Why and How We as Leaders of the OA
Community Should Work Together
Elizabeth Marincola
CEO of PLOS (Public Library of Science)
COASP 2013
1
The Need for
Community
2
The Need for
Competition
3
The Need for
Collaboration
4
About PLOS
PLOS is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy
organization founded to accelerate progress in
science and medicine by leading a transformation
in research communication.
PLOS’ mission is to make the world’s scientific and
medical literature a freely-available public resource
5
Outline
• Growth
• Challenges
• Collaboration and competition
• Opportunities for the future
• How can we work together?
6
Growth
7
PLOS started as a protest movement
34,000 Scientists
Pledged to Support OA
PLOS
Open Letter
September 2001
We support the establishment of an online public
library that would provide the full contents of the
published record of research and scholarly discourse
in medicine and the life sciences in a freely accessible,
fully searchable, interlinked form. . . .
To encourage the publishers of our journals to support this
endeavor, we pledge that, beginning in September 2001,
we will publish in, edit or review for, and personally
subscribe to only those scholarly and scientific
journals that have agreed to grant unrestricted free
distribution rights to any and all original research
reports that they have published, through PubMed
Central and similar online public resources, within 6 months
of their initial publication date.
Harold Varmus, Nobel Laureate, Director, National Cancer
Institute
Patrick O. Brown, Professor, Stanford University School of
Medicine
Michael Eisen, Assistant Professor, University of California,
Berkeley
8
A Grandmother of “The Movement”
• Executive Director of American Society for Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology of the Cell first journal to
participate in PMC
• First PMC National Advisory Committee
• PLOS Board of Directors
• Member, then Chairman of the Board of eLife
• PLOS Executive Director
9
PLOS is now a leader in research publishing
Articles Published
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
10
Growth of large OA Publishers
30,000
25,000
# Articles
Published
20,000
PLOS
15,000
BMC
Hindawi
10,000
5,000
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Source: Publisher websites
11
More Open Access Journals Each Year
From 100s of Journals to 1000s
Data: www.doaj.org
Graph: openscience.com/a-good-year-for-open-access/
12
Growth of accessible articles
2,500,000
26,370
196,796
2,000,000
415,104
PLOS Journal
Articles
All APC OA
Journal Articles
1,500,000
All OA Journal
Articles
1,000,000
1,727,165
All Journal
Articles
500,000
0
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Source: Laakso and Björk 2012 (Table 1), which provides data through 2011.
2012 data calculated using average annual growth rate of prior four years.
13
Growth brings challenges
14
Growth is Good, but brings challenges
• Logistics - No longer tens of
articles but tens of thousands
• Payment management,
metadata systems
• Quality challenges at scale
• Shift in the discussion as OA
moves to the policy mainstream
• Can no longer be dismissed as
fringe and therefore a serious
political target
Image courtesy of Biatch at en.wikipedia
15
Operational challenges for
publishers
• Attract authors
• Education of authors
• Ensure a good author
experience
• Attract editors and match to
papers
• Run an efficient and well-oiled
publishing operation
Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Lucifer_Butt
s.gif
16
Operational challenges for
institutions/funders
• The logistics of payments.
Move from small number of
large subscriptions to many
small payments
• The logistics of metadata –
how to track articles through
to publication and afterwards
• Demonstrating the impact of
published work
Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Lucifer_Butt
s.gif
17
Quality and service challenges
• Maintain quality peer review
• Ensure low and decreasing
time-to-publication and
satisfying publishing
experience
• Continue to innovate
• Deliver on promise of re-use
of the literature
Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professor_Lucifer_Butt
s.gif
18
These challenges are
different as we scale
19
Political challenges
Anti-OA Rhetoric from traditional
publishers
Now a much bigger target
Need to bring our expertise to
the center of policy making
We are no longer the fringe
Image courtesy of Biatch at en.wikipedia
20
Educational Challenges
Confusion about what
“Openness” means
Does the journal just provide free
access (free to read), or free reuse also? What licenses are used?
Image courtesy of Biatch at en.wikipedia
How consistent is a journal’s
policies with real OA?
21
Collaboration and competition
We need to work together
• None of us have the capacity to tackle all of this alone
• Together we can define best practice and build shared
tools and platforms that deliver the benefits of OA
We need to compete
• The benefits of OA arise from effective competition
and transparent pricing
• Diversification and experimentation are crucial to
deliver the benefits
23
… and We Need to Collaborate
Share ideas, concerns, data,
and questions
Discuss best practices
Propose solutions
Collaborate on ways to take OA
to the next level
Source: flickr.com; author: PYB
Communicate
24
OA publishing is not a fringe activity
• At the center of policy
agenda globally
• Yet often the real
expertise is not present
• How can we work
collectively?
• How to share the load?
• How to best bring our
expertise to the policy
makers?
Source: flickr.com; author: infrogmation
25
Contributing tools to support
policy and decision making:
The Open Access Spectrum
26
Answering the Question: What is Open Access ?
Free Availability and Unrestricted Use
PLOS believes that published research articles should be
immediately and freely available online
without restriction,
for the benefit of scientists, science and
the greater public good:
 Free access – no charge to access
 No embargos – immediately available
 Reuse – Creative Commons Attribution
License (CC BY) to use with proper
attribution
27
HowOpenIsIt?
Measuring Actual Openness
Open Access Spectrum
• Recognizes 6 components that
define Open Access publications
• Defines what makes a journal more
open vs. less open
• Invites informed decisions about
where to publish
A collaboration among:
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Open Access Spectrum Components
Reader
Rights
Fees to read all articles
Subscription, membership, etc.

Free readership immediately upon
publication
Reuse
Rights
No reuse rights beyond fair use/
limitations & exceptions to
copyright (all rights reserved ©)
Publisher holds copyright. No
author reuse of published
version beyond fair use
Author may not post any
versions to repositories or
websites

Generous reuse and remixing rights
(e.g., CC BY license)

Author holds copyright
No restrictions

Author may post any version
to any repository or website

Journals make articles automatically
available in trusted third-party
repositories immediately upon publication
Copyrights
Author
Posting
Rights
No automatic posting in thirdAutomatic
party repositories
Posting
(e.g. PubMed)
.
Machine
Readability
Not available in machinereadable format: article full text
/metadata

Community machine-readable
standard formats for article full text,
metadata, citations, & data
(community standard API or protocol)
www.PLOS.org/HowOpenIsIt
29
We need to compete…
• The benefits of OA arise from effective competition
• Diversification and experimentation are crucial to deliver
the benefits
• We should be competing to be the best implementers of
the OA vision
And we need to collaborate…
Can we collaborate on the frameworks that
we compete within? What community
structures do we need?
30
Opportunities for the future
31
How will PLOS contribute?
• PLOS enjoys “special status” as a
community-driven entity that was a
founder of the OA movement
• Must constantly respond and get
ahead of community demands to
retain respect and meet expectations
• Innovation is the key to maintaining
cutting-edge
32
PLOS’ Mission
INNOVATION
•
•
•
Technology
Practices
Mindset Changes
ADVOCACY
•
Promote
Open Access
Adoption
PUBLISHING
•
A suite of
leading journals
33
PLOS’ Core Beliefs
We believe that published research articles should be
immediately and freely available online
without restriction,
for the benefit of scientists, science and
the greater public good:
 Free access – no charge to access
 No embargos – immediately available
 Reuse – Creative Commons Attribution
License (CC BY) to use with proper
attribution
34
Building and sharing tools.
Article Level Metrics as an example
35
PLOS Article Level Metrics
Move beyond traditional measures to assess different forms of article impact
http://article-level-metrics.plos.org
Building and sharing technology
The PLOS Article Level Metrics App
An Open Source Platform for managing article metrics
37
Making the data available for re-use
Re-use of ALM
data by
ImpactStory
38
Sharing the story of how we succeed
(and also where we don’t)
39
A stepwise process of growth…
•
PLOS Biology
•
PLOS Medicine
•
PLOS Genetics
•
PLOS Computational Biology
•
PLOS Pathogens
works of exceptional significance in all areas of biological science
research on the major challenges to human health worldwide
outstanding original contributions in all areas of genetics and genomics
new insights into living systems at all scales
new ideas that contribute to understanding the biology of pathogens
•
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
forgotten diseases affecting the world’s forgotten people
40
…and innovation
•
•
PLOS ONE
•
A journal designed for the internet
•
Innovation in peer review criteria
•
Today, the worlds largest journal
PLOS Currents
How can we innovate around the peer review
process to deliver critical information at the highest
possible speed, while retaining quality?
41
Financial Sustainability
PLOS revenues
exceeded expenses for
the first time in 2010
42
…and experiments that didn’t work
• PLOS Hubs aimed to create spaces where
communities could collect and promote papers
• Issues with take-up and the technology platform
• Sunset during 2013
43
Building community programs
44
How to Promote Public Awareness of OA and
Show the Benefits of OA?
The Accelerating Science Award Program recognizes
individuals who have applied scientific research –
published through Open Access – to innovate in any field
and benefit society.
• Three top awards of $30,000 each
• October awards event
45
How can we work together?
46
Influencing policy
U.S.
WHITE HOUSE Mandates agencies
• Define Open Access within 6 months
• Make manuscripts available 12 months
after publication
• Set policy for data availability (2013)
CONGRESS Considers Expanded Open Access legislation
• FRPAA (Federal Research Public Access Act) (re-proposed in 2012)
• FASTR (Fair Access to Science and Technology Research)
(put before both House and Senate in 2013)
U.K.
RCUK Designates £17 million
in 2013 to pay Open Access APCs via block
grants to research organisations
E.U., Denmark, Ireland, Argentina, Australia…
47
Supporting OA as a Platform
• Shared platforms and logistics for payments
• Effective transfer of metadata and information
• Clarity on re-use rights
• Competition on product offerings that deliver real
benefits for authors, institutions, and funders
48
We need to work together…
49
We need to compete…
50
We Need to build the
Communities to Support
Both competition and
collaboration
51