From:  [log in to unmask]
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:06:16 -0400

** Cross-Posted **

Thursday, July 26, 2012

When on July 16th Research Councils UK (RCUK) published its updated
Policy on Access to Research Outputs the Open Access (OA) movement
greeted the news with enthusiasm. This was hardly surprising: unlike
the recommendations in the controversial Finch Report (published a
month earlier), RCUK stressed that it continues to view both gold OA
publishing and green OA self-archiving as equal partners in any OA
policy.

Gold and green are the two strategies outlined eight years ago when
the OA movement was born, and are viewed as being essential components
of any successful transition to OA.

By contrast, Finch concluded that the main vehicle should now be gold
OA, either via pure open access journals or via hybrid journals, and
that this should be funded by article processing charges (APCs).

At the same time, Finch argued, it was time to downgrade green OA, and
reduce the role of institutional repositories to merely, "providing
access to research data and to grey literature" and assisting in
digital preservation.

Set alongside the Finch proposals, OA advocates quickly concluded that
RCUK’s policy was a godsend.

One of the first to applaud the new policy was long-standing OA
advocate, and self-styled archivangelist, Stevan Harnad. The minute
the report was published a relieved Harnad began flooding mailing
lists with messages congratulating RCUK on coming up with a policy
that not only defied Finch, but was stronger than its current OA
policy.

But as Harnad set about talking up the policy, and seeking to win over
sceptics and doubters, he himself began to have doubts. And eventually
he was driven to the conclusion that he had no option but to withdraw
his support for the RCUK policy — which he now characterises as
“autistic”, and a “foolish, wasteful and counterproductive step
backwards”.

How has what at first sight seemed so desirable rapidly become
something terrible? Curious to find out, I contacted Harnad. I publish
the email interview that emerged from our conversation.

http://poynder.blogspot.com/2012/07/oa-advocate-stevan-harnad-withdraws_26.html#more