From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 13:56:38 +0100

Martin Hall was a member of the committee that published the
controversial Finch Report on OA in the UK.

Some excerpts:

*** On green OA:

“[I]t’s important to recognize that there are a number of varieties of
green OA … green means different things to different people; for some,
it’s an argument that all research outputs should be free at the point
of use as a matter of principle, while for others, it’s the
availability of the last version over which the author holds
copyright, before surrendering copyright to a publisher.

“It’s also important to watch out for the context in which green is evoked.

In some arguments, green is advocated as the alternative to
subscription publishing. But for others, the argument is made to have
green in conjunction with a ‘national licence’, a policy that, if
implemented, would perpetuate for-profit subscription publishing.

“My preference would be to drop ‘gold’ and ‘green’, and rather
differentiate between, on the one hand, full and upfront APCs and, on
the other-hand, subscriptions, licences and other forms of pay-walls
that restrict access.

“Green OA is not a transitional strategy … an approach that does not
push towards full, up-front APCs will not result in genuine open
access, where the version of record is free, under a CC-BY licence, at
the point of use.”

*** On the possible “collateral damage” that the Finch recommendations
could inflict:

“[T]here are risks here. The Finch Group had a specific brief and
there were bound to be areas that we could not cover. A lot more work
needs to be done on the future of the scholarly monograph — and this
is particularly important for the Humanities.

“Independent researchers are finding it more and more difficult to
publish, and ways need to be found that provide appropriate access to
funds for independent researchers, for full APCs. And some of the
specialized societies that currently publish subscription journals are
going to find the transition hard. These are real concerns that need
attention.”

*** On whether the Finch Report should have cautioned against the use
of hybrid OA:

 “Good point. I don’t see the use for hybrid models if policies push
for full, upfront APCs.”

*** On whether the UK research councils (RCUK) look set to plough
their own furrow, ignoring the Finch recommendations despite the fact
that the UK government has accepted them all:

“It was not up to the Finch Group to tell the Research Councils what
to do, and we did not do so. Similarly, the government’s response to
the Finch Report allows the Research Councils full and appropriate
latitude in setting their conditions for the receipt of grant funding.
All these furrows are running in the same direction.”

*** On what the OA policy of the Higher Education Funding Council for England

(HEFCE) is likely to be in the wake of the Finch Report, the
recently-announced EC Communication on OA, and the publication of
RCUK’s OA policy:

“It will be important to see exactly what HEFCE means by ‘green’. For
the purposes of the 2020 Research Excellence Framework (or its
equivalent), HEFCE could merely require that the author’s last version
is made available via a repository (a condition that can, of course,
be met at present).

“Alternatively, they may require open access to a version of record,
which will be a big push towards full and upfront APCs. HEFCE (in
contrast with the Research Councils) is also going to have to work out
what to require for research outputs that can (and must) be
submisable, but which are for research not supported with public
funds. The details will be important here.”

More here:

http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/the-oa-interviews-martin-hall-vice.html

Richard Poynder