Going for Gold, or is it Green? The Open Access debate continues

Citation

Gorman, G.E. (2012), "Going for Gold, or is it Green? The Open Access debate continues", Online Information Review, Vol. 36 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2012.26436eaa.001

Going for Gold, or is it Green? The Open Access debate continues

Article Type: Editorial From: Online Information Review, Volume 36, Issue 5

As this piece is being written, the Summer Olympics 2012 is in full swing in London, and many of us may be watching the medal tally with some interest – how many gold medals for China, the UK, Australia …? At the same time a perhaps more prosaic interest for some may be Gold or Green in relation to Open Access (OA).

If anyone needs reminding, Gold OA shifts the burden of cost from readers of scholarly journals (via subscriptions or site licences) to the authors or their employers by charging for the publication of papers. A key benefit of this is that these author-funded papers can appear online without delay. Green OA, in contrast, maintains the status quo in which authors publish in scholarly journals that are paid for by readers; however, these papers are also self-archived in institutional repositories, making them freely available after an agreed period.

If we care to follow an Olympic metaphor, the scull in Lane 1 is the recently released Finch Group Report, Accessibility, Sustainability, Excellence: How to Expand Access to Research Publications (Finch Group, 2012). This has renewed interest and sparked controversy in the OA debate, as Dame Janet Finch’s Working Party sees the Gold route as “the main vehicle for the publication of research” in the future. Gold of a different nature indeed, and for whom is the gold medal in this case?

The scull in Lane 2 is the Research Councils UK’s Policy on Access to Research Outputs (July 2012), which, according to some commentators, has “ignored the Finch recommendations, reinstating Green OA as an equal partner to Gold” (Poynder, 2012). The Policy on Open Access clearly states its continued support for “a mixed approach to OA”:

(1) [Gold OA]: The journal provides via its own website immediate and unrestricted access to the publisher’s final version of the paper (the Version of Record), and allows immediate deposit of the Version of Record in other repositories without restriction on re-use. This may involve payment of an “Article Processing Charge” (APC) to the publisher.

(2) [Green OA]: Where a publisher does not offer option 1 above, the journal must allow deposit of accepted manuscripts that include all changes resulting from peer review (but not necessarily incorporating the publisher’s formatting) in other repositories, without restrictions on non-commercial re-use and within a defined period. In this option no “Article Processing Charge” will be payable to the publisher (Research Councils UK, 2012).

Any reading of this statement shows that Gold and Green OA are treated as equal partners by RCUK. And it is this position that, at present, seems the most sensible because it is evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

There are compelling reasons for advocating this position. First, there has long been an uneasy truce between the creators of intellectual capital (researchers and authors) and those who capitalise on this capital (publishers). The research culture “values the free and easy movement of information”, whereas commercial publishers “want to maximise profits by charging for access to that information” (Ptolomey, 2012). If we favour a revolutionary rather than an evolutionary approach, that truce may be broken, with nothing in its place for some time. Would this matter? Anarchy is not a pretty sight, as we are well aware from the continuing “Arab Spring”; surely it is better to find a way that works through gradual experimentation and incremental implementation.

Second, if researchers or their employers are expected to pay for their papers to be published, who will supply the funds? Most researchers will have noticed that there is not a lot of spare money about, and if institutions need to bookmark funds to pay for publications, we can be sure that Peter will be robbed to pay Paul. Richard Poynder’s blog (see http://poynder.blogspot.com) includes worried comments by a number of experts about sourcing funds to pay for Gold OA; in contrast, Green OA is touted to be a much less costly option.

An alternative, of course, would be to reduce the number of publications (both journals themselves and the papers they might publish). Some would argue that this is A Good Thing, because we have long suffered from a glut of pointless research papers that do little to advance knowledge. This may be true, but we are also experiencing great gains in increased research outputs in so many applied fields. Do we want to see less research being published, or just less pointless research? Most journal editors would admit to having published more than a few research papers that have made little impact, but we would also be able to point to much of value – at least downloads and citations would seem to confirm this.

And if the number of publications is reduced because we cannot afford to pay for them, what happens to the system of rewards (tenure and promotion) that is so tightly tied to published outputs? How will our masters evaluate performance if they have no beans to count? If we seriously consider this question, there may be a more reasoned look at Green and Gold, and more willingness to look at the benefits of a hybrid or mixed approach to OA.

This is not a race likely to be won any time soon, and the waters ahead look rather choppy.

G.E. Gorman