Presentation made at Faculty of Political Sciences Method & Ethics meeting of the Department of Third World studies (modified with regards to feedback received)

1. Open Access:
Introduction
Gwen Franck
Ghent University Library
OpenAIRE project | Open Access Belgium

2. info@openaccess.be www.openaccess.be
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3. • Research articles
datasets
• Free for the end user
• Digital
OA journals
OA repository
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5. Why should I care?
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6. • Increase visibility
• Research available as soon as possible
• Alternatives for the traditional scientific
publishing cycle
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7. • Tax payers’ money should be made
available (no ‘triple pay’)
• Research funders mandates
• Support worldwide access to research,
not only in ‘rich’ countries
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8. How
• Archive an open access version of your work in
a repository
OR
• Publish directly in an open access/hybrid
journal
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9. Open Access publishing
• Submit your work to OA Journals
• ‘Born OA’ or converted journals
• With or without Article Processing Charges/
Author Fees
• Level of openness = no indication of quality!
• Directory of OA Journals: www.doaj.org
– ALL quality OA journals are in DOAJ.
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10. OA publishing in quality journals ≠ (high) article
processing charges/author fees
(by the way: a lot of Open Access journals have a discount or even waiver policy for
author fees. So, if you can’t afford it, these are often negotiable! )
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11. ‘Hybrid’ OA
• After paying a fee/charge individual article
becomes immediately OA
• End result =
– Good because article becomes open but …
– Bad because expensive subscriptions for the
whole journal remain necessary
• Fastest growing component of OA publishing
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12. • Quality and Reputation : discipline-specific …
Some scientific domains contain more
quality OA journals than others
These are journals in political sciences …
• DOAJ political sciences
– http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpId=4
7&uiLanguage=en
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13. Self-archiving
• Deposit/Archive research in a repository
– Institutional
– Subject/discipline specific
• Better than personal, departmental or project
website!
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14. Self-archiving
• Advantage:
– Publish in any journal you want! (also the non-OA
ones)
– A majority of publishers (>75%) allow you to make
(a version) of your work OA through self-archiving
– Check publisher’s policies on
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
– If not allowed: negotiate!
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15. Self-archiving
• Immediately or after embargo period
(discipline-specific)
• ‘Free’
• Main focus of mandates
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16. What OA is not/should not be
• Extra burden for researchers
• Be a hindrance for your career
• Taking big chunks out of your research budget
• Limiting your choice of journals/prohibiting
you from publishing in the journal you want
• Going against the law/publisher’s policies
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17. It’s not over …
• Mainstreaming
– OA is becoming big business (> 20 % of all research
articles)
– More attention/ the stakes are raised!
– More discussion and debate. Internal differences
become outspoken
– From vibrant online only community to mainstream
press
– More risk of scams: author fees are tempting for frauds
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18. It’s not over …
• Experimenting
– New types of journals (PeerJ, …)
– Financing methods
– Altmetrics
• Text and data mining
• Licensing and copyright issues
• Open Access to research data?
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20. What do you think?
• Are you making your research OA already?
Why (not)?
• What can be done on university/government
level as an incentive?
• Would you consider taking part of OA
initiatives such as new journals, training
sessions, …
• How about your research data?
• …
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21. • www.openaccess.be
• info@openaccess.be/
• gwen.franck@ugent.be
• www.openaire.eu
• Twitter @openaccess_be
• Facebook ‘Open Access Belgium’
•  0032 9 264 94 72
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22. References
• 2: Open Access cartoon by Patrick Hochstenbach (@hochstenbach)
• 4: ‘Open Access Explained!’ PHD Comics by Jorge Cham, Nick Shockey and
Jonathan Eisen
• 6:
– Swan Alma, The Open Access citation advantage
http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/268516/2/Citation_advantage_paper.pdf
– ‘Journal board resigns’ http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/journals-editorial-
board-resigns-in-protest-of-publishers-policy-toward-authors/43149
• 7:
http://www.openoasis.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=78:articles&
id=28:developing-countries&Itemid=253
• 9 & 11: ‘APC graphic. Corbyn, Zoe. Price doesn't always buy prestige in open
access, Nature 22.01.2013 doi:10.1038/nature.2013.12259
• 16: ‘Nature vs. Science vs. Open Access’ PHD Comics by Jorge Cham
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