tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post5418283863406409450..comments2024-03-17T08:30:21.129+00:00Comments on Open and Shut?: The Finch Report: UCL’s David Price RespondsRichard Poynderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05433823131339077354noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-70958257695240555252012-06-23T23:52:09.310+00:002012-06-23T23:52:09.310+00:00Let me be the devil's advocate. Does Green OA ...Let me be the devil's advocate. Does Green OA not mean that publishing industry establishes the hierarchy of a particular piece of research in the academic output world and universities then use that "impact" to establish their credentials? Once universities have done that, they then make the research available to everybody for free. Why would these elite publishers then continue to have their elaborate hierarchy of peer reviewers across the hierarchy of journals? Who would then pay to read their articles? <br />I am not suggesting that we do not reform the system. But so long as we rely on this system of impact factors to decide academic fates, we will need all these journals to establish that academic hierarchy. <br />Publishing information in this day and age is not a problem at all and actually very cheap. Costs really come from publishing information after peer review of varying rigour across the spectrum of journals available. So long as the scientific community continues to insist on this, we will not be able to find a lasting solution to this problem. True Green OA would mean scientists can put data and manuscripts on the web and in repositories without any prior peer review and databases like PubMed include that information to provide it visibility. Establishing the true "impact" of a piece of research published in this manner is where the true challenges lie and if we can develop a fair mechanism to do that, we might get closer to solving the issues of cost and access in publication of academic literature. <br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Kamal MahawarKamal Mahawarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18042754907811335047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-25882929971953152722012-06-20T15:35:55.317+00:002012-06-20T15:35:55.317+00:00"The Finch recommendations are not good news ..."The Finch recommendations are not good news for the Humanities, whose unit of publication is characteristically the research monograph. Who will publish Gold OA monographs, and who will pay for them?" It needs to be recognized both that OA monograph publishing experiments are already under way in the humanities, with mixed results, and that there are ways of moving forward in this area without sanctioning Green OA for monographs (which publishers are likely to resist mightily, especially given the new enthusiasm librarians have for patron-driven acquisitions as a model for collection development) and without going into a full Gold OA mode either. I develop some ideas along these lines in my 2011 essay "Back to the Future" available here:http://www.psupress.org/news/SandyThatchersWritings.htmlSandy Thatchernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-23092276870351518212012-06-20T10:26:26.055+00:002012-06-20T10:26:26.055+00:00David Price is absolutely correct in his comments....David Price is absolutely correct in his comments. The Finch Report claims to be evidence-based but provides no evidence for the central conclusion that priority should be given to "gold" OA. As a taxpayer I object to paying extra for OA simply to protect the dominant position of a small number of huge publishers. The "green" route has been demonstrated as cost-effective and is unfairly represented in the Finch Report. Fred FriendFred Friendnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-79228309562661127562012-06-19T21:10:06.280+00:002012-06-19T21:10:06.280+00:00THE FINCH "CURE" FOR OPEN ACCESS IS NOT ...<b>THE FINCH "CURE" FOR OPEN ACCESS IS NOT JUST WORSE THAN THE DISEASE: IT IS NOT EVEN A CURE</b><br /><br />Professor Price, with whom I would agree on everything else he says above, says "“Finch is certainly a cure to the problem of access, but is it not a cure which is actually worse than the disease?”<br /><br />The Finch "cure" -- which is to pay 50-60 million pounds per year in order to make UK research output OA -- is certainly not a cure for either the UK's access problem or the rest of the world's. It would just be an extremely expensive way of providing OA to the UK's research output (if suitable Gold OA journals could be found for all UK research output) for the rest of the world.<br /><br />Optimizing and extending the UK's existing university and funder Green OA mandates would have the same effect, but at no cost, and with the added benefit that -- unlike pre-emptive Gold profligacy on the part of the UK -- it would be a model that the rest of the world could afford to emulate, thereby providing the OA input for the UK that funding Gold OA for UK output certainly does not do.<br /><br />How on earth did the Finch report come up with such an obviously incoherent and ineffectual set of recommendations?<br /><br />And is the UK's historic lead in OA now going to be squandered in this ignominious (and expensive) way?Stevan Harnadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14374474060972737847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961882.post-70621911133024291982012-06-19T18:30:10.878+00:002012-06-19T18:30:10.878+00:00It is very unfortunate that the UK librarians kill...It is very unfortunate that the UK librarians killed a national licence, which was in place for the original Big Deal between 1996 and 1999, under the auspices of HEFCE, on the grounds that it meant top-slicing of their acquisition budgets and a threat to their autonomy. They preferred to pay more for less as long as they kept their autonomy. The idea of a national licence should be resurrected.Jan Velterophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16938346869624683480noreply@blogger.com