CREATING CHANGE IN EUROPE : SPARC EUROPE AND THE BUDAPEST OPEN ACCESS INITIATIVE

Frederick J. FriendHonorary Director Scholarly Communication University College LondonSPARC Senior ConsultantOSI Information Program Senior Consultantf.friend@ucl.ac.uk

What is wrong with the current publishing model?

Rise in journal prices restricting access to scholarship

Access restricted not only for scientific and medical users but also for humanities and social sciences as journal publishers use higher proportion of budgets

Small publishers threatened by dominance of major publishers

Future access uncertain because dependent upon publishers’ archiving and pricing policies

Copyright signed away by authors used by publishers to create monopoly

Restricted access works against world-wide growing need for information as the driver for economic and social development

Today’s reality : the effect of journal prices in the US and the UK

The vision of tomorrow’s reality

“An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds. Removing access barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common intellectual conversation and quest for knowledge.” Budapest Open Access Initiative http://www.soros.org/openaccess/

Looking for a better way

Library consortia : wider access to big packages of journals but weak on access to small publishers

E-print services : successful for research literature in some subjects but not a universal solution

Open Archives Initiative : harvesting metadata in order to improve access but no economic change

Public Library of Science : limited use of author power

Budapest Open Access Initiative : achieving change through author-archiving or alternative journals

SPARC : Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition www.arl.org/sparc/: raising awareness and introducing competition

SPARC Europe www.sparceurope.org : SPARC with a European flavour

Advantages of the SPARC approach (1)

All stakeholders involved and their interests considered : authors, publishers, readers and librarians. (N.B. Neither SPARC nor BOAI are “anti-publisher” – both support publishers prepared to change their economic model.)

SPARC supports smaller publishers, particularly society publishers (e.g. BioOne group of small societies) and helps them to move into electronic publication with reasonable pricing.

Good features of present system retained - e.g. quality, reliability. SPARC journals attract good authors and score well on impact factor. (N.B. no change will be good if it destroys the integrity of academic publication)

Advantages of the SPARC approach (2)

Committed to open access or low-cost subscriptions (flexible in looking for right economic model for each journal.)

Experimentation with change in real situations – not theoretical approach.

Start-up risks in introducing change reduced (N.B. transition from subscription to open access represents major risk for publishers who accept that new economic models are viable in long-term.)

Economics of publishing not ignored but not allowed to over-ride vision – e.g. SPARC “Gaining Independence” document.

Advocacy linked to action – important to persuade academics to take problems of current model seriously and also important to show that change is possible.

Success already demonstrated – SPARC journals are cheaper than their competitors without sacrificing quality.

Some SPARC Europe actions

Raising awareness amongst academic authors and users: leaflets and workshops to stimulate thought and action

Encouraging institution-based repositories of copies of journal articles written by academic staff: “good practice” to be identified on SPARC Europe web-site

Providing information about alternative journals: links from SPARC Europe web-site

Supporting open access initiatives : Open Archives Initiative (October Workshop in Geneva) and Budapest Open Access Initiative (collaboration to develop new business models).

Supporting new journals committed to low-cost or open access: encourage libraries to buy when publishers change their policies.

BOAI an initiative of the OSI Information Program www.osi.hu/infoprogram/

“The Information Program promotes the equitable deployment of knowledge and communications resources—providing access to content, tools, and networks—for civic empowerment and effective democratic governance.”

Open Society Institute is part of the Soros Foundations network

“All the foundations’ activities share an overarching common mission: to support the development of open society and to promote critical thinking”.

BOAI is managed from OSI New York (Melissa Hagemann,Information Program Officer), working in conjunction with colleagues in OSI Budapest

US$3 million over three years available for grants to support open access

BOAI : uniqueness and close relationships

BOAI has good working relationships with other movements for change in information but has its own unique role

BOAI is not the Open Archives Initiative but welcomes the OAI standards as leading to easier access for information users

BOAI is not SPARC but works with SPARC on new publishing initiatives leading to open access

BOAI was born from a recognition that all these initiatives are working to improve access to academic information but that new publishing models are necessary if open access is to be achieved.

Two main strategies to achieve open access: self-archiving and alternative journals (N.B. numbering of strategies does not indicate importance – both equally important).

BOAI Strategy 1 : author self-archiving.

“Scholars need the tools and assistance to deposit their refereed journal articles in open electronic archives, a practice commonly called, self-archiving. When these archives conform to standards created by the Open Archives Initiative, then search engines and other tools can treat the separate archives as one. Users then need not know which archives exist or where they are located in order to find and make use of their contents.”

BOAI Strategy 2 : alternative journals using new business model

“Scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to open access, and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to open access. Because journal articles should be disseminated as widely as possible, these new journals will no longer invoke copyright to restrict access to and use of the material they publish. Instead they will use copyright and other tools to ensure permanent open access to all the articles they publish. Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals will not charge subscription or access fees, and will turn to other methods for covering their expenses.”

Please help to make the vision of better access to journals a reality sooner rather than later!

The problems in access to academic journals will not be solved unless those who are looking for change are prepared to take action.

SPARC began in the US because universities were not only prepared to talk about change but to commit money to bring about change.

In other countries, we cannot leave it to the US to take action: if we want change we have to make our own commitment of time or money.

Thank you for listening - but please take action as well as listen! Talk about these issues to your colleagues, join SPARC Europe and support open access initiatives.