Open Access
Brian Crawford
May 19, 2004
RPAC Conference
American Association of Publishers
What’s in the wind?
- Social thinking says publishers haven’t adapted to the Internet
- Pricing policies contributed to negative publicity
- Dissatisfaction of purchasing power in libraries
- Political Climate
- Encouraging impact studies
- Legislation introduced to place taxpayer research in public domain
- Funding Climate
- R&D sources change how this research fosters sharing
- Business
- New business model playing on open access
- Some déjà vu – based on assumptions tried in print environment but empowered by the web
Two Different business models
o Collaborative development – connected web of content using something like xml tags to enable global virtual archive
o Publishers have embraced this attitude/standards initiative
o This should be defined as broadest model of access without regard to payment
o They extend Open Archives Initiative to make access FREE
o One model – Institution tags material for their staff
§ Also discipline based collections
§ For more detail see Metadata Harvesting and the Open Archives Inititaive
o These lend themselves to author self-archiving
o Basic characteristic – either pre or post peer review is made openly available
o Why is it proposed?
§ Focused on change of scientific communication
§ Federated searches on web with metadata standards- creating some erosion in rights assigned to publisher – idea being that publisher would grant back rights to author that would permit author to post work on institutional server even while publishing work via the publisher
o Prompts review of publishes roles
§ Is peer review separable from archiving
§ Who should archive
§ Proponents claim to provide fast track to universal access
§ A model to reinforce established journals as forums for peer review
§ This would weaken the host (publisher)
o Players
§ OAIster
· OAIster is a project of the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Services, originally funded through a Mellon grant (see the final report). Our goal is to create a collection of freely available, difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources (what are digital resources?) that are easily searchable by anyone.
§ Association of Research Libraries
§
· Open Access Publishing Movement
o Movement focused on radical change
§ Move from reader pays to author pays to gain space
§ No copyright assigned to publisher
§ Could use Creative Commons license
§ Movement characterized by manifestos [check handout]
o New players
§ PLOS
· The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.
· Immediate unrestricted access to scientific ideas, methods, results, and conclusions will speed the progress of science and medicine, and will more directly bring the benefits of research to the public.
· To realize this potential, a new business model for scientific publishing is required that treats the costs of publication as the final integral step of the funding of a research project. To demonstrate that this publishing model will be successful for the publication of the very best research, PLoS will publish its own journals. PLoS Biology launched its first issue on October 13, 2003, in print and online. PLoS Medicine will follow in 2004.
· The argument is
o Publishers use a range of business models. Some do not charge users, preferring to cover costs through sponsorship or advertising; most do impose a charge, either to cover costs or to make a profit. The publishing model based on charging users (ie, subscriptions) has served us well for over 200 years, but it now hinders rather than helps science communication (figure). Research articles, which make up the bulk of scholarly publishing, remain a cash cow for the publishing industry. Journal prices have grown out of proportion with inflation and library budgets, making the research they contain increasingly inaccessible. [Open access to peer-reviewed research: making it happen, Pritpal Tamber, Fiona Godlee, Peter Newmark, The Lancet, November 8, 2003.]
· BioMed Central has developed the technology for groups of researchers to start journals under their own editorial control. But what we offer is more than just technology. All research published in BioMed Central journals is open access - immediately and permanently available online without charge or any other barrier to access. Our new journals, however, have taken this further - their entire content is open access. For some researchers, then, a reason for starting a new journal is to provide an open access alternative to existing journals.
· Over 40 journals have already been launched, and there are more forthcoming.
[Interesting no one sees this as a market response]
[Claims author paid model is really an institution pays model – so how is that different from today?]
[Many criticisms of author paid model focus on the damage to the integrity of peer review. How can it be objective if the author pays? Doesn’t acknowledge how technology can allow true peer-to-peer review, qualified if necessary]
[this whole presentation merits deeper thinking]
Copyright 2004 Jim Flowers
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