Fred,

... It is a matter of interpretation, of course, but I don't think the Finch Report (HM Gov't) "blocks" the use of institutional repositories. I don't read that in the report, and it is an interpretation I fail to see as obvious or inevitable.

But face up to it, subject repositories, such as the superb UKPMC (soon to be Europe PMC, confusing as that name may be — naming it Enhanced PMC would have been clearer and reflecting reality more closely) do present so much more in terms of usability, interoperability, internet connectivity, than most institutional repositories, that scepticism with regard to the latter as the preferred venue for open access is understandable. What I don't quite understand is why institutional repositories don't raise their game. They could, for instance, easily set up harvesting mechanisms — actually, linking would suffice — to collect articles relating to their affiliation from the limited number of subject repositories.

And they could enhance the functionality of deposited articles, too. Just an example: UKPMC makes linking to species, diseases, chemicals, genes, proteins, and the like possible. That is, in a different way, but still, also available to content in institutional repositories by using tools such as, for instance, the freely available Utopia Documents (utopiadocs.com — which actually offers more internet connectivity for PDFs than most HTML versions have). I'm sure there are more tools available to increase the usability of repositories. Why don't repositories tell their users about them? And why don't repositories convince their depositing authors to attach a CC-BY licence to the manuscripts being deposited so that the reuse issues are resolved? If they are indeed the manuscript versions and not the formally published ones, that shouldn't be a problem.

I haven't seen many efforts in regard of making institutional repositories work better by any of the 'green' OA advocates known to me, but maybe I'm reading the wrong lists. 

Jan Velterop

On 9 Oct 2012, at 11:40, Frederick Friend wrote:

I am grateful to Robert Kiley for clarification of Wellcome’s policy in a message which – with his permission – is reproduced below:

”Can I just make it clear that though the Trust requires publishers to deposit content which has attracted an APC fee directly in PMC (which is then mirrored to UKPMC/Europe PMC) we do not pay any extra for this service? Publishers charge the Wellcome (via the grant holders and their institutions) the published APC fee. In terms of the fee paid to publishers, we currently spend around £4m pa on OA publication fees -- this figure includes publication fees levied by both hybrids and full OA journals. Compliance with our OA policy is around 60 per cent. Calculations continue to show that if all WT-funded research was routed via the gold route, and assuming that the Trust picked up 100 per cent of OA costs (even though most WT funded research has another funder supporting the research), at current levels of APC, the cost to the Trust would be between 1.25 percent and 1.5 percent of our annual research spend.
Hope this helps. Robert.”

 

What this extra information tells me is that the payment by Wellcome has never been a payment to meet the cost of deposit but a payment to the publisher for access and re-use rights, just as an APC does. Wellcome had every right to begin to make such payments but the issue remains whether this model – which Wellcome have the money to pay for – is suitable for transfer into policies paid for from the national funds for research administered by the RCs. Spending 1.5% of RCUK funds on APCs may have a very different effect upon other national research priorities than spending 1.5% of Wellcome research funds on APCs has upon Wellcome’s priorities, and we do not even know whether 1.5% of RCUK funds will pay for all RC-funded UK research outputs. I am still left with the impression that the Wellcome model has been accepted without question by the Finch Group and then by HM Government.

 

One question which needs to be asked – if this situation is carried through into all UK research outputs - is what happens to the 40% of articles not gathered in by this route? The UKPMC deposit rate of 60% is clearly higher than UKPMC was achieving through author-deposit alone, but open access statistics show that one open access model on its own cannot ensure that 100% of research content is made open access. In fact to date the repository deposit model has been more successful than OA journal publication in increasing the volume of open access. In blocking the use of institutional repositories for access to and re-use of current research output, HM Government has given us a situation where we may be paying more for less open access.

 

Fred Friend

Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk      

 

 

From: Frederick Friend

Sent: Monday, October 08, 2012 1:01 PM

To: JISC-REPOSITORIES@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

Subject: Europe PubMed as a home for all RCUK research outputs?

 

“Admitting that RCUK was "thinking about" mandatory repository deposit, Mr Thorley said that one idea was to expand the Europe (formerly UK) PubMed Central repository, which currently covers only biomedicine, to encompass all subjects to help publishers automate deposits.” Mark Thorley of RCUK quoted in an article by Paul Jump in “Times Higher Education” of 4 October 2012.

 

I wonder whose idea this was! I can make one or two guesses, but whoever suggested it, it is a bad idea! I welcomed the development of UK PubMed Central, until the point when Wellcome Trust started to pay some publishers to make the deposit on behalf of authors and funders. I do not know whether Wellcome will disclose the sums paid to publishers, but my impression is that whatever is being paid more than covers the cost of making the deposit and is in effect a payment to publishers for open access and re-use rights. When people I know who are not in academia ask me about my work and I explain that I am working for open access to taxpayer-funded research, this is welcomed by whoever I am speaking to – until I say that many publishers are asking to be paid by taxpayers for making articles open access, at which point the welcome from my listener turns to incredulity. Even more incredulity if I mention the level of payments being requested for APCs. So, if RCUK were to go down the road of paying publishers to deposit in Europe PubMed Central, they should be prepared for challenges on such a mis-use of public money, especially if the deposit payment were to be in addition to the payment of an APC. Presumably the existing funders of UKPMC – some of them charities – would also expect a contribution from the non-biomedical RCs towards the high cost of running Europe PMC. This “idea” could cost a lot of money.

 

I suspect that there will also be objections from subject groups who see their repository needs as being very different from those of the biomedical community. How many times in my long career have I heard that other such all-embracing proposals will not work for subject x or y! UKPMC is a wonderful service for the biomedical community, a service for which they are prepared to pay and have the resources to pay, but its design will not fit all subjects without major modification. Already I hear some concern about the undue influence of the biomedical community and Wellcome in particular upon the Finch Report and thus upon Government policy. The suspicion is that the open access policy of the Wellcome Trust, which works very well for the Trust and for the biomedical community, is being adopted for all UK research outputs without consideration of the way the Trust’s open access decisions can be applied within  other very different academic structures.

 

RCUK: please think again! It is good that you are considering mandatory repository deposit, but there are other repositories which can provide better value for the service you need. 

 

Fred Friend

http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk