UK government publishes commitment to open access

A new policy document published this week shows that the UK government is committed to making publicly funded research outputs available as open access. Para. 6.9 of Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth specifically refers to the RCUK requirements for the outputs of the research they fund to be deposited in repositories, with a suggestion that they will be expected to ensure the practice is enforced.

It was interesting to note that The Guardian article on this aspect of the report suggests that the government wants all publicly-funded scientific research to be 'published in open-access journals'. This somewhat ignores the possibilities that repository deposit or 'green' open access currently offers. It does, however, highlight the focus on challenges to publishers' business models and funding streams that will be the next steps in the government strategy.

"Results of publicly funded research will be open access - science minister" (Guardian 8 Dec 2011)

Government White Paper: Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth  (BIS, Dec 2011)

Download statistics for November

Once again it is encouraging to see a range of content types being accessed from Research@StAndrews: FullText.

 
The list below of our top 10 most downloaded items in November 2011 includes articles, e-theses, a technical report and a book chapter.



Retrospective power analysis (Len Thomas)
Subverting space : Private, public and power in three Czechoslovak films from the 1960s and ‘70s (Elisabetta Girelli)
Comparing pre- and post-construction distributions of long-tailed ducks Clangula hyemalis in and around the Nysted offshore wind farm, Denmark (Petersen et al.)
Variation in habitat preference and distribution of harbour porpoises west of Scotland (Cormac Booth)
What is social learning? (Ioan Fazey)
The soft-focus lens and Anglo-American pictorialism (William Young)
The economics of trade secrets : evidence from the Economic Espionage Act (Nicola C. Searle)
The quest for the fictional Jesus (Margaret E. Ramey)
The manual skills and cognition that lie behind hominid tool use (Richard Byrne)

The chart below illustrates the range of full text item types being submitted to the repository.