These are slides taken from the Finch Report and the HEFCE 2013 Consultation document on Open Access to research and evidence.

1. Open Access Discussion

2. Barriers to access
‘– particularly when the research is publicly-funded – are
increasingly unacceptable in an online world: for such
barriers restrict the innovation, growth and other benefits
which can flow from research.’
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Summary p2
Finch Report
http://www.ttrb3.org.uk/accessibility-sustainability-
excellence-how-to-expand-access-to-research-
publications/

3. 3 forms of academic publication at the present
●
Subscription Journals
●
Open Access Journals (assumed to be funded by the
author rather than subscription, APC)
●
Repositories (largely institutional)
Finch recommends that there should be a widespread move
from commercial and/or learned society subscription
journals towards Open Access through Article Publication
Charge (APC) and anticipates that, since many journals
are international or from countries beyond the UK, there
will be a slow movement from subscription to APC.

4. Open Access Discussion: Peer Review
The process of peer review as a gatekeeper to publication
may change. Some initiatives are now in place where
submissions to journals are mentored to publication by
an editorial board or an academic community.
●
eg The Online Educational Journal from Durham
University (http://www.oerj.org/faces/aboutoerj.jsp)

5. Open Access Discussion: APC
APC is not the only option for Open Access as stated in the
report.
●
There is a wide movement towards OJS (Open Journal
Systems) which is an open source journal production
system that is free to use but running costs need to be
met from some source.

9. http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
LIST OF PUBLISHERS
Beall’s List:
Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access
publishers
This is a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers.
We recommend that scholars read the available reviews,
assessments and descriptions provided here, and then decide for
themselves whether they want to submit articles, serve as editors
or on editorial boards. The criteria for determining predatory
publishers are here.
On my wanderings across the internet I came across Jeffrey Beall’s site ‘Scholarly Open Access‘. His site is a
fantastic resource for suspected academic journals and the publishers that produce them. The journals that are
listed are nothing more than cash cows for catching unwary researchers by charging them to publish their own
articles in journals that are not properly edited or peer-reviewed. This is often a trap that PhD and Post-Doctoral
students can fall into as they aim to publish their research to gain academic credit and traction to starting an
academic career. However it is well noted that established academic researchers and lecturers often collude,
willingly or unwillingly and sometimes unknowingly, by serving as editors on the journal boards. Ben Goldacre, in
his 2012 book ‘Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients‘, mentions the damage
that this can do to scientific research and to human health. It is a serious problem in the academic world that has
real world effects in the application of scientific research and results. The criteria by which Beall determines
predatory open access publishers can be found here and the full list of potential, possible or predatory scholar

10. The Business Model
In a comment on the report’s RIN web pages. Tom Watson (11/07/2012 )
provides a criticism of the report’s omission of open access publishing where
author charges or subscription are not used to fund the review and publication
of articles.
The costs of production are borne either by voluntary labour, or by the academic
institution subsidising the work of editors and copy-editors: at present, the true
costs of commercial publishing to academic institutions are unknown but there
are many cases where commercial publishing is also subsidised in this way.

11. Invisible Colleges
In its report (Science as an Open Enterprise, 2012,) the
Royal Society suggested that the readers and contributors
to a specialist academic journal can constitute an ‘invisible
college’.
Thus ‘smaller’ Universities may have a role through their
intermediation of specialist subject areas within faculties
constituting ‘visible colleges’ supported by library
expertise.

12. Implications
The advent of easy cost free access to a vast array of
journals could really enhance courses in education. The
importance of being able to find a coherent and relevant
pathway through these resources increases and that is
where faculties and departments of education have a
significant role to play… as they have always have had.
The move to author payment for publication may be divisive
across institutions that may have different capabilities for
or attitudes to funding this. It may be that involvement
with the process of peer moderation and writing for open
access journals becomes a more significant part of the
tutor role