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Open access: common good or uncommon danger? An Academic Perspective

Open access: common good or uncommon danger? An Academic Perspective. Professor Stephen Curry UHMLG Open Access Forum 28th Feb 2014. Who am I?. occamstypewriter.org/scurry/ . “ the world ’ s most generous-minded and amiable OA advocate ” Richard Poynder, Dec 2013.

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Open access: common good or uncommon danger? An Academic Perspective

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  1. Open access: common good or uncommon danger? An Academic Perspective Professor Stephen Curry UHMLG Open Access Forum 28th Feb 2014

  2. Who am I? occamstypewriter.org/scurry/ “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 4

  5. 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.” Anarchy Policy in the UK - 2012

  6. 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…” What is Open Access? Gratis OA: Free online access Libre OA: Free online access with some additional usage rights (e.g. reproduction, text mining — license-dependent) 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) http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/openaccess/

  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. 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 Why are we not there yet? 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) Questions about hybrid OA http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/business-innovation-and-skills/news/on-publ-open-access/

  12. Why are we not there yet? 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 *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/

  13. Why are we not there yet? • 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) 13

  14. Why are we not there yet? • We’re still working this stuff out • The Open Access Button 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!) 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? 15

  16. Why are we not there yet? http://open-access.org.uk/information-and-guidance/guide-to-goldoa/ • Concerns of learned societies • loss of valuable income? Stuart Shieber 16 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/01/29/why-open-access-is-better-for-scholarly-societies/

  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 Why are we not there yet? 17 Image: http://associate.com/photos/Bible-Pictures--1897-W-A-Foster/page-0069-1.jpg

  18. To realise the vision of OA, we need to replace the apparatus of the Impact factor "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." occamstypewriter.org/scurry April 8, 2013 18

  19. To realise the vision of OA, we need to replace the apparatus of the Impact factor Vale, R. D. (2012) Mol Biol Cell 23, 3285–3289. Lawrence, P. A. (2007) Curr. Biol.17, R583–5. Samuel Reich, E. (2013) Nature502, 291-3.

  20. UK: 35% Green OA The inexorable rise of Open Access UK: 5% Gold OA World: 17% Gold OA Online only (no APC) Online only (no APC) Print sub/OA online

  21. 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 Remaining Challenges

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

  23. The Bohannon ‘sting’ (Science, Oct 2013) 23

  24. Responses to the sting Stuart Shieber (Harvard University) Sal Robinson http://www.mhpbooks.com/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2013/10/15/lessons-from-the-faux-journal-investigation/ 24

  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 publisherof such work" Sponsors: Reps Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) - and publishers? • 'their content'? • surprise at subscription costs & publisher profits • amateur vs commercial tensions 25

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