Universities UK on Open Access, Metrics, Mandates and the Research Excellence Framework Universities UK recommends making all the research outputs submitted to the UK's new Research Excellence Framework (REF) Open Access (OA). The UUK's recommendation is of course very welcome and timely. All research funded by the RCUK research councils is already covered by the fact that all the UK councils already mandate OA. It is this policy, already adopted by the UK, that the US is now also contemplating adopting, in the form of the proposed Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), as well as the discussion in President Obama's ongoing OSTP Public Access Policy Forum. But if HEFCE were to follow the UUK's recommendation, it would help to ensure Open Access to UK research funded by the EU (for which OA is only partially mandated thus far) and other funders, as well as to unfunded research -- for which OA is mandated by a still small but growing number of universities in the UK and worldwide. (The same UUK proposal could of course be taken up by UK's universities, for once they mandate OA for all their research output, all UK research, funded and unfunded, becomes OA!) There is an arbitrary constraint on REF submissions, however, which would greatly limit the scope of an OA requirement (as well as the scope of REF itself): Only four research outputs per researcher may be submitted, for a span covering at least four years, rather than all research output in that span. This limitation arises because the REF retains the costly and time-consuming process of re-reviewing, by the REF peer panels, of all the already peer-reviewed research outputssubmitted. This was precisely what it had earlier been proposed to replace by metrics, if they prove sufficiently correlated with -- and hence predictive of -- the peer panel ranklings. Now it will only be partially supplemented by a few metrics. This is a pity, and an opportunity lost, both for OA and for testing and validating a rich and diverse new battery of metrics and initializing their respective weights, discipline by discipline. Instead, UUK has endorsed a simplistic (and likewise untested and arbitrary) a-priori weighting ("60/20/20 for outputs, impact and environment"). Harnad, S. (2009) Open Access Scientometrics and the UK Research Assessment Exercise. Scientometrics 79 (1) Also in Proceedings of 11th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics 11(1), pp. 27-33, Madrid, Spain. Torres-Salinas, D. and Moed, H. F., Eds. (2007)
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Friday, January 8, 2010
Universities UK on Open Access, Metrics, Mandates and the Research Excellence Framework - Open Access Archivangelism
Friday, May 1, 2009
Times Higher Education - Open access will get another look
Times Higher Education - Open access will get another look
Open access will get another look
30 April 2009
By Zoë Corbyn
Research councils to revisit issue after study shows policies having little impact. Zoe Corbyn writes
The research councils are looking at what more they can do to support open access to research results after an independent study found that their current policies were having a "limited impact".
The councils have previously baulked at requiring all council-funded researchers to deposit papers in openly available repositories.
Instead they adopted varying positions, some of which are more proactive than others. The Medical Research Council, for example, requires academics to deposit all papers in a specific repository (UKPubMed Central) within six months of publication, but the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has no such measures.
Now, after a study by SQW Consulting concluded that open access is increasingly popular with UK researchers and that institutions are setting up their own repositories, the councils will revisit the issue.
They will have to tread carefully because open access threatens to undermine the business model of publishers and learned societies.
In a statement, the councils said: "(we) have agreed that over time (we) will support increased open access by building on mandates on grant-holders to deposit research papers in suitable repositories within an agreed time period, and extending support for publishing in open-access journals, including through the pay-to-publish model."
The latest study lays out several options for the councils. These include sticking with the status quo, adopting a stronger common position favouring repositories, and backing the open-access journal model, which publishers could build into their existing business models.
The study also reports that more than three quarters of 2,100 council-funded researchers surveyed were unaware of the councils' current mandates.
Paul Gemmill, chair of the research outputs group at Research Councils UK, said the next stage was to decide whether a specific model should be adopted. He said the process would involve learned societies, publishers and academics.
Open-access advocate Stevan Harnad, professor of electronics and computer science at the University of Southampton, said scarce research money should not be used to pay open-access journal fees, where the costs normally borne by the publisher are picked up by funders.
"If good sense were to prevail, funders and universities would just mandate repositories," he said.
New guidance on who should pay for researchers to publish in open-access journals has also been issued by the Research Information Network and Universities UK. Arrangements for paying fees "remain haphazard", it says.
zoe.corbyn@tsleducation.com.
Behind the music: When politicians use music to get their message across | Music | guardian.co.uk
Behind the music: When politicians use music to get their message across | Music | guardian.co.uk
"Too much fun not to include,.....HSM"
Behind the music: When politicians use music to get their message across
Musicians tend to be left-leaning by nature, so when rightwing parties appropriate their work in campaigns without permission they head straight for the courts
Different tune ... Vera Lynn, Massive Attack's 3D and Don Henley from the Eagles. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/PA/Guardian
Last year, Behind the Music posed the question: why are British musicians so afraid of politics? The lack of political engagement by many artists could be down to apathy, but if you want to see a musician's true political colours, watch what happens when their music is used in political campaigns without their permission.
The success of the Eagles in the 70s is widely seen as the moment when California's Laurel Canyon scene went from political engagement to coke-fuelled excess. But when Republican politician Charles DeVore recently used the Eagles' Don Henley's Boys of Summer and All She Wants to Do Is Dance in campaign ads on YouTube, he was faced with a lawsuit. Henley, it turns out, is a committed Democrat and took serious offence when DeVore changed the lyrics to All She Wants To Do Is Tax.
DeVore says he will file a counterclaim citing first amendment protection for free speech. What he may not know is that Henley can use a clause in the copyright protection law regarding moral rights, which gives the artist the right to ban the use of their music if it seriously damages their reputation.
When John McCain was sued by Jackson Browne for using his song Running On Empty during his presidential campaign, the defendants also claimed they had the right to use it under the first amendment and fair use rule. However, lawyers regard the fair use argument in this case to be ridiculous. The two main reasons for fair use (when you can use copyrighted work without permission) are "non-commercial research and study" and "news reporting and criticism". I'm curious to hear how they're going to apply free speech to this issue in court.
In the UK, the BNP is using music as a way of getting their message across. Ninety-one year old Dame Vera Lynn was furious to hear that they used White Cliffs of Dover on an anti-immigration album. Unfortunately, as the UK's performer copyright only lasts for 50 years, she doesn't have a legal leg to stand on as it was recorded during the second world war. It's worth noting that there is an argument for term-extension.
The BNP also used Manic Street Preachers' If You Tolerate This ... in a misguided attempt to illustrate their video The Cesspit Called London (the original lyrics concern the international brigade who went to fight fascism in the Spanish civil war), only to be issued with cease and desist orders by the band's label.
As artists tend to be more left-leaning by nature, conservative and rightwing parties have had a hard time recruiting musicians to support their campaigns (the last US election being a prime example), and have resorted to using music without permission.
In 2000, William Hague was the target of Massive Attack's wrath after using Man Next Door at a conference. Jimmy Cliff was surprised to hear that David Cameron had used You Can Get It If You Really Want at the Conservative party conference in 2007 – especially as it featured in the violent Jamaican drug-dealing movie, The Harder They Come.
This week the Tories introduced a new tactic to lure musicians by announcing that they cared more about their concerns than Labour does, which is why they've recruited people from the music industry to formulate policy.
So who did they recruit? Billy Bragg? Thom Yorke? Someone from the not-for-profit collection agency PRS for Music? No, they enlisted the head of the biggest record label, Lucian Grainge of Universal, the head of the BPI and the MD of Classic FM. It may ensure that Cameron gets a seat at next year's Brits, but will this move ensure that struggling artists, musicians and songwriters can prosper under their leadership? What are the chances that these people will support the Featured Artists Coalition's fight for musicians to retain ownership of their work instead of record labels?
Maybe the Tories have their eye on some of the latest releases for the forthcoming election. How about Cameron walking onstage to the tune of La Roux's In for the Kill? Or would he go for Lady Gaga's Poker Face? I'm sure Green Day would come down on them like a ton of bricks if they used Know Your Enemy (though the irony surely wouldn't be lost on the band).
The Tories, like the Republicans, may think that it's worth dealing with a lawsuit, once the election is over. After all, music is a powerful tool.
Behind the music: When politicians use music to get their message across | Music | guardian.co.uk
Friday, April 24, 2009
TV: Government given five-year TV and film piracy warning | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Government given five-year TV and film piracy warning
TV: Government given five-year TV and film piracy warning | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Industries will fade into insignificance if more is not done to stamp out illegal copying, trade body warns
A still from an advert emphasising how cinema ticket and DVD sales help fund the film industry
The UK's film and TV industries will fade into insignificance in five years unless the government rapidly steps up its anti-piracy efforts, a leading trade body warned today.
In a survey of more than 30 directors of TV and film companies, the Industry Trust found that 94% believe the damage cannot be repaired without stronger support from government and more action from internet service providers, who have been accused by some critics of failing to act against web users who illegally download audio and video files.
The trust's director general, Liz Bales, said that although the film industry is not suffering as much as the music sector, the proportion of illegal film and TV content distributed globally online is heading towards 90% of the totall, as experienced by the music industry.
In 2007, 95m films were downloaded illegally in the UK, compared with just 158,000 legally, according to the trust.
The government's interim Digital Britain report has laid out proposals for improving broadband speeds across the UK, which will make it possible to download entire films in a few minutes.
Commissioned by the UK Film Council, the trust's survey also found that 91% think the industry needs help encouraging consumers to use legal online content services, while 60% think ISPs need to play a bigger role in supporting legal content initiatives.
"If the current framework hasn't changed in five years, the UK industry will have become insignificant," Bales said.
"This is a wakeup call for government as well as industry. Digital Britain proposed creating a massive hub in the UK of innovative content creators and publishers, and net-savvy civilians backed up by digital literacy," she added.
"But in opening the floodgates for business, we need to make sure we are not enabling illegal businesses. We need to clear the undergrowth, in the government's own language."
The survey coincides with the Industry Trust's conference today, which will explore specific proposals for encouraging takeup of legal online content services while discouraging illegal downloads.
Proposals include watermarking legal content, more research into legal alternatives and increased collaboration to limit the availability of illegal content. Media firms also want to discuss bringing more legal alternatives into the market.
Bales said that positive moves for the industry will include the launch of the NBC Universal and Fox web TV service Hulu in the UK, which is expected later this year, a new streaming service by Lovefilm and uptake of FindAnyFilm, which has built up 1 million users in the 10 weeks since it launched.
She added that the industry is moving away from the anti-piracy campaigns based around social stigma, such as "Knockoff Nigel", with a more positive campaign called "You make the Movies" launched earlier this month emphasising that DVD sales and cinema tickets are part of the funding process for high quality content.
The trust has also supported a new site called Find Any Film that aggregates to legal download services, cinema listings and archive information, but is looking to the government for significant regulatory support.
Bales said the model should be similar to that of Ofcom, which helps to police the largely-self regulatory media industry.
"The film industry is not interested in end user litigation," she added. "Consumers deserve consistency and to know what the framework is. ISPs need to be more proactive in identifying those people infringing copyright and have a simple, measured system of graduated response."
Bales said that despite the attention given to the Pirate Bay, the site was "not particularly innovative" but had used the same principle as Grokster and Kazaa to create "a very lucrative business".
The Pirate Bay was not concerned with the quality of content, the value for consumers or in creating a business model, she added.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.
TV: Government given five-year TV and film piracy warning | Technology | guardian.co.uk
UK PubMed Central Blog: RCUK - further support for open access
UK PubMed Central Blog: RCUK - further support for open access
RCUK - further support for open access
Research Councils UK (RCUK) have published an independent study commissioned by the Research Councils into open access to research outputs.
The purpose of the study was to identify the effects and impacts of open access on publishing models and institutional repositories in light of national and international trends. This included the impact of open access on the quality and efficiency of scholarly outputs, specifically journal articles. The report presents options for the Research Councils to consider, such as maintaining the current variation in Research Councils’ mandates, or moving towards increased open access, eventually leading to Gold Standard.Welcoming the study, Professor Ian Diamond, Chair of the RCUK Executive Group said: "This excellent study sets out a way forward for the UK Research Councils in relation to open access, building on the extensive activities already supported through repositories such as UK PubMed Central and ESRC Society Today. The Research Councils look forward to working with their partners across the research community to consider the options."
In response to the study, the Chief Executives of the Research Councils have agreed that over time the UK Research Councils will support increased open access, by:
- building on their mandates on grant-holders to deposit research papers in suitable repositories within an agreed time period, and;
- extending their support for publishing in open access journals, including through the pay-to-publish model.
UK PubMed Central Blog: RCUK - further support for open access
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