Transcript New stars in the sky – how open access is transforming the

New Stars In The Sky:
How Open Access
Is Transforming The
Information Universe
Belinda Weaver
ePrints@UQ
The University of Queensland
University of Queensland Cybrary
What is Open Access?
The open access publishing movement
developed in support of the principle that
the published output of scientific
research should be available, without
charge, to everyone.
University of Queensland Cybrary
“Currently, access to research is
restricted and the means to gain
access are determined by a market in
which a small number of publishers
have a dominant position.”
Wellcome Trust (2004)
University of Queensland Cybrary
The current model takes literature
written by authors and editors who
donate their time and skill, and locks
it away behind price and permission
barriers so that even the world’s
wealthiest institutions cannot
provide full access to it.
This is not done for the sake of longterm preservation. It’s not done to
profit authors, readers, or their
institutions, but to profit third parties
with no creative role in the research
or the writing.
University of Queensland Cybrary
“In the age of print, open access was
physically and economically impossible,
even if the copyright holder wanted it. The
cost of print publication was substantial
and had to be recovered, so that journals
necessarily existed behind a price barrier.
Insofar as this limited access, the
limitations were forgivable, even if harmful
to research. But these limitations are no
longer necessary, and hence, no longer
excusable…”
Paraphrased from Peter Suber
University of Queensland Cybrary
“It is not for either publishers or academics
to decide who should, and who should not,
be allowed to read scientific journal
articles. We are encouraged by the
growing interest in research findings
shown by the public. It is in society’s
interest that public understanding of
science should increase. Increased
public access to research findings should
be encouraged by publishers, academics
and Government alike.”
Science and Technology Committee,
UK House of Commons (2004)
University of Queensland Cybrary
Why change the system?
• Researchers cannot access all research they
need
• Publishing is overly concentrated
• Knowledge is exploding
• Prices are still rising
• Long term archiving of research is not guaranteed
• Research impact is blunted by publishers
• Academics do not control their own IP
• The same purchase is being funded three times
• Digitisation is impeding access
University of Queensland Cybrary
Responses
• Boycotting of Elsevier and increasing rejection of
‘bundling’ or ‘big deals’
• Greater use of consortia buying
• ePresses producing cheaper journals
• New journal start-ups
• Spread of Creative Commons licensing
• Government inquiries and intervention
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/copyright/trln.html
University of Queensland Cybrary
Scope and aims
• OA encompasses open access, authorpays publishing models, and the selfarchiving of academic research in
discipline-specific or institutional archives
• OA aims to safeguard long term access to
the existing body of scholarly research
literature
University of Queensland Cybrary
Background to OA
• Scholarship no longer hindered by
distribution - only by academic custom
and copyright
• Stevan Harnad and others begin to lobby
for open scholarship
• Pricing crises force new organisations to
develop to try to re-engineer scholarly
communication
• Open source repository software
University of Queensland Cybrary
Planks of Open Access
• Open access journals – Perform peer
review and make approved research articles
freely available. BioMed Central has proved
the model both works and makes money
• Open access archives or repositories –
Make current research freely available, and
provide a way to safeguard the long term
availability of research already published
University of Queensland Cybrary
A fringe development?
• More than 200 open access journals
are currently indexed by ISI’s Web of
Science citation databases
• Directory of Open Access Journals
• 1250 journals, 320 searchable at
article level
http://www.doaj.org/
University of Queensland Cybrary
It’s a mind shift
Subscriber pays
• Journals paid for by
readers, libraries and
institutions.
• Payment by annual
subscription or
licence
• One-off payments for
specific issues or a
fee for article delivery
(pay per view)
User pays
• Publication paid for
by the author, the
author’s institution or
research grant
• Payment is a
publication fee
• Payments could be
separated into
submission and
publication costs
University of Queensland Cybrary
Changing the paradigm
• Journals too expensive? Start your own
• Free open source software solutions exist for
anyone wanting to create or publish open
access journals
• Need to showcase and safeguard your
institution’s own research?
• Set up your own open access repository
University of Queensland Cybrary
Arguments for OA
1. Authors of scientific and scholarly journal
articles do not demand payment and willingly
publish in journals that pay no royalties.
2. The internet allows distribution of perfect
copies at virtually no cost to a worldwide
audience.
3. If an author retains copyright and consents to
open access, there are no legal barriers to
open access.
Peter Suber: FoS Newsletter
University of Queensland Cybrary
See OA in action
ePrints@UQ
A deposit collection of papers to
showcase the University’s research
output across a range of disciplines,
both before and after peer-reviewed
publication
University of Queensland Cybrary
University of Queensland Cybrary
But, but, but, what about … ?
•
•
•
•
Copyright?
Non-digital material?
Formats?
Costs?
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
University of Queensland Cybrary
Open Access advocates
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic
Resources Coalition | The Public Library of
Science | BioMed Central | The Open Archives
Forum (Europe) | The Open Society Institute |
The Open Archives Initiative | The Civil Society
Working Group of the World Summit on the
Information Society | The Wellcome Trust | (UK)
| The National Library of Medicine (US) | The
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US) |
University of Queensland Cybrary
OA part of the information
universe now
• OAIster - a search tool for freely
available, academically-oriented digital
resources
• Gateway to 347 digital collections,
including technical reports, working
papers, e-theses, ePrints, digital images
and more
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/
University of Queensland Cybrary
OA is cheaper
“Total system costs are lower in an authorpays system because licensing, and other
activities aimed at restricting access to
articles, are unnecessary.”
Wellcome Trust (2004)
University of Queensland Cybrary
What’s next?
• The UK House of Commons’ Science and
Technology Committee’s report, Scientific
Publications: Free for all? contains many
recommendations, including legislative
change, designed to promote the growth
and spread of open access publishing.
• The US Congress has introduced a Bill that
would mandate that all federally funded
research be openly available.
University of Queensland Cybrary
And here?
• The federal Department of Education,
Science and Training is currently funding
projects that will bring more Australian
scholarship into the public domain.
• DEST’s Quality and Accessibility
Frameworks show the Government sees
the importance of improving the depth,
range and visibility of Australian research.
University of Queensland Cybrary
Budapest Open
Access Initiative
“Open access is economically feasible, it
gives readers extraordinary power to find
and make use of relevant literature, and it
gives authors and their works vast and
measurable new visibility, readership, and
impact.”
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/
University of Queensland Cybrary
Inescapable conclusions?
• An open access publishing system would be less
costly than the current system, and less timeconsuming and cumbersome for users, since
complicated authentication systems could be
done away with, and users could be assured a
full-text copy of whatever research they need.
• Open access would not only guarantee access to
current scholarship, but would also safeguard
the long term archiving of the existing body of
scholarly research literature.
University of Queensland Cybrary
ePrints@UQ
Web: http://eprint.uq.edu.au/
Contact: Belinda Weaver,
ePrints@UQ, UQ Cybrary
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +617 3365 8281
Fax: +617 3365 7930
University of Queensland Cybrary