Open Access - common good or uncommon danger?

2. occamstypewriter.org/scurry/
Who am I?
“the world’s most generous-minded
and amiable OA advocate”
Richard Poynder, Dec 2013

3. Academic Journals were a great idea…

4. …but the web changes everything
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5. Anarchy Policy in the UK - 2012
Dame Janet Finch:
“The principle that the results of research that has
been publicly funded should be freely accessible in
the public domain is a compelling one, and
fundamentally unanswerable.”
Rt Hon David Willetts MP:
The “funding model is surely going to have to
change even beyond the welcome transition to
open access and hybrid journals that’s already
underway. To try to preserve the old model is the
wrong battle to fight.”

6. What is Open Access?
Budapest Declaration, 2002
“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…”
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/openaccess/
Gold OA:
Immediate availability via the journal (OA or 'hybrid')
May require an article processing charge (APC)
Green OA:
Available via a repository (institution or subject-based)
Author's peer-reviewed version (or pre-print)
May require a delay (embargo period)
Gratis OA:
Free online access
Libre OA:
Free online access with some additional
usage rights (e.g. reproduction, text
mining — license-dependent)

7. Open Access is:
‣ a natural consequence of the internet
‣ good for research
faster exchange of ideas
fosters inter-disciplinarity
enables text mining
stronger sense of community ownership
‣ good for the taxpayer
better cost control (eventually)
access to the research they paid for
changes dynamic of public engagement
‣ affecting & affected by many aspects of academic life…
Open Access is not:
‣ free (or the same as ‘file-sharing’)
‣ the end of peer review or synonymous with low quality
‣ easy

8. The relationship of academics with Open Access

9. Why are we not there yet?
Funder & Govt Policies
‣ Too meek (pre-2012). Policy but little enforcement
‣ Confusion? GoldFinch but not GreenFinch?
‣ New (revised) RCUK policy (April 1st, 2013):
‣ Prefers gold (and CC-BY) but permits green
‣ Embargoes extended for 5-year transition (6, 12, 24 mo)
‣ Block grant funding
‣ 5 yr roll-out to include review & flexibility: a ‘journey'
‣ HEFCE & REF 2020
http://blogs.rcuk.ac.uk/2012/09/28/rcuk-open-access-policy-when-to-go-green-and-when-to-go-gold/

10. House of Lords Select Committee Report (Feb 2013)
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/science-and-technology-committee/news/open-access-report-published/

11. House of Commons Select Committee Report (Sept 2013)
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/business-innovation-and-skills/news/on-publ-open-access/
Questions about
hybrid OA

12. Opposition of some publishers
‣ worried about ‘sustainability’ (aka profits*)
‣ Elsevier: 36% (£724m/£2,000m)
‣ Springer: 34% (£294m/£866m)
‣ John Wiley & Sons: 42% ($106m/$253m)
‣ Informa plc: 32% (£47m/£145m)
‣ NB: Hindawi: 52%** ($3.3m/$6.3m)
‣ Are these reasonable given the input from researchers?
‣ Hybrid OA is expensive & problematic:
‣ publishers need to show clearly there’s no double-dipping
‣ avoid unless there is a pathway to flipping journal to OA
Why are we not there yet?
*Figures for 2010. Source — http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/enormous-profits-of-stm-scholarly.html
**http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/04/04/hindawis-profits-are-larger-than-elseviers/

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We’re still working this stuff out
‣ OA journals work: e.g. PLOS, BMC
‣ Innovation:
‣ eLife
‣ PeerJ
‣ Frontiers
‣ Need a shake-up to allow market penetration by
new titles (see later)
Why are we not there yet?

14. We’re still working this stuff out
‣ The Open Access Button
Why are we not there yet?
https://www.openaccessbutton.org

15. Researchers are ill-informed and conservative
‣too few aware of:
‣ subscription costs
‣ how OA works
‣ benefits of OA
‣ (Librarians can help here!)
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Why are we not there yet?
‣confusion in universities about their public duties?
‣ undermined by student fee increases?
‣ obligations to taxpayers
‣ how are these balanced against academic freedom?

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Why are we not there yet?
Concerns of learned societies
‣loss of valuable income?
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/01/29/why-open-access-is-better-for-scholarly-societies/
Stuart Shieber
http://open-access.org.uk/information-and-guidance/guide-to-goldoa/

17. Researchers fear damage to established models
‣variation between humanities and sciences
‣ different relationships with their published work
‣variation between the sciences
‣ Physics arΧiv vs bioRΧiv
‣suspicious of the web
‣addicted to impact factors
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Why are we not there yet?
Image: http://associate.com/photos/Bible-Pictures--1897-W-A-Foster/page-0069-1.jpg

18. occamstypewriter.org/scurry
To realise the vision of OA, we need to replace the apparatus of the Impact factor
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"affirms the principle that it is the intrinsic
merit of the work, and not the title of the
journal in which an author’s work is
published, that should be considered in
making funding decisions."
"when assessing proposals for research
funding RCUK considers that it is the
quality of the research proposed and not
where an author has published… that is of
paramount importance."
April 8, 2013

19. To realise the vision of OA, we need to replace the apparatus of the Impact factor
Samuel Reich, E. (2013) Nature 502, 291-3.

20. The inexorable rise of Open Access
World: 17% Gold OA
UK: 35% Green OA
UK: 5% Gold OA

21. Remaining Challenges
‣ Getting the message out to academics
‣ Agreement on the principles of OA
‣ OA mechanisms that work for all fields
‣ APC payment mechanisms that are fair and visible to researchers
‣ Remove support for hybrid OA?
‣ Disavowal of Impact Factors
‣ Compliance enforcement from funders and institutions
‣ Market innovations (from new & est. publishers) — level playing field
‣ Established publishers need to earn back trust — transparency & generosity
‣ Duration & cost of transition? (When will subs money be released?)
‣ International cooperation on OA policy

22. "It's the end of the world as we know it (And I feel fine)”
Michael Stipe, REM

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The Bohannon ‘sting’ (Science, Oct 2013)

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Responses to the sting
Stuart Shieber (Harvard University)
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/10/15/lessons-from-the-faux-journal-investigation/
Sal Robinson
http://www.mhpbooks.com/

25. A wake-up call: The Research Works Act (USA)
"No Federal agency may engage in any policy that:
causes network dissemination of any private-sector
research work without the prior consent of the publisher
of such work"
Sponsors: Reps Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) - and publishers?
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‣ 'their content'?
‣ surprise at subscription costs & publisher profits
‣ amateur vs commercial tensions