The Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, chaired by Professor Dame Janet Finch, recently published their report on how the UK can move towards Open Access to published scholarly articles.
The Finch Report largely came out in favor of the UK moving towards what has been called the “Gold Route” – where authors pay to have their research published, and accessing journal articles would be free with the hope that this would expand overall use and access of existing research.
Read articles on the Finch Report:
This report is not without controversy. One particular concern amongst academic researchers is where these new “author fees” would come from, particularly as research grants have lately become smaller and less frequent.
Paul Jump’s critique on the Finch Report’s recommendations
The issue of author fees, and where they will come from, will likely prove to be of particular concern to social science as they often work with fewer funds and more reluctant sources. However, given that the results of social science research often have massive implications for the public, industries, and policy makers, the potential benefit of increased access to social science journals cannot be underestimated.
We will have more on the Finch Report and what it means to the social sciences in the coming days.
One Comment
Social Sciences Directory (and, shortly, its sister site Humanities Directory) is a multi-disciplinary journal that uses OJS and is modelled on PLoS ONE. I worked in subscription publishing for and became increasingly disillusioned with the flagrant waste of taxpayers’ money, as well as the many flaws within the publishing system itself – loss of copyright, time-to-publication, peer review, the funding systems etc. There is, in my opinion, a great deal wrong with the system and I want to do something about it. Having set my face against the status quo, I am now encountering at first hand many of the obstacles that are in-built in the system, particularly in the UK with the REF. Having agreed a consortium model with Eduserv and disseminated information to universities throughout the UK, there is a good level of support in principle but five main, recurring objections:
1. No budget. I have tried to learn the lessons from other publishers that have set up as OA but then set article processing charges in the £000s and institutional memberships in the £00,000s. Social Sciences Directory has set APCs at £100 and institutional memberships at £2,000 (with a discounted offer through Eduserv). If the objection about price is genuine – as I am sure in many cases it is, although this could also be a question of timing at year end – then it shows how tight budgets are in many cases. Which only goes to show how unsustainable the present model is, because there is no sign that publishers are slowing their rate of output, designed to relentlessly increase their share of wallet. Library budgets could not keep pace before, and since the GFC and the imposition of austerity measures they certainly cannot now.
2. Lack of ownership for OA funds. This is, I think, a separate point to the one above. The notion of OA publishing, particularly outside STM in areas such as social sciences and arts & humanities, is still not established. Several librarians that I have spoken to have said that they simply don’t know who would pay the APCs or memberships. Effectively, they are falling down a crack between the library and faculty departments, neither of whom is taking a leadership role in putting in place effective systems and examples of best practice. I suggested in a recent JISCMail post that this needs to be dealt with, possibly by a body such as JISC or IFLA.
3. Lack of interest by faculty. Perhaps naively, I thought that if alternatives were offered that could be shown to be fair, viable and address the issues, there would be strong support. I have certainly had many expressions of support, but also several examples of a dismissive attitude to any notion of change. I can’t help thinking that this is mainly because most academics operate within a cosy system that rewards them well and insulates them from basic practices such as P&L. Again, as a taxpayer I think this is unacceptable and needs reforming.
4. Wait and see. The upshot of these is that most universities that have replied to the institutional membership offer have said that they are interested in principle, but will not be an early adopter. The problem with this, of course, for an operation that is self-funded and operating on small margins, is that prevarication suits the status quo but works against alternatives and stifles new entrants (it will be the traditional publishers who latch on to OA and begin to offer their own variants who will benefit). I am currently soliciting papers from other parts of the world and submissions are coming in, but it is a great shame to me as a Brit if the UK drags its feet and fails to take a global lead in this area.
5. Institutional repositories. Several universities have said that they have established IRs and are encouraging their faculty to deposit papers there, although in some cases they were having problems of their own to make them work. Naturally, I support IRs but wonder if they are an effective solution – many subscription publishers allow authors to publish papers in their IRs, which suggests they do not see them as a threat ie. The work will not be effectively disseminated and therefore not pose a threat to their subscription sales.
As you can imagine, I was delighted when I read the Finch report. The ‘academic spring’, the Elsevier boycott, the White House petition, David Willetts’ speech in May, the Wellcome Trust’s mandate and the Finch report have all brought the issue of funding and scholarly publishing in to the public domain in a way that it has not been before. Now is the time to act on the report’s recommendations and demand change.
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