Open Access News

John Bacon-Shone and five co-authors, The Open Access Advantage, a preprint dated October 3, 2008 and self-archived today.  The six authors compose the Hong Kong Open Access Committee and represent four research institutions in the Hong Kong area:  Hong Kong Baptist University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the University of Hong Kong.  Excerpt:

In Hong Kong, the University Grants Commission (UGC) recently asked universities to respond to a letter on how best to assess research quality and impact (UGC, 2008)....Clearly, this will ensure that universities look carefully at how to maximize the measurable impact of their research. One possibility is to encourage open access publication. In addition, UGC is now reviewing how best to measure and increase Knowledge Transfer (KT) in Hong Kong universities. For any reasonable definition of KT, increasing public access to research done inside universities clearly increases KT and should be encouraged, which suggests another reason to encourage open access publication....

While the motivation for [existing OA mandates ] by research funders is often the principle of maximising public access to and public benefit from research findings, open access has broader advantages. There is now good research showing that it increases citations across disciplines....

The key question is how to encourage Hong Kong authors to use OA. All HK universities have now established an open access IR. For example, HKU Library is contacting HKU authors one by one to ask permission for inclusion of their articles. How can we create a system whereby Hong Kong authors will pro-actively self-archive into an IR? Funding agencies, such as those listed above, have mandated that authors deposit into an OA repository. In a policy similar to the one by the Wellcome Trust, the University of Nottingham has set up a Central Open Access Fund to support staff across the university in achieving OA.... Recently...Harvard University’s College of Arts and Sciences announced a decision to place their academic papers online in open access, unless the author opts out....

Specific proposal

As the majority of research in Hong Kong is funded by the RGC/UGC, their policies are critical. We would like to propose the following specific actions for the RGC/UGC’s consideration:

a) State clearly that all researchers funded by an RGC grant should aim to publish their results in the highest quality journals or books so as to maximize the influence and impact of the research outcome and that to achieve this when publishing research findings:

i. Researchers should look for suitable OA journals so that, where there is a choice between non OA and OA journals that are equally influential and high impact, the choice should be to publish the results in an OA journal.

ii. When a comparable OA journal does not exist, they should send the journal the Hong Kong author’s addendum (University of Hong Kong, 2008), which adds the right of placing some version (preprint or postprint) of the paper in their university’s institutional repository (IR). If necessary, seek funds from the RGC to pay open access charges up to an agreed limit....

iii. For books and book chapters that are published without a royalty agreement, send the publisher the Hong Kong author’s addendum to seek the right of placing some version in their university’s IR.

iv. Deposit all published papers in their IR, unless the journal refuses in writing. If the published version is refused, deposit the preprint or postprint, as allowed in number ii above....

b) For existing RGC grant holders, set aside some money to cover the publication of papers in OA according to (a) (ii) above, where necessary.

c) Add a notional element, to a set maximum limit, to all new successful RGC grant applications (similar to the existing conference component of the grant) to cover open access charges.

d) Write to the other major research funders in Hong Kong (e.g., Food and Health Bureau, Commission for Innovation and Technology, Croucher Foundation) to encourage similar strategies.

In the meantime, we also hope that universities in Hong Kong will play their role in encouraging researchers to place all output, not just that funded by RGC, in their local IRs, and also help pay open access charges where appropriate to maximize the output placed in the IR.

Also see the authors' announcement of their paper:

...The HKU [Hong Kong University] URC [University Research Committee] found that there is an Open Access Advantage, and that if policy is adopted in favour of open access it will achieve RGC and HKU stated goals of Knowledge Transfer.  They agreed to endorse the arrangements suggested in this paper under, “Specific Proposal”, for how RGC and the UGC funded institutions can likewise place their research results in open access.

We ask that recipients of this email make this result widely known, with the goal of requiring open access on Hong Kong tax-payer funded research, for Hong Kong citizens, and the world.  We encourage other relevant authorities and committees to likewise consider and make policy to require open access on publicly funded research....

Comments

• This is a strong policy even if it falls short of a mandate:  it tells grantees that they should deposit "all published papers" in their institutional repository "unless the journal refuses in writing" and in that case to use an author addendum and try again.  It says "should" rather than "must", and it gives publishers an opt-out if they want it:  they may still refuse the author addendum.  But it's stronger than typical "request/encourage" policies, and even stronger than mandates weakened by loopholes creating unqualified exceptions for journals with contrary in-house policies.
• Note in particular (1) that the policy suggests gold OA before green OA, and only calls for green OA when there isn't a suitable, high-impact OA journal in the author's field, (2) that the policy would apply to "published papers" rather than "peer-reviewed manuscripts", (3) that all Hong Kong universities now have IRs, and that the policy would direct deposits to them, (4) that it would provide funds for publication fees at fee-based OA journals, and (5) that while this language is just a proposal to the Research Grants Council / University Grants Committee, it has already been endorsed by the University Research Committee of Hong Kong University.
• In June 2007, the Hong Kong RGC decided not to adopt an OA mandate for its grantees, but instead to encourage OA and to encourage Hong Kong universities to adopt their own OA policies.  For details, see my blog post at the time. 

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