Transcript Slide 1

OPEN ACCESS & STM PUBLISHING
Presented by:
Michael A Mabe
Director of
Academic Relations
Elsevier
Visiting Professor
Dept Information Science
City University, London
Scholary Communication, Gothenburg, 9 December 2004
A Sense of Déjà Vu…
After many years, Sherlock Holmes
finally came face-face with his arch
enemy, Professor Moriarty. They
stared at each other for long
moments.
Moriarty said: “No doubt
everything I am about to say has
already crossed your mind.”
To which Holmes responded
“And, no doubt, my reply has
already crossed yours.
— Good day to you, Sir!”
First Scientific Journal
• 6th March 1665
Philosophical
Transactions of the
Royal Society
Ed. Henry Oldenburg
Secretary of the Royal
Society
• First true scholarly
journal
• Published for profit at
Oldenburg’s expense
Inventing the Journal: Oldenburg’s Letters
• [We must be] very careful of registring as well the person and
time of any new matter.., as the matter itselfe; whereby the
honor of ye invention will be inviolably preserved to all
posterity.
[Oldenburg, 24 November 1664]
• all Ingenious men will be thereby incouraged to impart their
knowledge and discoveryes
[Oldenburg, 3 December 1664]
• [I should not] neglect the opportunity of having some of my
Memoirs preserv’d, by being incorporated into a Collection,
that is like to be as lasting as usefull
[Boyle, 1665]
• [Phil. Trans. should be] licensed under the charter by the
Council of the Society, being first reviewed by some of the
members of the same.”
[R.Soc. Order in Council 1/3/1665]
Peer Reviewed Journal Growth 1665-2001
No of titles launched and still extant 2001
Journalof
growth
M A Mabe The growth and number
journals Serials 16(2).191-7, 2003
10000
Data from Ulrich’s International
Total
number of active refereed
Periodicals Directory on CD-ROM
learnedSummer
journals2001
in 2004:
17,700
Edition
cagr 3.46%
R2 = 0.9877
100
1
1665
1765
1865
Year
1965
Article Growth 1981-2002
900000
850000
800000
750000
Articles
700000
650000
~3% p.a.
600000
550000
500000
450000
400000
Art icles
ISI Data
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
472350
490560
506400
509087
541880
559031
552821
573181
597410
612408
625308
662094
663787
710844
746886
760567
756540
794638
808879
810588
830139
826403
Year
Relationship of Journals & Researcher Growth
Index (1981=1.00)
1.6
R&D Workers, Journals and Articles
US r&d
workers
journals
1.2
articles
0.8
1980
1985
Year
1990
1995
More researchers ⇒ more journals
Role of the Modern Journal
Needs
READERS
• constant citation
• authority
• specialisation
• continuity
• navigation
Functions
JOURNAL
• registration
• certification
• dissemination
• archive
• navigation
Needs
AUTHORS
• ownership
• reputation
• recognition/audience
• renown
Provided by the publisher through
–
–
–
–
third party authority (rhetorical independence)
brand identity management
long-term management of continuity
technology
Current Environment
The STM Market
• 2,000+ journal publishers
– 600 commercial, 1400+ not for profit
• 18,000 active, peer reviewed journals
• 1.2-1.4 m articles published yearly
• ~1 m unique authors each year
• ~10-15 m readers
Elsevier
• 1,800 journals (1400 primary of which
nearly 300 are for learned societies)
• 225,000 articles a year
Open Access
• A philosophy
– Information freely available on www
• Made feasible by
– Hope
• Content made free some period after publication on
the assumption this does not damage income
– “OA Lite”
– Flipped business model
• “Author pays” rather than reader (librarian) pays
– “OA Heavy”
– Belief in a much reduced e-only journal costbase
OA Claimed Advantages and Disadvantages
• Advantages
– Freely available on the
www for researchers and
public alike
– Researchers are believed
to get higher downloads
and citations
– For “author pays”/OA
Heavy, investment in
literature support would
scale with amount of
research conducted
– Speed of access versus
interlibrary loan
– A growing phenomenon
• Disadvantages
– Creates financial barriers
to publication where
currently there are only
quality ones
• Quality challenges
• Institutional politics
– Poor authors excluded or
have to be subsidised by
the rest
– Corporate free riders
problem
– OA business models
unsustainable without
subsidies or loss
– One time payments for
perpetual access
Downloads and Open Access: Evidence
• COUNTER compliant download
characteristics for IOPP and Blackwell
show very little difference between OA and
subscription-based research journals of
similar size, subject and audience
– Important to distinguish press covered journals
from majority
• OUP experiments in OA Lite have shown
that making articles available for free after
6 months causes 6% loss;
12 months causes 3% loss
in subscriptions
Citations and Open Access: ISI Evidence
“OA journals have a broadly similar citation pattern to other journals, but
may have a slight tendency to earlier citations.” ThomsonScientific 2004
Relation between Citations and Downloads
• Hank Moed, Bibliometrician, Leiden
University
– study to be published in J Amer. Soc.
Info. Sci. Techn. 2005
• Detailed analysis over a number of
years of citation and download
characteristics for a major chemistry
journal
• “Citations lead to downloads BUT
downloads do not lead to citations”
Growth in research and library spending
1976-1995
260
Index(1976 = 100.00)
240
US Total
Academic
R&D
(constant $)
220
200
180
Ave ARL
Library
Expenditure
(constant $)
160
140
120
100
1975
1980
1985
Year
1990
1995
Is OA a growing phenomenon?
• Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory
– 889 OA journals listed, not all peer reviewed,
1% of scholarly and academic journals.
• Of these:
– 49% free to all
• sponsored by government, university or other institutions
– 25% subsidized by print publication
– 14% author-pays model
– 6% subscription journals that are free after one+ months
– 5% other
• Decline in launches of new OA titles recorded by Ulrich’s
–
–
–
–
63 (20.5%) new OA out of 308 launched in 2001
47 (18.4%) new OA out of 255 launched in 2002
30 (15.2%) new OA out of 198 launched in 2003
11 (12.4%) new OA out of 89 launched in 2004 as of
September
• Of the 115 author-pays journals, 104 from commercial
publisher BioMed Central
Bias to accept? Pressure on quality
• Hal Varian, Berkeley:
“An economic system tends to favor
those who pay. If the authors pay,
then the system will lean towards the
author's goal (getting published)
whereas if the readers pay the
system will lean towards the reader's
goal (effective filtering.)”
Cornell Report: issues with “Institution pays”
• Structural
– “[OA proposals] imply significant shifts in university
resources and in the relations between the
university and the output of scholars”
• “[At a charge of] $1,500/article, the library would require an
infusion of almost $1.5M/year [if full OA were adopted]”
• Cultural
– “Where Open Access does not respond to felt needs
on the part of scholars and their disciplines, it is
unlikely to gain support of authors; if it is perceived
as a threat to the autonomy of scholarly communities, it
will not be voluntarily adopted.”
Cornell Report: issues with “Institution pays”
• Censorship
– “Putting fiscal control of publishing costs in the hands
of departments may be unpalatable to the faculty
who may view it as a loss of academic freedom.”
• “.. the decision of whom to fund and for what reason may be
a source of controversy and may be construed as a form of
censorship.”
• Politics
– An extra-library Provost’s Fund to pay for publication
.. would not seem to solve the OA funding problem.
• Without governance, it is even worse than our current
subscription model; with governance, the potential for
bureaucratic complications and political antagonisms is
too great. It seems unlikely..such an arrangement would
ever be tolerated by the academic community.
Corporate Free Riders
• 20% of subscription income is from the corporate
sector – chemical, pharmaceutical, electronic etc
[STM]
• 95% of articles are authored by academics [ISI]
• In OA Heavy/author pays, the corporates don’t
pay to read and they author barely 5% of articles
• If corporate authors pay (5%) there will be a 15%
shortfall in revenue in converting to OA that has to
be recouped
• All authors (mainly academics) will have to pay
one sixth more than the average publication
charge to make up the difference
Poorer authors and effect on the literature
• “When a scientist doesn’t have a subscription, he
can nonetheless get information about the
article..;requesting the article can be as easy as
sending an e-mail. When a scientist doesn’t
have funds to publish an article, the article
does not exist – does not become part of the
permanent literature. That’s more than an
inconvenience.”
– John Ewing, AMathsSoc, Nature 425.559,
9 Oct. 2003
• 25% of papers come from the developing world
[ISI Data], if they don’t pay everyone else has to
pay one third more in OA Heavy/author pays
Current “Author Pays” Fees Unsustainable
Estimated costs per article for selected journals: assumes all authors pay
$thousands
10.0
9.2
7.6
7.0
6.4
Estimated
STM
industry
mean:
(John Cox
Associates)
3.8
Science
Cell
High
Print + electronic
High
Immunity
BioScience
Cancer
Cell
Drivers of cost per article:
Rejection rates
Format
Production quality
PloS
Est. STM
Industry mean Au charge
BMC
Au Charge
Low
Electronic only
Low
All these costs per article have to increased by 33.3% and 16.6%
= 50% to account for poorer authors and corporate free riders.
This would make the average $5,700 and the Science charge
$15,000 per paper, difficult for even funding bodies to afford
OA Claimed Advantages and Disadvantages
• Advantages
– Freely available on the
www for researchers and
public alike
– Researchers are believed
to get higher downloads
and citations
– For “author pays”/OA
Heavy, investment in
literature support could
scale with amount of
research conducted
– Speed of access versus
interlibrary loan
– A growing phenomenon
• Disadvantages
– Creates financial barriers
to publication where
currently there are only
quality ones
• Quality challenges
• Institutional politics
– Poor authors excluded or
have to be subsidised by
the rest
– Corporate free riders
problem
– OA business models
unsustainable without
subsidies or loss
– One time payments for
perpetual access
Researchers and OA
• CIBER Study 2004:
– CIBER: Centre for Information Behaviour and
Evaluation of Research, University College
London
– First quantitative measurement of
author/editor awareness, attitude and
behaviour towards Open Access: 3674
responses from all disciplines/nations
• Elsevier commissioned study 2004
– Conducted by an independent research
agency using sample of 2391 Elsevier authors
and editors
– Respondents did not know Elsevier was the
sponsor of the study
CIBER
study
Awareness
Extent of awareness of Open Access
Q. How much do you know about open access journals?
Nothing at
all
34%
A lot
5%
Quite a lot
14%
N=3674
A little
47%
ciber key findings:
authors’ reasons for choosing the last
journal in which they published
0 = no influence, 100 = strongest influence
Targeted
Impact factor
Editorial board
Circulation
Speed
E-version
Hard copy
A&I coverage
Easy to get in
Journal price
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
ciber key findings:
primary intended audience
% of authors in strong agreement
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Fellow researchers
Other researchers
Teachers and students
Funders
Policy makers
General public
CIBER
study
Behaviour
Extent prepared to pay [3674 respondents]
Q. If all journals were open access what do you
consider would be a reasonable payment to have your
paper published in the best journal in your field?
More than US 10000
0%
US 5000 - 9999
0%
US 2000 - 4999
1%
US 1000 - 1999
4%
US 500 - 999
12%
Less than US 500
35%
N=3674
I'm not prepared to pay anything
48%
0%
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
ciber key findings:
authors as readers: views on journal access
% of authors expressing an opinion
Access: now
50
40
30
20
10
0
very poor
poor
varies
good
excellent
ciber key findings:
authors as readers: views on journal access
% of authors expressing an opinion
Access: now vs 5 years ago
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
lot worse
worse
same
better
much better
Elsevier Commissioned Study: Awareness
Oppose
N = 2391
Favour
28%
Support OA
22%
Neutral
No OA
know ledge
13%
34%
3%
Published/
submitted OA
yes
no
14%
44%
don't
know
8%
No OA
know ledge
34%
• Support for OA among researchers, but it is uninformed
– many of the journals listed as OA are not OA journals
– Several are Elsevier journals
– OA is associated with BMC (19%) and PLOS (12%) but also
with Elsevier (>19%)
• Positive association of OA with “online” and “free”
• Negative association with “author pays”
• Online availability and free at point of use being
associated with OA sentiment
Elsevier Commissioned Study: Behaviour
After an Open Access Model defined as:
“Open access journals use a funding model that does not charge readers or their
institutions for access. In an open access journal, readers are able to read,
download, copy, distribute, and print papers and other materials freely from the
web. The costs are met by charging authors or their institutions for publishing
their papers.”
Q. If all journals were Open Access, what do you consider would be a
reasonable payment to have your paper published in the best journal
in your field?
less than
$500
nothing
Reasonable
payment OA
48%
$500$999 $1000+
37%
11%
3%
1%
Q. If your institution or organization were to cancel all subscriptions to
scholarly journals and encourage you to use only Open Access journals,
would you…
Support OA
use if all jnls
cancelled
Favour
Neutral
5% 11%
11%
Oppose
20%
53%
Researchers Comments on OA Journals
Well as long as
they were
thoroughly
reviewed I do
not have a
problem
The concept of a
scientist or an
author bearing the
cost of publication
would never be
popular [in the UK].
A great idea but it is hard
to get people to do
something altruistically
for free forever.
Someone still has to do
the work. After a while
they get burned out. In
commercial publishing,
they make a profit and
that is an incentive to
keep working.
We have held off
contributing to these
journals until
Oxbridge or UC
London does.
It’s great.
Think of the
time savings
alone.
Researchers Comments on OA
Doesn’t that mean
the journal is
available online for a
fee?
Both PLoS and BioMed
Central were started
with huge grants.
Neither of them run on
a pure “author pays”
model.
They make their
money by
charging
submission fees to
authors
Your ability to read
scholarly journals is not
dependent on your
ability to pay for them…
Defining the
concept as ‘free
access’ is wrong.
Someone still
has to pay. It’s
just shifted from
reader to author
Researchers’ Concerns about OA
• Concerns about Open
Access include:
– Content dominated by
wealthy countries and
researchers who can
afford fees
– Impact factor is not yet
established
– Perception that the
articles are not reviewed
– Temptation of journals to
publish a poor quality
article just for the
publication fees
– Researcher’s career and
reputation might suffer
from publishing in Open
Access journals
– Possibility of journal
failing and articles being
unavailable
– Author retains copyright
and responsibility for
protecting it
– Industry will have fewer or
no profits to reinvest in
technology
– Open Access journals will
only contain the articles
that were rejected by
other publishers
– The ‘author pays’ model is
just another form of Vanity
Press.
Researchers and OA: Summary
• Open Access is:
– Something they have
heard of
– Something they are open
to considering
– Discussed with
increasing frequency
– Initially, very appealing
• “How can you be opposed
to free access to scientific
information?”
– Something they think is
going to change the way
some journals are
published
• Open Access is not:
– Well understood
– Something they have
made their mind up
about
– Going to completely
replace subscriptionbased publishing
Who can be against free access?
• But, in the context of:
– Editorial independence
– Access to publication outlets unaffected by
• Ability to pay – positive and negative
• Decisions made by someone other than the author
– Responsible assurance of the article’s integrity
and its permanent archiving
– Sustainable business models
• Be mindful not to damage something that
actually works
– It’s not about publishing per se, it’s about
science
OA, Elsevier and the Future
• Like Cornell, we believe that the global market of
scholars will and should decide this issue
• We are sceptical about OA but remain uncommitted
to any particular model
• Business model issues will resolve in their normal
competitive way: those that work will survive
• Evolutionary response by Elsevier to market forces
now and in the future
–
–
–
–
Continued pressure to keep price increases down
Continuous review of our pricing models
Author-posting of final ms. versions on IRs: “GREEN”
Cell Press announcement
• Our Goal:
– Expanding access with sustainable models that allow for
investment for the future and a new Win-Win-Win for
researchers/librarians and publishers