It is time to 鈥渂ring the hammer down鈥� and extend open access requirements for the UK鈥檚 research excellence framework to monographs, a professor has said.

Cameron Neylon, professor of research communication at Australia鈥檚 Curtin University, said that he was 鈥渞unning out of sympathy鈥� for academics who complained that there was not enough time to prepare for the requirement that long-form scholarly works must be made聽available easily and free of charge, if they are to be submitted to the 2027 assessment.

鈥淵ou've had 15 years to sort this out, no one did anything for 14-and-a-half of those, so someone had to bring the hammer down at some point,鈥� said Professor Neylon, former advocacy director at the Public Library of Science, who started his career as a chemistry lecturer at the University of Southampton.

The UK鈥檚 research funders first announced their intention to include books in the REF鈥檚 open access mandate in December 2016, but Professor Neylon told 探花视频 that it had been mooted long before then.

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Academic bodies have raised concerns about how open access would work with 鈥渃rossover鈥� books, which are based on original research but sell thousands of copies in high street bookshops. However, Professor Neylon, who is executive director of Knowledge Unlatched Research, an independent research group on the usage of open access monographs, said that an exemption that was in place for trade books would also apply to scholarly works.

鈥淭he number of books submitted to the last REF that were read by more than 10,000 people is negligible,鈥� he said.

探花视频

Professor Neylon also addressed the concerns of academics who published with international companies, which do not always offer open access. He admitted that this was a challenge, particularly with publishers in the US, but said that the issue was 鈥渂ound up with a bigger problem, which is the obsession with聽where聽you publish, not聽what聽you publish鈥�.

鈥淚 rarely hear the argument that people want to publish with a particular press because it has a technical skill set or audience reach, it鈥檚 always about publishing in prestigious presses. There鈥檚 something really rotten at the heart of scholarship if that鈥檚 what really matters,鈥� he said.

Professor Neylon admitted that books were more complex than journals when it comes to open access, because the support systems will need to be different, but that to drive innovation and to figure out the financial models 鈥渢here has to be some sort of pressure鈥�.

鈥淭here is the opportunity to do some things better, with more planning than there was with journal articles, but the reality is that deadlines concentrate people鈥檚 minds,鈥� he added.

探花视频

Professor Neylon was speaking after giving a lecture organised by the National Conference of University Professors in which he hailed several UK institutions as 鈥減ushing ahead and leading the world鈥� on open access.

While open access monographs was a complicated issue that was 鈥渢he price of being the leader鈥�, he said. 鈥淟eadership requires taking risks. If everyone was comfortable all the time, what would be the point?鈥�

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com