Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Wednesday, May 17, 2006

RCUK meeting on its draft OA policy

The Research Councils UK (RCUK) is organizing a workshop in London for June 29. Normally, I don't blog meetings in advance (instead, I list them on my conference page), but this one is part of the RCUK's deliberations to finalize its draft OA policy. The purpose of this meeting is to consult with learned society publishers and it appears that only society publishers will be invited to participate. From the announcement:

During the consultative exercise on the RCUK draft position statement on access to scholarly outputs, the Learned Societies asked Research Councils to facilitate an event at which they could explore collectively possible alternative business models that would reinforce their role as bastions of quality assurance in the research process but support longer-term viability in the current evolving open access environment.

The workshop on 29 June 2006 has been organised with the help of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), the Research Information Network (RIN), the Royal Society and the Science Council to provide an opportunity for representatives from Learned Societies to discuss opportunities, challenges and new publishing models. The workshop will be chaired by Michael Jubb, Director of the RIN....

It is intended that the main thrust of the workshop will be given over to breakout groups at which representatives from Learned Societies will be encouraged to discuss the objectives identified below:

  • Identify key issues and opportunities that will arise from the RCUK position statement concerning self-archiving in repositories.
  • Exchange of information including case studies on different models the Learned Societies could adopt in response.
  • Consider what kind of evidence is needed to scope the study that will inform the review of the position statement in 2008.

Each objective will be the subject of a presentation designed to stimulate discussion in the Breakout Groups and will be given by the following:

  • Objective 1: Stephen Pinfield, Assistant Director of Information Services, University of Nottingham.
  • Objective 2: Mary Waltham, Publishing Consultant.
  • Objective 3: Dr Ian Rowlands, Director - Information Metrics and Policy, CIBER.

A report of the workshop will be issued following the event....The programme is available here.

Comment. Of course the RCUK needs the input of the society publishers, even though they have had ample opportunity to provide input before now. I hope the RCUK will be equally solicitous of final inputs from OA proponents (researchers, librarians, universities) before the process is concluded. The publishers are bound to repeat their reservations about the current draft policy. If the RCUK considers revising the draft and making new concessions to publishers, stakeholders representing research should have a chance to respond.