Open access in chemistry: information wants to be free. A presentation given at the Internet and Chemistry session at the ACS Spring National Meeting 2011.

1. Open access in chemistry:information wants to be free? Jan Kuras, Deborah Kahn, Bryan Vickery Chemistry Central London, UK American Chemical Society National Meeting, March 27-31, 2011 Technical session: Internet and Chemistry

2. Information wants to be free? Free of access restrictions? Free of charge? Free of standards and organization?

3. Objective:“An honest and philosophical assessment of open access in chemistry” A good time to review... 20 years of more widespread interest in OA... Over 10 years since BioMed Central, PubMed Central, PLoS started... (10 years since Internet Journal of Chemistry launched...) About 5 years since PubChem, Chemistry Central, ChemSpider, eMolecules started... A major Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP) undertaken in 2010 No scientific concepts were harmed in the making of this presentation

6. Significant timelines in the open access movement 1991-2011 PubChem OASPA SPARC eMolecules Chemistry initiatives Bethesda Statement ChemSpider Open Archives Initiative Budapest Initiative Chemistry Central ChEMBL arXiv 2010 2004 2002 1998 2000 2008 2006 1991 NCBI/ GenBank Berlin Declaration BioMed Central PLoS PubMed NIH OA mandate Wellcome OA mandate ICSA US Federal Research Public Access Act PubMed Central Biomedicine initiatives

7. Chemistry publishing: current position Number of chemistry journals? Well, CAS indexes over 1,500 core journals No chemistry-specific server for peer-reviewed papers cf. PubMed Central No pre-print culture cf. arXiv for physics No funder mandates such as Wellcome Trust, NIH University/Research institute mandates frequently not implemented by chemists

8. Open access in chemistry: current position Directory of Open Access Journals: approx. 130 chemistry journals (amongst approx. 6,000 total OA journals) Publishers include: Chemistry Central; Beilstein; Hindawi; Bentham; MDPI Lots of Society, University and Independent journals IUCr Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online Business model: article-processing charge (APC) Either passed on to author or covered by publisher Major publishers allow authors to make papers OA through additional payment ACS; RSC; Wiley-Blackwell; Springer ; Elsevier Some publishers allow self-archiving RSC; Elsevier; Springer; Nature

9. Journals listed in Chemistry journals ~130 OA chemistry journals

10. Recent studies & reports on OA The value of new scientific communication models for chemistry (Velden, Lagoze: 2009) Open access to the scientific journal literature: situation 2009 (Björk et al: 2010) Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP 2010)

11. Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009 OA prevalence on an article basis accessible through Google search Random sample of 1,837 science journals Sources: Web of Science; Scopus; DOAJ, Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory 9.7% Chemistry journals Study year was 2008; time of study was Sept-Oct 2009 to ensure capture of “embargoed” and delayed OA articles Overall, 20.4% papers were freely available 8.5% in OA journals (“Gold”); 11.9% in repositories (“Green”) At 13%, chemistry has the lowest share of OA papers 5.5% in OA journals (“Gold”); 7.4% in repositories (“Green”) Earth sciences (33%); Physics (23.5%); Medicine (22%); Biological sciences (19%)

12. Value of new scientific communication models for chemistry Failure of new communication models in chemistry Compare GenBank, PubMed Central, arXiv Barriers not technical: chemists embracing open initiatives & technologies CML, InChI, open source tools, open notebook science, OA journals and repositories Issue of latency: delayed in comparison with other disciplines? Complex socio-technical issues: IP and secrecy about research details? Influence of societies and society publishing with commercial interests and proven journal business models Influence of journal prestige, impact factors, citation advantage, etc. The “reward system” is coupled to the communication system by relying on IFs and citations, which makes chemists risk-averse in trying new models

13. Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP) Multidisciplinary study including physical, life and social sciences, financed by the European Commission Coordinated by CERN with Springer, SAGE & BioMed Central; Max Planck Digital Library; and UK Science & Technology Facilities Council To “describe and compare the offering and demand for open access publishing in peer-reviewed journals” Assessment by large scale multidiscipline international survey Reached over 1.5 million recipients with over 54,000 respondents 42,000 Responses analyzed, including over 2,300 chemists Caveat: “self-selection” bias in favour of scientists with an interest in OA

14. Demographics: chemists’ experience and affiliation n=2338

15. Number of OA articles published by respondents in last 5 years By subject areas

16. Would OA journals be beneficial in chemistry? Smallest “Yes” in survey n=2308

17. Percentage of researchers who say OA journals would be beneficial By subject area

18. Percentage of chemists who say that OA journals would be beneficial By research experience “Emerging” chemists?

19. Less Society influence?

20. Why are OA journals beneficial in chemistry? n=967

21. Why aren’t OA journals beneficial in chemistry? n=192

22. What are the reasons not to publish in OA journals? Same across all sciences n=503

23. Publication fee charged for last OA article? n=1058

24. How was the publication fee covered? n=381

25. How easy was it to obtain funds for publication? n=330

26. The prevalence of Impact Factors in OA journals Compared to

27. Finally, responses from chemists on positive, neutral and negative statements about open access

28. n=2139 n=2131 n=2140

29. n=2137 n=2124 n=2144

30. n=2133 n=2123 n=2140

31. Analysis and Conclusions Chemistry has the lowest share of OA journals and papers amongst the physical and life sciences Chemists have similar concerns around quality and funding as exist(ed) in other sciences Plus there are further habitual and cultural issues in chemistry, e.g. society influence, the reward system There are positive indications of support for open access in chemistry Is OA in chemistry approx. 5 years behind life sciences?

32. Positive signs from SOAP Almost 80% of chemists agree that OA journals are beneficial Equally spread across experience levels and types of research institute Compares favourably with biology and medicine at 90% Major reasons why OA is considered beneficial Benefit to the scientific community, author and public Financial considerations Over 50% of chemists have published 1 or more papers in OA journals Contributions from biochemists, medicinal chemists, cheminformaticians, crystallographers Compares unfavourably with over 80% of biologists

33. The obstacles Major reasons for not publishing in OA journals for chemists: Lack of funding , presence of publication fees (44%) Perception of journal quality (38%) Publication fee charged: Almost 60% were not charged For remainder: fee included in research funds (30%) or unassigned research funds used (30%) Over 50% of chemists state it is difficult to obtain funds Fewer than 50% of chemists in universities and research institutes are likely to publish in OA journals

34. Changes for OA to grow in chemistry Change in habits, culture and the conservatism amongst chemists Satisfaction with current model – no appetite for change Support for university/research institute OA mandates Attitudes of societies, influence of society publishing with commercial interests and proven journal business models Perceptions of journal prestige, and influence of impact factors, citation advantage, etc. The “reward system” is coupled to the communication system by relying on IFs and citations, making chemists risk-averse in trying new models Availability and provision of publication funds From funding bodies and universities/research institutes OA Mandates from funding agencies and universities/research institutes

35. Factors to accelerate progress Advocacy amongst key opinion leaders in chemistry OA chemistry journals obtaining Impact Factors Transfer of high quality journals to OA model More chemists supporting open initiatives and technologies In outliers e.g. cheminformatics, crystallography Embracing mainstream chemistry The growth of the “Open” movement: Open data, open source, open access, open notebooks

36. Our prediction..... “Over the next 5 years, open access in chemistry will continue to grow steadily in support and in publication volumes. This will be primarily driven by chemists in outlying subject areas wanting to enhance the visibility, verifiability and reproducibility of their data, and to a lesser extent by mainstream researchers. Important ‘tipping points’ will be increased availability of funds, OA mandates from funders and universities/research institutes, and journals obtaining and improving their impact factors.”

37. Thank you for your attention Jan Kuras jan.kuras@chemistrycentral.com www.chemistrycentral.com www.chemistrycentral.com/blog twitter @Chem_Central ...come talk to me...