1. What can universities do to promote open access? Cornell University March 17, 2005 Peter Suber Open Access Project Director, Public Knowledge Research Professor of Philosophy, Earlham College Senior Researcher, SPARC peter.suber@earlham.edu

2. Open-access literature: 1.Digital 2.Online 3.Free of charge for everyone with an internet connection 4.Free of most copyright and licensing restrictions

3. Refining the definition Online –but compatible with print editions Free of charge –but compatible with priced enhancements Free of most permission barriers –but flexible about which to remove –Commercial re-use? Derivative works? A kind of access, not a kind of business model –Compatible with many business models, not “one size fits all”

4. Vehicles of open access Archives or repositories –No peer review –Institutional or disciplinary –Preprints and postprints –Interoperable through OAI protocol –Open-source software –Easy to launch, no waiting, low investment Journals –Peer review –More difficult to launch or convert Other –Personal web sites, ebooks, blogs, wikis, listservs, P2P, RSS

5. How can universities help? 1.OA repositories –Launch one and fill it 2.OA journals –Recognize, support, and publish them 3.Copyright –Help faculty understand and control their rights 4.Promotion and tenure criteria –Create incentives to provide OA –Remove disincentives to provide OA 5.Educate faculty about OA and its benefits –OA increases visibility, audience, usage, and citation impact –Convert real benefits into felt needs

6. Premise 1: Authors are primary Authors control: 1.Whether to submit their work to an OA journal 2.Whether to deposit their work in an OA repository 3.Whether to transfer copyright

7. Premise 2: Authors are busy Some are too busy to learn much about OA Some are too busy to act on what they know Authors need: –Education about OA and copyright –Help providing OA to their own work –Incentives to provide OA to their own work

8. Problem Librarians know the most about OA and its benefits.

9. Problem Librarians know the most about OA and its benefits. Administrators control many of the incentives.

10. Problem Librarians know the most about OA and its benefits. Administrators control many of the incentives. But authors don’t listen to librarians or administrators.

11. Launch an institutional repository (IR) Committed to –Open access –Interoperability –Long-term preservation Cornell already has two –Cornell Technical Reports –DSpace repository And is co-developer of Fedora, a major tool for building OA repositories

12. Fill the IR (1) Encourage or require faculty to deposit their research output in the IR (with reasonable exceptions) –QUT expectation (work “is to be” deposited) –Minho mandate (work “must” be deposited) –Southampton registry, 9 signatories as of 3/05 How? –Informally: educate and encourage (at least this) –Formally: tie to promotion and tenure

13. Fill the IR (2) Exceptions –QUT: work intended to generate revenue If postprint would violate copyright, then preprint + corrigenda –Minho: work that would violate confidence or copyright, and work intended to generate revenue But whenever possible, access for Minho community

14. Fill the IR (3) Help faculty deposit their work –Librarians or student workers –Help with deposit and metadata –Help with digitization and permissions –Examples: MIT (wandering FTE’s) St. Andrews University (email and be done)

15. Filling the IR (4) Royalty-free research Publicly-funded research University-funded research Theses and dissertations Raw and semi-raw data for any of the above Proceedings of conferences hosted on campus Community content: OA journal archives, regional museums and non-profits With reasonable exceptions....

16. Support disciplinary archives Host them, like Cornell’s arXiv –The oldest, largest, and most-used open-access repository in any field Let deposit in them satisfy the IR policy Institutional v. disciplinary archives –Institutional: can nudge authors to deposit only an advantage if institutions seize the opportunity –Disciplinary: most faculty more loyal to their disciplines than their institutions arXiv as existence proof –No need to choose if you support both

17. Support OA journals (1): Fund them Buy institutional memberships in PLoS and BMC (Cornell does) Pay processing fees for faculty, when funders won’t –Cornell study (8/04, 12/04) –Fund controlled by provost? departments? libraries? –Worth exploring, experimenting Double-payment problem

18. Support OA journals (2): Publish them Like Philosophers’ Imprint from U Michigan Like J of Insect Science from U Arizona Like overlay journal series from U California and Boston College Cornell hosts Project Euclid –Publishes OA and non-OA journals Cornell is developing DPubS –For both OA and non-OA journals –Will reduce costs to help OA journals

19. Support OA journals (3): Recognize them Put OA journal records in the library catalogue Support faculty in editing and launching them Give them due weight in hiring, promotion, and tenure But don’t over-recognize them –OA to peer-reviewed research through repositories is just as good

20. Copyright issues (1) Encourage faculty to retain more rights, transfer fewer –Retain copyright and transfer only right of first print and electronic publication –Transfer copyright but retain right of OA postprint archiving and other non-commercial copying and use –Use retained rights to consent to OA SPARC Author’s Addendum –http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.html

21. Copyright issues (2) Faculty: Important to ask –Many journals will negotiate if asked –They need to know what authors want Administrators: Important to recommend, assist, educate –Many faculty don’t understand copyright issues, sign harmful contracts –Lend the institution’s weight to the faculty member’s request

22. Hiring, promotion, and tenure Give due weight to all worthy, peer- reviewed work –Regardless of medium or price –Not just a subset –Don’t use criteria that deter publication in new journals Journal articles for consideration should be in the IR –live links from vita

23. Educate faculty about OA OA increases visibility, retrievability, audience, usage, and citation impact It’s about career-building Faculty education about OA: –Must be viral or peer-to-peer –Must appeal to self-interest

24. Thank you Home http://www.earlham.edu/~peters OA Overview http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm OA Blog http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/fosblog.html OA Newsletter http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/archive.htm What you can do http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#do Peter Suber