This presentation acommodated a talk I held at the 14th PhD retreat of the two Berlin life science institutes MDC and FMP. Other participants included Zena Werb (UCSF), Helmut Kettenmann (MDC), Paul Schultze-Motel (Helmholtz OA Office) and Angelika Lex (Elsevier). The main introductory points have bee adressed by a moderator before, so I don't introduce definitions of green and gold open access. The talk is focused on open access journals (what is commonly perceived as "the" open access) and the PhD's students view on it, but also mentions the possibility of deposition of "unfree" publications in publicly accessable repositories ("green OA") as an alternative. The goal of the discussion and the presentation was to raise awareness for the journal crisis, the possibility of funding and fee waivers in OA journals, and scientist's vs. publisher's interests.

1. The Open Access movement gains momentum
Why should young scientists care?
Martin Ballaschk
panel discussion @ joint MDC/FMP retreat ’12

2. Open Access is said to be a
solution for ...
The serials crisis
400
• library / budget problems Subscription prices
Inflation
• access / paywall problems 300 Journals purchased
• copyright / permission problems 200
•… 100
0
-100
86
88
90
92
94
96
98
00
02
04
06
08
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
Modified from ARL: http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlstats06.pdf, http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlstats08.pdf
graph via Björn Brembs

3. Open Access is said to be a
solution for ...
Adjusted operating margin serials crisis
The (%)
ELSEVIER
50.0
• library / budget problems
• access / paywall40.0
problems
400
300
Subscription prices
Inflation
Journals purchased
35.7 37.3
• copyright / permission problems 33.4
30.0 31.7 200
34.9
•… 20.0 100
10.0 0
0 -100
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
86
88
90
92
94
96
98
00
02
04
06
08
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
source: Reed Annual Report 2011
Modified from ARL: http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlstats06.pdf, http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlstats08.pdf
graph via Björn Brembs

4. 2012
Janet Finch
& the British
government
Neelie Kroes
& the EU
commission
initiated by mathematician Timothy Gowers

5. Does Open Access have
any disadvantages
for scientists?

6. „“
“There are traditional currents in academia that
look down upon use of open access, regarding it
as less scholarly than peer-reviewed journals you
must pay the earth for.”
PhD student (Social sciences)
“Researchers of Tomorrow” study by JISC & British Library

7. „“
“If your funding is patchy or non-existent how can you
compete? Is it even going to be possible to be an
independent researcher in any meaningful sense?”
Mark Carrigan, sociologist from Warwick University
on his blog at http://markcarrigan.net/

8. „“
“Why should the business model of a journal
influence my publishing choice?”
“How would the publishing industry
be able to survive and innovate
without the profits from subscriptions?”
(FMP Students)

9. Let's address these doubts
one by one

10. “OA is less
scholarly”
“OA is not high-
impact”

11. „“ “There is growing evidence […] that journals
converting to OA see a rise in their submission
and citation impact.”
“[I]n each of the broad subject areas studied
Peter Suber, “Open Access”
there was at least one OA title that ranked at
or near the top of its field.”
Thomson Scientific (2004), “Open Access Journals in the ISI Citation
Databases: Analysis of Impact Factors and Citation Patterns”
“OA is not high-
impact”

12. „“ “There is growing evidence […] that journals
converting to OA see a rise in their submission
and citation impact.”
“[I]n each of the broad subject areas studied
Peter Suber, “Open Access”
there was at least one OA title that ranked at
or near the top of its field.”
Thomson Scientific (2004), “Open Access Journals in the ISI Citation
Databases: Analysis of Impact Factors and Citation Patterns”
“OA is not high-
impact”

13. “Why should the business
model of a journal influence
“OA is too expensive
my publishing choice?”
for authors”
PLOS Biology US$2900
PLOS Medicine US$2900
PLOS Computational Biology US$2250
PLOS Genetics US$2250
PLOS Pathogens US$2250
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases US$2250
PLOS ONE US$1350

14. „“ “We offer a complete or partial fee waiver for
authors who do not have funds to cover
publication fees.”
Public Library of Science, Publication Fees
“OA is too expensive 70% of OA journals are free;
for authors” 75% of traditional journals charge
fees for color images, additional pages, etc.
GREEN Open Access
deposit “unfree” papers in repositories,
they go online after a publisher-set embargo
(usually ~6-12 months)

15. „“ “We offer a complete or partial fee waiver for
authors who do not have funds to cover
publication fees.”
Public Library of Science, Publication Fees
“OA is too expensive 70% of OA journals are free;
for authors” 75% of traditional journals charge
fees for color images, additional pages, etc.
GREEN Open Access
deposit “unfree” papers in repositories,
they go online after a publisher-set embargo
(usually ~6-12 months)

16. „“ “We offer a complete or partial fee waiver for
authors who do not have funds to cover
publication fees.”
Public Library of Science, Publication Fees
“OA is too expensive 70% of OA journals are free;
for authors” 75% of traditional journals charge
fees for color images, additional pages, etc.
A:
Gr een O
by Els evier:
op pose d
’12 GREEN Open Access ct,
until Feb rch Wo rks A
r Resea papers in repositories,
ort fo “unfree” lawmakers
p deposit
sup
they go ng’ oafter S publisher-set embargo
online f U a
‘sp onsori (usually ~6-12resspeople)
cong months)
.0 00 to 31
(2 011: $30

17. “OA is not sustainable”
“Publishers add
“Publishers need profits significant value”
for costly investments”
“Peer review and
innovation costs”

18. „“ “OA is not sustainable”
“BioMed Central has a very healthy margin, more
than double digits. It is not marginally profitable
but a very sound business.”
Derk Haank, CEO of Springer
largest OA publisher,
for-profit

19. „“ “OA is not sustainable”
“BioMed Central has a very healthy margin, more
than double digits. It is not marginally profitable
but a very sound business.”
Derk Haank, CEO of Springer
largest OA publisher,
for-profit

20. “Publishers have costs: peer
review organisation &
technological innovation”
8x
€ 8300 / article >> ~ € 1000 / article
~ € 2 billion subscription revenue
~240000 Articles / a

21. “Publishers have costs: peer
review organisation &
technological innovation”
8x
True, but:
€ 8300 / article
~ € 2 billion subscription revenue
>> ~ € 1000 / article
what do w
~240000 Articles / a
e get for t
he money?

22. “Publishers add
significant value”
most work &
the most important work
in science publishing is done
for free by scientists
© jorge cham, phdcomics.com

23. „“
naturescienceandcell
[ney·cher·sahy·uhns·uhnd·sel] -noun:
1. General science journals that cause
researchers to temporarily lose their sanity.
Matt Hodgkinson, a science journal editor
© jorge cham, phdcomics.com
“Publishers add journal impact factor is not a
significant value” predictor for quality

24. „“
Impact Factor as a predictor of journal unreliability
naturescienceandcell
[ney·cher·sahy·uhns·uhnd·sel] -noun:
1. General science journals that cause
researchers to temporarily lose their sanity.
Matt Hodgkinson, a science journal editor
© jorge cham, phdcomics.com
“Publishers add journal impact factor is not a
significant value” predictor for quality
http://bjoern.brembs.net/comment-n811.html

25. technological innovation
no format diversity
no global search n o statistics
no linked references
no networking feature
very little supplemental
information
... it’s like
the web in 1995!

26. Why you should support
access
everyone
benefits, even
publishers
visibility impact research is
useless if it's
not shared

27. Thank you for your attention

29. Abstract
The Open Access movement gains momentum – why should young scientists care?
ABOUT
Martin Ballaschk graduated 2009 in Biology at the Postdam University and is now a PhD Student
in the FMP's Solution NMR group. He got interested in the discussion about Open Access after
several thousands of scientists declared to boycott Elsevier, because the publisher's business
practice is said to be detrimental to the progress of science.
ABSTRACT
Open Access (OA) seems to be the publishing model of the future: european funding bodies
recently reinforced their commitment to Open Access publishing, thousands of scientists signed a
petition against the business practice of Elsevier and innovative publishing platform like eLife and
PeerJ emerge. But research by the British Library and JISC suggests that myths and
misunderstandings about OA are prevalent.
After all, why should PhD students care? Isn't it all just about reducing costs for libraries, while
students and postdocs are required to compete even for publishing funding? Why should the
business model of a journal influence the choice where to publish? Do young scientists have a free
choice? What about those who can't pay for gold OA? Or will OA's broad and enhanced
accessibility outweigh these caveats, maybe even enhance impact and let benefit everyone but the
publishing industry?