Dear Publishers Association I ask that you amend the open access decision tree you created for incorporation into the guidance notes accompanying the Open Access (OA) policy announced by Research Councils UK (RCUK) in 2013. It may seem odd to ask for a correction so late in the day but my reasons for doing so are two-fold.

The UK House of Commons has its dander up. Having bloodied the prime minister over Syria in the past fortnight, the select committee of MPs that oversees the work of the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has issued a report that is heavily critical of the government’s policy on open access (OA). The report was published early this morning so I have had time only to skim through the conclusions and recommendations, but it makes

Having devoted a fair number of the words on this blog to open access over the past year and a half, I have found myself invited to an increasing number of meetings on the topic. Whether run by RLUK, the Royal Society or the LSE, these meetings have invariably been interesting, but they often seem to bring together many of the same people, mostly from libraries, funders, publishers and learned societies.

It has happened. Yesterday RCUK published the revised guidelines on its new open access policy and, as requested by this blog and everyone who signed up in support, the document (PDF) now includes, on page one no less, a statement that: RCUK’s Alexandra Saxon was good enough to make particular mention of our request in her blogpost to explain the most significant revisions in the new guidelines.

Following my post of last week asking RCUK to include in the guidelines on their new open access policy a statement disavowing the use of impact factors in assessing funding applications, I wanted to thank everyone who registered their support. I also wanted to provide the text of the letter that was sent yesterday to Alexandra Saxon, RCUK’s Head of Communications.  All the signatories are listed below.

If I had more time, this post would be shorter. But it explains how we have an opportunity to get UK research councils to help break the corrosive dependence of researchers on impact factors. Please at least skim all the way to the bottom to see how easy it is for you to participate. 15-3-2013: Please see update at the foot of this post for an important announcement from RCUK.

After all the excitement of open access (OA) developments last Friday, there was a chance to take stock this Monday at the Royal Society’s conference on “Open access in the UK and what it means for scientific research”. The meeting, which aimed to examine “the background to the new policy announced by David Willetts in July 2012, including the recommendations of the Finch working group, and (to) address the practical challenges of

Last Friday was a big day for open access — it felt like a kind of transition. In the morning the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords (the unelected second chamber in the UK parliament) published the report of its inquiry to the implementation of a new open access policy by Research Councils UK (RCUK) in the wake of the Finch Report.

In the UK the parliamentary House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology is conducting an enquiry into the implementation of the government’s policy on open access.

Last week I spoke on open access at the annual conference of Research Libraries UK (RLUK). I did so at the end of a session that also featured Dame Janet Finch, who had chaired the working group set up by the government to make recommendations on expanding access to the scholarly literature in the UK, and Mark Thorley, the public face of the new policy on open access developed in the light of the Finch report by Research Councils UK (RCUK), the