To broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access

October 18 to 24 has been selected for International Open Access Week 2010. Please stay tuned to this site for updates on the program and registration when it opens.

This week has seen “Open Access Week” with large numbers of events, announcements and similar awareness-raising activities. It’s an excellent indication of the current environment that we can talk about having an open access week — an international open access week — quite seriously and have a sufficiently large number of events and engagement to back up the rhetoric. Authored by Bill Hubbard, JISC Research Communications Strategist, Head of Centre for Research Communications, http://researchcommunications.jiscinvolve.org/2009/10/22/open-access-week-the-challenge-from-the-wellcome-trust/

JISC has been active in this, being a joint organiser of Open Access Week itself, as well as many of its projects either putting on events, releasing updates, upgrades or announcements. JISC has released a booklet, which makes interesting reading which reviews its achievements in its continued and long-term support of open access. The whole field has now been going for long enough for developments to be tracked over time. A summary of JISC’s achievements is available online, including the fact that it has been active in this area for over 10 years.

There have been several number-based announcements this week that on reflection are actually quite significant indicators of scale and pace — the University of Salford announcing the world’s 100th open-access mandate; OpenDOAR putting in its 1,500th repository; the fifth birthday of PLoS Medicine — all signs of the scale of open access and further evidence that this is very probably now truly an unstoppable movement.

If this is unstoppable, then whatever the timescale the alarm bell has to ring and businesses (not just publishers — including universities) have to accept that change is inevitable and plan quite carefully to deal with it.

For some years it has been apparent that significant change to traditional publication is coming in some form. Here I am including e-journals as pretty much a translation of traditional publishing into another medium, rather than a true change in product, process or business model: the true change has yet to roll-out. Open access is just one thread in a changing environment of business and investment practices, public and academic expectations, and the requirements from other technical and social developments in scholarly communication.

As in any period of rapid evolution, some smaller, fragile players may disappear, often because it is in the nature of small fragile players to be unstable. Some more major players will survive because their sheer size means that they can take an inefficiency hit during transition, while others will diminish because their size has bought inertia. But whatever the size — businesses will have to respond. In dealing with this larger change, at least there are business models available to help deal with that part of developments which is open access.

Four years ago the Wellcome Trust, after producing a report on open access publishing, introduced the idea that they would pay for open access publication as an additional charge, to give publishers additional income on top of normal subscriptions. This was not simply a reward for offering an open access option, but a deliberate offer to help fund a transition period while publishers experimented with and adopted true open access business models.

So far, evidence for any reduction in serials’ subscription costs as a result of additional open access income has been thin on the ground, with the OUP being a notable exception. Publishers say, with some justification, that it can be difficult to balance a true pro-rata reduction in subscriptions to open access income: however, there is an existing and growing expectation on behalf of subscribers that change now has to be seen.

It is for this reason that I think that one of the most significant developments this week has been a press release from the Wellcome Trust.

In this, Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, comments:

“We would like to see a commitment from publishers to show the uptake of their open access option and to adjust their subscription rates to reflect increases in income from open access fees,” says Sir Mark. “Some publishers, for example Oxford University Press, have already done this and we would like to see all publishers behave the same way.”

The fact that this view is now being openly stated - by those that are providing the funding - puts further pressure on the pace of change.

In terms of numbers, some truly significant numbers are those from the Houghton Report, showing a financial benefit to the UK overall simply from greater accessibility to research in the government-funded sector of an additional £172 million per year. For higher education institutions, a shift from subscription to open access publishing has been identified as giving a potential of £80 million of savings. This report was produced in January 2009 and with an openness to match its subject, the model itself made available for use by anybody who wanted to use different financial assumptions. To my knowledge, there has still not been a serious challenge to these original estimates.

In the coming squeeze on public finances, which will be deep and last long, it is inevitable that numbers like this will attract attention. It is likely that the change coming down the track will now come very fast and will require businesses on both sides of the equation to be inventive and agile in their response. The Wellcome Trust statement is one that cannot be ignored.

Trinity University’s faculty members endorsed a measure to allow them to bypass some publication restrictions while sharing their scholarly research with the broader academic community.

Trinity becomes the first small, primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution to pass such a measure, known as Open Access.

The new Open Access policy also would enable Trinity professors to post the author’s version of the article in a freely-accessible digital repository. Such a repository already exists as part of the Liberal Arts Scholarly Repository, a collaboration among Trinity and other private liberal arts colleges, including Carleton College, Bucknell University, Grinnell College, University of Richmond, St. Lawrence University, and Whitman College.

The vote sends a message from Trinity to other primarily undergraduate institutions to act regarding the future of the publishing world, [economics professor Jorge G. Gonzalez] said.

Trinity’s Faculty Senate approved the proposal in late September. The vote by the full faculty on Friday, Oct. 23 was taken at an assembly during International Open Access Week

 
The California Academy of Sciences (CAS) http://www.calacademy.org/about/ celebrates Open Access  Week through their Science in Action exhibit featuring Public Library of Science http://www.plos.org/  and Breast Cancer Action http://www.bcaction.org/.  This video is part of their exhibit in the musuem which explains how Open Access medical research is for researchers and scientitsts but also a benefit for everyone’s  health

CAS is a world-class scientific and cultural institution based in San Francisco. The Academy recently opened a new facility in Golden Gate Park, a 400,000 square foot structure that houses an aquarium, a planetarium a natural history museum and a 4-story rainforest all under one roof.

The Information Society Project at Yale Law School (Yale ISP) today launched three new reports on the state of access to knowledge in comparative national perspective. The new works feature research on challenges of intellectual property and innovation in three developing countries. The launch is timed to coincide with the first-ever international celebration of Open Access Week, October 19-23, 2009.

Open Access Week seeks to raise awareness of the importance of open access to research. In today’s world, proper use of digital publication platforms and open copyright licenses can greatly facilitate the spread and impact of academic research. Consistent with these values, the research launched this week carries Creative Commons licenses and is available for free download at the Yale ISP website.

In developing the reports, the Yale ISP partnered with academic institutions abroad at the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Addis Abeba, and the University of Cape Town. Research teams within these and other institutions have joined with the Yale ISP to form the A2K Global Academy, a network of academic centers dedicated to research, education, and policy analysis promoting access to knowledge.

The project has already resulted in two books, both forthcoming from the open access publishing imprint Bloomsbury Academic this winter: Access to Knowledge in Brazil: New Research on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development, and Access to Knowledge in Egypt: New Research on Intellectual Property, Innovation and Development.

Research examining related topics in India and China was launched in August 2009. The newest installment, featuring insights into the state of access to knowledge in Argentina, Ethiopia, and South Africa, completes the series of seven reports. Topics addressed by the research include: open source software, alternative business models for cultural production, exceptions and limitations to copyright, ICT for development, access to medicines, open educational resources, technological standards, and biotechnology.

The three-year research project was supported with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as part of an initiative supporting international academic collaboration on access to knowledge challenges and opportunities.

“Innovation is the basis for economic growth and finding solutions to pressing problems,” said Lea Shaver, director of the ISP’s research program in access to knowledge. “But law and policy do not always support innovation optimally, nor ensure that new knowledge spreads as widely as it could. This research offers important guidance to policymakers, particularly in the context of developing countries.”

Continuing its academic work in this area, the Yale ISP will host a major conference on access to knowledge and human rights on February 12-13, 2010 at Yale Law School.

The Yale Information Society Project is an intellectual center at Yale Law School that studies the implications of new information technologies for law and society, guided by values of democracy, human rights, and innovation. For more information, visit isp.law.yale.edu.

“We Build the Road By Walking It” was the slogan for a very tentative beginning to bring awareness about Open Access on campus which quickly gained momentum as the campus community became enthusiastic about it. On May 2009, the Senate of the University of Pretoria adopted a policy for mandatory submission of research papers by its staff, students and other affiliates. http://www.library.up.ac.za/openup/mandates.htm.

To read about the first African open access institutional mandate and how they accomplished this please go to the following link: http://www.library.up.ac.za/openup/docs/UPmandateAfrica.pdf.

Additional Open Access Activates on Campus:

As part of its OA Day celebrations ( http://www.library.up.ac.za/openup/oaday.htm) the University of Pretoria Library Services launched its list of Accredited Open Access Journals ­ South Africa (AOAJSA) ( http://www.library.up.ac.za/aoajsa.htm

Web of Science Science Citation Index Expanded
Web of Science Social Sciences Citation Index
Web of Science Arts & Humanities Citation Index
IBSS Journal List
DoE List of Accredited South African Journals

In South Africa university researchers will not publish in open access journals unless they are also seen to be reputable and the publication fee is affordable.  Accreditation by the DoE is viewed a basic indicator of a journal’s reputation and publishing in one of these journals will earn the university and the researcher some money.

University of Pretoria also decided to use the annual OA Day to review the progress that we are making with open access and have created an OA Scorecard (http://www.library.up.ac.za/openup/scorecard.htm).

Concordia University Libraries is proud to mark international Open Access Week (October 19-23) with the launch of Spectrum: Concordia University Research Repository. Spectrum http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/ is a new digital resource which, in keeping with the university’s strategic plan to develop community engagement and social responsibility, can make Concordia scholarship freely accessible to everyone via the internet.

Spectrum currently contains the full text of over 6000 theses and dissertations produced at the university from 1967 to 2003. It also offers Concordia faculty and researchers an additional venue for sharing their research using a simple process of self-submission. The name Spectrum reflects the variety of original research and creative activity that characterizes the scholarly output of Concordia University. The database, in development since 2007, is an initiative of the Concordia University Libraries supported by the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Graduate Studies.

“I am delighted to see the launch of this significant new resource,” said Louise Dandurand, Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies. “The creation of a Research Repository speaks to Concordia’s commitment to increase its contribution to world knowledge and promote public access to the results of publicly funded research.”

“Research deposited in Spectrum is highly visible, because the site will be searchable using popular search engines such as Google and Google Scholar,” added Jocelyn Godolphin, Associate University Librarian for Collection Services. “Concordia University now joins some 1200 other repositories round the world in providing a university-wide open access repository which will increase accessibility and preserve the scholarship produced by Concordia University researchers.”

CARL has became a founding member of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) http://www.driver-repository.eu/DRIVER-COAR.html . COAR is an international association of organizations that have a common strategic interest in open access to scholarly communication. COAR was formed out of a need to work together at the international level to promote greater visibility and application of research outputs through global networks of open access digital repositories.

Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has played a leadership role in the development of open access repositories in Canada. Through the CARL Institutional Repositories Program, the Association has assisted its members in setting up repositories on their campuses; and worked with other research organizations in Canada and internationally in support of open access. Participation in COAR is a natural extension of these activities. “We are delighted to announce our membership in COAR,” said Tom Hickerson, chair of the CARL Institutional Repositories Working Group and Vice-President/President-Elect of CARL. “COAR membership offers CARL and Canadian research libraries the opportunity to have a greater influence on the direction and expansion of open access world-wide”.

COAR evolved out of a European project called the Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research (DRIVER) in consultation with the international repository community. The Confederation aims to support the expansion of open access through developing international, interoperable standards; advocating for open access policies with research funders and institutions; and working to improve deposit rates at repositories. Other founding members of COAR are from Europe, Asia, and the United States. “The collections contained in open access repositories gain tremendous value when they are part of a larger, interconnected network,” said Norbert Lossau, Scientific Coordinator of the DRIVER Project. “CARL’s membership creates an important strategic link between Canada and the international community.“

COAR was officially launched in Ghent, Belgium during Open Access Week.

 ”We are really  pleased to present our short overview guide to our Open Access work over recent years in an ‘interactive pdf’ format - click on the images to hear interviews and perspectives on why and how we currently support Open Access, and likewise click on any of the inside back cover ‘tag cloud’  links to access overviews of the many reports in this area that we have commissioned over the years.

(Click on image to go to PDF)

Executive Secretary, JISC — Malcolm Reed 

CEO, JISC Collection — Lorraine Estelle

JISC  IE  Programme Manager — Andy McGregory

JISC  IE  Programme Manager — Neil Jacobs

View the new JISC Open Access website

Opening the knowledge base to all means more researchers can build on it and there is less duplication of effort. Researchers can reach a greater audience and find that their work is more widely read and cited, institutions gain an enhanced reputation as their research becomes more visible, funding agencies see a greater return on their investment, and publishers find that the impact of their journals increases.  JISC has been at the forefront of the Open Access debate from the very beginning

As a result, publicly-funded research has more impact and society as a whole benefits.

JISC has been at the forefront of the Open Access debate from the very beginning. In the UK it is supporting institutions in the move to greater Open Access by funding programmes to build and enhance institutional Open Access repositories. It is helping researchers to use those repositories more effectively, and making it easier for them to do so through technology. JISC is also working with publishers to explore new business models for Open Access scholarly communications. Internationally, JISC is engaging with the wider academic research community and with policy-makers to transform attitudes towards Open Access within Europe and beyond.

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) announced (Google translation) on October 13 that it would offer funding to universities to support OA author funds.

The main idea behind the funding programme is that universities can apply for DFG-funding which the university then can spend in order to finance publications in true open access journals by researchers of the university. The reason that only the university as an institution (and not the individual researchers) can apply is that only institutions will be able to create sustainable structures for covering article processing charges. It will be important, though, that the structures universities are going to establish are a proper service to their researchers.