Open Access – the big issues

1. Open Access – the big issues Linda King & Alistair Fitt Oxford Brookes University Open Access Event Friday 25th October 2013

2. OPEN ACCESS IS HERE! • We want to explain to everybody about the open access (OA) debate and its implications • This will have consequences for all researchers – in particular you may have to think in a new way NOW about where to publish your work • A CONTINUING DEBATE: • NOTE: we don’t have all the answers and the debate is continuing. It’s not clear where we will end up. Also: – OA is COMPLICATED – there are no quick fixes

3. WHAT IS OPEN ACCESS? • As you probably know, the basic concepts of the OA principle are very simple, and amount to: • “If you produce a research output of any sort, then it should immediately be available for all the world to see, whenever they wish, absolutely free of charge”

4. WHY OPEN ACCESS? • Almost all researchers are in favour of OA in principle as it has many advantages, including: • The public pays for a lot of research, so they should get to see it free • OA allow for quick dissemination, and hence speeds research progress • OA outputs receive greater publicity and more citations • OA “levels the playing field” for researchers in developing countries • We decided to publish it – so why restrict access? • The basic difficulty: this is just not how the system runs at present – and it’s hard to plot a route to an Open Access world that doesn’t disrupt the research ecosystem in damaging ways

5. JUST PAPERS FOR THE MOMENT • Research outputs come in a huge variety of forms: books, journal papers, monographs, conference proceedings, reports, buildings, sculptures etc. • BUT for reasons that will be explained later for the moment we’ll ONLY discuss journal papers and conference proceedings. • This makes the initial discussion simpler • We will also only talk about the GREEN and GOLD Open Access publication routes (defined next slide) • (YES WE KNOW that all forms of output are equally important!!!)

6. A FEW SWIFT DEFINITIONS • PREPRINT: initial article sent to journal to be refereed • POSTPRINT: final version sent to journal after changes and acceptance • REPRINT: what finally appeared, with journal branding and livery • GREEN OA: postprint posted on a repository (maybe after an embargo period has expired) • GOLD OA: reprint free to everybody, always, everywhere on the web • APC: “Article Processing Charge” – cash paid to journal to publish gold OA article • SUBSCRIPTION: annual amount paid to publisher for journal access • HYBRID: journal that can be bought with subscription but also allows APCs for gold OA papers at authors’ discretion • ALL-GOLD: journal that ONLY publishes gold OA articles with APCs.

7. THE CURRENT SYSTEM • At present OA is far away. The traditional journal system largely pertains: • Papers appear in a Journal published by a publisher • All of the refereeing and editing is done for free by willing academics • To get to see the papers you have to have a subscription to the journal • ..............and journal subscriptions keep going up, so the publishers get rich • Thus access is not open at all, it’s actually quite limited. • One of the coalition’s key manifesto points is “the public seeing how its money is spent” – and the public largely can’t see the papers at the moment. • RESULT: David Willetts convened the FINCH GROUP (Chair: Dame Janet Finch) • THEIR MISSION: “tell the UK how to transition to an Open Access world”

8. WHAT DID THE FINCH REPORT (Sept 2012) SAY? • There is often confusion about what it really said, but essentially: • Publicly-funded research should be made available free to the public • The UK should start down a route to eventual GOLD open access • …. but this only applies to journal papers, and for books, chapters and • monographs, well……er…….dunno yet • The transition to gold OA should be “properly funded” • The UK should lead the world in “going for gold” • Transition costs could be £60m p/a but this will decrease over time

9. WHERE ARE WE NOW? • We’re just over a year on, and the Finch group has just met again to review their original findings • During the last 12 months we’ve seen: • Lots of discussion, arguing and agonising • Lots of existing hybrid journals launching gold OA APC options • Lots of new online “all-gold” OA journals trying to launch • An RCUK OA mandate (and the promise of a HEFCE mandate) • An EU OA mandate • An Obama-mandate for the USA • RCUK setting aside a “block grant” to HEIs for OA • …… the rest of the world looking on to see what happens to us

10. WHAT ARE THE MAIN PROBLEMS? • We all want OA – science advances faster and is more equitable if all outputs are OA. *BUT* • The guidance from RCUK has been faltering and badly managed • There are many conflicts – depending on where you are in the system • HEFCE guidance has yet to be issued (and will be much more important than RCUK’s pronouncements) • Books, monographs and book chapters have kind of been ignored • The hard evidence that “OA produces more citations” is largely missing • It’s clear that there is not enough funding for the transition period • It’s also clear that our 1% of people and 6% of world outputs have little clout • The detailed issues around OA are very complicated and involved. Few understand them all – least of all politicians, or academic colleagues • The publishers’ rules are so complicated that THEY don’t understand them!

11. AN EXAMPLE OF COMPLICATIONS (sorry it’s a maths-related one) • IMA Mathematics OUP journals are now all SHERPA FACT-compliant with the RCUK mandate (SHERPA FACT – ROMEO “app” for RCUK) • However they are not quite SHERPA ROMEO-compliant as OUP don’t allow a postprint to be displayed on the institutional repository (IR), but do allow reference to a toll-free link on the OUP web site. They don’t allow the postprint content to be stored on the IR • What happens if I put a link to the link on our IR? • What happens if I put a link fulltext of my paper to the preprint of my paper which is stored in the cloud, not the IR? • What happens if all links point to my personal web page (where linking IS allowed)? LINKS, CONTENT, FILES ARE ALL THE SAME!

12. TWO OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS • HYBRID JOURNALS • “Double dipping” is a curse. Example from a journal dear to me: (IMA, OUP) • Annual sub is £950, APC is £1,300 – journal sub reduces 4% (for EVERYBODY) for every APC that I fund • WHY WOULD I EVER DO THIS? • OA CC-BY LICENCE • Creative Commons licences are COMPLICATED • The standard (and Finch-recommended) gold OA licence is CC-BY • This allows virtually unlimited commercial use • Most of the existing authors’ rights are completely lost • It also allows unlimited “hashing and mashing”…………..

13. Other random OA posers • If you make more by publishing more, how strict will your refereeing be? • What happens to Learned/Professional societies that RELY on the • subscription model for their funding? • How do we choose who gets the Open Access money for their paper? • How will we afford the gold OA route without going bankrupt? • What happens to researchers that are NOT from universities? • What do we do about OA for books and monographs? • How long will the “glorious route to gold” take to accomplish? • How come the publishers earn a fortune and we do all the work for free? • How come our public money is being used to make journals cheaper for the • rest of the world?

14. What is currently mandated (1)? • RESEARCH COUNCILS: • “If you publish a paper that was from research funded by a research council then you must make it open access EITHER by the gold route or by the green route with an embargo of 6 months (STEM) 12 months (Arts & Humanities)” • BUT: • We won’t check up on this for....hmmm a few years at least • We’ll accept 12/24 month embargoes rather than 6/12...er.....for a bit • We’ll give you some money to fund this (based on your grant income) • Errm it won’t be enough but we’ll see how it goes..........

15. What is currently mandated (2)? • REF 2014 – nothing need be done • REF2020 – consultation underway. Strong favourites for rules: • Outputs for REF2020 must be open access at time of publication • ........ but any route (gold/green) will do • This only applies to journal and conference papers. The rest is too hard • This only applies to things published in 2016 or later • Journal embargo periods will be respected for green OA outputs • Will probably be enforced by requiring an overall compliance percentage • If researchers come to the UK from outside our system then their • previous outputs are exempt from OA requirements

16. What does this mean for me? • If you want your paper to be eligible for REF2020 then you must ensure that it is compliant at time of publication – no retrospective OA allowed • If you publish in a non-compliant journal or don’t lodge your paper in the institutional repository at the right time YOU CAN’T USE IT FOR REF 2020 • We pay you a salary and expect you to make sure that your papers can be returned in the REF – so there are vexing questions regarding “academic freedom”. You can’t automatically choose where you publish. • Finally: don’t have nightmares! • WE HAVE TIME TO SORT THIS OUT AND WE CAN HELP YOU