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Academics concerned by online access to research papers

Academic groups have raised concern about plans to make research freely available online.

The government announced plans to make all publically funded research available online free of charge from 2014, following recommendations from the Finch report, released in 2012.

The report, undertaken by Dame Janet Finch, a sociologist, reported that opening up access, “will mean that more people and organisations in the UK have access to more of the published findings of research than ever before. More research will be accessible immediately upon publication, and free at the point of use”.

Research papers will be made available to universities, companies and individuals from anywhere in the world. Previously readers had to pay to access research papers but under the new scheme, the cost would fall on universities, who will have to make a fee every time they wanted to publish work from their researchers. 

Chris Grey, OUSU Graduate Officer, told Cherwell, “There are some strong arguments in support of the principle of Open Access. It does, after all, seem a bit perverse that the taxpayer funds thousands of researchers only to have to pay high journal subscription fees to read the results. However the pace at which the Government is attempting to implement these changes, and the lack of consultation with the academic world, is troubling.

“There are a lot of unintended consequences that need to be considered very carefully, and it looks like the current plans will actually end up costing Universities a lot of money, money that could be spent on teaching and funding for students. Our priority right now though is to make sure that any extra charges incurred by graduate students and young researchers who are trying to publish will be covered by the University.”

A number of academic groups and societies, such as the Royal Historical Society, the Political Studies Association and the Council for the Defence of British Universities, have spoken out about the changes the Government are planning to implement.

Howard Hotson, a fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford who sits on the steering council for the Council for the Defence of British Universities told Cherwell, “Open access is an attractive goal in principle, but the transition to it needs to be handled with patience and care.  Scholarly communication has been based largely on the printed word for over 500 years, and on printed scholarly journals for over 300.

“Relative to print, open access scholarly publication on the internet only began to look feasible the day before yesterday, so it is unsurprising that, despite its attractions, serious difficulties with its implementation remain for many disciplines. A one-size-fits-all solution, driven forward by the artificial timetable of the Research Excellence Framework, to be imposed nationally virtually overnight after minimal consultation, will have massive undesirable unintended consequences. What is needed is patient, prudent, incremental change, not more ill-considered radicalism.”

Under the scheme, universities may have more control over selecting what research will be published.

A spokesperson for Oxford University said, “Funders in many areas are already working towards open access policies and models, and we will continue to work with them to find the best way forward. We look forward to a wider discussion across the collegiate University about the potential impact different open access models may have in the many and varied research fields supported at Oxford and are keen to ensure that any changes are sustainable and are not at the expense of ensuring that our research outputs are of the highest quality.

“We are committed to ensuring that the fruits of our research are widely accessible, and the University is already very active in disseminating research for the benefit of the international research community and society.”

Some Oxford Students were also concerned about the effect on reviewing research. Rebecca Fynn, a student at Balliol College, told Cherwell, “I think it’s a great idea to try and make academic history more accessible but I would be worried about bias in the system. I think there should still be independent assessment or else it could be really unfair towards minority interests or controversial opinions.”

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