encouraging openness and how stakeholder policies can support or block it!"
DESCRIPTION
Funders, authors and readers may want open access to research, but can they achieve it? A researcher who has been encouraged to make their work open has to deal with regulations, guidance, and mandates from their institution, their funders, their publisher and their national government. These policies are often complex and can be ambiguous, or in conflict with each other. A supportive policy environment and guidance through the relationship of one policy to another has proved to be essential for real progress in opening access to research. How should policies support the researcher and the research process? How can policies based on commercial profit fit into an open environment? What role do funders have in protecting their investment and the public interest? Presented by Bill Hubbard Bill Hubbard is the Director of the Centre for Research Communications (CRC) at the University of Nottingham, incorporating the work of SHERPA. The CRC has a portfolio of Open Access projects and services and is a recognised centre of expertise for OA development, policy, repositories and infrastructure. Bill created the award-winning OA services RoMEO, JULIET and OpenDOAR, which are used around the world to unpick details of stakeholder policies, development policy and which underpin repository use. The CRC have also recently launched FACT, to support researchers in complying with specific RCUK and Wellcome Trust OA polices. Bill has also worked closely with OA publishers and advised on the transitions involved for commercial publishers from traditional to OA business models.TRANSCRIPT
Encouraging Openness - and how stakeholder policies can
support or block it!
CIARD webinar5th June 2014
Bill HubbardDirector, Centre for Research Communications
Outline
• What is Open Access and how to achieve it• Incentives and Blocks• Getting movement in policy development• The clash of policies and expectations• Supporting researchers
Open Access
• Access to research articles (and other outputs) that is free at point of use
• Use of research articles (and other outputs) free of most licensing restrictions
• Increasingly, open access to underlying research data as well
Routes to Open Access
• Depositing material in an open access repository AND publishing as normal (“Green”)
Contrasted with
• Publishing in a journal that makes the article open access (“Gold”)
Repositories
• Listed in OpenDOAR– Institutional repositories– Subject based (i.e. Europe PubMedCentral)– Governmental repository
• Free for user to deposit, as centrally funded
• And publish as well
Open Access Journals
• Fully OA journals listed in DOAJ• Also, “Hybrid” OA journals• Most likely payment of a fee
– £1,000 - £2,000 and up
• And deposit as well
Incentives
• Wider readership • Greater citations• More use of research• Better return on investment• Perpetual record of work• Easier assessment of research• Cross-study and meta-study research• Automation, text-mining and data-mining
Moral case
• IF publicly funded research can be freely available, then surely - it should!
Stakeholders
• Authors• Researchers• Publishers• Funders• Learned societies• Institutions• Government• Public
Blocks to OA policies
• Publishers’ traditional business models rely on selling access - how can this change?
• Administrative adoption of journal “brands” as measure of quality
• Funders reluctance to upset researchers• Academics’ established publication habits• Effective policies have to address each of
these issues
Policies to encourage - don’t work
• RCUK policy encouraging OA in 2006• Institutions with policies encouraging OA• What is the incentive to change?• What is the inertia to be overcome?
– Embedded publication habits; value-judgements; professional-esteem indicators; financial arrangements and expectations; complexity of proposed changes . . .
The place of funders
• Funder policies are the key• Funders are “upstream” of all research
activity• Other policies have to respond to and respect
these policies - and if they don’t, then the political question can be asked - why not?
• Conversely, without funder backing, what can succeed?
Time to get tough . . . well, a bit
• NIH, RCUK, European Union 7th Framework• then - the Financial Crisis• UK - Finch Report• UK - Government policy• UK - RCUK policy• EU - Horizon 2020• UK - Research Assessment 2020
UK Government
• Following Finch Committee Report• Funded research to be made Open Access• Maximum 12 month embargo• Implication for so-called “unfunded”, in-house
research
Research Councils UK
• Open Access mandatory for funded research• All Councils• Various embargoes allowed• Gold as target, Green allowed• Initial compliance target of 45%, now rising• Compliance will affect future grants
UK Research Assessment 2020
• HEFCE• To be eligible - articles and conference
proceedings to be made open access – from point of acceptance for publication
• Embargo periods are accepted• Green OA - not Gold OA
Policy clashes
• Complex, restrictive policies– some publishers, e.g. Elsevier, have policies that
change if the institution or funder has a policy!
• Push for take-up of hybrid option, for a fee– concerns of double-dipping, on national scale– speculation on fee-levels in future
• Moves into asking for rights in data?• Consider place of publisher in process • Overall picture fragmenting
Pity the researcher . . .
Researchers view from the past . . .
Funder
Public Funder
Institution
Publisher
Funding Researcher
Researchers view
Researcher
Funder
Public Funder
Institution
Publisher with OA Option
Open AccessPublisher
Central/subjectRepository
Institutional Repository
?
?
Mandate
Funding
Mandate
Institutional Database
Researchers view . . . with data
Researcher
Funder
Public Funder
Institution
Publisher with OA Option
Open AccessPublisher
Central/subjectRepository
Institutional Repository
?
?
Mandate
Funding
Mandate
Institutional Database
Mandate #
Mandate #
Central/subjectRepository
Institutional Repository
Institutional Database
Publisher with Data Option
Integrated policy framework
• Authors and researchers have clarity• Responsibility for compliance check is defined• Funders adopt common policies• Institutions harmonise their policies with funders• Publishers simplify their response and adapt• . . . and systems for archiving, payment,
compliance, etc in place and automated
Funder policies
• Mandate Open Access with sanctions• Recognise cost: Green cheaper than Gold• Archiving - define what, when and where?• Respect current conditions
– allow embargoes reluctantly with the aim of elimination– allow discipline differences
• Have realistic targets• Work with stakeholders, but insist on change
Inevitable development
• On-line journal access will become the primary form and will change to accommodate on-line potential
• Open Access will continue to grow and become the dominant method of research dissemination
• Open Access to data will develop and allow new research to be built on top
• Our policy structures have to support this
Discussion
Contact
Support infrastructure
• Repository• Mediated deposit service• OA publication funds• Institutional OA support service• Gold fee finance systems• Institutional policies• Funder grant compliance systems• Research assessment planning
Support examples
• RoMEO - summarises Publisher policies• JULIET - summarises Funder policies• FACT - combined policy advice for authors• OpenDOAR - lists OA repositories• DOAJ - lists OA journals• OAK - payment intermediary for OA fees• CORE - UK national aggregation• OpenAIRE - European policy support
Support examples - URLs
• OpenDOAR - www.opendoar.org• DOAJ - www.doaj.org• RoMEO - www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo• JULIET - www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet• FACT - www.sherpa.ac.uk/fact• OAK - www.openaccesskey.com• CORE - core.kmi.open.ac.uk• OpenAIRE - www.openaire.eu
Abstract
• Funders, authors and readers may want open access to research, but can they achieve it? A researcher who has been encouraged to make their work open has to deal with regulations, guidance, and mandates from their institution, their funders, their publisher and their national government. These policies are often complex and can be ambiguous, or in conflict with each other. A supportive policy environment and guidance through the relationship of one policy to another has proved to be essential for real progress in opening access to research. How should policies support the researcher and the research process? How can policies based on commercial profit fit into an open environment? What role do funders have in protecting their investment and the public interest? The webinar will address these issues, reflect on current policies and suggest best practice.