[openbiblio-dev] Fwd: [dcc-associates] RCUK Open Access policy

Mon Mar 19 14:54:14 UTC 2012

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joy Davidson <Joy.Davidson at glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 2:33 PM
Subject: [dcc-associates] RCUK Open Access policy
To: DCC Phase 3 <dcc3-staff at lists.ed.ac.uk>, "JISCMRD at JISCMAIL.AC.UK"
<JISCMRD at jiscmail.ac.uk>, "RESEARCH-DATAMAN at JISCMAIL.AC.UK"
<RESEARCH-DATAMAN at jiscmail.ac.uk>, "dcc-associates at lists.ed.ac.uk"
<dcc-associates at lists.ed.ac.uk>

This news item may be of interest to list members.

RCUK plans to extend open access policy
Elizabeth Gibney
Research Fortnight Today
Issue 3886, 16 Mar 12

Research Councils UK is considering changing its open access policies
to mandate that all RCUK-funded papers be made freely available six
months after publication.

The move would extend rules already in place at the Medical Research
Council, although initially the Arts and Humanities Research Council
and the Economics and Social Research Council would have lengthier, 12
month, periods.

Under the plans, RCUK would produce a list of "research council
compliant" journals, in which all wholly or partially funded projects
must be published.

The changes were revealed in a draft policy published on the
EnablingOpenScholarship website on 12 March.

The move anticipates the findings a working group on expanding access
to research findings, chaired by Janet Finch, professor of sociology
at the University of Manchester and co-chair of the Council for
Science and Technology. Her report, scheduled for publication this
spring, is expected to propose a programme of action and make
recommendations to government.

RCUK's policy states that access to articles should include
unrestricted use of text and data mining tools. The revised guidelines
would require all papers to include details on how to access
underlying research materials.

However, although the draft says that research council funding may be
used to support payment of authors' fees in open access publishing, it
does not go as far as the Wellcome Trust's policy, which extends to
paying to publish even when a grant is used up.

The document says RCUK is "aware of the difficulties of the current
system" and in the longer-term may revisit the model. In the meantime,
it says, RCUK will work with institutions on how they might build an
institutional open access fund that draws from the indirect costs on
grants.

http://www.openscholarship.org/upload/docs/application/pdf/2012-03/rcuk_proposed_policy_on_access_to_research_outputs.pdf

********************
Joy Davidson
Associate Director
Digital Curation Centre (DCC)
HATII, University of Glasgow
11 University Gardens
Glasgow
G12 8QJ
Tel: 0141 330 8592
Email: joy.davidson at glasgow.ac.uk
http://www.dcc.ac.uk
http://www.gla.ac.uk/hatii