Open Access – views
from the (SSAH) Learned
Society and Author
Perspective
V Gardner, Open Access Publisher Taylor & Francis / Routledge
Victoria.gardner@tandf.co.uk
@TandFOpen
The Open Dichotomy
• Most authors, learned societies and
editors agree that openness and
What
public access to content are strongly
about IP?
to be desired
• Our surveys show that although Open
Access to research is a strong core
value among many academic and
scientific communities, there are
concerns, especially around:
 economic and financial impacts
 quality and peer review standards
about permissions for
 licensing and reusability (varianceWhat
3rd party content and CC
between subjects)
BY?
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Open Access economics
• National Humanities Alliance
Report, July 2009, based on 8
large US society Humanities and
Social Science journals
• $9,994 average cost to publish
an HSS article in 2007 – vs
$2,670 in STM
• Why the difference? – typical
HSS article is 19 pages, STM is 12
pages; rejection rate 89% in HSS,
58% in STM
• Conclusion: OA ‘author pays’
model is not financially viable in
Humanities and Social Sciences
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However, there are
a significant
number of
(platinum) OA
journals in SSAH
http://www.nhalliance.org/bm~doc/hssreport.pdf
Learned Society Concerns
• Loss of income
– Reduced ability to mentor researchers, subsidise
conference and networking events, offer grants
and bursaries, and so on.
• “What about early career researchers?”
• Quality
– Concerns about a need to increase throughout to
remain viable
• The Embargo and Hybrid debates
• Resource
– complex issues around OA, APC systems…
• BUT, public access to research is desirable
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T&F 2013 Open Access
Survey: Method
• E-mail inviting participation
sent to 83k authors
• 14,769 respondents
– 19% response rate
• 95% assurance that any
result from survey lies
within 1% of the view of the
T&F author community
•
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/openacce
ss/opensurvey
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SSAH Author Concerns
• A cultural chasm
– Green OA the default for SSAH
– ‘research less important’ than in e.g.
biomedicine
• Funding funding funding!
– diverted to APCs
– Given to the most research intensive
HEIs
• Academic freedom
– Further (internal) review of research
– funders are clear that publication
outlet choice is down to the
researcher
– “it won’t affect me”
“I think Open Access
is fundamental to
accountability for
huge public funding
… and to socially
transfer our emerging
knowledge .. costs …
are prohibitive for
early career staff
who need
publications to get
funding of any kind ..”
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“Open Access is unworkable for
the Humanities” Researchers in the
I work in Education where there is little
funding available and I have never heard of a
funder paying for publication of the funded
research results in an open access journal, I
think that any such cost will need be met by
academics and their departments and, as
such, is a completely unsustainable model.
humanities mostly do not
have institutional funds to
pay author charges. If
such charges are required
for publication, there will
be a significant drop in the
usefulness of research in
the humanities.
Pay to publish is a serious risk to the diversity of academic work - in the
Humanities there is a significant push to support OA in theory, but
absolutely no money to do so. Pay to publish fees will make the engines of
scholarship and tenure available only to those with resources.
Open Access is particularly unsuited to research in
humanities subjects, which is often not grant-funded. It
is a model for science which is being crudely applied
everywhere, where it will do considerable damage and
bring very few benefits.
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“Open Access is the future”
I am strongly in favor of OA. It is more fair to those
from small institutions or without formal affiliation,
and it increases visibilty and spread of research. ..
My issue is that my work is paid for
through tax and should be available
freely to tax payers as a result.
However, what format this is in
(online only subscription article;
abridged full access version; 1000
word blog post) may determine how
OA shapes up.
Although I think that open
access/electronic publication is the
way of the future, there is
ambivalence about how articles
published in this way "count"
towards tenure and promotion.
Hence my (and others) reluctance
to submit to them now.
The sooner the control that a very few people exercise
over the dissemination of research ceases to exist, the
better.
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Authors’ Views on OA
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Authors’ Views on Peer Review
“When publishing open access, I would find the following
kinds of peer review suitable for my research:”
Authors’ Views on Re-use
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Authors’ Licences Preferences
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The Way Forward
• Advocacy and Education
– correct misunderstandings but discuss valid
concerns
• Consultation and Compromise
– One size does not fit all
– Academy of Social Sciences / ESRC (UK)
Learned Societies Project
• Value of Learned Societies
–
–
–
–
Stewards of Early Career Researchers
Conferences aid networking
Grants, bursaries, etc
Promote
scholarship and knowledge exchange
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Open Access at T&F
• Pure Open Access – Gold OA option
• Hybrid Open Access
– Gold OA option
– Green OA option
• Waivers offered to developing country
authors
• Author choice emphasised, as well as
funder compliance facilitated
• CC BY, CC BY-NC and T&F OA LTP
(based on CC BY-NC-ND with TDM
permitted)
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Introducing….
Coming soon:
Cogent Behavioral Science
Cogent Biology
Cogent Engineering
Cogent Education
Cogent Humanities
Cogent Medicine
Cogent Physics
Cogent OA benefits from the resources
and experiences of a major publisher,
but otherwise operates autonomously.
http://www.cogentoa.com/
@CogentOA
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