Image: PLoS [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
An independent review has recommended that Research Councils UK revisit its open-access policy.
The review of the implementation of RCUK’s open-access policy says that RCUK should, among other things: update the data used to allocate the block grant that 107 institutions have received since 2013 to help cover publishing costs; consider why some institutions feel they do not get a fair share of the funding; and improve communications to ease the confusion and misperceptions of the policy.
The review was led by former University of Leicester vice-chancellor Robert Burgess and published on 26 March, along with the written and oral evidence submitted as part of the process.
In April 2013, RCUK gave 107 institutions a share of £17 million to pay for academic papers published in the following 12 months to be made open access. It was later clarified that the money could also be used by institutions to set up IT systems or lines of communication to encourage their academics move to publishing under open access.
RCUK came under scathing attack for poor communication over the policy: a February 2013 report from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee told RCUK to tackle the “significant confusion” that led institutions to believe that they had to comply instantly. In fact, RCUK’s policy said that the block grant was to be used to ensure that at least 45 per cent of research papers would be published with open access in the first year; this percentage has risen in subsequent years.
The Burgess review has called for more “robust guidance” on what the grant may and may not be used for and that it needs more clarity on licences. The review found that institutions are publishing under licences other than CC-BY—not a valid use of RCUK funds.
However, this area of the policy is one aspect that the review panel felt was lacking data to measure compliance.
“There’s a whole debate over the use of licences,” says Burgess. “We feel this needs to be revisited. At the moment there’s not enough evidence, I think the different parties putting together the evidence would be useful.”
The review of the policy covers only the first 16 months, from April 2013 to July 2104. Burgess received 86 written submissions and held nine half-day hearings with witnesses, but data from the institutions receiving the block grant were patchy. “Conducting a review so early has thrown up challenges,” writes Burgess in his introduction to the report. Only 81 of the 107 institutions reported data on how they had used the funds.
The review panel looked at a subset of this: 55 institutions that together account for 93.5 per cent of the block grant made available. Of these 55, only 46 reported comparable compliance data. Of those institutions that provided compliance data, 94 per cent reported that they had exceeded the 45 per cent open-access target set by RCUK for the first year of implementation.
Burgess found that the average article-processing charge paid for gold open access was £1,600 and that the RCUK grant funded the publication of 23,000 papers. However, the report notes that these numbers are based on estimates and are not complete due to institutions’ patchy reporting. The report calls on RCUK to create a template and guidance to help institutions to collect data, and that this should be developed with representatives from the institutions themselves and the higher education ICT agency Jisc.
Burgess recommends that RCUK establishes a joint practitioners’ working group with these parties plus funders, learned societies and publishers—but must not duplicate similar groups, such as the one convened by Universities UK and led by Adam Tickell from the University of Birmingham.
“It’s important for practitioners who get the job of collecting the data have a say in how the templates look and what kind of evidence needs to be collected,” says Burgess.
The review does not carry forward the Wellcome Trust’s recommendation that RCUK should consider sanctions as a way of upping compliance. The trust said in its submission to the review that it withholds award letters from successful grant applicants until they can show research arising from their previous awards comply with its open-access policy, which has had “a very positive effect in increasing compliance levels”.
An RCUK spokeswoman told Research Fortnight that the body’s executive group is considering the report and will publish a formal response in the summer including an implementation plan for the recommendations. “I don’t think at this stage there’s any intention not to accept the recommendations,” she says.