Open Road for Open Access

Jisc co-funded the report with the Research Information Network, the Publishing Research Consortium, Research Libraries UK and the Wellcome Trust, to look at the UK scholarly communications system; particularly the five possible routes for academics and researchers to disseminate their work.
The report suggests that encouraging open access appears to be a good way forward for the UK’s scholarly communications community and in particular via gold or green routes.  It is consistent with previous research in coming to this conclusion.

Neil Jacobs programme director digital infrastructure says: “This report looks at how gold open access (OA) is particularly viable for the UK in the longer term but only if average charges are under £2000 making journal prices more competitive. This can already be seen with Nature Scientific Reports, Sage Open and BMJ Open all being created the in last year to meet the demands of an ever growing knowledge economy looking to access information.  In the meantime, and alongside these developments, the UK’s network of repositories offers clear value for money in maximising the impact of UK research.

“Through Jisc’s work with the UK’s Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) we are building on this report, to look at the benefits of deeper open access for the private, public and third sectors as well as for an academic audience. For this report, 'access' has been defined as reading onscreen and being able to download and print information, whereas the OAIG is looking broader and focussing on how research can be reused, repurposed and managed with the appropriate IPR statements.”

Read the report
Find out more about Jisc’s work on open and its membership of the OAIG
Date for the diary on May 26, 2011 Jisc will be broadcasting a pre-recorded roundtable discussion on why it is important for universities and researchers to be aware of the UK’s scholarly communications publishing models.