291#comment-29 Ross, I hope you will be submitting your comments formally to RCUK. Send email to to communications@rcuk.ac.uk with “Open Access Feedback” in the subject line.

Steven, I don’t see that RCUK have any need to extend further concessions (such as Libre rather than OA) to publishers. In the end, the funding bodies are publishers’ customers, and they are free to dictate the terms on which business is to be conducted. Publishers that won’t accept those terms must reject RCUK-funded submissions. I agree that immediate deposit/delayed access is the best model for deposition, though.

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By: Stevan Harnad https://access.okfn.org/2012/03/27/the-new-rcuk-draft-open-access-mandate/#comment-28 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 01:24:48 +0000 https://access.okfn.org/?p=291#comment-28 1. It is excellent that RCUK is reducing the allowable embargo period (to 6 months for most research councils).

2. A license that formally allows more re-use rights (e.g., Libre OA, CC-BY) is desirable, but it asks for more than just free online access (Gratis OA) at a time when we are still far from having free online access. It thereby puts more constraints on authors, demands more of publishers, and those added constraints make it harder for that vast majority of institutions and funders who have not yet managed to reach consensus on adopting a Green OA self-archiving mandate of their own.

I accordingly recommend to RCUK that “Libre OA” be strongly encouraged, but that only “Gratis OA” (which automatically includes linking, downloading, local print-off, local storage, local data-mining, search-engine harvesting and search) be required.

This makes it easier and more probable that universities and research institutions will be able to follow suit, adopting complementary Green OA mandates of their own, for all of their research output, whether or not RCUK-funded. It will also make it easier and more probable that other research funders will adopt similar institution-friendly mandates.

Once mandatory Gratis OA prevails, it will not be long before it is upgraded to Libre OA. But first things first. Do not let the best get in the way of the good, of which there is still so very little.

3. The designated locus of deposit should be the fundee’s own institutional repository, not an institution-external central repository. Central repositories and search engines can then harvest the metadata from the institutional repository for search or re-display. 

The reason for this is again that there are more publisher restrictions on institution-external deposit than on institutional deposit, and at this time when there is still so little OA and so few OA mandates, it will make it easier and more probable that universities and research institutions will be able to follow suit, adopting complementary Green OA mandates of their own, for all of their research output, whether or not RCUK-funded, if their researchers do not need to do multiple institution-external deposits or to face needless extra publisher restrictions. http://bit.ly/DepLoc

4. The optimal Green OA Mandate is ID/OA — Immediate Deposit, Optional Access — is identical to the RCUK Mandate in every respect except that it stipulates that the deposit itself must be done immediately upon acceptance for publication, rather than only after the allowable embargo period has expired. 

This means that users will see the metadata immediately, and can already make automated eprint requests to the author for single copies for research purposes during the embargo.

5. Repository deposit should be officially stipulated as the sole mechanism for submitting publications for research assessment as well as for submitting publication lists for RCUK research proposals.

Gargouri, Y., Hajjem, C., Lariviere, V., Gingras, Y., Brody, T., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2010) Self-Selected or Mandated, Open Access Increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality Research. PLOS ONE 5 (10) e13636

Harnad, S. (2009) Open Access Scientometrics and the UK Research Assessment Exercise. Scientometrics 79 (1)

________ (2011) Open Access to Research: Changing Researcher Behavior Through University and Funder Mandates. JEDEM Journal of Democracy and Open Government 3 (1): 33-41.

Sale, A., Couture, M., Rodrigues, E., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2012) Open Access Mandates and the “Fair Dealing” Button. In: Dynamic Fair Dealing: Creating Canadian Culture Online (Rosemary J. Coombe & Darren Wershler, Eds.)

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By: Tom Olijhoek https://access.okfn.org/2012/03/27/the-new-rcuk-draft-open-access-mandate/#comment-26 Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:47:34 +0000 https://access.okfn.org/?p=291#comment-26 Thank you Ross for an excellent view on the ramifications of the RCUK policy on open access.
We have had a discussion within the @ccess initiative concerning the 6/12 month embargo period. As a group we came to the conclusion that a publication can only be considered to be open access after such an embargo period. This policy is understandable from the viewpoint of publishers, however it is not at all compliant with the BOAI definition for open access. We strongly oppose the use of the term open access for embargo’ed publications. We feel that this publishing policy is detrimental to the advancement of science and also misleading because open access is per definition unrestricted access not only concerning reuse but also concerning time.

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