OPEN ACCESS Free from chains?: Open Access at the University of Bolton and beyond Sarah Taylor BA (Hons) MPhil PgDipLIM MCLIP Electronic Resources Librarian 27 th February 2014

Today’s discussion Concepts of Open Access, terms and terminology How to achieve Open Access Why Open Access is important and won’t be going away! Open Access at Bolton What are the concerns/issues surrounding Open Access Discussion and questions OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Once upon a time… OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Introducing Open Access Open access has gathered pace over the past years in particular There are a number of ways of engaging in open access Open access means that the material is free at the point of use, but not necessarily achieved without financial outlay The Open Access movement has challenged accepted and long- standing models of scholarly communication Open Access has evolved, and will continue to do so OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002 An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet[…] The literature that should be freely accessible online is that which scholars give to the world without expectation of payment. Primarily, this category encompasses their peer-reviewed journal articles, but it also includes any unreviewed preprints that they might wish to put online for comment or to alert colleagues to important research findings. There are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to this literature. By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The Budapest Open Access Initiative, 14 February OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Achieving Open Access Deposit research in an online archive, typically known as repository Making research available via open access according to the Research Councils UK’s policy on open access Publishing in open access journals Publishing papers via the Author/Article Processing Charge (APC) model and making them open access Needs to challenge the understood process of scholarly communication: a culture change? OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Institutional Repositories Open access research in an online, searchable database Can also be subject-based, rather than belonging to a specific institution Some allow for the creation of standardised, online CVs Discoverable: repositories are indexed by Google and are often included in library discovery databases Used as marketing by some universities; an extra facet to scholarly communication? Provide statistics of how often the research is being accessed OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 UBIR: University of Bolton Institutional Repository Established in 2007 with money from JISC under the repositories start-up and enhancement programme. Two-year project including archiving material submitted for the RAE. Post 2009, funded by the university using Digital Commons (commercial repository software created by bepress, a leading Open Access publisher) Taken in-house in 2011 using WIKIDNX, open source software created by a lecturer here at Bolton And so to UBIR’s future… OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 UBIR: University of Bolton Institutional Repository OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Open Access theses: EThOS Aims to increase visibility of theses 120 participating institutions to date, of which the University of Bolton is one. We pay for digitisation Searchable, and many theses are available for immediate download on registration. Preserves theses as well as stores them: important function not necessarily carried out elsewhere OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Open Access theses: EThOS OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 The Finch Report Took the open access question to the next level, addressing the means by which it can be achieved and sustained Both routes to open access were endorsed, but gold access was recommended as being the route of choice Recommended that licensing arrangements are looked within higher education to maximise access to research Also recommended improvements in repository infrastructure Has generated lots of debate into the virtues of green versus gold routes to open access Is pay to publish the way forward? OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Green v Gold OPEN ACCESS Put research into an open access repository Green = sustainability? Might include mandating deposit: unpopular? Not seen as reality The gold route might be seen as too costly Might be licensing issues to consider Author pays A costly way to achieve open access? Recommended by the Finch Report Gold is the reality? Would it maximise public access to research Research is available immediately V

27 th February 2014 Article Processing Charges: going for gold OPEN ACCESS Pay to publish Who pays? Sometimes known as an Author Pays Charge, but this can give rise to concerns that the author themselves must pay, which is not the case What this might mean for the end user One of the ways recommended by the Finch Report of how open access can be achieved Concerns over quality

27 th February 2014 Funder mandates Research should be available to all who have an interest: other researchers, charities, developing countries and the tax-payer Research Councils UK (RCUK) issued new guidance in 2012 to ensure the availability research RCUK’s policy is that anything funded by research councils from 1 st April 2013 must be made open access, in some cases immediately, in others with an agreed embargo period Either submit to an open access repository or publish in an open access journal Author Processing Charges can no longer be built into research bids Authors are encourage to think about ways in which their research can be widely accessed OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Publicly-funded research accessibility OPEN ACCESS RCUK Policy on Open Access, Research Councils UK

27 th February 2014 Issues and concerns 1.Process of scholarly communication might be diluted 2.Too difficult! 3.May not realise the channels available to try to achieve Open Access. 4.Might not “last the course”; might not be sustainable 5.Is it ‘real’? 6.Concerns over the cost of the process OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Issues and concerns: six myths 1.The only way to provide open access to peer reviewed journals is to publish in open access journals 2.All or most open access journals charge publication fees 3.Most author-side fees are paid by the authors themselves 4.Publishing in a conventional journal closes the door on making the same work open access 5.Open access journals are intrinsically low in quality 6.Open access mandates infringe academic freedom Suber, Peter (2013). Open access: six myths put to rest. The Guardian, Monday 21 October OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 After the BOAI… Open Access of the 21 st Century Imagine a group of authors who do not make a living by selling their work, and who actually authorize free online sharing. They don’t take this unorthodox path because they are rich. They do it because their topics, genres, purposes, incentives, and institutional circumstances lead them to write for impact, not for money. Their careers and reputations have more to gain from the larger audience of interested readers than the smaller audience of paying customers. You won’t find many novelists or journalists in this group. But you will find a growing number of researchers from every field of the sciences and humanities. Researchers do not make a living by selling articles to peer-reviewed scholarly journals. In general, scholarly journals don’t buy articles from authors or pay royalties. Scholars may write books for money, but they write journal articles for impact. A growing number of them realize what this means in the digital age, and decide to authorize free online sharing of their peer-reviewed journal articles. Suber, Peter (2012). Opening access to research. Open Society Foundations. OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Conclusion Open Access is not going to go away! Two ways to achieve open access, both with their advantages and disadvantages Providing access to research that has been funded by the tax payer; wider dissemination of that research Valid concerns, but these should not act as a barrier to engaging in open access OPEN ACCESS

27 th February 2014 Discussion and questions Thanks! OPEN ACCESS