The UK Scholarly Communication Licence: Attempting to Cut through the Gordian Knot of the Complexities of Funder Mandates, Publisher Embargoes and Researcher Caution in Achieving Open Access

Abstract

Whilst take-up of open access (OA) in the UK is growing rapidly due partly to a number of funder mandates, managing the complexities of balancing compliance with these mandates against restrictive publisher policies and ingrained academic priorities, has resulted in UK higher education institutions (HEIs) often struggling with confused researchers, complex workflows, and rising costs. In order to try to address this situation, the UK Scholarly Communication Licence (UK-SCL) was formulated to bypass the root causes of many of these challenges by implementing a licensing mechanism for multiple-mandate compliance in one single policy. This is the first empirical study to focus on the genesis of the UK-SCL and how its implementation has been conceived thus far. A qualitative research method was used, taking the form of 14 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders from the initiative across the UK. The results indicate that those working within UK HEIs are concerned with the complexity of the current OA policy landscape and are frustrated with the inertia within the current system, which has resulted in higher costs, further publisher restrictions, and has not addressed the underlying tensions in academic culture. The UK-SCL is seen by its initiators as a way to achieve further transition towards OA and take back some element of control of the content produced at their institutions. The study concludes by modelling the ways in which the UK-SCL is intended to impact relationships between key stakeholders, and discussing possible implementation futures.

Do Open Access Mandates Work? A Systematized Review of the Literature on Open Access Publishing Rates

“…Detractors to OA mandates are many, with journal editorials often decrying them as hurting academic freedom and the ability of journals and publishers to properly function (Johnston, 2017). Others have reported on the difficulty in managing mandates, especially as researchers often fall under multiple mandates from their institutions, various grant funders, and more (Baldwin & Pinfield, 2018). Still other studies have found that a mandate on its own is often not enough; faculty, for various reasons, do not always comply, meaning that other peopleoften librarians-must do work to ensure their faculty members' research is deposited into an appropriate repository (Xia et al, 2012;Zhang et al, 2015).…”

Open Access Research Trends in Higher Education: A Literature Review

“…The development of the OA has given way to the definition of policies in HEIs. The analyses performed and trends in policy development for OA promotion [45], knowledge communication [31], open courses [25], and commercial exploitation of research results [53].…”

“…In [31], the authors analyze the use and implementation of the UK Scholarly Communication Licensing policy (UK-SCL) as a strategy that encourages OA and allows control of the content produced in HEIs. The results identify perceived benefits in helping authors gain control of their publications, disseminate publications rapidly and widely, and reduce costs at institutions.…”

“…The results identify perceived benefits in helping authors gain control of their publications, disseminate publications rapidly and widely, and reduce costs at institutions. On the other hand, the perceived challenges identified are resistance from editors, administrative demands, and confusion among researchers [31]. Also, the factors influencing policy adoption are institutional collaborations, external support, internal communication and engagement, the legal framework, business processes, and the role of the library within the institution [31].…”

Investigation and Development of the Workflow to Clarify Conditions of Use for Research Data Publishing in Japan

“…While there is no doubt that CC licenses are still a useful solution in many cases of data publishing, some challenges exist for handling non-copyrighted data. Some proposals have recently been pushed forward (e.g., UK Scholarly communication license (Baldwin, J. and Pinfield, S., 2018) and Microsoft Open Use of Data Agreement (https://github. com/microsoft/Open-Use-of-Data-Agreement)).…”