On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Robert Jacobs <rjac...@uk.swets.com> wrote:
> I find your message here a little confusing, as you seem to be railing > against a number of different parties. The simple fact is that the RCUK, > and increasingly other funding bodies, are channelling funds specifically > to pay for the APCs under Gold Open Access via the institution, and most > Universities in the UK who have this funding are channelling it via the > library, not the individual authors. Each library is currently developing > their own processes and systems to support the efficient management of > these APC payments, as there is significant cost involved in managing any > process developed on an individual organisation scale. > > The benefit of a shared service and the economies of scale which > intermediaries can offer are significant, and in the real world we all have > to live by the value we deliver. If we don’t deliver value, then we don’t > have a role to play in this. > > You seem to have missed the fact that there is now, in the UK, funding in > place to encourage the processing of many thousands of APCs, and this is > hugely inefficient if done at an individual institution level, let alone at > individual author level as you seem to suggest is the case. > > As Gold is the current model of choice for RCUK there is a real need to > help streamline processes, to save money and to improve service. If > companies like Swets can support this then that is not parasitic, it’s what > drives best practice and scales efficiency. Our service has been developed > independently of any philosophical arguments for or against gold/green open > access publishing, and after much dialogue with UK university libraries. > No confusion: A. Yes, I am "railing" against (i) Finch/RCUK, for its foolish policy of wasting scarce research money on Gold OA instead of effectively mandating cost-free Green OA, (ii) against institutions who unthinkingly treat Gold OA fees as if they were a library matter (!), and (iii) against third party businesses, eager to cash in on Finch/RCUK's folly and institutional confusion. B. The RCUK Gold policy is an ill-thought-out, incoherent, counterproductive policy, for reasons that have by now been described many times by many authors. C. Consigning the process of (double) paying publishers for Gold OA -- over and above already paying for subscriptions -- to a 3rd party "service" would simply be a way of sweeping the defects of the Finch/RCUK policy under the rug. To repeat: It's authors who publish, and authors who pay to publish (if they wish, or must). Author payment is not a subscription matter, not a library matter, and not a library aggregator matter. Stevan Harnad
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