On RCUK plan for open access research

Belinda Isaac, Head of Intellectual Property & Life Sciences at Morgan Cole Solicitors, has some concerns about the Research Councils UK (RCUK) plan to condition research funding on the basis that any resulting publications be openly archived.

She believes it will involve significant archiving costs accruing to the host universities, that there will be an absence of peer reviewing if traditional academic journal publishers get bypassed (consequently suffering loss of revenues), that researchers will miss out on possible patent and copyright protections, and that the burden on researchers to keep up with all relevant openly published material will be excessive.

Her suggestions in the light of all that?

"Before publication, researchers should check with their legal advisers (or technology transfer centres) to ensure that patent protection is in place before publication.

Second, research institutions should ensure that policies and procedures are devised to check the quality of research before it is published... Research institutions should also take steps to protect the copyright or design rights in the research papers they publish...

Journal publishers that currently charge fees for publication need to think carefully about possible alternative sources of income in the face of Open Access...publishers need to adapt their roles so as to remain involved in research publication.

The UK and USA are leading the push for open access to research findings and trying to stop this tide is likely to prove fruitless. Open Access is a reality; its success however requires a thorough understanding of the costs involved for all concerned."

Peter Suber feels there is a degree of misunderstanding in Ms Isaac's analysis:

"A few quick replies. (1) The RCUK open-access policy is not likely to result in journal cancellations --hence in library savings-- even though other OA initiatives may well do so. (2) Running an OA repository is not expensive and brings direct benefits to the hosting institution by increasing its research profile and impact. Not supporting OA repositories would be even more expensive, by undermining the considerable national investment in publicly-funded research. (3) The work of depositing articles in OA repositories is distributed among the authors, who on average will only need 6-10 minutes to deposit an article. Authors who understand the benefits will do it from self-interest, to enlarge their audience and impact, and spend far less time on it than they spend e.g. bringing their work to the attention of department chairs, deans, and colleagues elsewhere. (4) Isaac seems to think that the deposited articles will bypass peer review, which is incorrect. The policy will only apply to articles that have been approved by the peer-review process at independent journals. (5) Isaac seems to think that the policy will force grantees to disclose patentable discoveries before they might be ready to do so, which is incorrect. The policy only applies to work that authors voluntarily publish in journals or present at conferences. (6) There is no copyright problem here. The deposited articles are under copyright. Authors remain free to transfer copyright to journals. In fact, the current draft of the policy even makes an exception to the OA mandate when journals insist on "copyright arrangements" incompatible with early or open access. (7) The policy will not disrupt the commercial value of articles, if only because scholarly journal articles have no commercial value in the relevant sense."

Suber is not impressed either at a Washington Times critique of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) open archive of articles based on research it sponsors.