1. Where we are now in opening research
results and data
Frederick Friend
Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL
http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk
f.friend@ucl.ac.uk

2. Clear definition of open access important in judging
progress towards 100% OA
Open access was first defined in the Budapest Open Access Initiative of
2002: http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read
“The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give
to the world without expectation of payment. Primarily, this category
encompasses their peer-reviewed journal articles, but it also includes any
unreviewed preprints that they might wish to put online for comment or to alert
colleagues to important research findings. There are many degrees and kinds of
wider and easier access to this literature. By "open access" to this literature, we
mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to
read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these
articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for
any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than
those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint
on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this
domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and
the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”
N.B. outputs from publicly-funded research, not commercial research

3. Strategies to achieve open access
The Budapest Initiative outlined two complementary strategies to
achieve open access, i.e. not competing strategies but both
necessary to achieve 100% access to and re-use of publicly-funded
research outputs
The two strategies are self-archiving by authors into repositories and
publication in open access journals
Since 2002 both strategies have been pursued by
institutions, funders and authors across the world, without a single
journal ceasing publication because of repository deposit and
without a single repository closing because of publication in journals
Changes have taken place (repositories have developed new
services and OA journals have developed various business models)
but without disturbing the basic relationship between the two
strategies which has benefited communities across the world

4. Progress in understanding the benefits from open access
Visibility on internet of taxpayer-funded research outputs, important
for funders, future researchers, authors and potential general public
users
Readership increased as a result of high visibility, providing
feedback to authors, stimulating further research, and correcting
errors
Impact resulting from higher readership, raising the research profile
of institutions and individual researchers (N.B. UK research
assessment procedures give equal value to articles published on
open access and to subscription articles)
Economic value to countries and regions as open access research
outputs are used by SMEs and other growth-producing
companies, at a cost to the taxpayer less than that for publication in
subscription-based journals (N.B. see the research undertaken by
Professor John Houghton of Victoria University Melbourne)

5. World-wide progress in introducing open access
Surveys show proportion of peer-reviewed research articles published
on open access in 2008 as 20% (11.5% available in various
repositories, 8.5% available on publisher web-sites: (Björk, B.C. et
al.), rising to 23% in 2010 (21.9% in repositories, 1.2% in journals:
Gargouri, Y et al.)
This is a remarkable achievement only eight years after launch of open
access movement in 2002, in the face of powerful lobbying by
commercial interests against open access
Cultural change in academic community happening gradually
Many research funding agencies and universities world-wide now
committed to open access
Biggest volumes from US and Europe but China, India and developing
world also significant
2212 open access repositories (source: OpenDOAR) and 149 purely
open access journals (source: DOAJ)
Large number of OA repositories allows easy local deposit
Within Europe the EC is leading the way, with pilot open access services
(OpenAIRE for repository deposit and publication charge payment for
open access journals)

6. “Better access to British scientific research and academic papers
by 2014”: how much access and at what cost?
After rejecting open access in 2004, the UK Government has now
realised the benefits from open access: excellent
However, the UK Government’s proposals for achieving more open
access than achieved hitherto are unclear, flawed and expensive
For current research outputs the Government is only supporting the
open access journal route to open access, not open access
repositories, missing out on a big section of open access content
Repositories are allocated roles in preservation and data without the
provision of any funding for those expensive roles
If data access is allocated to repositories and research articles to
journals, how will easy cross-access between data and articles work?
Universities given a block of money to pay publishers for open access
but no cap on individual payments to publishers, so no certainty about
how many articles can be made OA
Money for OA is not extra money but is taken from research budget
Authors still divorced from cost of publishing so competition between
publishers reducing cost to taxpayer of OA cannot kick in
No sign that other countries are following UK Government policy

7. Maintaining progress and growing OA in the UK: local
actions (1)
Government and RC decisions are clearly important but university
institutions and individuals can play a big part in improving access to
and re-use of research articles
Many universities now have OA policies, some with mandates, but
more needs to be done to monitor and improve observance of
policies
This involves metrics and also publicity for success stories, e.g.
author with highest number of hits by users, anecdotes of effect
upon student learning of sharing of OA content etc. (see Knowledge
Exchange OA success stories web-site http://www.knowledge-
exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=492)
Ensure that deposit happens at publication even if OA release is
delayed by embargo
Encourage authors to use CC-BY or licence to publish

8. Maintaining progress and growing OA in the UK: local
actions (2)
Library or repository staff can provide support for authors to make
deposit easy
In order to improve user experience of repository content consider
introducing a quality kite-mark or a citeable reference like a DOI
Researchers: please talk about OA in your department, as many of
your colleagues may still not know what OA is, what the benefits are
to research, and what individual researchers can do
Authors: please think about how much you are paying a publisher to
publish your work and the quality of service you are receiving in
return for the payment
Heads of Department: please remember that the Funding Councils
give equal value to repository and journal content in assessment
procedures

9. Research data: a massive future growth area – and it will
be open access
What happens to data collected as part of the research process is a big
issue: huge volume of data and huge potential use of the data
Who owns the data? Differing viewpoints
Whose responsibility is it to collect, preserve and refresh the data? No
clear answer but finding the answer quickly is important.
Who sets the standards and who ensures that they are followed?
International infrastructure needed to ensure ease of collection and use
of data
These issues are bring addressed partly by collaboration between
bodies like the EC and NSF, and partly by collaboration at the grass-
roots level
New “Research Data Alignment” group discussing issues like data IPR
Some top-down decision-making essential but guided by researchers
Whatever the infrastructure all involved are agreed on the importance of
open access to publicly-funded research data.

10. European Commission “Recommendation on access to
and preservation of scientific information” July 2012
Open access to research data
Define clear policies for the dissemination of and open access to research data resulting from publicly
funded research. These policies should provide for:
– concrete objectives and indicators to measure progress;
– implementation plans, including the allocation of responsibilities (including appropriate licensing);
– associated financial planning.
Ensure that, as a result of these policies:
– research data that result from publicly funded research become publicly accessible, usable and re-usable
through digital e-infrastructures. Concerns in particular in relation to privacy, trade secrets, national
security, legitimate commercial interests and to intellectual property rights shall be duly taken into
account. Any data, know-how and/or information whatever their form or nature which are held by private
parties in a joint public/private partnership prior to the research action and have been identified as such
shall not fall under such an obligation;
– datasets are made easily identifiable and can be linked to other datasets and publications through
appropriate mechanisms, and additional information is provided to enable their proper evaluation and use;
– institutions responsible for managing public research funding and academic institutions that are publicly
funded assist in implementing national policy by putting in place mechanisms enabling and rewarding the
sharing of research data;
– advanced-degree programmes of new professional profiles in the area of datahandling technologies are
promoted and/or implemented.

11. Thank you for listening – here are some sources for
further information
Bjork B-C et al. “Open access to the scientific journal literature” PLoS
ONE 5(6): e11273. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011273
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0011273
Gargouri, Y et al. “Green and gold open access percentages and
growth” http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.3664
EC policies on open access to research publications and data
http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/open_access/
EC FP7 E-infrastructure projects http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/e-
infrastructure/projects_en.html , listing both publication projects like
OpenAIRE and also collaborative data projects like EUDAT
Friend F, Guedon J-C, Van de Sompel, H “Beyond sharing and re-
use: towards global data networking” unpublished paper for EC
http://www.friendofopenaccess.org.uk/index.php/data-infrastructure