A recently released report delivers a set of recommendations aiming to ensure best practice at UK higher education institutions (HEIs) in relation to the payment of open access (OA) publication fees. The report was released by Universities UK (UUK) and the Research Information Network (RIN), with the working group including representatives from universities, research funders, publishers and research authors. Its recommendations identify actions each of these groups can take in order to ensure that the funding of OA publishing is handled in a coordinated way.
A key focus of the report is the need for institutions to take an integrated approach, and to communicate clearly to their employees. The report notes that 'the response in the UK to the development of open access journals remains haphazard'. It also notes that a 2008 JISC survey of UK biomedical authors found that 'only 28 percent of those employed by HEIs believed that they had received any guidance from their employer on the payment of publication fees'.
To address this lack of clearly communicated policies, the report recommends that HEIs should designate a single person at senior level (for example, a PRO or deputy vice chancellor) to coordinate their activities. According to the report, all funders should clarify how they will provide financial support for researchers in meeting their open access policies in general, and the payment of publication fees in particular.
Noting that the payment of OA publication fees as directly-incurred costs (i.e. from grants) is often problematic, the report unambiguously advises institutions to develop central OA funds. The reports relevance extends beyond the UK, especially in the light of recent mandatory OA initiatives in the US at Harvard and MIT.
Central funding for OA publication costs is a natural way to ensure that such OA deposit policies can be sustained long-term, without undermining peer-review and the journal system on which scholarly communication depends.
The UUK/RIN report is available online at http://www.rin.ac.uk/files/
Paying_open_access_charges_March_2009.pdf
