Open Access: What it can do
for science and scholarship
“The Role Of The Scientific Journal:
First, to place before the general public the grand results of Scientific work and Scientific discovery; and to urge the claims of Science to a more general recognition in Education and daily
life.
Secondly, to aid scientific men themselves, by giving early information of all advances made in any branch of natural knowledge throughout the
world, and by affording them an opportunity of discussing the various scientific questions that
“At a time when the journal has become the primary vehicle for communicating research results …. libraries are finding it difficult to maintain, let alone expand, their journal
collections ….” “…. It is becoming increasingly clear that the current scientific communication process is not working in the best interests of the scientific community, nor in the best
interests of society as a whole.”
Stephen Pinfield, 2005
What has happened in the last
130 years?
The number of scientific research
journals has grown, and grown, and
grown…
Journal prices have risen - much faster
than inflation. Since 1986:
One result …
The ‘Men of Science’ do not have
access to all the scientific
literature they need to enable
‘Old’ paradigms
Using proxy measures of an individual
scholar’s merit
It is a journal’s responsibility to
disseminate your work
Printed article is the format of record
Other scholars have time to search out
‘New’ paradigms
Rich, deep, broad metrics for measuring
the contributions of individual scholars
Effective dissemination of your work is
now in your hands (at last)
The digital format will be the format of
record (is already in many areas)
Unless you routinely publish in Nature or
“Just funding the research is a job
only part done. A fundamental
part of [our] mission is to ensure
the widest possible dissemination
and unrestricted access to that
research.”
Robert Terry
What Open Access is about
Freely available
Publicly available
The World Wide Web has
enabled Open Access to science
Not constrained by the limitations of
print on paper
Available to any individual with
Internet access, worldwide
With proper arrangements in place,
What Open Access is not about
NOT vanity publishing or
self-publishing
NOT about non-peer-reviewed
literature
NOT about publications that scholars
Why researchers publish their work
0 20 40 60 80 100
% respondents
‘Open Access’?
A much better term to use is
Who benefits from Open Access?
Scholars – as authors
Scholars – as readers
Scholars – as teachers
Universities
Research funders
Taxpayers and society at large
Open Access increases citations
0 50 100 150 200 250
% increase in citations with Open Access
Biology Economics Political Sci Health Sci Business Education Management Law Psychology Sociology Physics
Range = 50%-200%
Open access increases citations
(further studies)
Lawrence 2001 (computer science) Kurtz 2004 (astronomy)
Brody & Harnad 2004 (all disciplines) Antelman 2005 (philosophy, politics,
“Self-archiving in the PhilSci Archive
has given instant world-wide visibility
to my work. As a result, I was invited
to submit papers to refereed
international conferences/journals
and got them accepted.”
Two ways to provide Open Access
Publish in an Open Access
journal (see
www.doaj.org
)
Deposit copies of published
Open Access journals
‘New’ Open Access publishers
BioMedCentral
Public Library of Science
c2000 Open Access journals in existence
‘Traditional’ publishers offering a
Self-archiving
Subject-centred repositories (e.g. arXiv)
Institutional repositories
Subject coverage reflects institution
Interoperable
(Open ArchivesInitiative-compliant)
Global interlinked network – a
Open Access repositories
How are the authors responding?
24% have submitted an article to an
Open Access journal (49% intend to)
22% have deposited an article in an
Open Access institutional repository
15% have deposited an article in a
An institutional repository provides
researchers with:
Secure storage (for completed work
An author said…
“This is a very handy way to
An institutional repository provides
researchers with:
Secure storage (for completed work
and for work-in-progress)
A location for supporting data that are
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 % r e sp o n d e n ts Postprint Conference paper Preprint Technical report Working paper Book chapter
An institutional repository
provides researchers with:
Secure storage (for completed work
and for work-in-progress)
A location for supporting data that
are unpublished
One-input-many outputs (CVs,
What discourages self-archiving?
“ I worry about copyright
Publisher permissions
(by journal)
79% 13%
8%
Publisher permissions
92% of journals permit self-archiving
SHERPA/RoMEO list at:
www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php
What discourages self-archiving?
“I worry about copyright
infringement”
What discourages self-archiving?
“I worry about copyright
infringement”
“It will be too difficult”
Under an hour 23%
More than a day
3% 3-4 hours
2%
What can encourage self-archiving?
Highlighting the increased visibility and
impact
Author readiness to comply with a
mandate
0 20 40 60 80 100
Institutions with a mandate already
University of Southampton School of
Electronics & Computer Science (since 2003) (90+% compliance already)
CERN (2003) (90% compliance already) University of Southampton (2004)
Queensland University of Technology
(2004) (40%+ compliance and growing)
Wellcome Trust:
World’s largest private
funder of biomedical (and
allied) research
Spends c£400 million per
“Just funding the research is a job
only part done. A fundamental
part of [our] mission is to ensure
the widest possible dissemination
and unrestricted access to that
research.”
Robert Terry
Wellcome Trust
Issued a Position Statement on Open
and Unrestricted Access to Published Research
Amended its Grant Conditions
accordingly
The Wellcome Trust policy on OA
Requires
self-archiving of articles
