(1) It would be a great strategic error if the EC allows the publishing industry lobby to draw it back into further talks and studies, instead of implementing the OA self-archiving mandate (EC A1) proposed in January 2006, and since implemented by the ERC and reinforced by EURAB.
(3) The research publishing industry is not the industrial dimension of research: The R&D industry is: R&D's revenues are orders of magnitude bigger than those of the publishing industry, and it shares in the current, actual loss of research access and impact that OA is meant to cure -- a cure the publishing industry lobby is (successfully) endeavouring to prevent:
(4) The substance of the recommendation of the EC petition and its 22,000+ signatories (so far), including 1000+ official organisation signatories -- universities, research institutes, scientific academies, R&D industries, etc. -- is that OA self-archiving (Green OA) should be mandated. The voices raised for OA were not about funding Gold OA, and certainly not about diverting scarce research funds from research to paying publishers for Gold OA.
(5) The research community rightly resists OA Mandates being coupled in any way with the redirection of scarce research funds, away from research and toward the payment of Gold OA publishing fees. There is no need at all to couple the EC OA mandate with the diversion of any funds from research to pay Gold OA fees. There is no reason for the mandate to make any reference to Gold OA fees at all. The mandate should be a Green OA self-archiving mandate. That is all.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/01/2007 09:22:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
