Extending the Research Excellence Framework's open access requirements to long-form publications seems like a good idea at first, but it quickly unravels when you give it some serious thought.
While the intention to reduce barriers to the dissemination of research is certainly noble, plans to make most academic books available for free will have lasting effects far beyond the REF's remit. his four higher education funding bodies in the UK;
A caveat to relaxing this policy would be a grace period of 24 months after publication before open access requirements apply. This is probably to avoid requiring publishers to pay for open access as an upfront cost, assuming they have to pay a large amount of money. Sales from his first two-year title. This is a big risk, and I doubt many people will be willing to accept it, but I fully expect some sort of immediate open access payment to become the norm.
This raises the question of how universities fund those payments. One suggestion is that in the future, as all academic books become open access, library funds could be diverted to pay for them. But wait a minute. Think about the consequences of this. First, this implies that libraries will stop purchasing paper books, which raises issues of accessibility and digital poverty (students without laptops at home will be at a disadvantage). There is also clear evidence that reading on paper leads to better information retention. Is it within REF’s remit to digitize access to our knowledge?
Second, the issue of curation arises. How will the library help students browse the endless list of potentially open access titles online? Again, fundamentally changing the function and purpose of the library will Is it within the scope of REF's permissions?
Third, what about books from non-academic publishers? At arts universities, especially professional institutions, the majority of library collections come from trade publishers such as Taschen and Thames & Hudson. . If funds are diverted to pay for open access publishing, where will those funds come from to purchase non-OA titles?
That's not all. What about the author? If all academic books were published under open access agreements, authors would receive far fewer royalties. Although no academic becomes rich from his or her work, it is important to recognize that authors spend vast amounts of their free time producing their books, even if the amount of money they earn from it is small.
And if all books are prepaid (essentially vanity publishing for academics), future sales will not affect the likelihood that a publisher will accept another book. So what incentives do authors need to promote their books and disseminate their findings more widely? public?
This proposal has huge implications for publishers, but again, we have to ask: Does the REF have the power to completely rewrite the entire academic publishing business model?
And the same goes for bookstores. For example, how can Blackwell's survive if every new book it stocks is available for free on the Internet? We value bookstores and the serendipitous discoveries they make. Don't you?
Perhaps I'm being deliberately provocative to emphasize the extent of REF mission creep. But we must ask whether it is right for a virtually glorified performance matrix to force such major changes, far beyond its purpose and mandate.
And there are far better ways to make research more widely accessible, such as public outreach activities, public lectures, podcasts, films, and exhibitions, than simply claiming that all academic books are free. This is what the academic euphemism open access actually means. .
Finally, of course, if universities have to pay to publish books in the first place, fewer funds are available for these activities. My underlying concern is that this proposal would ultimately transform the relationship between academic authors, universities, and publishers into a competitive market, with well-funded universities crowding out those without, while academics would become institutional investors. This means that they may be forced to compete more intensely for funding. than now.
I see how this will create an environment that supports the dissemination of high-quality research, with the added potential of transforming the function of libraries, rewriting the economics of scholarly publishing, and threatening the last surviving academic bookstores. I'm having a hard time doing it.
David Lund is a historian, author and senior lecturer at Bournemouth College of Art.