NEW MODELS FOR SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION Frederick J. Friend OSI Open Access Advocate JISC Consultant Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

COMMUNICATION Communication the “raison d’etre” for the scholarly journals started in the 17 th century Communication leads to feed back and to further research The scholarly journal has never been the sole means by which scholars have communicated research results Personal correspondence Before publication authors have shared drafts of journal articles After publication they have sent one another off-prints of articles These means of communication have existed alongside reading articles in the journals

NETWORKING : AN OPEN ACCESS MODEL Networking of informal exchanges an old model using new techniques Electronic exchange of pre-prints and post-prints as important as exchange of typewritten manuscripts and off-prints If electronic exchange is important, it has to be allowed for Some authors continuing to share texts even if publisher’s copyright agreement does not allow for it Will these informal exchanges of journal articles become more formal and replace the present publication system? Technically possible but this has not happened with the physics database ArXiv Quality control and academic reward functions have continued to be handled by traditional journals in physics

DIFFERENT MODELS FOR DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS Separation of communication function from quality control and academic reward functions Communication function can be handled by network access to author’s text, whether for other authors or for general access In the subscription model publishers have gained their income from the communication function, by charging readers to read In the Internet world to continue this model is to fight a losing battle Politicians looking for increased use of publicly-funded academic information Funding agencies looking for better value for money by increasing access to research reports Will publishers continue to restrict access to those who can afford to pay?

PUBLISHERS PROVIDE BENEFITS TO AUTHORS AND TO THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY Communication of the text of journal articles direct from author to reader essentially anarchic Publishers contribute quality control and an organized system of indexed journal titles Academic reward system built upon this structure The academic community needs a system of organised quality control Apart from publishers, universities and funding agencies could perform this function through institutional repositories but no sign that they wish to do so Prime function of institutional repositories is communication, including pre-prints and post-prints

THE FAULT-LINE IN THE PRESENT PUBLISHING SYSTEM Service separated from payment Authors receive the service, libraries pay Separation of publishing service from publishing payment has opened up a rift, leading to disputes between publishers and librarians How much should a library be expected to pay for quality control for the academic community or for academic reward for authors? Who benefits from the current publishing system? Authors, publishers and to some extent readers. Who gains no benefit? Librarians and funding agencies

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING Re-connects service and payment Authors can assess whether they are receiving value for money from publishers Funding agencies also become involved in the assessment of value for money Peer review and editorial control still strong to ensure quality Publishers can still benefit if they provide a good service to authors Librarians may lose part of their budget but they are freed to concentrate upon their true role of assisting readers to find information, of which more will be available on open access Open access will probably become dominant model for academic publishing but subscription model may continue for some titles in subject areas with low research funding

COLLABORATION IN EVERYBODY’S INTERESTS When all stakeholders can benefit from an open access model, it makes sense for us to co-operate to achieve mutual benefit Whenever a major change occurs there are fears and uncertainties, but open access provides better models for scholarly communication, and we need to work through the uncertainties together Open Society Institute wishes to work with publishers – e.g. in developing new business models for open access Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) in the UK offering support for publishers and for authors willing to trial open access Publicly-funded or privately-funded grants provide support for transition or for new initiatives like Public Library of Science while robust open access business models are proved

Thank you for listening! or Information on Open Society Institute open access support at Information on various UK JISC initiatives at – e.g. under “Funding Opportunities”