Open access: next steps
Robert Terry
Senior Policy Adviser
The Wellcome Trust
r.terry@wellcome.ac.uk
Why open access matters to us...
Funded by
the Wellcome
Trust
Why should open access publication be
important to research funders?
• Just funding the research is a job only part done – a
fundamental part of their mission is to ensure the widest
possible dissemination and unrestricted access to that
research.
• It’s all about improving access – improving research
• Web developments have created a new publishing model - not
fully realised whilst access mediated through subscriptions and
bundle deals.
 90% of NHS-funded research available online full text
 30% immediately available to public
Only 40% immediately available to NHS staff
Submission to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee's Inquiry into Scientific Publications
“How accessible is NHS-funded research to the general public and to the NHS's own researchers? Matthew
Cockerill Ph.D., Technical Director, BioMed Central Ltd.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/refersubmission.pdf
Shouldn’t those who pay for the research be
able to read it?
•Over 90% of research funded in UK universities is
public money from government, research councils and
charities (17%)*
*Investing in Innovation - A Strategy for science, engineering and technology – July
2002 DTI
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/publications
Why don’t
researchers
know or
care?
Publishers
£ Profit
£
Free
Shareholder
s & Societies
Funders mission?
No money for peer
review or to author
Free
£
Libraries
£
Gov /
ngo
funding
Two routes to open access – both need
to be supported
•publish in an open access format
•publish in any journal but deposit a copy
in an open access repository
Publish in an open access format
(journal?)
•
•
•
•
•
Immediate global availability
Increased usage (citation)  improved efficiency
Affordable
Archived for long term storage and access
Long term solution
• Few titles but growing
• Not as well known – impact but growing
• Resistance to the author pays model from authors (passive),
learned societies, commercial sector.
Will OA publishing cost more?
Cost element
Proportion of
Whole system savings of 30% ?
costs
1. Refereeing
22%
Estimated costs per article:
$2,750 subscription
2. Editorial and typesetting (i.e. from
33%
acceptance to first copy)
3. Subscription management
7%
4. Physical production and distribution
23%
(including postage)
5. Sales and marketing
13%
6. Promotion to authors
2%
Total
100%
$1,950 open access
Submission fee $175
publication drops to $550
Charges of $10,000++ include
contribution of funds to
overheads, surplus or profit
What will it cost funders?
Trust estimates: 1 – 2% of research budget
University
Press
24%
Journals with
> 30 papers
1995 - 1999*
Elsevier
Portland Press
CUP
Blackwell
OUP
Nature
Society
43%
*Source: ROD
Commercial
33%
Total Trust papers
n=16,646
in 1292 journals
10%
5%
5%
4%
4%
3%
Publish in any journal but deposit a copy in an
open access repository (e.g. UK PMC)
Institution and/ or Central (subject based) – both valid but
offer users different solutions
What do funders want:
•Immediate access - but can work with 6 months delay to allow market to
adapt.
•Long-term digital archive – accurate, future-proof preservation
•Searchable – ‘under one roof’ subject based
•Build on existing research practice e.g. Medline
•Funders attribution, additional features e.g public engagement
•Links with other databases e.g. genes, proteins
•Strategy, evaluation and impact
Portable PMC mirror
Source: David Lipman, Director,
National Centre for Biotechnology
Information, NLM, USA
How will UK PMC work
Source: David Lipman,
Director, National Centre
for Biotechnology
Information, NLM, USA
UKPMC – quality, consistency, adaptability
There are three types of errors that PubMed Central deal
with:
1. Structural Errors do not conform to the ruleset (DTD) that they
were written for e.g. XML tags are wrong: <surname>Jones</snm>
2. Content Errors formula, tables, paragraphs, special characters
(Greek characters or symbols) are not correct.
3. Consistency Errors tagged in one style suddenly switches e.g.
For the first 5 years of content, Journal X has been tagging dates like:
<date>10-12-2004</date> (m-d-y)
Then, this date appears in content:
<date>14-12-2004</date> (this must be d-m-y)
Source: David Lipman,
Director, National Centre
for Biotechnology
Information, NLM, USA
Link to imaging agent in PubChem through MeSH
Source: David Lipman,
Director, National Centre
for Biotechnology
Information, NLM, USA
Links between sequence and related proteins
Funder initiatives
• Leadership - demonstrate engagement with issues, join with
other research funders, raise awareness in research community
• Fund - cost of publication (marginal to research costs)
• Copyright - encourage author retention use of Creative
Commons
• Repository - establish open access repositories and selfarchiving UKPMC
• Evaluation - recognise intrinsic value of content of paper rather
than title of journal
• Digitization - of existing titles
Dissemination costs are research costs
Greater accessibility = greater impact of research
The future?
• More of the same? – unlikely
Increased use of repositories and self-archiving – likely:
NIH policy still under discussion
Once deposition
working,
add a Group
peer
Scottish
Science Information
Strategy Working
review
(http://scurl.ac.uk/WG/SSISWGOA/declaration.htm)
element - questions the concept of the journal?
Further debate in HoC Scientific Publications: Free for all?
• More support from funders? - very likely
e.g. funders group for UKPMC, Howard Hughes, Max Planck,
CNRS, NIH.
• Research Councils UK – under discussion…….