3/21/2024 0 Comments Society finch magazine![]() ![]() Nevertheless, the current annual Green OA rate for the UK (40 per cent) is twice the worldwide baseline rate (20 per cent). Universities and research institutions are the universal providers of all peer-reviewed research, funded and unfunded, across all disciplines, but even in the UK, far fewer than half of the universities have as yet mandated OA, and only a few of the UK’s OA mandates are designed to be optimally effective. This is still only a tiny fraction of the world’s total number of universities, research institutes and research funders. To date, the world has a total of 185 institutional mandates and 52 funder mandates. The UK already has 26 institutional mandates and 14 funder mandates, more than any other country except the US, which has 39 institutional mandates and 4 funder mandates - but the UK is far ahead of the US relative to its size (although the US and EU are catching up, following the UK’s lead). The first Green OA mandate in the world was designed and adopted in the UK (University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science, 2003) and the UK was the first nation in which all RCUK research funding councils have mandated Green OA. But Gold OA can be recommended, where suitable, and funds can be offered to pay for it, if available. Only Green OA can be mandated, because Gold OA costs extra money and restricts authors’ journal choice. The UK is the country that first began mandating that its researchers provide Green OA. The other way for authors to make their research OA is to publish it in the suitable journal of their choice, but to self-archive their peer-reviewed final draft in their institutional OA repository to make it free online for those who lack subscription access to the publisher’s version of record. Some Gold OA journals (mostly overseas national journals) cover their publication costs from subscriptions or subsidies, but the international Gold OA journals charge the author an often sizeable fee (£1000 or more). ![]() Most of them (about 90 per cent) are not Gold. This is called “Gold OA.” There are currently about 25,000 peer-reviewed journals, across all disciplines, worldwide. One way is to publish it in an OA journal, which makes it free online. There are two ways for authors to make their research OA. ![]() This maximizes research uptake, usage, applications and progress, to the benefit of the tax-paying public that funds it. OA makes it accessible to all would-be users. (Some OA advocates want more than this, but all want at least this.) Subscriptions restrict research access to users at institutions that can afford to subscribe to the journal in which the research was published. Open Access means online access to peer-reviewed research, free for all. If the Finch committee were heeded, the UK would lose both its lead in OA and a great deal of public money - and worldwide OA would be set back at least a decade. Instead of recommending building on the UK’s lead in cost-free Green OA, the committee has recommended spending a great deal of extra money to pay publishers for “Gold” OA publishing. A report has emerged from the Finch committee that looks superficially as if it were supporting OA, but is strongly biased in favour of the interests of the publishing industry over the interests of UK research. The UK’s universities and research funders have been leading the rest of the world in the movement toward Open Access (OA) to research with “Green” OA mandates requiring researchers to self-archive their journal articles on the web, free for all. Stevan Harnad writes why he believes that the recommendations of the Finch Report could set worldwide open access back by at least a decade. The National Audubon Society protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow, throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education, and on-the-ground conservation.If we heed the advice of the Finch Report, the UK will lose its lead in open access publishing… and a great deal of public money.
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