ScienceOnline'09: Open Access Publishing

After a fantastic Friday afternoon behind-the-scenes tour of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh, ScienceOnline'09 kicked off to a great start Saturday morning with a session on the present and future state of Open Access (OA) publishing, led by Bill Hooker and Bjoern Brembs. Although I (obviously) didn't live blog this year's conference, I took copious notes and will share them as is (well, with erroneous spellings corrected...).

• Peter Suber gave up tenure to promote OA full-time; defines OA literature as "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions"
• online makes OA possible
• fewer than half of OA journals charge fees but because of BMC and PLoS, that is the model most people know
• OA archives can be searched as one virtual archive using OAIster
• ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories) is a list of the green road to OA; place to go to find repository to put your work in
• benefits [of repositories? OA? notes unclear - sorry]: maximizes research efficiency; assessment, monitoring & management; scalability; return on (public) investment
• OA citation advantage is a little controversial, but evidence is mounting
• part of the overlooked argument is scalability: untapped potential of text mining
• iHOP (Information Hyperlinked Over Proteins): pulls sentences out of literature and builds long paragraph of disconnected statements to reorder into brief summary of field; only has PubMed abstracts to mine, not full text
• we have an overwhelming amount of information available
• you can't read 35,000+ papers or even 3800+ reviews but your computer can; it is possible for it to pull out info and aggregate
• GenBank is a great example of what public, open data can do; there now exists a community-wide expectation of openness around gene sequencing
• librarian salaries are keeping pace with CPI but not journal prices
• median annual serials expenditures in 2006: $3m-$12m
• earliest name for OA was Free Online Scholarship
• Bjoern couldn't get access to his own article because his institution's library didn't subscribe to the journal
• food for thought: if overnight the journal publishing industry collapsed, how would you restructure? if you were king for the day, how would you redo the system?
• if the system is faulty, why are so many TA journals (traditional, subscription-based) being created by existing publishers? PROFIT
• societies are also proliferating TA journals; want to serve members, but TA journals rob members of work and money; must acknowledge that while some membership dues include journal subscription, libraries are still required to purchase
• journal quality (i.e., impact factor) proxy for article quality simply does not work [I was amazed at how many people in the room did not seem to realize this; quite worrisome]
• two problems researchers face: 1) how to get research out and used?, and 2) how to assess quality of research?
• right now we are trying to do this together, but ideally in the future needs to be separate
• everybody wants to publish and everybody has to find a place to publish even when it's bad because it is necessary to placate university/institutional demands
• PLoS Biology was never designed to make money but to promote OA and prove that OA journals can be competitive; PLoS One is beginning to make money and subsidizes the other PLoS titles; standard publishing also relies on making money on some "work horse" journals to subsidize the costs of others
• if Einstein can be wrong about quantum physics, we can certainly be wrong in our assessment of individual papers
• people want to read their fields' top-level publications not others
• scholarly enterprise of science doesn't make profit; someone else - often publishers - make profit
• could pay peer-reviewers and archive publications in own libraries' archives/repositories, which makes them accessible to all
• majority of Nobel-winning work rejected from top-tier journals (anecdotal)
• when cost comparisons are made, which is the most efficient way to subsidize publishing: libraries paying subscriptions, or scientists paying OA costs...?
• if a researcher has an annual grant of $250,000, likely not going to balk at paying $1600 to publish in BMC because his/her research would then be open and accessible
• if there is a wash between subscription costs vs. OA charges, then why not shift to OA?
• would shift to OA only force more grant-subsidized research and marginalize non-grant funded researchers? not necessarily because fees may be waived
• what happens if OA publications go under; how is content accessed?; issue of OA publication going under no different than any other e-journal going under, as libraries don't own electronic content anyway; libraries have plans in place to prevent complete loss of access: LOCKSS, CLOCKSS, Portico; many OA journals/articles also archived in PubMed Central and other repositories

Charleston Conference: Open Access

OA Exposed!
Arend Kuester (PCG Europe), Ralf Schimmer (Max Planck Digital Library; submitted comments, unable to attend), Richard Luce (Emory University), Wim van der Stelt (Springer), David Hoole (NPG), gentleman from UC Berkeley (unfortunately didn't catch his name, late addition to panel so not in program)
Friday, November 7, 2008 - Plenary Session, 5:30-6:15pm

Ralf Schimmer (shared by Arend Kuester):

• OA can't rely on IRs alone
• requires comprehensive approach between researchers & communities, institutions, libraries
• libraries no longer an end to themselves, but also no longer alone
• OA debate will not be over money but ownership

David Hoole:

• for publishers, OA question still much about business models
• green OA has been around a long time when you consider author archiving/posting on website
• most commercial publishers offer a hybrid model
• ultimately comes down to what authors decide to do since we've got lots of options (green, gold, hybrid)
• can we get benefits of text mining without self-archiving? depends on format of OA version
• NPG thinks gold OA incompatible with top journals that have high rejection rates

Richard Luce:

• OA question of requirements in place, or that need to be in place, for escience and eresearch
• SCOAP3: fund via fair share model; came out of CERN
• only works if every country on-board; US share approx. 24%; in US, can't make national pledge to SCOAP3
• once critical mass of pledges reached, journals in HEP (high energy physics) would be unbundled and subscriptions lowered
• approx. 53% of funds have been pledged; in US, little over 50% pledged but need more
• great opportunity to equalize playing field and experiment, even if physics isn't a big part of the universities' focus

Wim van der Stelt:

• Springer is taking a very serious stand on OA, as it doesn't think it is going away, at least for some fields
• lots of reasons authors don't opt for hybrid (too burdensome)
• libraries and publishers should work together to help authors understand and achieve
• not necessarily in favor [of OA] but wants to see if there is a role to be played
• exploring OA for faculty as part of library subscription costs; working with libraries in Europe, soon the US
• acquisition of BMC doesn't mean anything other than Springer bought another company that it believes is a viable business; also gives Springer a stronger position in the life sciences

Berkeley representative:

• provides public access on site to Berkeley research
• promotion of Berkeley research big initiative of Office of Research
• Office of Research and library created the OA fund: Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII)
• BRII also established to get sense among faculty of how much they are taking advantage of OA options
• recent Ithaka report identified the top two issues of importance for faculty when publishing: 1) widely read, and 2) no cost to faculty; openness was at the bottom of scale of importance
• BRII will fund up to $3000 for gold OA, up to $1500 for green OA
• library's role must be highlighted

Q&A:

• Q: are we really able to control authors?
• A: don't really want to; as authors' methods change our question should be how do our methods change to support them
• Q: assuming all literature will eventually be freely available, and money will be made by additional services provided on top of access, who will do this: libraries, publishers, Google?
• A: is this possible? where will money to come from to cover costs come of making articles available, even as additional top-level services are offered?
• Q: why should libraries/librarians administer campus OA funds? what skills do they have? why not another department?
• A: libraries/librarians have no vested interest in any subject/domain; doesn't scrutinize publication for quality just qualification of publishing place; no unique skills are claimed - may not be part of future fund administration; if Nature or Science were to go OA and charge $30,000/article then funds would become politicized; librarians teach author rights and understand economic landscape of scholarship costs so knowledge is there to be tapped into with funds and OA publishing support; departmental involvement might lead to conflicts of interest with fund distribution

Scholarly Communications Workshop Podcasts

After a longer than anticipated delay, the podcasts from the March 13, 2008, WFU Libraries Scholarly Communications Workshop are now available. Audio from the three presentations, as well as the opening remarks by Lynn Sutton, Director, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, can be accessed from ZSR's workshop webpage. Please note that the presentation for Framing the Issues begins around 4 minutes into the podcast.

UPDATE: The audio for Framing the Issues has been edited to remove the extended introductory remarks, and now covers only the presentation.

WFU Libraries Scholarly Communications Workshop

For those who were unable to join us for last week's Scholarly Communications Workshop, visit ZSR's workshop webpage to view the archived PowerPoint presentations, see the SPARC Open Access brochure distributed to participants, and find links to resources mentioned throughout the workshop. Be sure to check back next week for presentation podcasts. For notes on the presentations, check out Lauren Pressley's blog.

As always, feel free to contact me, or any of the Scholarly Communications Committee members, with questions!

Revised NIH Public Access Policy

Last Friday, the NIH released its revised Public Access Policy in response to the Congressional mandate to upgrade public archiving compliance to a funding requirement. Over the weekend, the NIH subsequently redesigned the Policy website, including the FAQs. I encourage you to visit the site and read through the FAQs, but in the meantime, here are the highlights:

• April 7, 2008 - date the Policy goes into effect; applies to grants and cooperative agreements active in Fiscal Year 2008 (Oct. 1, 2007-Sept. 30, 2008) and beyond, as well as to any contracts signed on or after the effective date
• May 25, 2008 - all applications, proposals and progress reports must include the PubMed Central ID number (PMCID) when citing articles that are affected by the policy; this includes articles not only authored/co-authored by the investigator, but any papers stemming from his or her award
• As of Jan. 14, 313 journals deposit articles into PMC on behalf of authors, so if papers are published in these journals, no further action is needed
• Non-compliance is "not a factor in the evaluation of grant applications," but "may delay or prevent awarding of funds"
• Articles submitted to PMC that stem from research funded by multiple awards only need to be archived once, as more than one award funding number can be attached to the record
• NIH revised the estimated number of articles published annually stemming from NIH-funded research to 80,000 articles

If you have any questions, please contact Molly Keener at 716-4203 or mkeener [at] wfubmc.edu

NIH mandate date: April 7

The NIH announced today that the revised public access policy mandating archiving in PMC goes into effect April 7, 2008, *MUCH* sooner than I (and likely many others) had hoped for. The official release can be found here, and Peter Suber’s blog announcement – how I learned of it – can be found here.

More information will be coming, but for now I’m heading home to enjoy a feast of crow with a big grin on my face!

Mandate victory for NIH

On December 26, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (H.R. 2764), which includes a provision (Division G, Title II, General Provisions, Section 218) directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to strengthen its previously voluntary Public Access Policy from a request to a requirement. Here is what the law stipulates:

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

This means that all articles accepted for publication in scholarly journals that stem from research funded in whole or in part by awards from the NIH must be archived in PubMed Central (PMC)—approximately 65,000 peer-reviewed articles annually. Although there are several hundred journals automatically archived in PMC by publishers, the responsibility for ensuring deposit falls on the authors themselves. Fortunately, Carpenter Library links to several tools to help authors – or those persons designed to make PMC submissions on their behalf – navigate the publishing and depositing process.

Although this is the first instance of the U.S. Government mandating free public accessibility to research funded by a major agency, this is not the first mandate on the scene. The NIH mandate joins company with another 20 funder, 11 institutional and 3 departmental mandates, including those from the Wellcome Trust, 6 of 7 UK Research Councils, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

For further analysis of the NIH mandate victory, see the January issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, and Gavin Baker’s response and predictions.

It will likely be some time before the NIH issues the new policy; in the meantime you can familiarize yourself with the deposit process by complying with the voluntary Public Access Policy. If you have questions or concerns, or would like to request a group presentation on the current Public Access Policy and PubMed Central, contact Molly Keener at 716-4203 or mkeener [at] wfubmc.edu.

Update: NIH Public Access Mandate

Although I realize this blog is a platform for bringing fellow staff up-to-speed on information gleaned from various meetings and conferences we attend, I wanted to take this opportunity to update everyone on recent Congressional action that, if signed into law, will have significant impact for our campus.

Last week, the Senate passed an appropriations bill that includes language that would strengthen the current NIH Public Access Policy from a request to a mandate, making manuscript archiving in PubMed Central a condition of receiving NIH funding. In July, the House passed a similar bill also stipulating a mandate. Both bills are now in conference to be reconciled before being sent to the President. Unfortunately, due to disagreements over funding, the President has threatened to veto this bill. Although the veto threat is not over the proposed NIH Public Access Mandate, lobbyists are working hard to see that the mandate language is removed altogether. In fact, although they were withdrawn before the final Senate vote, publisher lobbyists were successful in persuading Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) to attach two amendments to the bill that would have rendered the mandate language null.

If this bill becomes law with the mandate provision intact, here is what you need to know:

• The NIH Public Access Mandate would apply to any research article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal (both traditional and open access journals) that stems from research funded in whole or in part by NIH awards
• Authors would be responsible for ensuring that a copy of their final peer-reviewed manuscript (commonly known as a postprint) is archived in PubMed Central within 12 months of publication
• The mandate would be fully compliant with existing U.S. copyright law, and although it would be wise for our faculty authors to retain their copyrights when publishing, they may still transfer their copyrights to publishers AND archive their postprints in PMC; approx. 70% of publisher policies already enable authors to archive postprints in either institutional or subject repositories; publisher archiving policies may be searched using the SHERPA-RoMEO database
• Approx. 68% of all external research funding at WFUHS in the past five fiscal years came from NIH (this excludes any subcontract awards)
• Currently, voluntary compliance to the NIH Public Access Policy by WFUHS faculty authors is consistent with the national average – around 5%; however, because publishers can also contribute publications to PMC, closer to 10% of WFUHS faculty-authored journal articles are freely accessible in PMC
• In anticipation of a mandate, and to highlight papers already in PMC, a field for the PMCID (the unique identifier assigned to archived articles) has been added to the Faculty Publications input screen in PeopleSoft; by including the PMCID, users who search Fac Pubs will be able to link directly to those articles

Please see the November issue of the SPARC Open Access Newsletter for Peter Suber's recap of the NIH Public Access Policy/Mandate progress to date and explanation of what to expect in the future.

There has been interesting discussion about the NIH Public Access Mandate and its implications on the Liblicense listserv in recent days. You can read the archived discussion that took place in October here, and the ongoing discussion here. As you can imagine, confusion over this mandate and its effects on scholarly publishing is rampant, and debates over the necessity of open/public access mandates are rife with misinformation and misunderstanding. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

Copyright Utopia, Day 2 - Open Access Panel Discussion

Closed is Not Necessarily the Opposite of Open: Open Access Initiatives
Paul Jaeger (moderator), Ann Bartow, Brian Crawford, Heather Joseph, Denise Troll Covey

This session was remarkably hostile, and unfortunately, given the complexity of the topic, did little to clarify the issue at hand: Open Access and its potential for radical (and in my opinion, greatly needed) change in the scholarly communications arena. While I don't claim to be an OA expert, I do feel that I have a solid understanding of the principles and issues, and this session made me anxious and frustrated as I realized that people without my background were undoubtedly more confused afterward than before we even began. Despite Heather Joseph's "modern interpretive copyright dance," the session was truly characterized by the following phrases (supplied by panelists, not audience): "pit bull", "fired up", "drank a bottle of Tabasco." Nevertheless, there were good points made, which I share below.

• faculty are more concerned with what their peers are doing with OA journals, not about the dysfunction in scholarly communications or serials pricing
• if everyone waits to see what their peers do (chicken & egg issue), then nothing will change!
• to get faculty to go green, must understand current culture in order to change it
• advancement & stature in field are key issues for faculty, not public access; faculty don't understand that there is an access issue...until you cancel journals
• if ILL changes to strict document delivery (current section 108 review) then faculty will likely become interested in publicly accessible materials
• lobby for OA resolution to be adopted by Faculty Senate
• publishing agreements are contracts, and contracts are negotiable
• what is in it for individual researchers? what are the carrots?
• only through use of research findings by others is research impact maximized

State of the State

STATE OF THE STATE: SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION IN NORTH CAROLINA
APRIL 27, 2007 – ELLIOTT UNIVERSITY CENTER, UNCG, GREENSBORO
SPONSOR: COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY SECTION OF THE NC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

Scholarly Communications: An Introduction – Rosann Bazirjian, UNCG
· Scholarly journal publishers are charging more for electronic than print, even though cost of creation may be less
· SC needs to be understood not only as a way to solve the serials crisis for libraries, but also as a way to aid dissemination of research
· The promotion & tenure process – requirement of publishing in high impact journals – perpetuates the continuation of the crisis
· “Author pays” OA models seen as vanity presses
· Plagiarism fears cloud understanding of OA, despite the fact that copyright/IP violations happen within the traditional publishing structure
· Simple continuation of the existing publishing model is ill-advised as it gives publishers the right to prohibit use, even by authors themselves
· Institutional repositories (IRs) are part of the solution to the SC crisis; also demonstrate university’s value, quality to the world at largeIR=capture, collect, preserve

The ABC’s of Scholarly Communicaiton – Cat Saleeby McDowell, UNCG
· Why a crisis?:
o Loss of access to scholarly research literature due to rising prices and subsequent fewer subscriptions
o Reliance on core publications entrenched in tenure
o Impact factors emphasize the quality of the journal title, NOT the quality of the articles (assume articles must be good if in certain journals)
o US anti-trust laws lax on publishers, so lots of big fish eating little fish mergers
o Libraries committing more money to fewer publishers
· Open Access (OA)=immediate, free, online, unrestricted
· Catalog OA journals and include titles in subject guides one way to promote
· Although IRs are part of the answer, they should not be undertaken lightly
· Average startup cost of IRs $182,000, mean is $45,000; includes salary of staff, server cost, learning time, training, etc.
· 9 largest US IRs at institutions in the top 100 colleges/universities in the nation
· Only 13% of IRs’ faculty scholarship (which accounts for only 37% of total) is peer-reviewed
· Bring out the dollar signs when educating administrators
· Target “movers & shakers” among faculty, as well as those serving as editors
· “Sneak” into another meeting to sharing OA/IR information with faculty
· Have workshop on publishing as a whole, with part devoted to OA, for junior faculty, post docs, grad students
· Common resistance to OA/IR:
o Invested in traditional publishing model (tenure)
o Peer-review concerns
o Journal impact factors
o Disciplinary vs. institutional repositories (faculty more committed to subject than institution)
o Plagiarism
· Research showed that if IRs went live without 100-200 items, it was hard to grow and prove need

Implementing an Institutional Repository: Decisions and Experiences – Stephen Westman, UNCC
· Building an IR is a large-scale, complex project
· Define what you mean by “stewardship” of digital materials at the beginning
· Determine type of structure desired: document management system vs. scholarly repository
· Plan, plan, plan!
· Make sure you have explicit buy-in and commitment for ongoing support
· Do not underestimate importance of marketing and PR
· Keep project faculty-focused; let them feel ownership
· Tie to faculty benefits (what’s in it for them?):
o Stable, long-term access and preservation with permanent URL
o Increased circulation, hence increased citations (show how many times item has been downloaded) o Ability to do full text searching
· Have an elevator speech prepared
· Communicate early and often (should be two-way)
· Future migration costs need to be thought about, even thought this likely won’t be an issue in near future

Care about Your Copyrights – Peggy Hoon, NCSU
· Technologies have forced copyright onto center stage
· Does institution have policy that addresses copyright ownership? Most allow faculty to retain copyright
· Intellectual property (IP) is an individual’s most valuable asset; for researchers, this is what they live and train for
· Copyright holder is in the driver’s seat with respect to how work can be accessed and used
· Copyright transfers must be in writing and signed
· Copyright is actually a bundle of rights:
o Reproduction
o Modification
o Distribution
o Public performance
o Public display
o Public performance of sound recording by digital transmission
· If authors sign away all copyright, they will likely experience future limitations
· Authors can:
o Completely transfer copyright
o Transfer but retain some rights for self and/or institution
o Keep copyright and only license to other entity
· Advice has shifted from “keep your copyright” to “keep the rights you need, as many as you can, for as many people as you can”
o Less threatening for publishers
o Faculty not responsible for granting use permissions; publishers have copyright and therefore field such requests
· Don’t be afraid to negotiate – the publisher is obviously interested in the work

Panel Discussion – Rebecca Kemp, UNCW (moderator); Allan Scherlen, ASU; Evelyn Council, FSU; Kate McGraw, UNC; Kevin Smith, Duke; Peter Fritzler, UNCW
· Author addendum, even if pushed back, leave open possibility for negotiation
· Addendum at least get authors to understand copyright issues; way to get faculty – and publishers – thinking about copyright and future use
· UNC established OA fund to supply authors with money to pay publishing fees; not highly used but good marketing tool; excludes authors whose grant award provides publication fee coverage
· “Squeeky wheel”, “under the table” publishing agreements brought out by publishers when authors push for rights retention
· Grad students a better audience than faculty for OA, IR, copyright retention
· UNCW librarians targeted NIH researchers to jointly learn how PubMed Central works
· Easier inroads with individual, small groups, departmental groups of faculty
· Highlight early adopters
· Start at individual-level interest (appeal point)
· IR provides snapshot of what the institution can offer to the world
· Establish identity for IR – let this be a choice that is made, not one dictated by what happens as it evolves

Expanding publishing impact

Publishing choices: Know your rights and expand your impact!
April 25, 2007
UNC Health Sciences Library, Chapel Hill, NC
Guest speaker: Heather Joseph, Director, SPARC
Panelists: Sarah Michalak (moderator), Deborah Gerhardt, Julia Cleaver, Brad Hemminger

• Open Access (OA) should be understood as a vision, not a specific model
• Goal of OA is to lift barriers to both access and use
• In paper world, distribution was a value added service of journal publishers; not so in digital world
• Of great value to researchers is OA's advantage in research impact: wider audience=more impact
• OA not only about seeing and reading, but about using articles/research in new ways
• Number of OA journals (in DOAJ) rose 25% in 2006!
• When launching an institutional repository, must consider what an OA repository means for the campus community, institution...
• Copyright is "showered" on authors as they write and is theirs alone until they sign it away
• $19billion publishing industry in 2006
• Dissemination is becoming understood as an essential, inseparable process of research
• Copyright is a default in our government; even without filing for official registration, authors have very strong rights/protections, including the right to make derivatives
• T. Brody, Southampton Univ., has shown that self-archiving positively increases citation impact (50-250%)
• "You don't ask, you don't get": authors need to think about how they might want to use their work in the future and tell publishers upfront
• Although UNC (and several other institutions) created an institutional author addendum for authors to attach when signing publishing contracts to only share non-exclusive copy right with publishers, there is a risk that if the market is flooded with too many variations, publishers will reject them en masse, simply because it is too much work sifting through them all; a better route will likely be to either stipulate upfront what rights the author wishes to retain, or to use generic addendum such as that provided by SPARC or the Science Commons Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine