Yesterday David Willetts, the UK Science and Universities Minister gave a speech to the Publishers Association that has got wide coverage. However it is worth pulling apart both the speech and the accompanying opinion piece from the Guardian because there are some interesting elements in there, and also some things have got a little confused. The first really key point is that there is nothing new here.

Cameron Neylon

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[![David Willetts speaking at the Big Society
pol\...](http://cameronneylon.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/300px-David_Willetts14.jpg "David Willetts speaking at the Big Society pol..."){.zemanta-img-inserted
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David Willetts speaking at the Big Society policy launch, Coin St,
London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
:::

Yesterday [David
Willetts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Willetts "David Willetts"){.zem_slink
rel="wikipedia" target="_blank"}, the UK Science and Universities
Minister gave [a
speech](http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/speeches/david-willetts-public-access-to-research)
to the Publishers Association that has got wide coverage. However it is
worth pulling apart both the speech and the accompanying [opinion
piece](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/01/open-free-access-academic-research)
from the
[Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/ "The Guardian"){.zem_slink
rel="homepage" target="_blank"} because there are some interesting
elements in there, and also some things have got a little confused.

The first really key point is that there is nothing new here. This is
basically a re-announcement of the previous position from the
DecemberÂ [Innovation
Strategy](http://www.bis.gov.uk/innovatingforgrowth)Â on moving towards
a freely accessible literature and a more public announcement of the
Gateway to Research project previously mentioned in [the RCUK response
to the Innovation
Statement](http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/news/2011news/Pages/111208.aspx).

The Gateway to Research project is a joint venture of the [Department of
Business Innovation and Skills](http://www.bis.gov.uk/) and [Research
Councils UK](http://www.rcuk.ac.uk "Research Councils UK"){.zem_slink
rel="homepage" target="_blank"} to provide a one stop shop for
information on UK research *funding*Â as well as pointers to outputs. It
will essentially draw information directly from sources that already
exist (the Research Outputs System and eVal) as well as some new ones
with the intention of helping the UK public and enterprise find research
and researchers that is of interest to them, and see how they are
funded.

The new announcement was that [Jimmy
Wales](http://jimmywales.com/ "Jimmy Wales"){.zem_slink rel="homepage"
target="_blank"} of
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia "Wikipedia"){.zem_slink
rel="wikipedia" target="_blank"} fame will be advising on the GTR
portal. This is a good thing and he is well placed to provide both
technical and social expertise on the provision of public facing
information portals as well as providing a more radical perspective than
might come out of
[BIS](http://www.bis.gov.uk/ "Department for Business, Innovation and Skills"){.zem_slink
rel="homepage" target="_blank"} itself. While this might in part be
cynically viewed as another example of bringing in celebrities to advise
on policy this is a celebrity with relevant expertise and real
credibility based on making similar systems work.

The rest of the information that we can gather relates to government
efforts in moving towards making the UK research literature accessible.
Wales also gets a look in here, and will be "advising us on \[..\]
common standardsÂ to ensure information is presented in a readily
reusable form". My reading of this is that the Minister understands the
importance of interoperability and my hope is that this will mean that
government is getting good advice on appropriate licensing approaches to
support this.

However, many have read this section of the speech as saying that GTR
will act as some form of national repository for research articles. I do
not believe this is the intention, and reading between the lines the
comment that it will "provide direct *links*Â to actual research outputs
such as data sets and publications" \[my emphasis\]Â is the key. The
point of GTR is to make UK research more easily *discoverable*. Access
is a somewhat orthogonal issue. This is better read as an expression of
Willetts' and the wider government's agenda on transparency of public
spending than as a mechanism for providing access.

What else can we tell from the speech? Well the term "open access" is
used several times, something that was absent from the innovation
statement, but still the emphasis is on achieving "public access" in the
near term with "open access" cast as the future goal as I read it. It's
not clear to me whether this is a well informed distinction. There is a
somewhat muddled commentary on Green vs Gold OA but not that much more
muddled than what often comes from our own community. There are also
some clear statements on the challenges for all involved.

As an aside I found it interesting that Willetts gave
aÂ parentheticalÂ endorsement of usage metrics for the research
literature when speaking of his own experience.

> As well as reading some of the articles set by my tutors, I also
> remember browsing through the pages of the leading journals to see
> which articles were well-thumbed. It helped me to spot the key ones I
> ought to be familiar with â€" a primitive version of crowd-sourcing.
> The web should make that kind of search behaviour far easier.

This is the most sophisticated appreciation of the potential for the
combination of measurement and usage data in discovery that I have seen
from any politician. It needs to be set against his endorsement of
rather cruder filters earlier in the speech but it nonetheless gives me
a sense that there is a level of understanding within government that is
greater than we often fear.

Much of the rest of the speech is hedging. Options are discussed but not
selected and certainly not promoted. The key message: wait for the
[Finch Report](http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/wg-expand-access/)
which will be the major guide for the route the government will take and
the mechanisms that will be put in place to support it.

But there are some clearer statements. There is a strong sense that
[Hargreave's recommendations](http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview.htm) on
enabling text mining should be implemented. And the logic for this is
well laid out. The speech and the policy agenda is embedded in a
framework of enabling innovation -- making it clear what kinds of
evidence and argument we will need toÂ marshalÂ in order to persuade.
There is also a strong emphasis on data as well as an appreciation that
there is much to do in this space.

But the clearest statement made here is on the end goals. No-one can be
left in any doubt of Willetts' ultimate target. Full access to the
outputs of research, ideally at the time of publication, in a way that
enables them to be fully exploited, manipulated and modified for any
purpose by any party. Indeed the vision is strongly congruent with the
Berlin, Bethesda, and Budapest declarations on Open Access. There is
still much to be argued about the route and and its length, but in the
UK at least, the destination appears to be in little doubt.

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David Willetts speaking at the Big Society policy launch, Coin St, London. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)  Yesterday David Willetts, the UK Science and Universities Minister gave a speech to the Publishers Association that has got wide coverage. However it is worth pulling apart both the speech and the accompanying opinion piece from the Guardian because there are some interesting elements in there, and also some things have got a little confused.

Parsing the Willetts Speech on Access to UK Research Outputs

On the 8th December David Willetts, the Minister of State for Universities and Science, and announced new UK government strategies to develop innovation and research to support growth.

::: {.wp-caption .alignleft style="width: 85px"}
[![English: Open Access logo, converted into
svg,\...](http://cameronneylon.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/300px-Open_Access_logo_PLoS_transparent.svg_15.png "English: Open Access logo, converted into svg,..."){.zemanta-img-inserted
.zemanta-img-configured decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="75"
height="117"}](http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Access_logo_PLoS_transparent.svg)

Image via Wikipedia
:::

*On the 8th December [David
Willetts](http://www.bis.gov.uk/ministers/david-willetts), the Minister
of State for Universities and Science, and announced [new UK government
strategies](http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/topstories/2011/Dec/multi-million-package-announced-to-boost-innovation-and-research)
to develop innovation and research to support growth. The whole
[document is available
online](http://www.bis.gov.uk/news/topstories/2011/Dec/multi-million-package-announced-to-boost-innovation-and-research)Â and
you can see more analysis at the links at the bottom of the post.Â Â A
key aspect for Open Access advocates was the section that discussed a
wholesale move by the UK to an author pays system to freely accessible
research literature with
[SCOAP3](http://www.scoap3.org/whoisscoap3.html)Â raised as a possible
model. The report refers not to Open Access, but to freely accessible
content. I think this is missing a massive opportunity for Britain to
take a serious lead in defining the future direction of scholarly
communication. That's the case I attempt to lay out in this open letter.
This post should be read in the context of [my usual
disclaimer](http://cameronneylon.net/about/).*

Minister of State for Universities and Science

Department of Business Innovation and Skills

Dear Mr Willetts,

I am writing in the first instance to congratulate you on your stance on
developing routes to a freely accessible research outputs. I cannot say
I am a great fan of many current government positions and I might have
wished for greater protection of the UK science budget but in times of
resource constraint for research I believe your focus on ensuring the
efficiency of access to and exploitation of research outputs in its
widest sense is the right one.

The position you have articulated offers a real opportunity for the UK
to take a lead in this area. But along with the opportunities there are
risks, and those risks could entrench existing inefficiencies of our
scholarly communication system. They could also reduce the value for
money that the public purse, and it will be the public purse one way or
another, gets for its investment. In our current circumstances this
would be unfortunate. I would therefore ask you to consider the
following as the implementation pathway for this policy is developed.

Firstly, the research community will be buying a service. This is a
significant change from the current system where the community buys a
product, the published journal. The purchasing exercise should be seen
in this light and best practice in service procurement applied.

Secondly the nature of this service must be made clear. The service that
is being provided must provide for any and all downstream uses,
including commercial use, text mining, indeed any use that might
developed at some point in the future. We are paying for this service
and we must dictate its terms. Incumbent publishers will say in response
that they need to retain commercial rights, or text mining rights, to
ensure their viability, as indeed they have done in response to the
Hargreaves Review.

This, not to put to fine a point on it, is hogwash.
[PLoS](http://plos.org "Public Library of Science") and
[BioMedCentral](http://biomedcentral.com "BioMedCentral"), both operate
financially viable operations in which no downstream rights beyond that
of appropriate attribution are retained by the publishers and where the
author charges are lower in price then many of the notionally
equivalent, but actually far more limited, offerings of more traditional
publishers. High quality scholarly communication can be supported by
reasonable author charges without any need for publishers to retain
rights beyond those protected by their trademarks. An effective market
place could therefore be expected to bring the average costs of this
form of scholarly communications down.

The reason for supporting a system that demands that any downstream use
of the communication be enabled is that we need innovation and
development within the publishing systems well as innovation and
development as a result of its content. Our scholarship is currently
being held back by a morass of retained rights that prevent the
development of research projects, of new technology startups and
potentially new industries. The [government consultation document of 14
December](http://www.ipo.gov.uk/consult-2011-copyright.pdf) on the
[Hargreaves report](http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview.htm) explicitly notes
that enabling downstream uses of content, and scholarly content in
particular, can support new economic activity. It can also support new
*scholarly* activity. The exploitation of our research outputs requires
new approaches to indexing, mining, and parsing the literature. The
shame of our current system is that much of this is possible today. The
technology exists but is prevented from being exploited at scale by the
logistical impossibility of clearing the required rights. These new
approaches will require money and it is entirely appropriate, indeed
desirable, that some of this work therefore occurs in the private
sector. Experimentation will require both freedom to act as well as
freedom to develop new business models. Our content *and* its
accessibility *and* its reusability must support this.

Finally I ask you to look beyond the traditional scholarly publishing
industry to the range of experimentation that is occurring globally in
academic spaces, non-profits, and commercial endeavours. The potential
leaps in functionality as well as the potential cost reductions are
enormous. We need to work to encourage this experimentation and develop
a diverse and vibrant market which both provides the quality assurance
and stability that we are used to while encouraging technical
experimentation and the improvement of business models. What we don't
need is a five or ten year deal that cements in existing players,
systems, and practices.

Your government's philosophy is based around the effectiveness of
markets. The recent history of major government procurement exercises is
not a glorious one. This is one we should work to get right. We should
take our time to do so and ensure a deal that delivers on its promise.
The vision of a Britain that is lead by innovation and development
supported by a vibrant and globally leading research community is, I
believe, the right one. Please ensure that this innovation isn't cut off
at the knees by agreeing terms that prevent our research communication
tools being re-used to improve the effectiveness of that communication.
And please ensure that the process of procuring these services is one
that supports innovation and development in scholarly communications
itself.

Yours truly,

[Cameron
Neylon](http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/ "Cameron Neylon"){.zem_slink
rel="homepage"}

 

 

 

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Image via Wikipedia
<em>
 On the 8th December David Willetts, the Minister of State for Universities and Science, and announced new UK government strategies to develop innovation and research to support growth.
</em>

Rogue Scholar Posts

Parsing the Willetts Speech on Access to UK Research Outputs

An Open Letter to David Willetts: A bold step towards opening British research