Information Research Weblog

In the last item, I suggested writing to the UCU and AAUP to find out what their reaction to PRISM is likely to be.

Here's my message to the UCU - I sent it to Malcolm Keight, National head of higher education and mkeight@ucu.org.uk and I suggest that other members of UCU should do the same:

----------------------------------- Dear Malcolm,

I'm not sure that you are the right person on the UCU contact list. but, no doubt you will pass this message on if you are not.

You will be aware of the debate that has been going on for some years now on open access to the scholarly output and of such developments as RCUK attempt to evolve some kind of policy and the government's rejection of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on the subject.

The most recent development is the establishment in the USA of 'PRISM' (http://www.prismcoalition.org/), the somewhat (and deliberately) misleading "Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine". In spite of its title, this is, in fact a lobby group for the publishing industry and, no doubt it will seek to extend its activities in some way or other to the UK.

So, my question is: What is the UCU intending to do to counteract the highly misleading propositions put forward on the PRISM Web page?

My suggestion (http://www.free-conversant.com/irweblog/) is that academics should resign from the editorial boards of non-OA journals and begin to charge a daily rate for reviewing papers.

I'll be interested to have your response, -------------------------------------------------------------