Open Access News

(PS: Three quick responses: (1) The editorial was published too early to take into account the last-minute weakening of the NIH policy. Not only is the six-month embargo history, but the permissible delay grew to at least twelve months rather than shrinking to zero. (2) The NIH already allowed, and still allows, its grantees to pay OA journal processing fees with grant funds. If Baxter is proposing to replace NIH-encouraged OA archiving with NIH-funded OA journal publication --which isn't clear--, that would be a mistake. It would limit the body of free online NIH-funded research to the subset that could be published by OA journals. It would also limit NIH-funded authors to a subset of journals, which is not now the case. (3) The full text of Baxter's editorial is free online at Find Articles. Note to Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology: If you allow Find Articles to offer free online full text, why not do it yourself with your own look and feel, your own links, and your own ability to monitor downloads?)

1. Philip Hunter and Michael Day, Institutional repositories, aggregator services and collection development, January 2005. Abstract: 'Institutional repositories are managed collections of the intellectual output of university and other research-based institutions. This report introduces collection development issues from two distinct perspectives. Firstly, it highlights issues that may need to be addressed by institutional repositories as OAI data providers. For example, repositories may need to make decisions on the type, quality and format of content, on submission workflows, rights management, access, sustainability and evaluation. Secondly, the report will consider similar issues from the perspective of third party service providers like ePrints UK that harvest selective metadata from institutional repositories. The concluding section will provide some recommendations on best practice for repositories to support such harvesting.'

2. Philip Hunter, Institutional e-Print Repositories: Business and IPR Issues, March 16, 2005. Abstract: 'A report summarising business models and IPR issues in the context of the e-Prints UK poject.' Excerpt: 'What is not clear so far is how business models might apply to public organisations such as universities, archives, libraries etc. Many if not most public organisations do nevertheless have extant business models, usually in the form of a mission statement or corporate strategy....Most public organisations, in common with large corporate bodies, tend to employ multiple concurrent business models. For example University Libraries will employ a merchant model in its dealings with publishers and a community model in it's dealings with students....The overriding modus operendi for UK public organisations, however, is a model that is essentially fixed by the community through the government. For Universities this model works something like this: The government collects taxes and gives part of that money to educators. The educators increase the potential value of the workforce by producing well educated students. The students join the workforce, earn money and pay tax to the Government. This type of model could be called a social subscription model....Public organisations should embrace the OA approach for the following reasons. Sharing knowledge is a primary function and as we have seen is already written into their business models. It provides one means of conforming to the freedom of information acts - enacted Europe wide in 2000 and 2001....Any organisation using a public subscription model is very likely to be both amenable to and gain benefit from integrating the OA approach. Many private organisations could benefit from the OA approach at some level.'

3. Michael Day, Institutional repositories and research assessment, undated. Abstract: 'This study concerns the potential role of institutional repositories in supporting research assessment in universities with specific reference to the Research Assessment Exercises in the UK. After a brief look at research evaluation methods, it introduces the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), focusing on its role in determining the distribution of research funding, the assessment process itself, and some concerns that have been raised by participants and observers. The study will then introduce institutional repositories and consider the ways in which they might be used to enhance the research assessment process in the UK. It will first consider the role of repositories in providing institutional support for the submission and review process. Secondly, the paper will consider the ways in which citation linking between papers in repositories might be used as the basis for generating quantitative data on research impact that could be used for assessment. Thirdly, this study will consider other ways in which repositories might be able to provide quantitative data, e.g. usage statistics or Webometric link data, which may be able to be used - together with other indicators - to support the evaluation of research.'

These are the second, third, and fourth supporting studies from Eprints UK. The first came out in May 2003: Michael Day, Prospects for institutional e-print repositories in the United Kingdom.

(PS: Google's library project was already admirable. If it starts a new code war, sending files across the globe and developing digital arsenals ready for launch at a moment's notice, then it will be even more admirable. France is right to fight bits with bits, to recognize a digitization gap, and to escalate its cultural scan. Who's next?)

(PS: I don't want to nitpick a friendly editorial, but I have two quick responses. First on the possibility that the NIH policy will "undermine" the system of journals that provide peer review: There are at least eight reasons to think that the NIH policy will not undermine journal subscriptions. In any case, it will certainly not undermine OA journals, which can provide peer review of equal rigor. Second, on the catch-and-release proposal: Authors need the right of immediate self-archiving. Schnoor's proposal seems to permit a six month embargo, even if it doesn't require it. In addition, after a subscription-based journal has recovered its costs, it's enough to let rights revert to the author and provide OA to the back issues. Assigning the articles to the public domain is not strictly necessary. But with these revisions, the idea of temporary transfers of rights from authors to publishers is a promising one that deserves a closer look.)

(PS: If these are veiled references to the NIH public-access policy, then they are way off-base. NIH never asked subscription-based journals to stop charging subscriptions or convert to OA. Subscription-based journals are paid for their added value with subscription revenue. The NIH policy tries to repay researchers and taxpayers for their added value. Does Kennedy want to let subscription-based journals control access to research conducted by others, written up by others, funded by taxpayers, and given to journals without charge?)

Update. Terry's article has stimulated a Slashdot discussion.

(PS: According to Harboe-Ree's position paper earlier this month, the Monash ePress will at first produce priced content. But "[a]fter a period of time, Monash material published by the ePress will be made available on an open access basis.")

(PS: This is very welcome. Not all scholars can afford to take this pledge yet, especially in law where very few law reviews are cooperating. But an author's weight is an undeniable factor in the negotiation with publishers, and Lessig should be able to get what he wants, opening the door a bit further for others. Insisting on a CC license is one good way to take the OA pledge but not the only way. All authors are copyright holders until they transfer copyright to a publisher, and as copyright holders they have the right to deposit their work in an OA repository. Retaining that right after signing a publishing contract is the least that authors should pledge to do, no matter what form that right, permission, or license may take. Note that most surveyed journals already permit postprint archiving by authors. If you have to deal with one that does not, and want some lawyer-crafted language to append to your copyright transfer agreement, enabling you to retain the rights you need to consent to OA, then look at the SPARC Author's Addendum.)

• Lee L. Zia, The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: New Projects from Fiscal Year 2004
• Laura M. Bartolo and four co-authors, NSDL MatDL: Exploring Digital Library Roles
• Shirley Hyatt and Jeffrey A. Young, OCLC Research Publications Repository
• Wilbert Kraan and Jon Mason, Issues in Federating Repositories: A Report on the First International CORDRA Workshop
• Stevan Harnad, The Implementation of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access: Report on the Berlin 3 Meeting Held 28 February - 1 March 2005, Southampton, UK (blogged separately, with excerpts, below)
• Marilynn Lutz, The Maine Music Box
• Ben Lund and three co-authors, Connotea: A Free Online Reference Management Service for Scientists

In order to implement the Berlin Declaration institutions should:

(1) Implement a policy to require their researchers to deposit a copy of all their published articles in an open access repository. and

(2) encourage their researchers to publish their research articles in open access journals where a suitable journal exists and provide the support to enable that to happen.'

(PS: Also see Harboe-Ree's February discussion paper, Managing Australian Research Output For Increased Return On Investment: The Role Of Open Access Institutional Repositories, attached as an appendix to the document above, and also available separately.)

(PS: This is a very significant study. It should put an end to loose talk about the "author pays" model as if it were the only model for OA journals. It will definitely help measure the true cost, e.g. to universities, of supporting OA journals rather than non-OA journals. And it should help non-OA journals more accurately assess the economics of adopting one of the OA business models. I've mentioned before that Cara Kaufman is my sister, and I'll mention it again as a disclaimer. But if anyone thinks that my position on OA undermines Cara's neutrality, then they don't know Cara or the groups that commissioned the Kaufman-Wills study.)

Update. Lila Guterman's article was reprinted in the March 25 issue of the Chronicle under the title, New Study Compares Open-Access and Traditional Publishing.