Year: 2014
Type: book
Abstract: The management of research publications and research data has moved, over the past 5 years, from periphery to centre-stage in UK universities.Once considered to be the domain of librarians and a small but perfectly formed group of digital curation specialists, the topic can no longer be ignored by university managers.The clarion call from Government is this: embrace openness, publish freely (i.e.without pay-walls and passwords), and unleash your data!But are academics and their institutions listening to -and acting upon -this call to action?Speaking in December 2012 after a year of intense activity by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), aimed at ushering in the new era of 'open' research, Mr David Willetts MP, the UK Minister for Universities and Science, stated that open-access publishing was now 'sorted' from the perspective of Government.Next on the agenda would be the opening-up of research data.Unfortunately for Mr Willetts, it seems that not everyone was convinced of the wisdom of moving so hastily towards open access: academics sighed and got on with writing their papers (they were not to be rushed); the House of Commons grumbled (there were inconsistencies in the guidance provided to researchers); even the House of Lords took it upon itself to object (it didn't want to pass up the opportunity to pile in and criticise the Government); and thus the Minister's 2012 statement on open access being 'sorted' proved to be somewhat premature.As a result of this kerfuffle, Mr Willetts felt the need to engage further with the nay-sayers, whether in the national press 1 or in Parliament 2 ; and even to pop up in Berlin in November 2013 to make further pronouncements on the subject of open access 3 -albeit to an audience consisting entirely of converts to open access .Most recently, in his letter to Dame Janet Finch dated 23 January 2014, he seemed to think that the whole matter might finally be 'put to bed' with the assistance of Universities UK 4 .Only time will tell as to whether Mr Willetts is right.Leaving Ministerial over-optimism on open access aside, it would appear that the era of 'big data' (i.e.large and/ or complex data-sets) is now upon us, heralded by the Government's Open Data Strategy 2012-14 (BIS, June 2012) and a landmark report entitled Science as an Open Enterprise (The Royal Society, June 2012).That report presented 10 recommendations for change, the clear intention of which is to facilitate -by legislation if necessary -a move away from a research culture in 1 See
Authors: Ray D. Kent, Liz Lyon, Mark Hahnel
Language: English
Subfield: Library and Information Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2105658677