Transcript Document

THE SCHOLARLY PUBLISHING
& ACADEMIC RESOURCES COALITION
21 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 296-2296
www.arl.org/sparc
The Growing Call for
Public Access
Heather Joseph, Executive Director
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition
Why is Public Access Important?
• Dissemination of results is an essential,
inseparable component of research and of the US
Government’s investment in science. It is only
through use of findings that funders obtain value
from their investment.
• The research funded by public institutions is
simply not widely available. This works against
the public interest since federally funded
research is not being fully used and applied.
www.arl.org/sparc
2
Selected Proposed Policies
Worldwide
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The European Commission
Research Councils UK
Canadian Institute of Health Research
Ukrainian National Parliament
South African Research Council
German Research Fund (DMG)
Chinese Academy of Science
U.S. National Institutes of Health
U.S Federal Research Public Access Act
www.arl.org/sparc
3
Public Access Facilitates Research
Recognition of the importance of public access is
rapidly expanding. In a letter to the U.S. Congress
25 Nobel Laureates noted:
“Science is the measure of the human race’s
progress. As scientists and taxpayers too, we
therefore object to barriers that hinder,
delay or block the spread of scientific
knowledge supported by federal tax dollars
– including our own works. “
- Open letter to the US Congress, August 26, 2004
www.arl.org/sparc
4
Public Access Spurs Innovation
“ Once a critical mass is reached, text mining will
enable new facts to be discovered that would not be
possible by humans, such as information about gene
associations. Data meshing will also start to happen
where, for example, you could look at associations
between supermarket loyalty cards (to find out what
people eat), their health records and gene make up.
This will have a huge impact on public health.”
--Robert Terry, Senior Policy Advisor, The Wellcome
Trust (Research Information, June/July 2006)
www.arl.org/sparc
5
Public Access is Central to Higher
Education
“The broad dissemination of the results of
scholarly inquiry and discourse is essential for
higher education to fulfill its long-standing
commitment to the advancement and
conveyance of knowledge. Indeed, it is mission
critical.”
--25 University Provosts, in an Open Letter to the Higher
Education Community, 7/24/06
www.arl.org/sparc
6
Public Access is a Market Issue
From industry analysts at Credit Suisse First Boston:
“[W]e would expect governments (and taxpayers) to examine
the fact that they are essentially funding the same purchase three
times: governments and taxpayers fund most academic
research, pay the salaries of the academics who undertake the
peer review process and fund the libraries that buy the output,
without receiving a penny in exchange from the publishers for
producing and reviewing the content....We do not see this as
sustainable in the long term, given pressure on university and
government budgets. “
- (Credit Suisse First Boston, Sector Review: Scientific, Technical
and Medical Publishing. April 6, 2004.)
www.arl.org/sparc
7
Public Access Is Important to:
Taxpayers
www.arl.org/sparc
8
Public Access is Important to:
Universities and Libraries
Even the wealthiest private research institution
in the U.S. can afford access to less than 70%
of the peer reviewed research, and for
thousands of public and private colleges,
universities, and research centers in the U.S.
the situation is even worse.
www.arl.org/sparc
9
Public Access is Important to:
Researchers
www.arl.org/sparc
Lawrence, Steve (2001). “Free
online availability substantially
10
increases a paper's impact.”
Nature,
Vol. 411, No. 6837, p. 521
Public Access is Important to:
Patients and Health Care Professionals
“When we went to try to find [information on PXE], we
discovered that it was very hard to get. We lived in the
Boston area at the time and were lucky to be able to go
to one of the best medical libraries in the world. We
went to the Harvard University library and found that
we had to pay $25 to get in the door, which we
understood because it's a private university. So we paid
the $25, but after about ten trips to the library we
decided we couldn't afford to continue that way.”
- Sharon Terry, President, Genetic Alliance and mother
of two children with rare genetic disease, PXE
www.arl.org/sparc
11
What is the Federal Research Public
Access Act?
• The Federal Research Public Access Act (S.
2695) was introduced on May 2, 2006 by
Sens. Cornyn (R-TX) & Lieberman (D-CT).
• It is a bill designed to ensure that the
results of scientific research funded by
the public are made accessible to the public
in a timely, cost effective manner.
www.arl.org/sparc
12
The Federal Research Public Access
Act Requires:
 Federally funded researchers to submit copy of
final manuscript that has been accepted for
publication in a peer-reviewed journal;
 Manuscripts be preserved in a stable digital
repository that permits free public access,
interoperability, and long-term preservation;
• Free access to each manuscript be available as
soon as possible, and no later than six months
after the article has been published in a peerreviewed journal.
www.arl.org/sparc
13
What are the Goals of Public
Access Policies & S.2695?
• To expedite, expand and strengthen our
national ability to leverage our collective
investment in scientific research
• To provide new avenues to stimulate use of
federally funded research results to
stimulate new discoveries and new
innovations.
www.arl.org/sparc
14
S.2695 is Cost Effective
• Proposed bill recognizes that sharing of research
results is part of the research process - progress
can be maximized with minimal investment.
• For example, the NIH estimates its public access
program would cost $3.5 million if 100% of its
65,000 eligible manuscripts were deposited
annually - an amount equal to 0.01% of the
agency's $28 billion budget.
www.arl.org/sparc
15
S.2695 is Cost Effective
• By comparison: NIH’s costs are only a small
fraction of the $30 million per year the agency
spends on page charges and other subsidies to
subscription-based journals.
• S. 2695 is structured to minimize development
costs. Each agency is not required to develop its
own repository, and can achieve economies of
scale - by leveraging use of existing platforms and
infrastructure, or partnering with other
agencies/institutions.
www.arl.org/sparc
16
S.2695 is Not a Threat to the Peer
Review System
S.2695 contains two key provisions that protect
journals:
 A delay of up to six months in providing access to
articles via the public archive (versus immediate
access for journal readers).
 Inclusion in the public archive of the author’s final
manuscript rather than the publisher’s formatted,
paginated version preferred for citation purposes.
www.arl.org/sparc
17
Public Access can be a
Competitive Advantage
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
American Journal of Pathology (American Society
for Investigative Pathology)
American Journal of Human Genetics (American
Society for Human Genetics)
Annals of Family Medicine (American Academy
of Family Physicians)
Annals of Internal Medicine (American College of
Physicians)
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
(American Society for Microbiology)*
(note ASM has 9 primary journals with 6
month embargos)
Applied and Environmental Microbiology
(American Society for Microbiology)
Canadian Medical Association Journal (Canadian
Medical Association)
Clinical Medicine & Research (Marshfield Clinic)
Clinical and Vaccine Immunology (ASM)
Development (Company of Biologists)
Diabetes (American Diabetes Association)
www.arl.org/sparc
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
18
Genetics (Genetics Society of America)
Journal of Cell Biology (Rockefeller University
Press)
Journal of Clinical Investigation (American
Society for Clinical Investigation)
Journal of Experimental Medicine (Rockefeller
University Press)
Journal of Neuroscience (Society for
Neuroscience)
Molecular Biology of the Cell (American
Society for Cell Biology)
Nucleic Acids Research (Oxford Univesity
Press)
Pediatric Research (American Pediatric
Society)
Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (National Academy of Sciences)
RNA (The RNA Society)
S.2695 is Not a Threat to the Peer
Review System
A recent survey by the Association of Learned and
Professional Society Publishers clearly shows that a 6month embargo is not a threat to institutional journal
subscriptions:
“ Availability of content via delayed open access was
not an important factor in journal cancellations….
From examination of all kinds of embargoed
content….it is clear that the embargo has to be very
short indeed to compete with a subscription: for 82%
it had to be 3 months or less…”
www.arl.org/sparc
19
S.2695 is Not a Threat to the Peer
Review System
The ALPSP report concludes:
• Repositories are clearly not seen by librarians as a
substitute for properly managed journal holdings:
they point to concerns over long-term availability,
stability, completeness and integrity; the faculty
want ‘the real journal’; embargoes of even 3
months are a major obstacle; and postprints (let
alone preprints) are not seen as an adequate
substitute for the journal article.
www.arl.org/sparc
20
S.2695 is Not a Threat to the Peer
Review System
• The large majority of librarians do not know
whether the content of archives overlaps with
their holdings, and most do not plan to introduce
systems to measure this.
• Availability via OA archives was ranked a far
behind the needs of faculty, usage and price in
determining cancellations.
• Three times as many respondents thought there
would be no impact on holdings compared with
those that thought there would be some impact.
www.arl.org/sparc
21
Worldwide Trend Towards Greater
Access
• Trend towards considering greater access to
research results in general - not just peer
reviewed articles, but data
• Indicative of new understanding of
opportunities presented by digital research
environment to more fully exploit results of
research we collectively fund
• Viewed as competitive advantage
www.arl.org/sparc
22
Further information
For more information on progress of these (and
other) emerging Open Access policies in the U.S.,
please see:
www.arl.org/sparc/soan
www.taxpayeraccess.org
www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html
www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/
www.arl.org/sparc
23