consequent fall in the amount of supplementary material; and two-way links, with interactive viewers, between publications and relevant data held in data archives. The availability of, and access to, publications and associated data would then become fully integrated and seamless, with both feeding off each other.
The report could recommend funding universities to directly publish OA journals (as set out below), where an author would get the ‘basic’ package, and commercial publishers can add value to this. Without mandating what is required for the Gold route or what is a reasonable fee to charge, it creates a financial situation that may be worse for universities and funders than the current model.
The Finch report has one further problem, which is the strong influence of publishers in establishing the recommendations. Maintaining the economic viability of the academic publishing industry as it stands is a key objective. For example, the report states:
arrangements must be in place to enable publishers (whether they are in the commercial or the not-for-profit sector) to meet the legitimate costs of peer review, production, and marketing, as well as high standards of presentation, discoverability and navigation, together with the kinds of linking and enrichment of texts (‘semantic publishing’) that researchers and other readers increasingly expect. Publishers also need to generate surpluses for investment in innovation and new services; for distribution as profits to shareholders …
Generating profits for publishers and shareholders should be seen as a side effect of providing a useful service, but it should not be a goal. The goal is to effectively disseminate research.
