Released in July 2012, the original policy announced that there would be short embargo periods for green open access: 6 months in the sciences, and (temporarily) 12 months for humanities and social sciences. In response, publishers argued that they could lose library subscriptions. The Lords Science and Technology Committee criticized the policy:
“RCUK did not consult or communicate effectively with key stakeholders in the publishing and academic communities when implementing its open access policy…There are still many unknowns concerning the impact of the open access policy, which is why RCUK must commit to a wide ranging review of its policy in 2014, 2016 and before it expects full compliance in 2018. We heard significant concern about the policy’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, and are pleased that RCUK are both aware of these concerns and prepared to act on them.”
RCUK’s initial revisions,
released on 6 March, 2013, were not met with much enthusiasm. These changes
included longer embargo periods for green open access: a
more-satisfying-to-publishers-timeframe of 24 months.
Also integrated into the revised
regulations was a decision tree produced by the Publisher’s Association. This
stipulated that – if APC funds were available via the universities - authors
should always choose the gold route over green.
The decision tree was criticized as
“confusing”,
with publishers and the RCUK disagreeing about what exactly was meant. This
bewilderment was the catalyst for further amendments,
released on 8 April, 2013, which still included the decision tree but conceded
that gold was preferred but not
required. Further changes are described in the Times Higher Education article “RCUK Changes Open-Access Guidance Yet Again”.
RCUK is now saying that they will
consider various issues relating to the embargo periods, for instance, disciplines might need varying time to implement
embargos and general policy changes. They have also released an FAQ pertaining
to the policy and have stated that “further points on the policy made by
stakeholders will be considered as part of the 2014 review”.
