Harnad Comments on HEFCE/REF Open Access Mandate Proposal
Harnad Comments on HEFCE/REF Open Access Mandate Proposal
The proposed HEFCE/REF Open Access [OA] mandate -- requiring that in order to be eligible for REF, the peer-reviewed final draft of all journal articles must be deposited in the author’s institutional repository immediately upon publication, with embargoes applicable only to the date at which the article must be made OA – is excellent, and provides exactly the sort of complement required by the RCUK OA mandate. It ensures that authors deposit immediately and institutionally and it recruits their institutions to monitor and ensure compliance.
For journal articles, no individual or disciplinary exceptions or exemptions to the immediate-deposit are needed, but embargo length can be adapted to the discipline or even to exceptional individual cases.
Embargo length is even more important for open data, and should be carefully and flexibly adapted to the needs not only of disciplines and individuals, but of each individual research project.
Requiring monograph OA if the author does not wish to provide it is not reasonable, but perhaps many or most monograph authors would not mind depositing their texts as Closed Access.
open access, hefce, ref, rcuk, green OA, gold OA, OA mandates, institutional repositories
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b
Harnad, Stevan
442ee520-71a1-4283-8e01-106693487d8b
Harnad, Stevan
(2013)
Harnad Comments on HEFCE/REF Open Access Mandate Proposal.
Open access and submissions to the REF post-2014.
(In Press)
Abstract
The proposed HEFCE/REF Open Access [OA] mandate -- requiring that in order to be eligible for REF, the peer-reviewed final draft of all journal articles must be deposited in the author’s institutional repository immediately upon publication, with embargoes applicable only to the date at which the article must be made OA – is excellent, and provides exactly the sort of complement required by the RCUK OA mandate. It ensures that authors deposit immediately and institutionally and it recruits their institutions to monitor and ensure compliance.
For journal articles, no individual or disciplinary exceptions or exemptions to the immediate-deposit are needed, but embargo length can be adapted to the discipline or even to exceptional individual cases.
Embargo length is even more important for open data, and should be carefully and flexibly adapted to the needs not only of disciplines and individuals, but of each individual research project.
Requiring monograph OA if the author does not wish to provide it is not reasonable, but perhaps many or most monograph authors would not mind depositing their texts as Closed Access.
Text
HarnadHefceRef.pdf
- Author's Original
Text
HarnadHefceRef.docx
- Author's Original
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 12 March 2013
Keywords:
open access, hefce, ref, rcuk, green OA, gold OA, OA mandates, institutional repositories
Organisations:
Web & Internet Science
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 349893
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/349893
PURE UUID: 3e71b6ee-5c2b-42a9-bfd8-70065bda05ec
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 12 Mar 2013 20:35
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48
Export record
Contributors
Author:
Stevan Harnad
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics