Effects of Open Access and the power of scientific
communities
Tom Olijhoek
Open Knowledge Foundation
Wageningen UR Library
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Definition and
Needs
Comparing
Open Access
and Toll Access
publishing
The cost of
Open Access
Effects of
Open Access
How to get
Open Access
Tools for use
with Open
Access
Open Access is completely free and unrestricted
access to Publications and Data
A detailed Definition was published by the Budapest Open
Access Initiative in 2001 (BOAI Definition) and an Update
was published this year (2012)
@ccess, the open access initiative at the Open Knowledge
Foundation uses this Definition
In addition we strongly recommend using Creative Commons
licenses, CC-BY for publications and CC0 for Data
whoneedsaccess.org
All People NOT only scientists
need access to research but can’t get it
because of
with Open Access 40% of new readers are
from outside academia
Marcha_por_la_Educación_en_Santiago
“more than three-quarters of researchers based in the developing world consider lack of access
both to be unethical and costing lives” ( MW Survey)
SURVEY RESULTS
MALARIAWORLD
95% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed
to the ‘statement that Scientific articles on
malaria should be available for free to all in
need of it’
Only 2% never experience access problems
In Africa, South America, and Asia, 41, 79,
and 92% of the respondents , respectively,
claimed never to use HINARI or did not even
know about its existence
Testimonials MalariaWorld
Research resources for diseases of the poor must be made available
without cost to the poor and those who are committed to helping them
.
Our management discourages us from supporting new open access
journals due to their low, or unassigned, impact factor.
When did scientists start agreeing with this slave-type of agreement
with publishing houses? How could this nonsense have started? We
inherited this sick system, but that does not mean we should allow it to
continue
at my university the department only pay publication fees for persons
with a permanent position. The rest of us have to find the money
somehow - or bribe a prof
Open-source is not without downsides. I favor a mixed model in
developed countries with open access for developing countries.

TRANSFER of COPYRIGHTS
(since 1998!)
 RIGHT TO READ BUT NOT TO USE
 PAY PER VIEW
1,350 $ / article
5,333 $ / article
4 x less than Toll Access
Eventually cost may go down to
250 $ / article
TOTAL 16 billion
These are cost for funding agencies
On TOTAL Budget 300 billion
Open access publishing
will then eventually be 20 x
cheaper than Toll Access
Research funding now
needs 5 % for publishing
Sources: http://www.stm-assoc.org/2009_10_13_MWC_STM_Report.pdf
SVPOW :http://svpow.com/2012/07/18/what-does-it-cost-to-publish-apaywalled-paper-with-anyone/
SOMEHOW SOMEWHERE SOMEONE IS GOING TO PAY
WHO PAYS?
Less than 1% of current
science funding will easily
cover the cost of open
access publishing
Funders and libraries are
now paying 5 % or $ 15
billion on a total funding of
$ 300 billion
IS OPEN ACCESS SUSTAINABLE?
Several studies show: OA benefits outweigh
the costs by a factor of 5 or more
Houghton (2009-2010)
Swan (2010)
Brembs (2011)
CED DCC final Report 2012
The effects of Open Access
“
Science &
Education
Politics
Economics
Open
science
Open
government
development
Open
education
Informed
citizens
innovation
Open Access improves the quality of science
OA enables new ways
of measuring Impact
Open Access improves the
quality of science
Articles can be
reviewed by many
Open Science prevents
fraud
Downloads &
social media buzz
reflect impact
Open data prevents data
tampering
Include impact in other areas
than science
Open access enables
new forms of
collaboration and
discovery
Michael
Nielsen
Reinventing
Discovery
Open access enables citizen
science
The Impact Factor is a main obstruction to
Open Access
The current publishing model exploits scientists' addiction to
Impact Factor. There is methadone OA, and then there's getting
clean.
Ethan Perlstein.
scientists are hesitant to publish in open access journals because
employers are always looking at impact factor
Sick of Impact Factors
I am sick of impact factors and so is science.
The impact factor might have started out as a good idea, but its
time has come and gone
Stephen Currey
How to get rid of the Impact Factor
Björn Brembs & Peter Binfield
Negotiable
Irreproducible
Mathematically
unsound
PLoS Medicine, IF 2-11 (8.4)
(The PLoS Medicine Editors (2006) The
Impact Factor Game. PLoS Med 3(6): e291.
Rossner M, van Epps H, Hill E (2007): Show me the
data. The Journal of Cell Biology, Vol. 179, No. 6,
1091-1092
Weak correlation of individual article citation rate
with journal IF
Björn Brembs
http://www.slideshare.net/brembs/limitedaccess-is-a-symptom-not-the-disease
‘New’ Definition of Scientific Impact
A-Vector: introducing a new form of journal
level metrics
Quality of editorial board
•
•
•
•
Citation index
Reputation
Collaboration
Reference density
• More indicators
Quality of peer-review
• “Transparency” indicators
•
•
•
•
Criteria used by reviewers
Duration of review process
Post-publication comments
Openness about
•
•
•
•
submission and Rejection rates
potential conflicts of interest
Aims, scopes and expected readership
Reviewer’s comments and editorial
correspondence ( published alongside
papers
• More indicators
A-vector: a new tool for quality
Assessment of OA journals
Less fraud
Less
duplication
Less important
where you
publish
Open data better
control of
scientific quality
Better use of
resources
More
collaboration
All journal
content online
and accessible
Open
publications
Less bias
Crowd control
Shorter time
between
research and
practice
Reputation not
because of
selectivity but
because of
quality
OPEN ACCESS TO PUBLICATIONS
AND DATA
MORE VISIBILITY OF
PLAGIARISM
FABRICATED DATA
 PUBLICATION BIAS
MORE DIFFICULT TO
LEAVE OUT DATA
SELECT SPECIFIC RESULTS
Pharmaceutical companies “hide” negative results for
medicines GSK paid 3 billion fines because of fraud with paxol
publications
Side effects are often not published
High percentage of medical publications are based on flawed experiments
RESULT: MANY PEOPLE SUFFER FROM
BAD MEDICINES AND EVEN FROM
UNNECESSARY TREATMENTS
Sources: Howard Brody | Ben Goldacre | Richard Smith | John Ioannidis
OA enables higher education for all through
the internet
• eLearning initiatives like Coursera, eDX, Udacity
Level of education will rise rapidly
• More education - more economic and social
development
Open Access opens
Science for All
Science is the
motor for
economic
development
Research is the
key to fighting
disease
Participation of
scientists from
Africa, Asia and
Latin America
is necessary for
success
Open Access crucial for
scientists in the global south
conference The Hague 25 oct 2012
as long as scientific output remains behind walls of paid
content, no possibility for a dialogue will exist
How to Get Open Access
Scientists hold the power in
their own hands
Attitude change is crucial
Coordination of scientist networked
communities
Structured information and focused
communities
“When I light my candle from yours, I gain from you without subtracting from you. That’s what
sharing knowledge is like”. Peter Suber
Open Access
Toll Access
getting new ideas by
sharing
fear of losing ideas
Collaboration
Competition
Publish for impact
Publish or perish
Focus on quality
Focus on quantity
The open
access
movement is
fragmented
No consensus
on what open
access is
Someone needs to
coordinate these
communities
WHO?
No consensus
on the best
form of open
access
publishing
Need to build
communities
with common
ideas
Open Knowledge
Foundation??
@ccess OKFN?
OpenWetware?
We Need to
And
information
it USABLE
Datahubs
repositories
libraries
Archives
OA journals
Social media
Scientist
networks
Indexing
services
Databases
Discussion
platforms
In order to make optimal use of all
possibilities of Open Access
Main Task
BE A SOURCE
OF
INFORMATION
FOR ALL
COMMUNITIES
FOCUSSED ON
TOPICS
African networks
like ir-africa.info
PatientslikeMe
ResearchGate
MalariaWorld
MyScienceWork
Ecancer.org
MalariaWorld is a model
open access community
for malaria research
Platform for collaboration
POSSIBLE PARTNERS
ORGANIZE DATA
Open Data archive
Publication archive
Archive for preprints
Tool development
Scientific libraries
Open access publishers
PubmedCentral
EU openair
Reference managing
World Bank
UN
Discussion, forum, news, jobs,
OA Journal
BIBSOUP
DATA-HUB
WIKI
ALTMETRICS
REPUTATION
INDEX
A-VECTOR
OPEN
ACCESS
INDEX
BibSoup: Malaria Database 2010-2011 used by MalariaWorld
Examples of use
cc-by 2.5
unknown
cc-by 2.0
Graphical representation of types of licences
in the malaria database. The largest part is
“unknown”
Open Access and the role of
scientific communities
Tom Olijhoek & Mark McGillivray
Graphical representation of the 1000 most
cited articles in the malaria database. The
Header in the figure is the nr 1 citation
Malaria Open Access Index
developed in collaboration with MalariaWorld
HOW OPEN IS MALARIA RESEARCH?
J1 Percentage of a articles
on malaria
in a journal that are
Open Access
(Y-axis)
J2 Percentage of the grand
total of OA malaria
articles that one journal
publishes
X-axis)
The nine bubbles along the top, from left to right(be careful to note the thin sliver of
red that is bubble 6) * BMC Public Health * BMC Inf.Diseases * BMC
Genomics * PLoS Medicine * PLoS Pathogens * Parasites and Vectors *
PLoS Negl Trop Diseases * PLoS One * Malaria Journal And finally the small
one on the bottom left: * Virology Journal
Open Access and the role of
scientific communities
Tom Olijhoek & Mark McGillivray
PLoSOne (brown) and
Malaria Journal (blue) have
highest index
OpenWetWare is an effort to
promote the sharing of
information, know-how, and
wisdom among researchers and
groups who are working in biology
& biological engineering
Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) is the
concept of drug discovery where all data and
ideas are shared in real time, and anyone may
participate at any level. This prior disclosure
means that will be no patents and that any
technology is both academically and
commercially exploitable by whoever wishes to
do so.
Pilot research
communities focus on
tropical diseases:
Open Source Biomedical Research for the 21st Century
An open, collaborative research community will find new
ways to do science, answering questions that current
institutions find difficult or impossible.
/
Diseases found exclusively in
tropical regions predominantly afflict
poor people in developing countries.
The typical profit-driven
pharmaceutical economic model fails
with these diseases …………