Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the British Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society (BELMAS)

Introduction

This letter is the Society’s submission to the Committee’s inquiry into the Government’s Open Access policy. The British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS) is a professional body, founded in 1973, with more than 850 members who are school or college leaders, academics, or policy-makers, in the field of educational leadership. Its purpose is to maintain, promote and extend public education by advancing the practice, teaching, study of, and research into, educational leadership, management and administration. We aim to provide a distinctive, independent and critical voice in the pursuit of quality education through effective leadership and management.

BELMAS owns two journals, which are published on our behalf by Sage publications:

Educational Management, Administration and Leadership (EMAL) is an international peer-reviewed academic journal, listed in the Index of Social Sciences.

Management in Education (MiE) is an international peer-reviewed professional journal.

Both journals publish papers from British and international authors, following double blind peer-review. Most of these papers report empirical research but only a small minority (c.10%) have received funding from one of the Research Councils.

BELMAS Funding Model

In common with many other learned societies, BELMAS receives a significant portion of its income from its publishing contract. This income enables the Society to achieve its charitable objectives, as well as providing member benefits such as doctoral bursaries, development grants, pump-priming research awards, and international partnership grants, used to support the field in developing countries. The nature of Open Access publishing needs to have regard to the impact on the income of learned societies such as BELMAS. We are concerned that present proposals, which derive from a funding model relating to the pure and applied sciences, do not translate directly to the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). For example, an ALPSP study published in May 2012 suggested that, if the majority of content in research journals was freely available within six months of publication, 65% of AHSS (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) journal subscriptions would be cancelled.

Green and Gold Open Access Models

The Finch report refers to Gold Open Access, where open access is available at the point of publication through Author Processing Charges (APCs), as an alternative to subscriptions. If this model is adopted on a significant scale, the impact on journals, and learned societies, could be profound and damaging. The Finch report also refers to Green Open Access, where articles are made available after an embargo period. The key question here is the length of the embargo period, and where these articles can be posted (subject repositories, institutional repositories, author websites). The longer the embargo period, the more likely it is that libraries will retain their journal subscriptions. A survey of librarians by ALPSP shows that almost a quarter (23%) would cancel subscriptions to Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS) journals, while more than two-fifths (42%) would cancel some journals if the embargo period was as short as six months. This shows the vulnerability of learned societies if certain Open Access models are adopted.

Application of Open Access

Funder mandates, such as that advocated by RCUK, pass responsibility to universities to administer block OA grants from funding agencies, without allowing for any differences in disciplines. Such mandates risk devaluing HSS scholarly publishing. We can foresee new levels of bureaucracy applied as colleagues across a wide range of subject areas are forced to compete with one another to obtain APC funding. This could jeopardise academic freedom as panels decide what is deemed worthy of APC funding, and creates a two-tier publishing system, those who can pay and those who cannot. This leads to concern for early career members and those in developing countries.

The pressure for Open Access arises from the UK Research Councils (RCUK) for publications arising from research which they have funded. Only a small proportion of the articles published by the BELMAS journals are funded in this way, as noted above. While Open Access may be appropriate for such papers, subject to appropriate safeguards, it is important that the model is not extended, intentionally or by default, to all journal articles, without further consultation with all parties, to avoid damaging journals and the learned societies which own many of them.

Conclusion

We hope this letter will inform the Committee’s deliberations and look for an outcome which will sustain and nurture learned societies rather than damaging them.

Prof. David Cracknell
President

Dr Colin Russell
Chair

7 February 2013