Free access to British scientific research within two years (The Guardian):
An important move for open access, but probably not the right one:
[…] research papers that describe work paid for by the British taxpayer will be free online for universities, companies and individuals to use for any purpose, wherever they are in the world.
[…]
British universities now pay around £200m a year in subscription fees to journal publishers, but under the new scheme, authors will pay “article processing charges” (APCs) to have their papers peer reviewed, edited and made freely available online. The typical APC is around £2,000 per article.
This is called “gold” open access, the revenue stream of publishers will change, but still be there. The alternative is “green” open access, where researchers make their papers available online after being accepted in journals, but without an alternative revenue stream.
- Why not just organise the peer review amongst researchers? They do most of the work already, do publishers really add so much value?
- It’s great that researchers from less priviliged organisations and countries will have access to more publications, but the threshold to get “indigineuous knowledge” published will only go up.
- And not just that:
Another consequence of the shift could be a “rationing” of research papers from universities as competition for funds to publish papers intensifies. […] For example, a study that finds no beneficial effect of a drug might be seen as negative results and go unpublished […]
[…]
“The Finch committee’s recommendations look superficially as if they are supporting open access, but in reality they are strongly biased in favour of the interests of the publishing industry over the interests of UK research,” […]
“Open” should be about “commons”, not about vested interests or obsolete business models and organisations.