Keynote, Digital Research 2012, Oxford: How and Why the RCUK Open Access Policy Needs to Be Revised

[Stevan Harnad]

** Cross-Posted **


*Digital Research: *

*How and Why the RCUK Open Access Policy Needs to Be Revised*

**

*Stevan Harnad*

 UQaM & U Southampton


Keynote Address: Digital Research
2012<http://digital-research.oerc.ox.ac.uk/programme/tues-am-keynote>

St, Catherine's College, Oxford,

11 September  2012:  9 am  - 10:30 am

(*Video will be online shortly afterward*)


*Abstract:* The Web is destined to become humankind's Cognitive
Commons<http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271844/1/southampton-curating.pdf>,
where digital knowledge is jointly created and freely shared. The UK has
been a leader <http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/341776/> in the global movement
toward Open Access (OA) to research but very recently its leadership has
been derailed by the joint influence of the publishing industry
lobby<http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/273093/>from without and
well-intentioned but
premature <http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/909-.html> and
counterproductive
over-reaching<http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&lr=&q=harnad%20OR%20Harnad%20OR%20archivangelism+blogurl:http://openaccess.eprints.org/&ie=UTF-8&tbm=blg&tbs=qdr:m&num=100&c2coff=1&safe=active#hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=active&tbm=blg&sclient=psy-ab&q=%22over-reaching%22+OR+%22over-reach%22+blogurl:http%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&oq=%22over-reaching%22+OR+%22over-reach%22+blogurl:http%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org%2F&gs_l=serp.3...5686.18230.0.19349.31.31.0.0.0.5.194.3332.19j12.31.0...0.0...1c.4YW7PcORd7Q&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=73ec5a53ea072cda&biw=1258&bih=774>from
within the OA movement itself.

    The result has been the extremely counter-productive Finch Committee
Report
<http://www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Finch-Group-report-FINAL-VERSION.pdf>followed
by a new draft of the RCUK OA
policy<http://roarmap.eprints.org/671/1/RCUK%20_Policy_on_Access_to_Research_Outputs.pdf>,
downgrading the role of cost-free OA self-archiving of research
publications ("Green OA") in favour of paying subscription publishers extra
money, over and above subscriptions, out of scarce research funds, in
exchange for making single articles OA ("hybrid Gold OA").

    The motivation is to reform publication and to gain certain re-use
rights, but the likely effect will be researcher resistance, very little
OA, a waste of scarce research funds and the loss of the UK's global
leadership in the OA movement.

    There is still time to fix the RCUK
policy<http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/923-.html>.
I will try to describe how and why.

Berners-Lee, T., De Roure, D., Harnad, S. and Shadbolt, N. (2005) Journal
publishing and author self-archiving: Peaceful Co-Existence and Fruitful
Collaboration <http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/11160/>. Technical Report,
ECS, University of Southampton

Carr, L., Swan, A., and Harnad, S (2011) Creating and Curating the
Cognitive Commons: Southampton’s
Contribution<http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/271844/>.
In: Simons, Maarten, Decuypere, Mathias, Vlieghe, Joris & Masschelein, Jan
(eds.) *Curating the European University* Universitaire Pers Leuven,
193-199.

Shadbolt, N., Brody, T., Carr, L. and Harnad, S. (2006) The Open Research
Web: A Preview of the Optimal and the
Inevitable<http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/12453/>,
in Jacobs, N., Ed. *Open Access: Key Strategic, Technical and Economic
Aspects* Chandos.

Harnad, S. (2012) Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail
Trying To Wag The Public Research Dog, Yet
Again<http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/273093/>.
Technical Report, ECS, University of Southampton

Poynder, R. (2012) OA advocate Stevan Harnad withdraws support for RCUK
policy<http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html>
. Open and Shut<http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html>July
26 2012
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