tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/open-access-32477/articlesOpen access – The Conversation2023-07-25T21:04:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2097612023-07-25T21:04:08Z2023-07-25T21:04:08ZSecondary publishing rights can improve public access to academic research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538372/original/file-20230719-23-7iw20z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C71%2C3952%2C2559&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making publicly-funded research immediately available for free would mean we all have access to information that could help us understand the world around us.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/secondary-publishing-rights-can-improve-public-access-to-academic-research" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Canada’s federal research granting agencies recently announced <a href="https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/interagency-research-funding/policies-and-guidelines/open-access/presidents-canadas-federal-research-granting-agencies-announce-review-tri-agency-open-access-policy">a review</a> of the <a href="https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/interagency-research-funding/policies-and-guidelines/open-access/tri-agency-open-access-policy-publications">Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications</a>, with the goal of requiring immediate open and free access to all academic publications generated through <a href="https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/interagency-interorganismes/TAFA-AFTO/guide-guide_eng.asp">Tri-Agency</a> supported research by 2025. </p>
<p>To meet this requirement, the Canadian government should empower academic authors through the adoption of <a href="https://www.knowledgerights21.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Secondary-Publishing-Rights-Position-Paper.pdf">secondary publishing rights</a>. These rights would ensure that authors can immediately “<a href="https://www.knowledgerights21.org/statement/secondary-publishing-rights-new-position-statement-from-knowledge-rights-21/">republish publicly funded research after its first publication in an open access repository or elsewhere</a>,” even in cases where this is forbidden by publishers.</p>
<p>Tweaking the <em><a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-42/Index.html">Copyright Act</a></em> to include such rights would give academic authors the ability to make taxpayer-funded journal articles available to the public through open access upon publication.</p>
<p>Enabling Canada’s research to be openly accessible without barriers will contribute to the public good, helping to foster innovation and discovery.</p>
<h2>Open access policy review</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/research-public-funding-academic-journal-subscriptions-elsevier-librarians-university-of-california-1.5049597">Research locked behind paywalls</a> is an impediment to science, innovation and cultural progress. In the past, most research papers would only be accessible to individuals who pay to access research papers or who work or study at universities willing to pay for access. This model is changing, and many publications are now openly available to the public. However, <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/08/11/article-processing-charges-apcs-and-the-new-enclosure-of-research/">authors are increasingly required to pay publishers</a> in order to be published open access.</p>
<p>The current Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications does require that authors make copies of funded journal articles freely available online, but allows for a 12-month embargo period where publishers get exclusive rights to the content and can keep it locked behind a paywall. That can mean significant delays in free access to <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/covid-19-underlines-need-full-open-access">vital research</a>. </p>
<p>The policy review is overdue in Canada. In the <a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/">European Union</a> and the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf">United States</a>, governments have committed to immediate open access for publicly funded research. </p>
<p>Canada can learn from the experiences of these other jurisdictions, and create a framework that ensures equitable open access to publicly funded Canadian research.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person inputting payment card details into a laptop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538381/original/file-20230719-23-zpvc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Locking research behind paywalls impedes scientific innovation and cultural progress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Article processing charges</h2>
<p>In addition to allowing embargo periods, Canada’s current open access policy has fallen short of delivering in key areas and needs to adapt to changes in academic publishing. </p>
<p>For example, the Tri-Agency suffers from <a href="https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/cjils/article/view/14149">low rates</a> of compliance with their open access policy when compared to other jurisdictions. OA.Report data shows publications funded by the <a href="https://oa.report/04j5jqy92/">Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</a> as having only 52 per cent compliance with the policy in 2023 so far. </p>
<p>It is unclear why authors do not comply with the policy. It might be that they misunderstand their obligations or that they simply cannot afford the high <a href="https://guides.library.unlv.edu/c.php?g=901395&p=6486147">article processing charges (APCs)</a> that they might need to pay to publish in their journal of choice. The result is that much publicly funded research remains unavailable to the public.</p>
<p>APCs are fees academic authors pay to be published in open access journals. Authors can be charged fees of <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/critic-at-large/opinion-is-open-access-worth-the-cost-70049">$1,000 up to $13,000</a>. Journals increasingly rely on APCs, making the cost of open access publishing prohibitively expensive for many authors. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.acsi2022.ca/talk/12.butler/">Estimates indicate</a> Canadian academic authors spent at least US$27.6 million on processing charges from 2015 to 2018, <a href="https://theconversation.com/removing-author-fees-can-help-open-access-journals-make-research-available-to-everyone-189675">despite the preponderance of free-to-publish open access journals</a>.</p>
<p>Authors don’t always have funds to cover these fees, and offloading them to university libraries through <a href="https://www.carl-abrc.ca/doc/CARLOAWGLibraryOAFundsFinalReport-Jan%202016.pdf">open access funds</a> or <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/23/transformative-agreements/">transformative agreements</a> is not sustainable and leads to inequitable publishing opportunities between large and small institutions. </p>
<p>In addition, scholars from the Global South have <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/05/20/the-commercial-model-of-academic-publishing-underscoring-plan-s-weakens-the-existing-open-access-ecosystem-in-latin-america/">drawn attention</a> to the inequitable nature of APC-based-publishing, while other models of funding open access journals are being extinguished.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people sit at a table with books and laptops." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538373/original/file-20230719-28-b6hqk8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">There must be a framework that ensures equitable open access to publicly funded Canadian research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Secondary publishing rights</h2>
<p>There are clear paths forward that enable more open access. While academic journal publishing is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science">extremely profitable for publishing companies</a>, the authors, editors and reviewers that form the backbone of the system are <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/3/18271538/open-access-elsevier-california-sci-hub-academic-paywalls">rarely compensated</a> for their labour and <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3981756">face challenges negotiating fair publication agreements</a>. </p>
<p>The Canadian Federation of Library Associations has recently proposed one partial solution: to provide <a href="http://cfla-fcab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CFLA-Secondary-Publishing-Rights-and-Open-Access-Position-Statement.docx-1.pdf">secondary publishing rights</a> to academic authors in Canada. The proposal is also endorsed by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. </p>
<p>Secondary publishing rights have already been implemented in multiple European countries, with perhaps the most notable example being the <a href="https://liberquarterly.eu/article/view/10915/12075#toc">Taverne Amendment</a> in the Netherlands, which has seen the rate of <a href="https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/16-11-2022-the-netherlands-takes-another-big-step-towards-100-open-access">open access top 80 per cent</a>. </p>
<p>European countries’ implementations of these rights currently include embargo periods. However, the Association of European Research Libraries has released draft language for secondary rights without an embargo period that would allow for “<a href="https://libereurope.eu/draft-law-for-the-use-of-publicly-funded-scholarly-publications/">lawful self-archiving on open, public, non-for-profit repositories</a>.” </p>
<p>If Canada were to adopt a similar law in conjunction with revising the Tri-Agency policy, we could become a worldwide leader in open access scholarly publications.</p>
<p>Ultimately, more immediate open access at lower costs would mean we all have better access to information that could help us better understand the world around us, whether it is medical information, engineering innovations or new explorations of culture and history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brianne Selman is on the Canadian Federation of Library Associations Copyright Committee.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Swartz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Secondary publishing rights could facilitate immediate open access to publicly funded research and foster global innovation and discovery.Brianne Selman, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Librarian, University of WinnipegMark Swartz, Scholarly Publishing Librarian, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1896752022-09-15T13:19:55Z2022-09-15T13:19:55ZRemoving author fees can help open access journals make research available to everyone<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483777/original/file-20220909-7447-on5881.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C35%2C6000%2C3952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Open access journals make peer-reviewed research available to anyone interested.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Open access (OA) journals are academic, peer-reviewed journals that are free and available for anyone to read without paying subscription fees. To make up for lost subscription revenue, many journals instead charge author fees to researchers who wish to publish in them. These fees can reach <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2264">thousands of dollars per article</a>, paid out of publicly funded research grants. </p>
<p>This costs <a href="https://doi.org/10.29173/cais1262">Canadians millions of dollars annually</a>, and lines the pockets of major publishers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">whose profit margins rival those of Pfizer</a>. However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558704">thousands of OA journals don’t charge author fees</a>, proving that publishing in open access journals doesn’t have to be this expensive.</p>
<p>I work as an academic librarian at McGill University, serving as an on-campus expert on open access publishing. According to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.153">research conducted by myself and a colleague</a>, Canada is home to <a href="https://doi.org/10.7939/DVN/EPSJJR">nearly 300 no-fee, open access journals</a>. This is important, as author fees serve as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00157">barrier for many researchers to make their work available for anyone interested</a>. </p>
<h2>Cost of publishing</h2>
<p>Typical costs of publishing an academic journal include salaries for copy editors, typesetters and translators, and fees for technical infrastructure such as web hosting and submission systems. There are also costs associated with running non-OA journals, such as managing paywalls, subscription payment systems and salaries for sales personnel. </p>
<p>Publishing a journal requires money, <a href="https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.27468.2">but that amounts to only 10 to 15 per cent of what publishers charge authors to make their work open access</a>. Author fees are disproportionate with publishing costs, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00016">correlate to the journal’s prestige</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4119/unibi/2931061">impact</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22673">profit model</a>. </p>
<p>In this environment, <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/06/04/the-gold-rush-why-open-access-will-boost-publisher-profits/">author fees will continue to increase so long as someone can pay for it</a>. It also means that open access publishing privileges a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00091">certain set of researchers</a>. </p>
<h2>A case study</h2>
<p>McGill University Library supports a no-fee, OA science journal called <em><a href="https://seismica.library.mcgill.ca/">Seismica</a></em>, which publishes peer-reviewed research in seismology and earthquake science. <em>Seismica</em> represents an alternative to rising author fees, such as <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/madhukarpai/2020/11/30/how-prestige-journals-remain-elite-exclusive-and-exclusionary/"><em>Nature</em>‘s controversial</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf8491">$10,000+ open access author fee</a>. </p>
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<p>A community of nearly 50 researchers and international scientists make up <a href="https://seismica.library.mcgill.ca/about/editorialTeam"><em>Seismica</em>’s editorial team</a>. McGill Library covers the technical costs for <em>Seismica</em>, including <a href="https://www.doi.org/index.html">DOI registration</a>, preservation, web hosting and management of the manuscript submission platform. </p>
<p>Volunteer labour provided by the <em>Seismica</em> team handles the journal’s operations: soliciting reviewers, reviewing submissions and publishing accepted manuscripts. The journal is also responsible for creating its own author guidelines, updating its website and promoting itself. <em>Seismica</em> provides authors with preformatted templates to reduce time spent on layout and production.</p>
<p>McGill Library is one of many Canadian libraries supporting journals in this manner. Of the nearly 300, no-fee OA Canadian journals we researched, 90 per cent were supported in some way by academic libraries. </p>
<h2>Community value</h2>
<p>Journals aren’t simply about publishing papers; to be successful, they must be recognized and valued by the community. At <em>Seismica</em>, significant effort and resources have gone into <a href="https://doi.org/10.31223/X5304V">grassroots community building</a>. In a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999612/">publish-or-perish culture</a>, launching a new journal isn’t enough — it must be valued and respond to its community’s needs in order to attract submissions. </p>
<p>Editors and peer reviewers contribute their time to journals as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12290">part of their service to their profession</a>. Some researchers and editors are dissatisfied with providing volunteer labour to publishing companies producing millions of dollars in profits. No-fee, scholar-led journals provide an attractive alternative; this has certainly been a <a href="https://doi.org/10.31223/X5304V">motivating factor for the editorial team at <em>Seismica</em></a>.</p>
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<p><em>Seismica</em> is unique as a no-fee, OA science journal. Our research identified that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.153">Canadian STEM journals were nearly 40 per cent less likely to be open access than journals in other disciplines</a>. This is also true globally. One study found that humanities and social sciences journals represented <a href="https://doi.org/10.6087/kcse.277">60 per cent of no-fee, OA journals</a>, compared to 22 per cent in science and 17 per cent in medicine. </p>
<p>Furthermore, science and medicine journals make up the majority of fee-charging, OA journals. This is likely because these journals were early adopters of the author-fee model; researchers publishing in them also had larger grants available to pay these fees. </p>
<h2>Future publishing models</h2>
<p>As author fees charged by the <a href="https://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10280">big publishers skyrocket</a>, libraries, universities and funding agencies should encourage alternative publishing models. No-fee, OA journals can serve this need, but can be <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1990">precarious</a> and require <a href="https://www.scienceeurope.org/our-resources/action-plan-for-diamond-open-access/">support</a>. </p>
<p>Canada, for example, has a <a href="https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/scholarly_journals-revues_savantes-eng.aspx">grant to support journals in the social sciences and humanities</a>, but no such grant exists at the federal level for science and medical journals. Canada has also been a leader in launching a <a href="http://partnership.erudit.org/principles">cooperative funding model for open access journals</a>. </p>
<p>The focus here, too, has been on arts and humanities and social sciences. Canadian libraries, universities, funding agencies and nonprofit publishers should continue working together to ensure a sustainable, affordable publishing system for all disciplines.</p>
<p>Author fees limit affordable open access for researchers, particularly those without grant funding. Supporting no-fee OA journals is one way forward.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Lange received funding from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) - Research in Librarianship grant. </span></em></p>Some open access journals — those that don’t charge their readers a fee — require that researchers pay to publish with them. Removing author fees helps more researchers to publish their work.Jessica Lange, Scholarly Communications Librarian, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1894662022-08-29T20:03:06Z2022-08-29T20:03:06ZThe US has ruled all taxpayer-funded research must be free to read. What’s the benefit of open access?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481466/original/file-20220829-50806-wh9yvf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1276%2C815%2C3491%2C2933&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/6ywyo2qtaZ8">Eugenio Mazzone/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, the United States announced an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/25/breakthroughs-for-alldelivering-equitable-access-to-americas-research/">updated policy guidance</a> on open access that will substantially expand public access to science not just in America, but worldwide.</p>
<p>As per the guidance, all US federal agencies must put in place policies and plans so anyone anywhere can immediately and freely access the peer-reviewed publications and data arising from research they fund.</p>
<p>The policies need to be in place by the end of 2025, according to President Biden’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).</p>
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<h2>A substantial step</h2>
<p>The new guidance builds <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-access-results-federally-funded-research">on a previous memo</a> issued by then president Barack Obama’s office in 2013. That one only applied to the largest funding agencies and, in a crucial difference, allowed for a 12-month delay or embargo for the publications to be available.</p>
<p>Now we’re seeing a substantial step forward in a lengthy effort – extending back to the <a href="https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/">beginning of this century</a> – to open up access to the world’s research.</p>
<p>We can expect it to act as a catalyst for more policy changes globally. It’s also especially timely given UNESCO’s <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/natural-sciences/open-science">Open Science Recommendation</a> adopted in 2021. The new OSTP guidance emphasises the primary intention is for the US public to have immediate access to research funded by their tax dollars.</p>
<p>But thanks to the conditions for opening up said research, people worldwide will benefit.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/busting-the-top-five-myths-about-open-access-publishing-14792">Busting the top five myths about open access publishing</a>
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<h2>A discriminatory system</h2>
<p>It might seem obvious that with our ubiquitous internet access, there should already be immediate open access to publicly funded research. But that isn’t the case for most published studies.</p>
<p>Changing the system has been challenging, not least because academic publishing is dominated by a small number of <a href="https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">highly profitable and powerful publishers</a>.</p>
<p>Open access matters for both the public and academics, as the fast-moving emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic amply demonstrated.</p>
<p>Even academics at well-funded universities can mostly only access journals their universities subscribe to – and no institution can afford to subscribe to everything published. Last year, estimates suggest some 2 million research articles were published. People outside a university – in a small company, a college, a GP practice, a newsroom, or citizen scientists – have to pay for access.</p>
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<p>As the new guidance notes, this lack of public access leads to “discrimination and structural inequalities… [that] prevent some communities from reaping the rewards of the scientific and technological advancements”. Furthermore, lack of access leads to mistrust in research.</p>
<p>The accompanying <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Memo.pdf">OSTP memo</a> highlights that future policies should support scientific and research integrity, with the aim of increasing public trust in science.</p>
<p>COVID-19 is not the first rapid global emergency, and it won’t be the last. For example, doctors not being able <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/opinion/yes-we-were-warned-about-ebola.html">to access research on Ebola</a> may have directly led to a 2015 outbreak in West Africa.</p>
<p>In the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID19-Open-Access-Letter-from-CSAs.Equivalents-Final.pdf">White House led calls</a> for publishers to make COVID-19 publications open to all. Most (but not all) did and that call led to one of the biggest databases of openly available papers ever assembled – the <a href="https://allenai.org/data/cord-19">CORD-19 database</a>.</p>
<p>But not all of those COVID-19 papers will be permanently openly available, since some publishers put conditions on their accessibility. With the current spread of monkeypox, we are potentially facing another global emergency. In August this year, the White House once again <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/04/a-call-for-public-access-to-monkeypox-related-research-and-data/">called for publishers</a> to make relevant research open.</p>
<p>The OSTP guidance will finally mean that, at least for US federally funded research, the time of governments having to repeatedly call for publishers to make research open is over.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-just-available-but-also-useful-we-must-keep-pushing-to-improve-open-access-to-research-86058">Not just available, but also useful: we must keep pushing to improve open access to research</a>
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<h2>The situation in Australia</h2>
<p>In Australia, we don’t yet have a national approach to open access. The two national research funders, the <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/resources/open-access-policy">NHMRC</a> and <a href="https://www.arc.gov.au/about-arc/program-policies/open-access-policy">ARC</a>, have policies in place similar to the 2013 US guidance of a 12-month embargo period. The NHMRC consulted last year on an immediate open access policy.</p>
<p>All Australian universities provide access to their research through their repositories, although that access varies depending on individual universities’ and publishers’ policies. Most recently, <a href="https://caul.libguides.com/read-and-publish">the Council of Australian University Librarians negotiated</a> a number of consortial open access deals with publishers. Cathy Foley, Australia’s Chief Scientist, is also considering a <a href="https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/Dr-Cathy-Foley-delivers-National-Press-Club-Address">national model for open access</a>.</p>
<p>So what’s next? As expected, perhaps, some of the larger publishers are already <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/us/white-house-federally-funded-research-access.html">making the case</a> for more funding for them to support this policy. It will be important that this policy doesn’t lead to a financial bonanza for these already very profitable companies – nor a consolidation of their power.</p>
<p>Rather, it would be good to see financial support for innovation in publishing, and a recognition that we need a <a href="https://www.coar-repositories.org/news-updates/fostering-bibliodiversity-in-scholarly-communications-a-call-for-action/">diversity of approaches</a> to support an academic publishing system that works for the benefit of all.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-australian-research-free-for-everyone-to-read-sounds-ideal-but-the-chief-scientists-open-access-plan-isnt-risk-free-171389">Making Australian research free for everyone to read sounds ideal. But the Chief Scientist's open-access plan isn't risk-free</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginia Barbour is the Director Of Open Access Australasia, which advocates for Open Access in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.</span></em></p>Lack of free access to research leads to discrimination, both in academia and for us all. The new guidance from the US is a huge step in the right direction.Virginia Barbour, Director, Open Access Australasia, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1731482021-12-03T21:59:43Z2021-12-03T21:59:43ZHow the United Nations’ new ‘open science framework’ could speed up the pace of discovery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435515/original/file-20211203-13-1xee03d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C14%2C4898%2C3238&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mikolaj/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science, at its heart, is a collaborative effort. The eureka moments are headline-grabbing and enormously important, but they don’t come out of the blue. They emerge from years or even decades of testing, rejecting and refining ideas, painstakingly building a body of knowledge. Progress would be extremely slow if we all had to start at the beginning, or unknowingly tread paths others have already been down.</p>
<p>This is the nub of the argument for open science. The first step is open access to the research literature without fees or paywalls. My goal is for all Australian research to be open access, domestically and internationally, and for research conducted overseas to be freely available to read in Australia.</p>
<p>This year, in discussions with government, researchers, publishers and other stakeholders, I began the first steps towards a potential model. We are in the early stages, and the detail will take some time to emerge. But the appetite for change is strong, and I have no doubt that if we can realise an open access strategy, it will boost Australian discovery, innovation and prosperity.</p>
<p>As I <a href="https://aips.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/AQ-92.4-Oct-Dec-2021-FREE-ARTICLE.pdf">wrote recently</a> in Australian Quarterly, open science is a bigger and more transformative shift. As well as access to research papers, it means also sharing research data, code and software, and research infrastructure. You can think of it as scientists and researchers sharing the back story.</p>
<p>This has the potential to make science faster, more efficient and more accurate. It allows researchers to test findings and build on each other’s work towards an ever more sophisticated picture. It builds collaboration across disciplines, allowing new explanations and insights to emerge.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-can-we-gain-from-open-access-to-australian-research-climate-action-for-a-start-171821">What can we gain from open access to Australian research? Climate action for a start</a>
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<p>The COVID-19 pandemic offers a great example of these benefits. In January 2020, researchers began sharing the genetic code of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with colleagues around the world. Edward Holmes, a professor at the University of Sydney, <a href="https://theconversation.com/professor-who-tweeted-the-coronavirus-genome-paving-the-way-for-new-vaccines-scoops-major-australian-science-award-171208">won the 2021 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science</a> for his role in this, after he worked with colleagues in China and Scotland to release the genetic code, catalysing work on a test and a vaccine. </p>
<p>Science publishers also played their part by bringing research out from behind paywalls and making it available for everyone to read. This is shared knowledge creation in action.</p>
<p>We remain in the grip of the pandemic, but the vaccines and therapies developed in record time through concerted, collaborative efforts will save countless lives and speed the recovery significantly.</p>
<p>Last week, the international community took an important step towards this vision, when 193 countries at the UNESCO General Conference <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-sets-ambitious-international-standards-open-science?hub=hub%3D686">adopted the first international framework on open science</a>.</p>
<p>The framework recognises the urgency of interconnected global challenges, such as climate change and the pandemic, and acknowledges the importance of science in providing solutions. It also recognises that open science is more efficient, improving quality, reproducibility and impact, and thereby increasing trust. Open science is also more equitable and inclusive.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-australian-research-free-for-everyone-to-read-sounds-ideal-but-the-chief-scientists-open-access-plan-isnt-risk-free-171389">Making Australian research free for everyone to read sounds ideal. But the Chief Scientist's open-access plan isn't risk-free</a>
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<p>Until now, there was no universal definition of open science, and standards existed only at regional, national or institutional levels. Countries have now agreed to abide by common standards, values and principles, and report back every four years on progress.</p>
<p>The recommendation calls on member states to set up regional and international funding mechanisms and invest in infrastructure for open science. Just as we are aiming to open access to research in Australia, it asks that nations ensure that all publicly funded research respects the principles and core values of open science.</p>
<p>I welcome this collaborative international approach. Open science is a great aim. Working together and sharing insights as a global science community is the best way to push the boundaries of knowledge and discovery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173148/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathy Foley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Making scientific research free to read could bolster collaboration and research on solving problems such as pandemics, climate change and more. The UN has taken a step towards realising this goal.Cathy Foley, Australia's Chief Scientist, Office of the Chief ScientistLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1718212021-12-02T15:12:00Z2021-12-02T15:12:00ZWhat can we gain from open access to Australian research? Climate action for a start<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434916/original/file-20211201-19-1wky2ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C307%2C3421%2C2274&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COP26 meeting has sharpened the world’s focus on climate change. To adapt and thrive in a world of reduced emissions, Australian businesses and communities need access to the technologies and innovation made possible by the nation’s researchers. But most Australian research is locked behind publisher paywalls. </p>
<p>Open access to research has become an important strategy to speed innovation. Making COVID-19-related research and data publicly accessible to fast-track the development of vaccines, treatments and policies is one example. </p>
<p>Given the gravity of the global climate emergency, it seems reasonable also to use open access to help speed green innovation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-publicly-funded-research-could-soon-be-free-for-you-the-taxpayer-to-read-111825">All publicly funded research could soon be free for you, the taxpayer, to read</a>
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<p>But, as Prime Minister <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/24/australian-universities-to-vie-for-coalitions-200m-research-funding-boost">Scott Morrison recently noted</a>, research systems driven by a “publish or perish mindset” do little to spur innovation. Scholarly communication models that lock research behind paywalls slow the flow of new knowledge from researchers into real-world innovation. </p>
<p>Australian universities pay hundreds of millions of dollars in subscription fees each year for access to publications by Australian researchers. Businesses, policy advisers, think-tanks and private individuals who don’t have access to a university library must either pay separately for access or miss out. </p>
<p>This is despite the fact Australia invests an estimated <a href="https://oa2020.org/wp-content/uploads/POSTER_12_OpenAccessForAustralia_poster_DrCathyFoley.pdf">A$12 billion of taxpayer money</a> each year in research and innovation, according to Chief Scientist Cathy Foley. Action is needed to ensure this publicly funded research can be translated into innovation for the wider economy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/making-australian-research-free-for-everyone-to-read-sounds-ideal-but-the-chief-scientists-open-access-plan-isnt-risk-free-171389">Making Australian research free for everyone to read sounds ideal. But the Chief Scientist's open-access plan isn't risk-free</a>
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<h2>How does Australia compare to the world?</h2>
<p>International research communities are already using open-access strategies to maximise the impacts of climate-related research. Our analysis of publication data* shows between 2011 and 2020 the proportion of research on climate change that is open access rose from 30% to 50%. This is consistent with an <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-publicly-funded-research-could-soon-be-free-for-you-the-taxpayer-to-read-111825">accelerating international shift</a> towards “public access to publicly funded research”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bar chart showing percentage of open access research publications on climate change by country" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434118/original/file-20211126-19-15dfiku.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>But Australia has <a href="https://theconversation.com/2020-locked-in-shift-to-open-access-publishing-but-australia-is-lagging-150284">lagged behind the rest of the world</a> in making research open access.</p>
<p>More than half of the Australian research on climate change published in the past decade is behind a paywall. This puts Australia on par with the US and Canada – but well behind our nearest neighbour Indonesia, as well as most of Europe. </p>
<p>Australia’s low rates of open access have implications for communities in need of information about how to adapt to a warming world. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="graph showing Australian trends in categories of open access to climate research and all research from 2011 to 2020" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434119/original/file-20211126-17-5ckhn0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/2020-locked-in-shift-to-open-access-publishing-but-australia-is-lagging-150284">2020 locked in shift to open access publishing, but Australia is lagging</a>
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<h2>Australia’s research sector is pushing back</h2>
<p>The Council of Australian University Libraries (<a href="https://www.caul.edu.au/">CAUL</a>) is leading the push for open access to Australian research. So-called “transformative agreements” are one aspect of its strategy. These are deals with publishers that cover both subscription access to articles that are still behind paywalls and open-access publishing rights for articles by Australian researchers. </p>
<p>In 2021 the CAUL signed transformative agreements with five major publishers.</p>
<p>Foley argues that a “gold” route to open access (paying publishers not to lock articles behind paywalls) is likely to cost less than Australian universities already pay for subscription access: <a href="https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/news-and-media/unlocking-academic-library-open-access">between A$460 million and A$1 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Foley wants a sector-wide approach that would result in all Australian research being published in open access, and all Australians able to access the journals that universities subscribe to.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-publishing-has-opened-up-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-it-wont-be-easy-to-keep-it-that-way-142984">Science publishing has opened up during the coronavirus pandemic. It won't be easy to keep it that way</a>
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<h2>What more needs to be done?</h2>
<p>So will the latest transformative agreements make it easier to access research needed to tackle climate change?</p>
<p>The short answer is “yes, but we need to do more”. </p>
<p>A few big commercial publishers dominate scholarly publishing. </p>
<p>So far CAUL has signed deals with only two of the largest publishers of climate-related research: Wiley and Springer Nature. The Springer Nature deal excludes many of its most prestigious titles, including the journal Nature. </p>
<p>If the deals with Springer Nature and Wiley had applied to all 2020 publications, our analysis suggests they would have made up to 200 more articles immediately accessible on publication. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing numbers of published Australian research papers on climate change by publisher from 2011 to 2020." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=282&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434120/original/file-20211126-17-3yzn33.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Deals with the Big Five publishers will create a step change in the amount of Australian climate change research that is freely accessible. But there is a danger they will further lock in the monopolies of a few players. </p>
<p>Australian researchers could make a bigger difference to open access by making their work available through other online sharing platforms. Discipline platforms like arXiv, Pubmed Central or university systems like <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/cgi/search/archive/advanced/?dataset=archive&screen=Search&_action_search=Search&refereed=EITHER&title_merge=ALL&title=climate+change&id_number_merge=ALL&id_number=&creators_name_merge=ALL&creators_name=&editors_name_merge=ALL&editors_name=&divisions_merge=ANY&abstract_merge=ALL&abstract=&documents_merge=ALL&documents=&keywords_merge=ALL&keywords=&subjects_merge=ANY&date=&datestamp=&publication_merge=ALL&publication=&series_merge=ALL&series=&isbn_merge=ALL&isbn=&issn_merge=ALL&issn=&event_title_merge=ALL&event_title=&publisher_merge=ALL&publisher=&facilities_merge=ANY&funding_agency_merge=ALL&funding_agency=&funding_id_merge=ALL&funding_id=&satisfyall=ALL&order=-date%2Fcreators_name%2Ftitle">QUT’s ePrints</a> are examples. </p>
<p>Our analysis found less than 40% of Australia’s 2019 research output is accessible through these platforms. Australian researchers could make 1,400 articles on climate change more accessible by depositing them in a free open access repository today. </p>
<p>Tackling climate change and improving access to research are both complex and controversial issues. In each case, thinking through the implications in the short, medium and long term will be key to helping Australia achieve its goals. </p>
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<p><em>* Data statement: data were obtained from Crossref metadata, Unpaywall, Microsoft Academic and the Global Research Identifier Database, via the data infrastructure developed by the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative, Curtin University. “Climate change” is a topic category available from Microsoft Academic and this was supplemented by a search for terms associated with UN Sustainable Development Goal 7, “clean energy” and “net zero”.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Montgomery has received funding from Springer Nature for research relating to Open Access. She is also affiliated with a number or organisations involved in Open Access scholarly communication, including as a recipient of funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and as a member of the Scientific Committees for the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and the OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit. Montgomery is non-executive director of the not-for-profit consultancy Collaborative Open Access Research and Development (COARD).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Neylon has received funding from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Springer Nature, the Arcadia Fund, Arnold Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and other organisations for research relating to Open Access. He is also affiliated or has an advisory role with a number or organisations involved in Open Access scholarly communication, including as part of the Initiatives for Open Citations and for Open Abstracts, an Advisory Board Member of Open Book Publishers, and others. Neylon is a non-executive director of the not-for-profit consultancy Collaborative Open Access Research and Development (COARD).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl Huang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Open access to COVID-19 research accelerated the development of solutions. The urgency of climate change demands the same approach, but more than half of Australian research is still behind paywalls.Lucy Montgomery, Program Lead, Innovation in Knowledge Communication, Curtin UniversityCameron Neylon, Professor of Research Communications, Curtin UniversityKarl Huang, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Culture and Technology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1713892021-11-15T19:10:06Z2021-11-15T19:10:06ZMaking Australian research free for everyone to read sounds ideal. But the Chief Scientist’s open-access plan isn’t risk-free<p>Chief Scientist Cathy Foley is leading an <a href="https://oa2020.org/wp-content/uploads/POSTER_12_OpenAccessForAustralia_poster_DrCathyFoley.pdf">open access strategy for Australia</a>.
Foley estimates the Australian government invests A$12 billion a year of public money in research and innovation only for most of the publications that eventuate to be locked behind a paywall, inaccessible to industry and the taxpayer. At the same time, Australian universities and others pay publishers an estimated <a href="https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/news-and-media/unlocking-academic-library-open-access">$460 million to $1 billion a year</a> to see this published work. </p>
<p>Inspired by the European open-access initiative <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-publicly-funded-research-could-soon-be-free-for-you-the-taxpayer-to-read-111825">Plan S</a>, Foley’s goal is to make all publicly funded Australian research publications free for the public to read. This is to be done through a sector-wide agreement between universities and publishers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/2020-locked-in-shift-to-open-access-publishing-but-australia-is-lagging-150284">2020 locked in shift to open access publishing, but Australia is lagging</a>
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<p>The multinational publishers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research – Elsevier, Springer Nature Group, Wiley and Clarivate – are talking with the Chief Scientist. But no new sector funding is available from the government. The idea is it will pool the funds that universities currently pay to publishers to finance new sector-wide <a href="https://oaaustralasia.org/2021/05/25/what-are-transformative-agreements/">transformative agreements</a>. These are also known as “<a href="https://caul.libguides.com/read-and-publish">read and publish</a>” agreements. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1455694409702391811"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/2020-locked-in-shift-to-open-access-publishing-but-australia-is-lagging-150284">Australia has lagged behind</a> Europe and America in making research open access. That’s despite it being required by funders like the National Health and Medical Research Council (<a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/resources/open-access-policy">NHMRC</a>) and Australian Research Council (<a href="https://www.arc.gov.au/policies-strategies/policy/arc-open-access-policy">ARC</a>). </p>
<p>Transformative agreements could help redress the problem. However, these agreements are also a new business model. </p>
<h2>Two existing models: green and gold</h2>
<p>When publishers accept a journal article for publication they negotiate with authors about the licence terms that will apply to its distribution. Most publishers will issue contracts that allow for open access. It’s usually achieved in one of two ways. </p>
<p>The “green model” involves researchers placing copies of their work in an online open-access repository. Often the pre-editing and layout version is made available because the publisher denies permission to make the “version of record” accessible to non-subscribers, even in the university institutional repository. Sometimes authors can negotiate green access but with a delay of at least 12 months and up to several years. </p>
<p>The “gold model” guarantees the article will immediately be made available free to readers. It usually involves authors or their institutions paying an up-front article processing charge (APC) to publishers. </p>
<p>APCs can be steep. Costs map the “prestige” of the journal and what the market will bear. The <a href="https://www.springernature.com/gp/open-research/journals-books/journals">huge diversity in fees</a>, even from the same publisher, shows these are unrelated to any real-world cost of article processing. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/increasing-open-access-publications-serves-publishers-commercial-interests-116328">Increasing open access publications serves publishers' commercial interests</a>
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<p>Both green and gold open-access publishing can increase the social capital or reputation of the author. For the publisher, it increases the asset value of the much-cited text and the associated journal. </p>
<p>However, in the business of scholarly communication, individual articles are not of significant value. Commercial products emerge from the accumulation of individual copyrights. Publishers bundle works under recognisable titles to be sold back to the sector as database subscriptions and data-driven research services and platforms.</p>
<p>Data related to citations, reads and downloads can be sold to third parties. These include the ARC to underpin its ranking of universities and grants. </p>
<p>Large publishers monitor repositories and sharing sites that often house green open-access papers. They do this both to capture the data generated and to reduce the potential of these outlets to challenge the need for commercial library subscriptions. </p>
<p>For example, Elsevier’s research products include Scopus, SciVal, Science Direct, Mendeley, Pure, Academia and bepress/SSRN. Elsevier has taken copyright infringement action against independent sharing sites such as <a href="https://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2019/02/14/giving-the-authors-a-voice-in-litigation-an-acs-v-researchgate-update/">Sci-Hub and ResearchGate</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Paywall page of Science journal requesting payment for individual article or login by subscribers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431604/original/file-20211112-19-sl3q8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Paywalls have limited access even to research publications relating to open access.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/6875255365/in/pool-open-access-irony-award/">Dunk/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-publishing-has-opened-up-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-it-wont-be-easy-to-keep-it-that-way-142984">Science publishing has opened up during the coronavirus pandemic. It won't be easy to keep it that way</a>
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<h2>What is the transformative agreement business model?</h2>
<p>With transformative agreements, universities agree to pay a fee that covers both subscriptions and costs for their future open-access publishing. These agreements do not necessarily reduce subscription costs. </p>
<p>Some agreements create a “read fee” for subscription access to existing academic literature, with open-access publishing apparently permitted at no extra cost. Others limit how many articles will be published as open access by the institution or discount article processing costs. Many include an annual fee increase of 2-3% to cover inflation. </p>
<p>In Australia, the Council of Australian University Librarians (<a href="https://www.caul.edu.au/news">CAUL</a>) has taken the lead on negotiating transformative agreements on behalf of its member institutions. It is not yet clear who would negotiate agreements with publishers under the Chief Scientist’s plan, if the funding is not directly paid by universities but by government.</p>
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<p>In the UK, the introduction of Plan S has raised concerns for the future of humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS), which also face the <a href="https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/the-costs-of-publishing-monographs/">higher costs of monograph publishing</a>. Were Foley’s negotiations to proceed with the big STEM publishers first, HASS, Australian and independent publishers could find themselves locked out of open access, as the pooled fund runs dry. A sustainable transition to open access <a href="https://blog.scholasticahq.com/post/developing-transformative-agreement-small-publisher/">requires arrangements with a variety of publishers</a>. </p>
<p>Pooling funds and collective negotiation are helpful in achieving better open-access outcomes. However, greater financial transparency and accountability over who benefits from academic copyright are required for Plan S-style agreements. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-publicly-funded-research-could-soon-be-free-for-you-the-taxpayer-to-read-111825">All publicly funded research could soon be free for you, the taxpayer, to read</a>
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<p>There are risks in taking money from universities that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/budgets-1bn-research-boost-is-a-welcome-first-step-billions-more-plus-policy-reforms-will-be-needed-147662">struggling to fund research</a>. Their <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/technology-and-innovation/research-and-experimental-development-higher-education-organisations-australia/latest-release">grants already do not cover the full cost of academic research</a>. One outcome is pressure to increase teaching-only positions.</p>
<p>As global open-access advocacy organisation SPARC reported in its <a href="https://sparcopen.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2021-Landscape-Analysis-101421.pdf">2021 update</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The past year has seen more [commercial] deals that led to more concentration, loss of diversity, and ultimately to the academic community’s lessening control over its own destiny.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Academics provide a free service to commercial publishers by researching, writing, reviewing and editing journals without payment. Universities pay for this labour, which generates the intellectual property relied on by publishers. Recognising this value could help us cut better deals with publishers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathy Bowrey receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This research is based on ARC DP200101578 Producing, managing and owning knowledge in the 21st century university.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberlee Weatherall works for the University of Sydney. She also receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This research is based on ARC DP200101578, Producing, managing and owning knowledge in the 21st century university.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kylie Pappalardo receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is the recipient of an ARC DECRA Fellowship (DE210100525) and a Chief Investigator on the ARC Discovery Project (DP200101578) Producing, managing and owning knowledge in the 21st century university. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie Hadley receives funding from the University of New South Wales, to work as a postdoctoral researcher/collaborator on the ARC DP2001101578 'Producing, Managing and Owning Knowledge in the 21st Century University'.</span></em></p>The idea is publicly funded Australian research should be free for the public to read when published. But if it means taking money from universities struggling for research funding, that poses risks.Kathy Bowrey, Professor, Faculty of Law, UNSW SydneyKimberlee Weatherall, Professor of Law, University of SydneyKylie Pappalardo, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Queensland University of TechnologyMarie Hadley, Lecturer, Newcastle Law School, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610192021-06-28T20:21:58Z2021-06-28T20:21:58ZLatin America could become a world leader in non-commercial open science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407674/original/file-20210622-14-ukclwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C0%2C7964%2C4000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The knowledge generated by scientists must be shared equally worldwide.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-illustration/highly-detailed-earth-atmosphere-relief-lightflooded-1484515337">Anton Balazh/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>To meet the challenges of the next century – from pandemics to climate change, automation and big data – science needs to be open to everyone. Citizens must be equipped with the same access to information as researchers, and scientists need access to high-quality, interconnected repositories of knowledge to advance our understanding of the world around us.</p>
<p>These are among the guiding principles of the <a href="https://en.unesco.org/science-sustainable-future/open-science/recommendation">open science movement</a>. Sustainability and inclusion are vital to open science, and can be fostered by shared practices, infrastructure and financing models which guarantee the equitable participation of scientists from less-favoured institutions and countries in the pursuit of knowledge and advancement.</p>
<p>We need to guarantee that the benefits of science are shared between scientists and the general public, without restriction. But how do we achieve this? Part of the answer lies in building national scientific systems capable of sharing and enhancing a diversity of knowledge.</p>
<h2>The birth of CRIS</h2>
<p>One of the main obstacles for open science is the lack of integration between existing databases – from public libraries to government datasets and university archives – which were built at different times using diverse systems, and which are not linked with one another.</p>
<p>For example, institutional repositories, which grew through the effort of librarians over generations, are usually disconnected from curriculum databases. They don’t have identifiers or permanent links to metadata – an indispensable element for sharing information. In recent years, it has become increasingly necessary to create national information systems capable of collecting the information for researchers, institutions, repositories, open data sets, research projects and citizen scientists.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Old opened book with colourful sketches above" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407678/original/file-20210622-17-14mxsdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407678/original/file-20210622-17-14mxsdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407678/original/file-20210622-17-14mxsdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407678/original/file-20210622-17-14mxsdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407678/original/file-20210622-17-14mxsdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407678/original/file-20210622-17-14mxsdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407678/original/file-20210622-17-14mxsdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Open sesame.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/old-opened-book-business-strategy-sketches-352920917">Sergey Nivens</a></span>
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<p>To satisfy this need, databases known as Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) emerged in Europe in the 1990s, expanding primarily at the institutional level, within universities. The <a href="https://www.eurocris.org/">European Organization for International Research Information</a> (EuroCRIS) was founded in 2002, and following this, similar systems started to <a href="https://dspacecris.eurocris.org/handle/11366/691">grow in other parts of the world</a>.</p>
<h2>The case of Latin America</h2>
<p>Latin America has a long tradition of using catalogues and libraries in the service of development. Since the 1960s, bibliographic indexes, repositories, and regional libraries emerged, managed by large public universities and regional institutions.</p>
<p>In the 1990s, new repositories and databases were born that would become pillars of a solid infrastructure for open-access scientific communication. With the launch of the open access journals databases <a href="https://www.latindex.org/latindex/inicio">Latindex</a>, <a href="https://scielo.org/es/">SciELO</a> and <a href="https://www.redalyc.org/">Redalyc</a>, the digitisation of scientific journals was given a boost and a quality seal was granted to published research. With a strong public imprint, these repositories acted as a springboard for the development of non-commercial open access environment that is today the hallmark of the region.</p>
<p>Latin America now has the optimal conditions to create open science infrastructure that capitalises on these previous efforts. And two examples stand out.</p>
<p>Brazil’s <a href="https://piloto-brcris-fapeal.ibict.br/">BrCris</a> was developed by the <a href="https://www.ibict.br/">Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia</a> alongside major national public agencies. Brazil is an immense country, with a professionalised scientific and technological system that has produced many databases on a national scale, making integration a huge challenge. Examples include the <a href="https://dadosabertos.capes.gov.br/">Open Data Portal</a>, the CV system <a href="http://lattes.cnpq.br/">Plataforma Lattes</a> and the directory of research groups known as <a href="http://lattes.cnpq.br/web/dgp/home">CNPQ</a>.</p>
<p>The BrCris architecture foresees not only integrating these large existing databases, but also ensuring an open-science infrastructure compatible with the <a href="https://www.lareferencia.info/es">Federated Network of Institutional Repositories of Scientific Publications</a>, which harvests repositories from ten countries in the region. BrCRis also aims to repatriate Brazilian data from around the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407671/original/file-20210622-25-1m95eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C8%2C5906%2C3922&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407671/original/file-20210622-25-1m95eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407671/original/file-20210622-25-1m95eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407671/original/file-20210622-25-1m95eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407671/original/file-20210622-25-1m95eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407671/original/file-20210622-25-1m95eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407671/original/file-20210622-25-1m95eb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Brazil has made its wealth of scientific knowledge widely available to researchers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/rio-de-janeiro-brazil-november-03-1579039840">Nido Huebl/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>The second case is that of the <a href="https://perucris.concytec.gob.pe/">PerúCRIS platform</a>. It was first devised when Peru approved its Open Access Law in 2013. The need then arose to integrate <a href="https://alicia.concytec.gob.pe/">three scientific information platforms</a>: the directory of researchers, the national directory of institutions and the national network of repositories. The new platform also includes all undergraduate and graduate theses.</p>
<p>Today, PerúCRIS includes five directories – human talent, scientific production, projects, institutions and infrastructure – and is designed not only for the scientific community but for society as a whole. It allows the public to discover new technologies, to participate in citizen science or to find creative ideas to generate opportunities for investment.</p>
<p>The fact that Latin American pilot CRIS projects are national rather than institutional, as in Europe, is due to the way they are funded. Most of the universities that contribute to scientific and technological research in the region are public and participate in national information systems. Given their reliance on public funds, these institutions do not have the resources to finance an institutional CRIS system, much less to purchase it as a package from large companies that offer these services.</p>
<p>This is not a weakness. Open software such as <a href="https://www.dspace.com/fr/fra/home.cfm">dSPACE</a>, used as the basis for Peru’s platform, guarantees that scientific information remains firmly in the public domain and hence delivers on the promise of open science.</p>
<h2>New ways to collaborate</h2>
<p>The cases of Brazil and Peru show that a national-level CRIS can promote true integration of all existing scientific platforms and organisations in a country or even a region. These databases can then be used for research assessment because they have a complete registry of people, institutions, productions and projects in the country.</p>
<p>Latin American CRIS databases will give visibility to different styles of publication and diverse researcher profiles, while enhancing new forms of scientific collaboration – especially those devalued by the dominant trends in academic evaluation.</p>
<p>This approach opens the way to increasingly inclusive and socially relevant science, while participates actively in the conversation of open science with the rest of the world.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398230/original/file-20210502-19-2lk7b1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>The Open Science movement has emerged from the scientific community and has rapidly spread across nations, calling for the opening of the gates of knowledge. Investors, entrepreneurs, policy makers and citizens are joining this call. <a href="https://fr.unesco.org/node/319422">UNESCO</a> is preparing a standard setting instrument and advancing policy frameworks on Open Science within its Member States.</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328409/original/file-20200416-192725-wmbl1n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328409/original/file-20200416-192725-wmbl1n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328409/original/file-20200416-192725-wmbl1n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328409/original/file-20200416-192725-wmbl1n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328409/original/file-20200416-192725-wmbl1n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328409/original/file-20200416-192725-wmbl1n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328409/original/file-20200416-192725-wmbl1n.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=609&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of the series “Great Stories of Open Science” published with the support of the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation. To learn more, visit <a href="https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/">Ouvrirlascience.fr</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161019/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fernanda Beigel a reçu des financements de CONICET, Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica et Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. </span></em></p>We need to guarantee that the benefits of sciences are shared between scientists and the general public, without restriction. Peru and Brazil are leading the way.Fernanda Beigel, Investigadora del CONICET, Directora del Centro de Estudios de la Circulación del Conocimiento (CECIC, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo), Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (UNCUYO)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1532802021-01-29T12:20:23Z2021-01-29T12:20:23ZMaking hardware ‘open source’ can help us fight future pandemics - here’s how we get there<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380865/original/file-20210127-23-jgz16f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C6866%2C3964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/innovative-contemporary-smart-industry-product-design-1160095369">elenabsl/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In factories and industrial estates across the world, exceptional efforts are being made to ensure hospitals have ventilators, and logistics firms have freezers and refrigerators. Behind the scenes, this manufacturing drive has been taking place on an epic, unprecedented scale. In some places, it’s also been horrendously inefficient.</p>
<p>Some of that inefficiency is only to be expected. Manufacturing responsively at such short notice was <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/car-manufacturers-ventilators">always going to be messy</a>. But many of the hardware hold-ups we’ve witnessed – from production line bottlenecks to parts shortages – could be avoided in the future by applying an “open source” ethos to the world’s production of hardware.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-collective-intelligence-can-help-beat-coronavirus-in-developing-countries-136548">Five ways collective intelligence can help beat coronavirus in developing countries</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Open source design is a form of collective intelligence, where experts work together to create a design that anyone has the legal right to manufacture. The software industry has long shown that “open” collaboration is not only possible, but advantageous. Open source software is <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/12/how-open-source-software-took-over-the-world">ubiquitous</a>, and the servers that power the internet itself are largely run on open technology, <a href="https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press-release/linux-foundation-updates-study-on-linux-development-statistics-who-writes-linux-and-who-supports-it/">collaboratively designed by competing companies</a>.</p>
<p>Early in the pandemic, and in recognition of the global emergency that was unfolding, dozens of the world’s largest companies did actually sign up to the “<a href="https://opencovidpledge.org/">Open COVID Pledge</a>”, promising to share their intellectual property to help fight the virus. On a smaller scale, <a href="https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.22942.2">more than 100 project teams</a> set out to create and share “open” ventilator designs that could be produced locally, helping address the pressing need for ventilators around the world.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, neither of these initiatives succeeded in producing ventilators at the rate required by stretched hospitals <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4594">in the early weeks of the pandemic</a>. After examining existing attempts to share the intellectual property of machines, our recent paper concludes that projects must <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2020.1859168">be open from the start</a> in order to make a success of open hardware. Everything from the first doodle on a napkin to the detailed calculations that verify safety must be available if other experts and manufacturers are going to participate in the design.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A breathing mask on top of a medical ventilator" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380867/original/file-20210127-17-juj317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380867/original/file-20210127-17-juj317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380867/original/file-20210127-17-juj317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380867/original/file-20210127-17-juj317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380867/original/file-20210127-17-juj317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380867/original/file-20210127-17-juj317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380867/original/file-20210127-17-juj317.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Medical ventilators have been in particular demand since the beginning of the pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/respiratory-mask-resuscitator-ventilation-patient-pneumonia-1673318152">Dan Race/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The road to open hardware</h2>
<p>Producing hardware through open collaboration may be daunting. As opposed to the entirely virtual collaboration required for software development, hardware development needs physical parts – raw materials and machinery. It needs testing facilities and engineers to perform stress tests and safety checks.</p>
<p>There are promising signs that these challenges can be met. The <a href="https://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap">RepRap 3D printer</a> project has brought low cost 3D printing to a wider audience, making affordable prototyping possible at a distance. Meanwhile, the <a href="https://white-rabbit.web.cern.ch/">CERN White Rabbit project</a> has shown that even the complex electronics that control the Large Hadron Collider can be developed as as open source hardware. But, <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/3862777">to be efficient we need better work flows for collaboration</a> – systems to help organise the distribution of tasks and responsibilities on collaborative hardware projects. </p>
<p>The journey from prototype to production is much more difficult, and less exciting, than the technical challenge of prototyping a device. Manufacturers must comply with international standards to <a href="https://www.iso.org/standard/59752.html">ensure quality</a> and <a href="https://www.iso.org/standard/72704.html">manage risk</a> related to their products. This is especially true of medical hardware, upon which lives depend. A key challenge for open hardware will be to achieve this certification in the same way that private companies do today.</p>
<p>Under current regulations, no matter how impressive and safe, ventilators constructed in volunteer maker spaces cannot be certified for medical use. But for equipment which is less strictly regulated, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.20944/preprints202003.0362.v1">like face shields</a>, open hardware is currently being leveraged successfully.</p>
<p>Achieving similar successes with high-tech medical devices will require organisations that are built to manufacture from open designs – dynamic factories, for instance, which will be responsive to global emergencies. It takes time to establish these organisations. But we can’t afford to wait for the next emergency: we should begin creating them today, in preparation for the next pandemic.</p>
<p>Of course, finding sustainable <a href="http://doi.org/10.5334/joh.4">business models</a> for open hardware is a challenge: can a system be created which shares intellectual property for free while helping designers and manufacturers profit? In one sense, open hardware has an advantage here: people are used to buying products, where online consumers are accustomed to using software for free.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it’s likely that setting up an open hardware manufacturing ecosystem will need public funding, or investor funding buying into non-traditional business models. This would follow the trajectory of the internet, which began life <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/">funded by public institutions</a> and is now home to the world’s biggest private enterprises.</p>
<h2>Closer inspection</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A home-made microscope, constructed from plastic and wires" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380923/original/file-20210127-21-dk9wun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The open source microscope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’ve experimented with our own open hardware project to help us understand how the future of collaborative hardware might look. Our <a href="https://openflexure.org/projects/microscope/">OpenFlexure microscope</a> is designed to be manufactured at low cost in sub-Saharan Africa, to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1364/BOE.385729">used for malaria diagnoses</a>. We’ve probably spent more time designing the processes that help us share our knowledge effectively than designing the microscope itself. </p>
<p>In the short term, this slows our progress. In the long term, we expect that manufacturers anywhere in the world will be able to understand our design and adapt it to their local context. As these processes become further standardised, sharing designs for production will become increasingly simple. The final and most ambitious phase of our project will be working with manufacturers to produce microscopes certified for medical use – a huge step towards open source medical hardware we’d need to better fight a future pandemic.</p>
<p>Humanity already knew how to make ventilators decades before this pandemic hit. What was lacking was the access to this knowledge, the skills to work together on adapting a design, and the logistics to rapidly scale the manufacturing of complex machinery. It will take years to address these issues. Starting that process today will help us tackle global emergencies more dynamically and efficiently in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153280/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors co-founded OpenFlexure Industries, a micro-business selling DIY open source hardware kits.
Richard has received funding from UKRI, the Royal Society, and the Global Challenges Research Fund (URF\R1\180153, RGF\EA\181034, EP/R013969/1, EP/T029064/1).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors co-founded OpenFlexure Industries, a micro-business selling DIY open source hardware kits. </span></em></p>An ‘open’ approach to hardware could make production bottlenecks a thing of the past.Richard Bowman, Royal Society University Research Fellow and Proleptic Reader, Department of Physics, University of BathJulian Stirling, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Physics, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1502842021-01-03T18:57:17Z2021-01-03T18:57:17Z2020 locked in shift to open access publishing, but Australia is lagging<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374711/original/file-20201214-20-7isptm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C385%2C5574%2C3713&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/surreal-painting-opened-door-open-book-606475526">Bruce Rolff/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For all its faults, 2020 appears to have locked in momentum for the open access movement. But it is time to ask whether providing free access to published research is enough – and whether equitable access to not just reading but also making knowledge should be the global goal.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L5rVH1KGBCY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An explanation of open access and how the system of having to pay for access to published research came about.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Australia the first challenge is to overcome the apathy about open access issues. The term “open access” has been too easy to ignore. Many consider it a low priority compared to achievements in research, obtaining grant funding, or university rankings glory.</p>
<p>But if you have a child with a rare disease and want access to the latest research on that condition, you get it. If you want to see new solutions to climate change identified and implemented, you get it. If you have ever searched for information and run into a paywall requiring you to pay more than your wallet holds to read a single journal article that you might not even find useful, you will get it. And if you are watching dire international headlines and want to see a rapid solution to the pandemic, you will probably get it.</p>
<p>Many publishing houses temporarily threw open their paywall doors during the year. Suddenly, there was free access to research papers and data for scholars researching pandemic-related issues, and also for students seeking to pursue their studies online across a range of disciplines.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/science-publishing-has-opened-up-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-it-wont-be-easy-to-keep-it-that-way-142984">Science publishing has opened up during the coronavirus pandemic. It won't be easy to keep it that way</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphic showing benefits of open access" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374703/original/file-20201214-15-1jxoc5f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://theblogworm.blogspot.com/2014/05/open-access-publishing-growing-area-at.html">Safia Begum/The Blogworm/Aston University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In October 2020, UNESCO <a href="https://en.unesco.org/covid19/communicationinformationresponse/opensolutions">made the case for open access to enhance research and information</a> on COVID-19. It also joined the World Health Organisation and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in <a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-who-and-high-commissioner-human-rights-call-open-science">calling for open science</a> to be implemented at all stages of the scientific process by all member states.</p>
<p>There is clearly an appetite for freely available information. Since it was established earlier this year, the <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/cord19">CORD-19</a> website has built up a repository of more than 280,000 articles related to COVID-19. These have attracted tens of millions of views.</p>
<h2>Europe has led the way</h2>
<p>Europe was already ahead of the curve on open access and 2020 has accelerated the change. Plan S <a href="https://www.coalition-s.org/">is an initiative for open access</a> launched in Europe in 2018. It requires all projects funded by the European Commission and the European Research Council to be published open access.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-publicly-funded-research-could-soon-be-free-for-you-the-taxpayer-to-read-111825">All publicly funded research could soon be free for you, the taxpayer, to read</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing growth in number of open access repositories" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374697/original/file-20201214-13-1ck6zbf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Growth in the number of open access repositories listed in the international Registry of Open Access Repositories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#/media/File:ROAR_growth.png">Thomas Shafee/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Cost-Benefit-analysis-for-FAIR-research-data_KI0219023ENN.pdf">2018 report</a> commissioned by the European Commission found the cost to Europeans of not having access to FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) research data was €10 billion ($A16.1 billion) a year.</p>
<p>In 2019, open access publications accounted for 63% of publications in the UK, 61% in Sweden and 54% in France, compared to 43% of Australian publications.</p>
<h2>Australia is lagging behind</h2>
<p>Australia’s flagship Australian Research Council has <a href="https://www.arc.gov.au/policies-strategies/policy/arc-open-access-policy">required all research outputs to be open access</a> since 2013. But researchers can choose not to publish open access if legal or contractual obligations require otherwise. This caveat has led to a relatively low rate of open access in Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="chart showing numbers of publications that are open access and behind paywalls" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374694/original/file-20201214-23-1ngrkwg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The increase in the numbers of open access publications in Australia has been gradual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://openknowledge.community/dashboards/coki-open-access-dashboard/">Open Access Dashboard/Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-spend-millions-on-accessing-results-of-publicly-funded-research-88392">Universities spend millions on accessing results of publicly funded research</a>
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<p>The Council of Australian University Librarians (<a href="https://www.caul.edu.au/">CAUL</a>) and the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (<a href="https://aoasg.org.au/">AOASG</a>) have long carried the torch for open access in Australia. But, without levers to drive change, they have struggled to change entrenched publishing practices of Australian academics.</p>
<p>Our Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) project has examined open access across the world. We have analysed open access performance of individuals, individual institutions, groups of universities and nations in recent decades. The COKI <a href="http://openknowledge.community/dashboards/coki-open-access-dashboard/">Open Access Dashboard</a> offers a glimpse into a subset of this international data, providing insights into national open access performance.</p>
<p>This analysis shows a steady global shift towards open access publications.</p>
<p>For example, in November 2020, Springer Nature <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03324-y">announced</a> it would allow authors to publish open access in Nature and associated journals at a price of up to €9,500 (A$15,300) per paper from January 2021. This was a signal change for the publishing industry. One of the world’s most prestigious journals is overturning decades of closed-access tradition to throw open the doors, and committing to increasing its open access publications over time.</p>
<p>At the moment, the pricing of this model enables only a select group to publish open access. The publication cost is equivalent to the value of some Australian research grants. Pricing is expected to become more affordable over time.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing open access publication options" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374699/original/file-20201214-24-65jouc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A quick guide to open access publishing: for researchers who wish to do this the required fee can be a significant deterrent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.openaire.eu/a-quick-guide-to-open-access">OpenAire</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/increasing-open-access-publications-serves-publishers-commercial-interests-116328">Increasing open access publications serves publishers' commercial interests</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>It’s not just about access to facts</h2>
<p>This international trend is a positive step for fans of freely available facts. However, we should not lose sight of other potentially larger issues at play in relation to open knowledge – that is, a level playing field for access to both published research and participation in research production. </p>
<p>Put another way, we need to pursue not only equity among knowledge takers but also among knowledge makers if we are to enable the world’s best thinkers to collaborate on the planet’s signature challenges.</p>
<p>All of this is good news for people who love to access information – but the bigger overall question for the higher education sector is about the conventions, traditions and trends that determine who gets to be considered for a job in a lab or a library or a lecture theatre. There is much more to be done to make our universities open for all – a future of equity in knowledge making as well as taking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Montgomery receives funding from the Arcadia Fund, which supports work to preserve endangered cultural heritage, protect endangered ecosystems, and promote access to knowledge. She also receives funding from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation for work relating to open access. In addition to this, Montgomery is Director of Research for COARD: a not-for-profit consultancy providing insight into the use and impact of open access books and journals.</span></em></p>In many other countries, a majority of research publications are now open access, but the system of paying for access still dominates academic publishing in Australia.Lucy Montgomery, Program Lead, Innovation in Knowledge Communication, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1492932020-12-07T18:16:29Z2020-12-07T18:16:29ZDebate: Is open scholarship even possible with Zoom?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372562/original/file-20201202-21-txapl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C52%2C4992%2C2941&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Open scholarship and the use of corporate software services such as Zoom are not always compatible.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Shvets/Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, several major publishers came up with the idea of opening up <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-03-03/covid-19-open-science">access to scientific literature</a> to everyone. The gesture was applauded both by the community and in the media. Yet, free access to literature does not equate to open access. Deciding unilaterally to remove barriers temporarily and then unilaterally put them back later is more akin to a technique of <a href="https://www.samuelmoore.org/2020/04/07/covid-19-and-the-future-of-open-access/">readers lock-in</a>, one that is popular with software vendors.</p>
<p>Indeed, this is a good example of “open scholarship” ambiguity. It’s also a good reminder that open science and open access draw their inspiration from the free software movement. This movement began in the 1980s as a reaction to proprietary lock-in business practices originating precisely from the computer industry, and more particularly the software industry. <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/airline-reservations-sonic-hedgehog">The 1980s</a> correspond to the irresistible rise of Microsoft. The victory of Microsoft Windows over IBM’s OS/2 operating system marks a turning point in the history of computing: the moment when the software industry superseded the hardware industry. This moment also marks the success of Microsoft’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish">“embrace, extend, extinguish”</a> method at the expense of IBM, a business strategy at odds with free software, in reaction to which the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a> established its principles.</p>
<h2>Open science and open software</h2>
<p>For science to be open, one can reasonably think that it would have to use open software. However, being completely open is not that easy. As anthropologist <a href="https://twobits.net/">Chris Kelty</a> has shown, each of the steps involved in the activity should be open so as not to risk any form of enclosure (open scientific software, open operating system, standard hardware, open protocols, open file formats, Internet neutrality, etc.). One can have a fatalist attitude and view it as unattainable. Yet, a vigilant view can be adopted: every part of science, every piece of software that could be free but is locked up by a company represents a defeat.</p>
<p>At the same time that the literature has been so generously made temporarily accessible, the pandemic has made videoconferencing crucial in academic circles and the existing open solutions put in place by national structures or universities have been shattered in front of the exponentially growing demand (which increases the need for bandwidth and therefore for infrastructure). It rushed many scientific institutions into investing in proprietary solutions: many of them opted for Zoom or Microsoft Teams.</p>
<p>Video conferencing has become strategic in the sense that all of a sudden this medium has turned into an essential reality for thousands of academics who until the beginning of 2020 had only a vague understanding of it. It is a tool that allows to imagine new ways of teaching or communicating between researchers. It is also a piece of software, that is to say a device incorporating values, and one that <a href="http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/handbook-of-new-media">shapes its users</a>: for example, using Teams videoconferencing means aligning to Microsoft’s vision of what is a conference, a piece of software intended to lock in users within the Microsoft environment.</p>
<p>To be able to communicate between scholars in an era of computer mediated communication: this is historically how electronic mail was conceived, and e-mail remains today the last non-proprietary ubiquitous messaging protocol out there. It is a media born from the <a href="https://books.openedition.org/oep/1843">mutual acculturation</a> of computer engineers and scholars. Forty years later, academics have given away their professional communication tools (like mailing lists) to proprietary systems (like social networking platforms such as Researchgate) that offer marketing services in return for data harvesting. In addition to publications, communication between scholars possesses many other facets, indeed. Video conferencing is increasingly becoming part of this academic landscape. Here again, scholars are becoming passive users.</p>
<h2>Corporations, personal privacy and free speech</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7e599/zoom-ios-app-sends-data-to-facebook-even-if-you-dont-have-a-facebook-account">Many articles</a> have already been written about Zoom’s propensity to harvest and use personal data without consent. As for Microsoft, its strategy of acculturation through lock-in is notorious. Yet, the recent case of alleged “Zoom censorship” is the most revealing event of this renouncement of academics to their tools of communication.</p>
<p>An academic event around a tribute to Palestinian activist Leila Khaled that was due to be broadcasted via the Zoom platform has been <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/25/zoom-refuses-stream-university-event-featuring-member-terrorist-organization">canceled by Zoom</a> without justification. It turns out that Zoom acted folllowing a warning by pro-Israelian lobbies. While the involved academic personnel <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/23/937336309/welcome-to-the-party-zoom-video-apps-rules-lead-to-accusations-of-censorship?t=1606438152935">was outraged</a> by what they consider censorphip of academic freedom of speech, the university administration only mildly protested: As a matter of fact, even though the claims that such an event would constitute “material support” promoting terrorist activity <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/11/14/zoom-censorship-leila-khaled-palestine/">seem baseless and spurious</a>, the eventuality to dispute it in court boils down to counting “how many divisions” in armies of lawyers. </p>
<p>On that basis, the battle looks uneven between a university legal office and a giant corporate platform. Several eventual Zoom events (but not all) denouncing censorpship <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/10/27/zoom-faces-more-allegations-censorship">were themselves</a> cancelled or switched off while broadcasting. Academics are learning the hard way that their computer-mediated communication depends largely on the opaque terms of service of a proprietary platform. Needless to say, this is not exactly the best way to ensure academic freedom of speech is protected.</p>
<h2>Stiff headwinds</h2>
<p>It would have been possible for the academic community to invest in an open solution guaranteed by a national or university infrastructure (at country level, the cost is low). In France, this is even the role of <a href="https://rendez-vous.renater.fr/home/">Renater</a>, the national network. In fact, for several years it created such services that were based on free software – for example, RendezVous Renater is a video conferencing tool based on Jitsi. Yet the state still needs to provide resources for its national infrastructure. RendezVous Renater crashed when users desperately turned to videoconferencing in the spring of 2020 and by the time it recovered, everybody was using Zoom or Teams. </p>
<p>At a time when universities are turning to Gmail for their academic e-mail service because Google is offering them for free what national infrastructures like Renater are forced to charge them a hefty sum, one can be pessimistic. As with the national health system, infrastructural decisions are dictated by the disengagement of the state and the demand for profitability. In such a context, open scholarship may well be heading the wrong way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149293/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandre Hocquet ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>For science to be open, one can reasonably think that it would have to use open software. However, being completely open is not that easy.Alexandre Hocquet, Professeur des Universités en Histoire des Sciences, Université de LorraineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1474472020-11-10T01:53:02Z2020-11-10T01:53:02ZOpen access to higher education is about much more than axing ATARs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367869/original/file-20201105-14-1hxj0km.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C27%2C5979%2C3962&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-young-attractive-smiling-students-dressed-276679442">George Rudy/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The importance of higher education for the growth and development of society is generally accepted. But openness and access to education for all is essential to maximise its benefits. Leaders in higher education must be ready to examine what it will take to achieve this.</p>
<p>What do we mean by open access? Higher education should provide access for as many people as possible to reach their full potential as individuals. It is a <a href="https://www.sdgfund.org/goal-4-quality-education">priority</a> in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals because inequality is emerging as a key threat to societal development.</p>
<p>Openness in education depends on the democratisation of societies and, with it, the democratisation of information and knowledge. Nobel Prize-winning Indian economist <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/amartya-sens-hopes-and-fears-for-indian-democracy">Amartya Sen</a> described development as freedom. That is, development that enhances meaningful and quality living.</p>
<p>In this context, openness broadly refers to flexible, fair, welcoming and unprejudiced access to higher education. Openness of access requires adherence to basic purpose values – the promotion of self-regulated life-long learning, self-determination and personal agency. Enabling citizens to realise these aspirations contributes to strengthening our democracy.</p>
<h2>So what will it take?</h2>
<p>Changes in mindset will be non-negotiable for open access. Removing barriers, challenging assumptions and finding innovative means to ensure access and support are important starting points.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.torrens.edu.au/about">Torrens University and Think Education</a>, like other institutions such as <a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-announces-major-changes-to-student-admissions-for-2020">ANU</a> and <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/no-atar-required-swinburne-dumps-ranking-system-for-dozens-of-degrees-20200615-p552s5.html">Swinburne</a>, recently <a href="https://www.torrens.edu.au/blog/news/an-important-decision-about-how-we-will-approach-the-atar">announced</a> the Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) will no longer be the only thing that determines students’ entry into university. We now have alternative entry pathways. Systematic support and monitoring to ensure student success will be critical.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/students-are-more-than-a-number-why-a-learner-profile-makes-more-sense-than-the-atar-143539">Students are more than a number: why a learner profile makes more sense than the ATAR</a>
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<hr>
<p>Higher education openness should also be understood in terms of the choice and flexibility it allows individuals. Service delivery needs to respond to personal circumstances and learning and support needs. It enables people to choose between different types or modes of access, geographical locations, synchronous (learning with others at same time) or asynchronous (learning individually in one’s own time) activity – in timeframes that suit their circumstances.</p>
<p>This is why online or hybrid learning is essential. At Torrens University, students can choose face-to-face or online study – or both – to undertake their studies. </p>
<p>Importantly, online offerings must never compromise on quality. Students studying remotely must not be worse off than students learning face-to-face.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Student talking as he studies online" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367871/original/file-20201106-20-18de42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367871/original/file-20201106-20-18de42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367871/original/file-20201106-20-18de42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367871/original/file-20201106-20-18de42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367871/original/file-20201106-20-18de42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367871/original/file-20201106-20-18de42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367871/original/file-20201106-20-18de42t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students who study online must not be disadvantaged compared to those learning face-to-face.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-male-student-online-teacher-wear-1526125214">insta_photos/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Offering choice through innovation</h2>
<p>To help secondary students consider their options, higher education providers pulled together a series of <a href="https://www.torrens.edu.au/blog/news/first-ever-trans-tasman-higher-education-virtual-expo">virtual expos</a> this year. Technology enabled these expos to reach almost 20,000 students across Australia and New Zealand. These expos showed how the higher education sectors in Australia and New Zealand can adapt, innovate and collaborate to ensure no one lacks choices.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-learning-economy-challenges-unis-to-be-part-of-reshaping-lifelong-education-144800">New learning economy challenges unis to be part of reshaping lifelong education</a>
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</em>
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<p>It is important to understand that the ideas of openness and inclusive learning environments do not refer to having no norms or boundaries. Openness or open access to higher education depends on the values, ideology and practices of each institution. Equally important are regulatory and societal systems that provide the freedoms and incentives for institutions to develop complementary approaches and capacity. </p>
<p>In South Africa, for example, the higher education and school systems were transformed to open opportunities for all. Policies to increase participation among disadvantaged communities included financial and academic support throughout the education journey. </p>
<p>A set of enabling values and mechanisms will be critical. This means putting in place ideology that gives people the right and the means to participate. It involves creating an ethos that ensures every person is welcome in the education system.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Students in a lecture" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367875/original/file-20201106-17-9bn5dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367875/original/file-20201106-17-9bn5dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367875/original/file-20201106-17-9bn5dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367875/original/file-20201106-17-9bn5dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367875/original/file-20201106-17-9bn5dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367875/original/file-20201106-17-9bn5dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367875/original/file-20201106-17-9bn5dh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A deliberate process of transformation opened up formerly exclusive institutions in South Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/johannesburg-south-africa-april-17-2012-1268989687">Sunshine Seeds/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A full spectrum of support services will be just as important. But why? And what will they be? </p>
<p>Well, while you may open up education for all, remote locations as well as lack of resources in secondary schools could be barriers. So you need arrangements in place to ensure access. Adjustments to entrance requirements and financial support might also be needed to deliver on the promise of education for all. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/poorer-nsw-students-study-subjects-less-likely-to-get-them-into-uni-127985">Poorer NSW students study subjects less likely to get them into uni</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Time to come down from the ivory tower</h2>
<p>In higher education, the institutionalised roles of knowledge creators and education providers require them to lead and support societal development through the creation of knowledge that supports innovation. This equips citizens with the social and human capital they need to prosper.</p>
<p>This advancement of human well-being will necessitate breaking down existing barriers between higher education and society. It requires coming down from the ivory tower where a monopoly over knowledge, knowledge creation and distribution has been institutionalised. It means reviewing entrance requirements, policies and procedures that result in exclusion. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-coronavirus-universities-must-collaborate-with-communities-to-support-social-transition-140541">After coronavirus, universities must collaborate with communities to support social transition</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is not to suggest it will be straightforward. </p>
<p>Higher education providers function in a complex and dynamic environment. Each institution will have to carefully choose the focus and scope of its activities. Institutions will have to follow up with strategies, systems and processes that open their boundaries to interaction with industry, society, decision-makers and government, while providing for individual choice and participation.</p>
<p>At Torrens University, Think Education and Media Design School, for example, we collaborate with industry from the outset as we build our curricula. This engagement continues throughout the student journey – through work-integrated learning, our “success coaches” and teaching staff who are industry leaders in their own right.</p>
<p>Openness is therefore not only a matter of access to higher education. It is an inclusive process of opening entrance opportunities, followed by a purpose-driven support environment that aims to prepare successful graduates to contribute to society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alwyn Louw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Higher education should provide access for as many people as possible to fulfil their potential as individuals. Leaders in higher education must be ready to examine what it will take to achieve this.Alwyn Louw, Vice Chancellor, Torrens University AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1474442020-11-03T03:32:30Z2020-11-03T03:32:30ZIndia’s plan to pay journal subscription fees for all its citizen may end up making science harder to access<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367126/original/file-20201103-21-ohh8gc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C2368%2C1180&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">India's plan indicates that commercial publishers are winning over the application of the open access system to make scholarly literature available for everyone.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dasapta Erwin Irawan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>India, the world’s second-most populous country, is planning to make <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02708-4">scholarly literature available for everyone</a> under its latest science, technology and innovation policy.</p>
<p>The policy will push for the whole country to have a nationwide subscription to replace existing subscriptions paid by different research and education institutions to access research journals. The Indian government is in talks with the world’s top scientific publications, including one of the biggest scholarly publishers, <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/en-xs">Elsevier</a>, to create the system.</p>
<p>If it works, India will become the largest country to give access to paywalled journal articles to more than 1.3 billion of its citizens.</p>
<p>Many scientists have responded <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02708-4">positively</a> to the plan. A report by <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/indo-ks5-lipi.pdf">Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade</a> argues that the agreement would help identify unnecessary spending due to duplicate subscription. </p>
<p>India spends <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02708-4">15 billion rupees or equivalent to US$200 million</a> a year to access research journals, paid by different research and education institutions. That’s almost equal to <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/finance/france-commits-200-million-euros-for-indias-covid-response/articleshow/76445176.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst">France’s funding for India’s COVID-19 response</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the economic benefits from India’s plan, some scientists and academics are concerned it may go against the spirit of making science and knowledge available for everyone under an open access mechanism.</p>
<h2>The principles of open science</h2>
<p>American sociologist Robert K. Merton <a href="https://studentportalen.uu.se/uusp-webapp/auth/webwork/filearea/download.action?nodeId=1639791&toolAttachmentId=352862&uusp.userId=guest">argues</a> all modern scientists should share ownership of their knowledge and research. Putting science behind paywalls, making it exclusive, is the opposite of this norm. </p>
<p>This principle underpins the open science movement, which aims to make all scientific research accessible to everyone.</p>
<p>Open access publication systems, under which research journals are distributed for free after their writers pay the publication fees, works under the spirit of open science. </p>
<p>Following this logic, some countries believe paying distribution fees, also known as article processing charges (APC), to publishers <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/10/23/open-science-who-is-left-behind/">will settle the exclusivity problem</a>. </p>
<p>However, open science is based on Merton’s values, which <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:SCIE.0000027311.17226.70">treat science as public goods</a> and not commercial entities.</p>
<p>Therefore India’s plan to purchase access to paywalled knowledge from commercial entities may go against the spirit of modern science. </p>
<p>Making scientific papers accessible by spending public money to pay unreasonable article processing charges should <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/3700646">be avoided</a> because the money will go straight to the publishing company’s profits, without substantial added value for the public or the scientific community (aside from peer-review comments from other fellow academics). </p>
<p>The debate between making scholarly journals available for everyone by paying commercial publishers to open up their paywalls or adopting open science principles are as ancient as the tale of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Goliath_(1960_film)">David and Goliath</a>. Scientists have long <a href="https://www.norrag.org/the-cost-of-knowledge-education-unions-unite-against-the-privatisation-of-scholarly-research-by-jon-tennant/">battled the commercial publishing giants</a>. </p>
<p>At this stage, commercial publishers are winning. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/nature-family-journals-inks-first-open-access-deal-institution">The latest deal</a> between Germany and international scientific publishing company Nature is another example.</p>
<p>This agreement will allow authors at institutions across Germany to publish an estimated 400 open-access papers annually in Nature journals. However, it may come with a high price of 9,500 euro or around US$11,200 per article (paid by the German researchers or their institutions), making it the highest price ever paid for an open-access article.</p>
<p>Both India and Germany’s cases are two clear examples of <a href="https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2018/10/the-tangled-web-of-scientific-publishing/">deliberate ignorance</a> pursuing short term narrow options of prestigious conformity to the <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/06/11/study-views-academic-publishing-oligopoly">oligopoly</a> of commercial publishers over <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/10/24/competition-value-and-sustainability-why-this-cant-go-on/">value to society</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367127/original/file-20201103-27584-wisq8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367127/original/file-20201103-27584-wisq8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367127/original/file-20201103-27584-wisq8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367127/original/file-20201103-27584-wisq8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367127/original/file-20201103-27584-wisq8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367127/original/file-20201103-27584-wisq8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367127/original/file-20201103-27584-wisq8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human values in open science.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dasapta Erwin Irawan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These deals will also create huge barriers for developing countries with limited financial budgets. </p>
<p>Southeast Asia’s most populous country, Indonesia, for example, needed to spend almost <a href="https://www.ristekbrin.go.id/kabar/kemenristekdikti-berlangganan-e-journal-senilai-rp-148-m-dosen-peneliti-dan-mahasiswa-dapat-mengakses-secara-gratis-2/">US$1 million</a> for subscription fees in 2018. This could pay the tuition fees <a href="https://edukasi.kompas.com/read/2020/01/23/18023321/berapa-biaya-kuliah-5-ptn-terbaik-indonesia-itb-ugm-ipb-its-dan-ui?page=all#:%7E:text=Untuk%20biaya%20UKT%20pada%20mekanisme%20BOP%2DPilihan%20berkisar%20Rp%207.500,IPS%20dengan%20mekanisme%20BOP%2DPilihan">for hundreds of students</a>.</p>
<p>It is high time countries with limited financial capabilities, like India and Indonesia, fought for the distribution of science as public goods to ensure that everyone gets equal access to knowledge. </p>
<p>We, open science activists in <a href="http://openaccessindia.org/category/open-access-policy/">India</a> and <a href="https://sainsterbuka.readthedocs.io/en/latest/">Indonesia</a>, have offered a clear national <a href="http://osiglobal.org/2020/06/01/open-science-policy-recommendations-to-unesco/">road map</a> for each country that we hope each government adopts to ensure the distribution of knowledge for all. </p>
<h2>Other critics</h2>
<p>The subscription payments also do not resolve <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/india-research-publishing-open-access-one-nation-one-subscription-k-vijayraghavan/">copyright issues</a> that emerge once the paywalled scientific materials are made open to the public. Publishers still holding the copyright, which they secure by requesting authors sign a copyright transfer agreement after their manuscript is accepted. After this, researchers lose their rights over their work. It’s something many aren’t fully aware of or <a href="http://fossilsandshit.com/ethics-copyright-transfer-scientific-research/">take for granted</a>.</p>
<p>Under the open-access system, however, researchers retain copyright of their published manuscripts, even though they are widely accessible.</p>
<p>The nationwide subscription <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/10/23/open-science-who-is-left-behind/">may also worsen inequalities</a> between scholars from developing and developed countries when it comes to accessing scientific materials and publishing research results. Under the agreement, any Indian scientist interested in publishing his or her research via an open access mechanism is still required to ask for country funding to pay the article processing charges.</p>
<p>In the end, we are only customers of the publishing industry. Governments, on behalf of us, will spend public money, and commercial publishers will be the ones who make the biggest profit.</p>
<p>We make no progress toward making knowledge available for everyone if governments, as the most important stakeholder, don’t have faith in Merton’s scientific ethos by choosing to pay for access to scholarly literature.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juneman Abraham is affiliated with Bina Nusantara University; however, this article does not represent official view of the institution.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sridhar Gutam is affiliated with ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research and Open Access India. The opinions or views expressed in this article do not reflect the view of the institution, organisation or employer.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dasapta Erwin Irawan dan Rizqy Amelia Zein tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>All modern scientists should share ownership of their knowledge and research.Dasapta Erwin Irawan, Lecturer at Department of Geology, Institut Teknologi BandungJuneman Abraham, Head of Research and Publication, Himpunan Psikologi IndonesiaRizqy Amelia Zein, Social and Personality Psychology Lecturer, Universitas AirlanggaSridhar Gutam, Senior Scientist (Plant Physiology), Indian Council of Agricultural ResearchLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1474212020-10-07T01:51:11Z2020-10-07T01:51:11ZIndonesia publishes the most open-access journals in the world: what it means for local research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361567/original/file-20201005-14-16w9mw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Opening up public access to scientific literature is a first step.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nyoman Budhiana/Antara Foto</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Indonesia is a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01536-5">world leader</a> in the number of free-to-read published research journals.</p>
<p>Journals published with <a href="https://dasaptaerwin.net/wp/2017/02/pengelolaan-jurnal-ilmiah-konvensional-vs-open-access-bagian-1.html">open access</a> (OA) licenses are available to read for free and can be legally redistributed.</p>
<p>With the license, anyone can get the full article and all supporting documents for free because the author or research institute already bears the cost of publishing.</p>
<p>The latest data show Indonesia has published <a href="https://doaj.org">1,717</a> OA articles, followed by the United Kingdom (1,655) and Brazil (1,544). </p>
<p>This number reflects Indonesia’s important position in global academic publishing. We will explain what this means for the research ecosystem in Indonesia. </p>
<h2>Open research ecosystem</h2>
<p>The number of OA journals in Indonesia shows how the research ecosystem in the country has started opening to public. </p>
<p>Open access is the start of science development. It is the initial purpose of the open access movement. Knowledge will not grow optimally if access is restricted behind paywalls. </p>
<p>Results from studies, especially those funded by the state, should be available widely for public. The public is not just scholars, but also the general public. </p>
<p>With the most open-access journal articles published in the world, the knowledge from Indonesian researchers should be able to freely reach the public.</p>
<p>The Indonesian government has become aware of this.</p>
<p><a href="https://peraturan.bpk.go.id/Home/Details/117023/uu-no-11-tahun-2019">Indonesia’s 2019 Law on National Knowledge System and Technology</a> requires the implementation of OA licences for research publications to ensure the public can access and use the results of research.</p>
<p>Through this requirement, the government hopes to encourage not only <a href="https://theconversation.com/manipulasi-statistik-mengapa-banyak-temuan-penelitian-tak-dapat-dipercaya-105272">transparency</a> on research processes, but also innovations and findings that benefit the public.</p>
<h2>Indonesia’s research position in the world</h2>
<p>The world should envy Indonesian researchers because many Indonesian journals are open access and the majority of scholars publish their articles free of charge. </p>
<p>Based on our record, the Indonesian research publication system has adopted nonprofit principles since the 1970s. Back then, journal subscription fees were calculated based on the cost of printing only. </p>
<p>This system was different to those found in developed countries, which were dominated by commercial publishing companies.</p>
<p>This was where Indonesia has advantages over the research ecosystems in many other places. </p>
<p>Similar systems include the <a href="https://scielo.org/">Scielo</a> research ecosystem in Brazil, and the scientific publishing ecosystem <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajol">African Journal Online (AJOL)</a> and <a href="https://info.africarxiv.org/">Africaxiv</a> on the African continent.</p>
<p>Nonprofit entities (the majority are universities, research institutions and professional associations) organised all three ecosystems using a nonprofit model. </p>
<p>The opposite happens in Europe and northern hemisphere countries that are managed under the command of business entities. They even publish open-access articles with <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676">high cost</a>.</p>
<h2>The next step</h2>
<p>To encourage the open research ecosystem in Indonesia with open-access journals, collaboration among journal managers, researchers and stakeholders must be improved. </p>
<p>Although Indonesia publishes the most OA articles, OA journals only make up <a href="http://garuda.ristekbrin.go.id/">16%</a> of all journals published in the country. </p>
<p>We offer the following recommendations to strengthen the OA system in Indonesia for relevant stakeholders.</p>
<p><strong>Journal managers</strong></p>
<p>They need to build confidence by developing more credible academic journal management. They can do this by, for example, establishing generic and standard journal management guidelines at the national level (like <a href="http://arjuna.ristekdikti.go.id/files/info/Panduan_Editor_Jurnal_Ilmiah.pdf">ARJUNA</a>) or the international level (<a href="https://publicationethics.org/">COPE</a>).</p>
<p>Managers also need to increase diversification such as types of papers, channels for disseminating information to audio and video formats, as well as publishing networks not only domestically but also abroad. </p>
<p>There are many well-known academic publishing communities or organisations in the world, such as <a href="https://doaj.org/">DOAJ</a>, <a href="https://oaspa.org/">OASPA</a> and <a href="https://www.oapen.org/">Open Access OAPEN</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Lecturers and researchers</strong></p>
<p>Researchers and lecturers need to serve their ego less through publishing their studies in paid journals. They need to realise it’s important for the public to have free access to research findings. </p>
<p>They also need to develop the capability to produce popular science articles for the general public.</p>
<p><strong>Indonesian government</strong></p>
<p>The government needs to reduce and even stop the dependence on foreign instruments in assessing the quality of local journals or research, especially if Indonesia already has that instrument.</p>
<p>To replace them, the government can use the journal management standard set by international organisations such as <a href="https://publicationethics.org/">COPE</a>. The Indonesian version exists in <a href="http://arjuna.ristekdikti.go.id/files/info/Panduan_Editor_Jurnal_Ilmiah.pdf">ARJUNA</a>.</p>
<p>The Indonesian government should use COPE and ARJUNA more than non-inclusive standards such as <a href="https://www.scopus.com">Scopus</a> and <a href="https://login.webofknowledge.com/error/Error?Error=IPError&PathInfo=%2F&RouterURL=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.webofknowledge.com%2F&Domain=.webofknowledge.com&Src=IP&Alias=WOK5">Web of Science </a>. In science communication, exclusivity is one thing that should be avoided.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Wiliam Reynold translated this article from Indonesian.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dasapta Erwin Irawan received funding from the ITB Research, Community Service, and Innovation Program (P3MI-ITB).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zulidyana Dwi Rusnalasari is affiliated with Relawan Jurnal Indonesia. RJI is a voluntary movement that voluntarily contributes thoughts and personnel related to managing electronic journals to managers of other journals in universities, research institutions, and others throughout Indonesia</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lusy Tunik Muharlisiani dan Sandersan Onie tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.</span></em></p>Indonesia has seen progress in open research ecosystem development. More needs to be done.Dasapta Erwin Irawan, Lecturer at Department of Geology, Institut Teknologi BandungBambang Priadi, Dosen dan peneliti bidang geokimiaLusy Tunik Muharlisiani, Dosen, Universitas Wijaya Kusuma SurabayaSandersan Onie, Postdoctoral Researcher, Black Dog InstituteZulidyana Dwi Rusnalasari, Doctoral student, Universitas Negeri SurabayaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1429842020-07-27T19:57:00Z2020-07-27T19:57:00ZScience publishing has opened up during the coronavirus pandemic. It won’t be easy to keep it that way<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349502/original/file-20200727-33-1ybt0ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C7%2C5097%2C2866&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientific publishing is not known for moving rapidly. In normal times, publishing new research can take months, if not years. Researchers prepare a first version of a paper on new findings and submit it to a journal, where it is often rejected, before being resubmitted to another journal, peer-reviewed, revised and, eventually, hopefully published. </p>
<p>All scientists are familiar with the process, but few love it or the time it takes. And even after all this effort – for which neither the authors, the peer reviewers, nor most journal editors, are paid – most research papers end up locked away behind expensive journal paywalls. They can only be read by those with access to funds or to institutions that can afford subscriptions. </p>
<h2>What we can learn from SARS</h2>
<p>The business-as-usual publishing process is poorly equipped to handle a fast-moving emergency. In the 2003 SARS outbreaks in Hong Kong and Toronto, for example, only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000272">22% of the epidemiological studies</a> on SARS were even submitted to journals during the outbreak. Worse, only 8% were accepted by journals and 7% published before the crisis was over.</p>
<p>Fortunately, SARS was contained in a few months, but perhaps it could have been contained even quicker with better sharing of research. </p>
<p>Fast-forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the situation could not be more different. A highly infectious virus spreading across the globe has made rapid sharing of research vital. In many ways, the publishing rulebook has been thrown out the window. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-hunt-for-a-coronavirus-cure-is-showing-how-science-can-change-for-the-better-132130">The hunt for a coronavirus cure is showing how science can change for the better</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Preprints and journals</h2>
<p>In this medical emergency, the first versions of papers (preprints) are being submitted onto preprint servers such as <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/">medRxiv</a> and <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org">bioRxiv</a> and made openly available within a day or two of submission. These preprints (now almost 7,000 papers on just these two sites) are being downloaded <a href="https://chanzuckerberg.com/newsroom/2-million-to-medrxiv-top-source-breaking-covid-19-research/">millions of times</a> throughout the world. </p>
<p>However, exposing scientific content to the public before it has been peer-reviewed by experts increases the risk it will be misunderstood. Researchers need to engage with the public to improve understanding of how scientific knowledge evolves and to provide ways to question scientific information constructively. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/researchers-use-pre-prints-to-share-coronavirus-results-quickly-but-that-can-backfire-137501">Researchers use 'pre-prints' to share coronavirus results quickly. But that can backfire</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Traditional journals have also changed their practices. Many have made research relating to the pandemic immediately available, although some have specified the content will be locked back up once the pandemic is over. For example, a <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/connect/coronavirus-information-center">website</a> of freely available COVID-19 research set up by major publisher Elsevier states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the Elsevier COVID-19 resource centre remains active.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Publication at journals has also sped up, though it cannot compare with the phenomenal speed of preprint servers. Interestingly, it <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.111294v1">seems</a> posting a preprint speeds up the peer-review process when the paper is ultimately submitted to a journal.</p>
<h2>Open data</h2>
<p>What else has changed in the pandemic? What has become clear is the power of aggregation of research. A notable initiative is the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/call-action-tech-community-new-machine-readable-covid-19-dataset/">COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19)</a>, a huge, freely available public dataset of research (now more than 130,000 articles) whose development was led by the US White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.</p>
<p>Researchers can not only read this research but also reuse it, which is essential to make the most of the research. The reuse is made possible by two specific technologies: permanent unique identifiers to keep track of research papers, and machine-readable conditions (licences) on the research papers, which specify how that research can be used and reused. </p>
<p>These are Creative Commons licences like those that cover projects such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights">Wikipedia</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/republishing-guidelines">The Conversation</a>, and they are vital for maximising reuse. Often the reading and reuse is done now at least in a first scan by machines, and research that is not marked as being available for use and reuse may not even be seen, let alone used. </p>
<p>What has also become important is the need to provide access to data behind the research papers. In a fast-moving field of research not every paper receives detailed scrutiny (especially of underlying data) before publication – but making the data available ensures claims can be validated.</p>
<p>If the data can’t be validated, the research should be treated with extreme caution – as happened to a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-05/hydroxychloroquine-study-the-lancet-peer-review-coronavirus/12324118">swiftly retracted paper</a> about the effects of hydroxychloroquine published by The Lancet in May.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-just-available-but-also-useful-we-must-keep-pushing-to-improve-open-access-to-research-86058">Not just available, but also useful: we must keep pushing to improve open access to research</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Overnight changes, decades in the making</h2>
<p>While opening up research literature during the pandemic may seem to have happened virtually overnight, these changes have been decades in the making. There were systems and processes in place developed over many years that could be activated when the need arose. </p>
<p>The international licences were developed by the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> project, which began in 2001. Advocates have been <a href="https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/">challenging</a> the dominance of commercial journal subscription models since the early 2000s, and open access journals and other publishing routes have been growing globally since then. </p>
<p>Even preprints are not new. Although more recently platforms for preprints have been growing across many disciplines, their origin is in <a href="https://arxiv.org/">physics</a> back in 1991.</p>
<h2>Lessons from the pandemic</h2>
<p>So where does publishing go after the pandemic? As in many areas of our lives, there are some positives to take forward from what became a necessity in the pandemic. </p>
<p>The problem with publishing during the 2003 SARS emergency wasn’t the fault of the journals – the system was not in place then for mass, rapid open publishing. As an editor at The Lancet at the time, I vividly remember we simply could not publish or even meaningfully process every paper we received. </p>
<p>But now, almost 20 years later, the tools are in place and this pandemic has made a compelling case for open publishing. Though there are initiatives ongoing across the globe, there is still a lack of coordinated, long term, high-level commitment and investment, especially by governments, to support key open policies and infrastructure. </p>
<p>We are not out of this pandemic yet, and we know that there are even bigger challenges in the form of climate change around the corner. Making it the default that research is open so it can be built on is a crucial step to ensure we can address these problems collaboratively.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginia Barbour is employed by the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group.
She provides unpaid editorial advice to medRxiv, a preprint server.</span></em></p>Scientists and science publishers are sharing information as fast as they can during the COVID-19 pandemic. Speed and openness bring new challenges, but they are the way forward for research.Virginia Barbour, Director, Australasian Open Access Strategy Group, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1357382020-04-24T07:38:06Z2020-04-24T07:38:06ZCovid-19: the rise of a global collective intelligence?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327770/original/file-20200414-117573-mcr8yk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C119%2C1500%2C799&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Network of Covid-19 projects on the JOGL platform.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Santolini/JOGL</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>All around the world, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/science/coronavirus-social-networks-data.html">scientists</a> and practitioners are relentlessly harnessing data on the pandemic to <a href="https://www.epicx-lab.com/covid-19.html">model</a> its progression, predict the <a href="https://www.mobs-lab.org/2019ncov.html">impact</a> of possible interventions and <a href="https://app.jogl.io/project/130">develop solutions</a> to medical equipment shortages, generating open-source data and codes to be reused by others.</p>
<p>Research and innovation is now in a collaborative frenzy just as contagious as the coronavirus. Is this the rise of the famous “collective intelligence” supposed to solve our major global problems?</p>
<h2>The rise of a global collective intelligence</h2>
<p>The beginning of the epidemic saw “traditional” research considerably accelerate and open its means of production, with journals such as <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/coronavirus-research-commentary-and-news"><em>Science</em></a>, <a href="https://www.springernature.com/gp/researchers/campaigns/coronavirus"><em>Nature</em></a> and <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/coronavirus"><em>The Lancet</em></a> immediately granting public access to publications on the coronavirus and Covid-19.</p>
<p>The academic world is in ebullition. Every day, John Hopkins University updates an <a href="https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/Covid-19">open and collaborative</a> stream of data on the epidemic, which have already been reused more than 11,000 times. Research results are published immediately on <a href="https://connect.biorxiv.org/relate/content/181">pre-print servers</a> or <a href="https://www.epicx-lab.com/covid-19.html">laboratory websites</a>. Algorithms and <a href="https://picorana.github.io/align_covid/index.html?fbclid=IwAR24Tj3Njeo0dZTJUoFKBOGI6MBIljMkq39WWxUnGKSRh8UczHjGA__-6Ho">interactive visualizations</a> are flourishing on GitHub; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs">outreach videos</a> on YouTube. The figures are staggering, with nearly <a href="https://search.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/">9,000 academic articles</a> published on the subject to date.</p>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/mobilising-collective-intelligence-tackle-coronavirus-threat/">popular initiatives</a> bringing together a variety of actors have emerged outside institutional frameworks, using online platforms. For example, a community of biologists, engineers and developers has emerged on the <a href="https://jogl.io/">Just One Giant Lab</a> (JOGL) collaborative platform to develop low-cost, open-source solutions against the virus. This platform, which we developed with Leo Blondel (<a href="https://www.mcb.harvard.edu/directory/leo-blondel/">Harvard University</a>) and Thomas Landrain (<a href="https://lapaillasse.org/">La Paillasse</a>, <a href="https://www.pili.bio/">PILI</a>) over the past three years, is designed as a virtual, open and distributed research institute aimed at developing solutions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations. Communities use it to self-organize and provide innovative solutions to urgent problems requiring fundamentally interdisciplinary skills and knowledge. The platform facilitates coordination by linking needs and resources within the community, animating research programs, and organising challenges.</p>
<p>When the <a href="https://app.jogl.io/project/118">first project</a> related to Covid-19 – a low-cost, open source diagnostic test – was born in early March, there was a rush on the platform. The number of contributions per minute kept increasing: hundreds of interactions, project creation, communications… So much so that the server hosting the platform couldn’t hold anymore! In only one month, there were more than 60,000 visitors coming from 183 countries, including 3,000 active contributors generating more than 90 projects, ranging from <a href="https://app.jogl.io/project/150">mask designs</a> to <a href="https://app.jogl.io/project/151">low-cost ventilator prototypes</a>, or <a href="https://app.jogl.io/project/132">cough-classification AI apps</a>.</p>
<p>This massive community quickly self-organized into working groups, mixing different skills and universes; unexpected combinations of data scientists from large companies, researchers in anthropology, engineers or biologists come together in this virtual universe.</p>
<p>The most active person and emerging coordinator of the community even turns out to be… a 17-year-old high school student from Seattle! This initiative is now a full-fledged research program, <a href="https://app.jogl.io/program/opencovid19">OpenCOVID19</a>, with 100,000 euros of funding from the <a href="https://www.axa-research.org/en/news/the-axa-research-fund-commits-to-the-COVID19-effort">Axa Research Fund</a> currently redistributed as micro-grants to emerging projects through a community peer-review system, a partnership with the Paris hospital system (<a href="https://covid3d.org/">AP-HP</a>) to facilitate the evaluation and validation of designs intended for hospital use, and several major themes: diagnosis, prevention, treatment, validation, and data analysis and modelling.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324962/original/file-20200402-74904-daifih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=664&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of shared skills across Covid-19 projects on the JOGL platform.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Santolini, JOGL, CRI</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The open-source world has in the past decades spearheaded community self-organization and is at the origin of massive collaborative projects such as <a href="https://www.linux.org/">Linux</a> or <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a>. Similar efforts are now emerging to solve global and multi-disciplinary issues, leveraging skill diversity at the service of project complexity.</p>
<h2>What is “collective intelligence”?</h2>
<p>If we can measure individual intelligence using performance indicators for various tasks and deriving individual “IQ”, why not measure the intelligence of a group through their performance on collective tasks?</p>
<p>Researchers <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6004/686">have exhibited</a> the existence of a collective intelligence factor. It turns out that an intelligent group is not a group of intelligent individuals, but rather a group of individuals who interact efficiently – for example though their ability to speak equitably in discussions. The authors conclude: “it would seem to be much easier to raise the intelligence of a group than an individual. Could a group’s collective intelligence be increased by, for example, better electronic collaboration tools?”.</p>
<p>This is the spirit of collaborative platforms such as JOGL: we can monitor in real time community evolution and project progress, allowing to facilitate the coordination of the various programs, including OpenCOVID19.</p>
<p>The generated data also provide a quantitative ground to explore <a href="https://www.nesta.org.uk/toolkit/collective-intelligence-design-playbook/">“good practices”</a> facilitating collective intelligence. By analysing it with the tools of network science, <a href="https://research.cri-paris.org/teampage?id=5cde7f999a474e4a9f93b281">we study</a> how collaborative dynamics underpin the advancement of knowledge.</p>
<h2>Ephemeral awakening or long-term revolution?</h2>
<p>While it is too early to draw conclusions in the case of the OpenCOVID19 program, designing the future of such massive collaborations starts now. In particular, members of communities that scale up quickly <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160191/reinventing-discovery">often</a> get lost, and smart onboarding strategies are key to sustaining such efforts. The grail of these communities resides in building an architecture of attention through <em>recommender systems</em>, the same algorithms that made the success of social networks such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. This approach, based on fundamental results from <a href="https://hci.stanford.edu/publications/2017/flashorgs/flash-orgs-chi-2017.pdf">team science</a> and <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.01296">network science</a>, leverages the digital traces of the community to suggest the best person to contact, the most relevant project to help or pressing task to complete. At the heart of the JOGL architecture, such <a href="https://github.com/pedroramaciotti/HINPy">algorithms</a> help promote <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity">serendipity</a> and facilitate coordination.</p>
<p>Developing recommender systems for massive collaborations requires vastly diverse contributions, from computer science to social sciences, mathematics or ethics. Ironically, collective intelligence will be the key to its own design.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Santolini is the co-founder and Research Director of Just One Giant Lab.</span></em></p>Individually, we are all helpless in the face of the coronavirus crisis. A global collaborative boom is changing the way science is done.Marc Santolini, Research Fellow, UMR1284 INSERM et Université de Paris au CRI, chercheur invité au Center for Complex Network Research (Northeastern University), et co-fondateur de Just One Giant Lab, Université Paris CitéLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1321302020-02-24T14:37:18Z2020-02-24T14:37:18ZThe hunt for a coronavirus cure is showing how science can change for the better<p>The World Health Organization (WHO) recently declared an <a href="https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)">international public health emergency</a> over the global outbreak of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/coronavirus-5830">novel coronavirus</a>. One day later, the Wellcome Trust research charity called for researchers, journals and funders around the world to <a href="https://wellcome.ac.uk/press-release/sharing-research-data-and-findings-relevant-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak">share research data and findings</a> relevant to the coronavirus rapidly and openly, to inform the public and help save lives. </p>
<p>On the same day, the <a href="https://piccache.cnki.net/index/images2009/other/2020/proposal.html">China National Knowledge Infrastructure</a> launched a <a href="http://cajn.cnki.net/gzbd/brief/Default.aspx">free website</a> and called for scientists to publish research on the coronavirus with open access. Shortly after, the prominent scientific journal Nature issued an editorial urging all coronavirus researchers to “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00307-x">keep sharing, stay open</a>”.</p>
<p>So while <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/02/coronavirus-spread-virus-disease-countries-epidemic/">cities are locked down and borders are closed</a> in response to the coronavirus outbreak, science is becoming more open. This openness is already making a difference to scientists’ response to the virus and has the potential to change the world.</p>
<p>But it’s not as simple as making every research finding available to anyone for any purpose. Without care and responsibility, there is a danger that open science can be misused or contribute to the spread of misinformation.</p>
<h2>Raising barriers</h2>
<p>Open science can come in a variety of forms, including open data, open publications and open educational resources.</p>
<p><strong>1. Open data</strong></p>
<p>DNA sequencing is <a href="https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-china/en/">of great importance</a> to developing specific diagnostic kits around the world. <a href="http://ibs.fudan.edu.cn/peoplemore.php?id=330&tid=1#">Yong-Zhen Zhang</a> and his colleagues from Fudan University in Shanghai were the first to sequence the DNA of the novel coronavirus. They placed the gene sequence <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MN908947.2">in GenBank</a>, an open-access data repository. Researchers around the world immediately <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/chinese-researchers-reveal-draft-genome-virus-implicated-wuhan-pneumonia-outbreak">started analysing it</a> to develop diagnostics. </p>
<p>As of February 19 2020, 81 different coronavirus gene sequences had been shared openly via <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/sars-cov-2-seqs/">GenBank</a> and 189 via the <a href="https://bigd.big.ac.cn/ncov?lang=en">China National Genomics Data Centre</a>. They provide the data that will allow scientists to decode the mystery of the virus and hopefully find a treatment or vaccine. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports">The WHO</a> and national organisations like the <a href="http://www.chinacdc.cn/jkzt/crb/zl/szkb_11803/jszl_11809/index.html">Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention</a> also publish open statistical data, such as the number of patients. This can help researchers <a href="https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6">to map</a> the spread of the virus and offer the public <a href="https://news.qq.com/zt2020/page/feiyan.htm">up-to-date and transparent information</a>.</p>
<p><strong>2. Open publications</strong></p>
<p>Science publications are costly. One of the most expensive Elsevier journals, <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/journals/institutional/tetrahedron-letters/0040-4039">Tetrahedron Letters</a>, costs £16,382 for an institutional annual subscription and £673 for a personal one. Even <a href="https://openscience.com/journal-publishers-prices-are-too-high-even-for-the-university-of-harvard/">the University of Harvard</a> cannot afford to subscribe to all journals. This means not all researchers have access to all subscription-based publications. </p>
<p>Authors can publish their articles free to access, which often means they need to pay the publishers <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/the_orb/?p=3038">an average £2,000</a> in article processing costs. In 2018, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/strategy/goals-research-and-innovation-policy/open-science/open-science-monitor/trends-open-access-publications_en#open-access-to-publications">only 36.2%</a> of science publications were open-access.</p>
<p>As of February 18 2020, there were 500 scientific articles about the novel coronavirus in the comprehensive scholarly database <a href="https://www.dimensions.ai">Dimensions</a>. Only 160 (32%) of them were in open-access publications. This includes preprint servers such as <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/">bioRxiv</a> and <a href="https://arxiv.org/">arXiv</a>, which are widely used open-access archives to publish research before it goes through scientific peer review. </p>
<p>Normally, you would need to pay subscription fees to read any of the other 340 articles. However, articles published by the 100 companies who have signed the <a href="https://wellcome.ac.uk/press-release/sharing-research-data-and-findings-relevant-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak">Wellcome Trust’s statement</a> on sharing coronavirus research have been made freely accessible by publishers. </p>
<p>Major publishers including <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/connect/coronavirus-information-center">Elsevier</a>, <a href="https://www.springernature.com/gb/researchers/campaigns/coronavirus">Springer Nature</a>, <a href="https://novel-coronavirus.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/">Wiley Online Library</a>, <a href="https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/promo/coronavirus.htm?utm">Emerald</a>, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/category/medicine-and-health/coronavirus/?cc=gb&lang=en">Oxford University Press</a> and <a href="http://subject.med.wanfangdata.com.cn/Channel/7">Wanfang</a> have also set up featured open-access resources page. The Chinese database <a href="http://en.cqvip.com/">CQVIP</a> has offered free access to all of its 14,000 journals during the coronavirus outbreak.</p>
<p>As it takes <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/920721/ACAD_RI_SC_CS_Perspectives_-Preprint-to-Publication.pdf">on average 160 days</a> for a preprint to be published after peer review, sharing preprints can save time and save life. Free access to articles on the coronavirus can also accelerate global research on this subject. </p>
<p><strong>3. Open educational resources</strong></p>
<p>Due to the outbreak, universities in China have postponed their new semesters and <a href="https://interestingengineering.com/schools-in-china-switching-to-online-education-amid-coronavirus-outbreak">switched to online learning</a>. But alongside the <a href="http://en.moe.gov.cn/news/press_releases/202002/t20200208_419136.html">24,000 online courses</a> open to students, universities (including the elite <a href="http://pkunews.pku.edu.cn/xwzh/235d1dcc98084da0a7028d44028d67ea.htm">Peking University</a>, <a href="https://wemp.app/posts/d846151a-6f69-436d-a411-f4edadd4430c">Tsinghua University</a> and <a href="http://infect.dxy.cn/article/679134">Xi’an Jiaotong University</a>) are offering free online courses to the public about the coronavirus. Such courses can offer the public reliable information grounded in academic research, helping them better understand and protect themselves against the virus. </p>
<h2>Responsible open science</h2>
<p>While all these developments are positive, it is important to remember that open science doesn’t mean science without limits. It must be used responsibly by researchers and the public.</p>
<p>To start, researchers need to have mutual respect for the integrity of their work. For example, there have reportedly <a href="https://wemp.app/posts/67cc4545-8676-4c5e-86ec-6c1e84115027">already been disagreements</a> over whether scientists need to request consent to reuse pre-publication data from shared coronavirus gene sequencing.</p>
<p>Assuming researchers act in good faith and not to simply further their own careers, it is still important for them to clarify the conditions with which they make their research available, and to carefully check and follow such conditions when using other people’s data. Responsible uses of pre-publication data are vital to fostering <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/461168a#Sec2">“a scientific culture that encourages transparent and explicit cooperation”</a>.</p>
<p>There are also issues with making research available without peer review - as happens with preprint servers - as misinterpretations and mistakes can easily happen. <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v2">One paper</a> posted on bioRxiv on February 2 2020 claimed to show “insertions” in the coronavirus’s DNA that showed an “uncanny similarity” to regions found in HIV DNA.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/02/02/no-coronavirus-was-not-bioengineered-to-put-pieces-of-hiv-in-it/#56d5053a56cb">After criticism</a> of the their work, the paper’s authors withdrew it <a href="https://disqus.com/by/disqus_9vTYsrZnzD/">stating</a> they did not intend to “feed into the conspiracy theories” that the novel coronavirus had been deliberately engineered. Such conspiracy theories were recently condemned by 27 scientists from eight countries in their <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext">open statement</a> to the leading medical journal The Lancet.</p>
<p>Yet until February 19 2020, the withdrawn paper was the <a href="https://www.altmetric.com/details/74957328">most discussed study</a> in the world in online news and social media, according to the academic ranking site <a href="https://www.altmetric.com">Altmetric</a>. The paper may have been withdrawn but it won’t have been forgotten. </p>
<p>Open science is vital to tackling the world’s big challenges. But when information can be misused, skewed or misinterpreted at global level so quickly, we also need scientists and the public to treat open science with great care and responsibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Xin Xu receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>But there are also risks to open science.Xin Xu, ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254702019-11-05T21:07:01Z2019-11-05T21:07:01ZTextbooks could be free if universities rewarded professors for writing them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298782/original/file-20191026-113953-c5x5pa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=244%2C169%2C3839%2C2461&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Universities have a responsibility to reduce barriers in student learning, and one way to do this is through creating textbooks that are free to students. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Min An/Pexels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some <a href="https://www.ousa.ca/textbookbroke">student organizations</a>
<a href="https://twitter.com/StudentPIRGs/status/1189567768393334784">have endorsed the social media campaign</a> #textbookbroke to draw attention to the burdens placed on students by the <a href="https://twitter.com/UWashpirg/status/1187511329793302528">high cost of learning materials</a>. </p>
<p>A solution to this problem exists: open educational resources. These are textbooks and other teaching materials produced by academics or instructors and distributed free of charge. Such resources could be a greater part of higher education. Why aren’t they?</p>
<p>This was a question posed to me by <a href="https://www.ecampusontario.ca">eCampusOntario</a>. This organization, funded by the provincial government, supports online and technology-enabled learning in publicly supported colleges and universities. </p>
<p>eCampusOntario commissioned me to <a href="https://www.ecampusontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-07-skimore-oe-policy-report.pdf">produce a report on how institutions of higher learning could support the implementation of open educational resources</a>. I worked with the centre for a year as an <a href="https://www.ecampusontario.ca/oe-fellows/">Open Education Fellow</a>, one of six who were selected because of our own involvement in <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/open-scholarship/open-educational-resources">producing open educational resources</a> at our colleges and universities.</p>
<h2>Publishers’ bottom line ahead of students?</h2>
<p>My own university estimates that first-year students can expect to <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/financing/tuition">pay between $2,290 and $4,100 for books and supplies</a>. </p>
<p>In some programs of study, students don’t buy just textbooks anymore. Many publishers provide digital materials. If the instructor adopts the digital products too, students may be required to purchase a code to gain access to digitally locked material. </p>
<p>When books come with digital content, this may mean students can’t share textbooks, buy a used copy, find comprehensive materials at the library or <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/3/6/18252322/college-textbooks-cost-expensive-pearson-cengage-mcgraw-hill">resell the book</a>. In some cases, the publisher may also supply tests and quizzes, and students pay to submit work for grading. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299769/original/file-20191031-187903-1iiqreu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299769/original/file-20191031-187903-1iiqreu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299769/original/file-20191031-187903-1iiqreu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299769/original/file-20191031-187903-1iiqreu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299769/original/file-20191031-187903-1iiqreu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299769/original/file-20191031-187903-1iiqreu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299769/original/file-20191031-187903-1iiqreu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gone are the days of book sharing. Students may now need unique digital access codes for some content that is marketed with the book or required in the course.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many instructors and students say these publishing practices put the publishers’ bottom line ahead of students’ welfare. </p>
<p>Studies have shown that students will forego courses with high textbook costs or will make up the <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/26/students-sacrifice-meals-and-trips-home-pay-textbooks">cost by spending less on food</a> or <a href="https://www.learntechlib.org/p/180267/">reducing the number of trips home on weekends</a>.</p>
<p>Students <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1184998">who have access to their textbooks from day one of term are likely to do better</a> in their courses, and this results in fewer students dropping out. Recent research reviewing studies involving about 100,000 students and educators finds that there are no differences in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858419872212">effectiveness between open and commercial textbooks, and students’ withdrawal rate in courses with open textbooks was significantly lower</a> than in courses with commercial textbooks. </p>
<h2>When teachers write the book</h2>
<p>Educators who develop open resources decide that instead of relying on commercial books or resources, they’ll create or write their own. </p>
<p>They make these free and accessible through Creative Commons licensing. The creator retains copyright while permitting others to <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/">copy, distribute and make some uses of the work</a>. For example, users may be granted rights to <a href="https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221">reuse, revise, remix, retain (make, own and control copies) and redistribute</a> materials. Some people create these resources on their own platforms; many others use Pressbooks, a WordPress solution that allows for online publishing in book-like format.</p>
<p>Some groups, like OpenStax or <a href="https://openlibrary.ecampusontario.ca/">eCampusOntario, have created online libraries</a> to house and even market these resources. Although the move to open educational resources is relatively young, such libraries of open textbooks now house standard and introductory courses in every discipline. </p>
<p>Thanks to the development of online software, it has become relatively straightforward for someone with expertise and dedication in a particular field to write or curate and develop high-quality materials. Pressbooks allows you to publish the material online and offers multiple formats for printing hard copies; eLink.io lets you package together resources; hypothes.is enables personal and crowd annotating. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yfl1B6Qmp5g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Open-access resources video.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Down with financial stress</h2>
<p>The benefits of open educational resources go beyond helping students stock up on Kraft dinner. Developing or adapting open educational resources fosters collaboration among instructors, between instructors and students, and among academic services on campuses: libraries, teaching centres, bookstores, IT departments. </p>
<p>In our report, my co-author Myrto Provida and I argued that fostering open educational resources <a href="https://www.ecampusontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-07-skimore-oe-policy-report.pdf">increases instructors’ investment in their teaching and helps to raise their institution’s reputation for offering student-centred education</a>. </p>
<p>Some institutions — <a href="https://open.ubc.ca/oer-fund/">the University of British Columbia</a> and <a href="https://www.kpu.ca/open/educational-resources">Kwantlen Polytechnic University</a> in B.C., <a href="https://www.tcc.edu/programs/specialty-programs/textbook-free/">Tidewater Community College in the United States</a>, and <a href="https://ocw.tudelft.nl/">TU Delft in the Netherlands</a> — point to their involvement in open education with pride.</p>
<p>Still, it surprises me that these resources haven’t taken higher education by storm. Some subjects do lend themselves better to open educational resources than others. I teach literature, so in my courses you can’t get around having to buy the novel.</p>
<h2>Offering incentives</h2>
<p>In our study, we discovered that some colleges and universities across North America had provided incentives to encourage educators to create or adapt open educational resources. These were usually small grants and course releases that would give staff the time and resources needed to produce open textbooks. </p>
<p>But uptake of open educational resources is still relatively small. Even with incentives, many educators are reluctant to become involved. Faculty members who want to pursue the academic study and development of open resources are often discouraged not to. There’s a long-standing bias in universities that this work isn’t serious enough.</p>
<p>Modern universities are often not the disruptors they pretend to be, especially pertaining to career advancement. Faculty members won’t engage with creating open resources because colleges and universities by and large don’t make this part of the criteria on which they judge performance, promotion and tenure. </p>
<h2>Mention in tenure policies</h2>
<p>We only found two institutions in Canada, the University of British Columbia and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, where <a href="http://www.hr.ubc.ca/faculty-relations/files/SAC-Guide.pdf">explicit mention of open education</a> had been made in performance and tenure policies. </p>
<p>We recommended that Ontario’s colleges and universities recognize creating open resources in policies governing tenure and promotion. Doing so would change the culture of these institutions and be a more effective incentive than course buy-outs or small grants. It would communicate clearly that institutions of higher education take seriously the responsibility to tailor knowledge to students and to reduce barriers. </p>
<p>Producing quality educational materials takes time and resources. But if doing so is an integral part of people’s job descriptions, they will do it, and do it well.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James M. Skidmore was invited by eCampusOntario to write the report (A Place for Policy) mentioned in this article.</span></em></p>Universities and colleges could eliminate textbook fees if they supported the creation of open educational resources.James M. Skidmore, Director, Waterloo Centre for German Studies, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1203232019-07-15T12:03:16Z2019-07-15T12:03:16ZUniversity of California’s showdown with the biggest academic publisher aims to change scholarly publishing for good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283903/original/file-20190712-173338-1gov2o5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=311%2C0%2C4985%2C3581&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For now, it's going to be trickier for the University of California community to access some academic journals.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/michelle658/6022758297">Michelle/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month, academic publisher Elsevier <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/07/11/elsevier-ends-journal-access-uc-system">shuttered</a> the University of California’s online access to current journal articles. It’s the latest move in the high stakes <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-uc-elsevier-20190711-story.html">standoff</a> between Elsevier, the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-uc-elsevier-20181207-story.html">world’s largest publisher of scholarly research</a>, and the University of California, whose scholars <a href="https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2018/chapters/chapter-9.html">produce about 10%</a> of the nation’s research publications.</p>
<p>Last February, Elsevier chose to continue providing access to journals via its <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com">ScienceDirect</a> online platform after UC’s <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-terminates-subscriptions-worlds-largest-scientific-publisher-push-open-access-publicly">subscription expired</a> and negotiations broke down. With its instant access now cut off, the UC research community will learn firsthand what it’s like to rely on the open web and other means of accessing critical research.</p>
<p>The UC-Elsevier showdown made headlines because it’s symptomatic of the way the internet has failed to deliver on the promise to make knowledge easily accessible and shareable by anyone, anywhere in the world. It’s the latest in a succession of cracks in what is widely considered to be a <a href="https://www.researchinformation.info/news/new-report-warns-%E2%80%98failing-system%E2%80%99-scholarly-publishing">failing system</a> for sharing academic research. <a href="https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/people/mackenzie-smith">As the head of the research library at UC Davis</a>, I see this development as a <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/publisher-negotiations/uc-and-elsevier-impact/">harbinger of a tectonic shift</a> in how universities and their faculty share research, build reputations and preserve knowledge in the digital age.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accessing a journal no longer means going to a periodicals room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/13873472463/in/faves-52792775@N00/">Newton W. Elwell/Boston Public Library/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving from stacks to screens</h2>
<p>Here’s how things traditionally worked.</p>
<p>Universities have always subscribed to scientific journals so their researchers can study and build on the work that came before, and won’t needlessly duplicate research they never knew about. In the print age, university library shelves were lined with journals, available for any researcher or – in the case of public universities like the University of California – any member of the public to peruse and learn from.</p>
<p>Now, for almost all journals, and a growing number of books, libraries sign contracts to license access to digital versions. Since academic publishers moved their journals online, it has become rare for libraries to subscribe to printed journals, and researchers have adapted to the convenience of accessing journal articles on the internet.</p>
<p>Under the new business model of licensing access to journals online rather than distributing them in print, for-profit publishers often lock libraries into bundled subscriptions that wrap the majority of a publisher’s portfolio of journals – <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals">almost 3,000 in Elsevier’s case</a> – into a single, multimillion dollar package. Rather than storing back issues on shelves, libraries can lose permanent access to journals when a contract expires. And members of the public can no longer read the library’s copy of a journal because the licenses are limited to members of the university. Now the public must buy online copies of academic articles for an average of US$35 to $40 a pop. </p>
<p>The shift to digital has been good for researchers in many ways. It is far more convenient to search for articles online, and easier to access and download a copy – provided you work for an institution with a paid subscription. Modern software makes organizing and annotating them simpler, too. With all of these benefits, no one would advocate for going back to the old days of print journals. </p>
<p>Online access to journals did not improve the picture overall. Despite digital copies of articles costing nothing to duplicate and the cost of producing an article online being lower than in the past, the cost to libraries of licensing access to them has continued to experience <a href="https://www.arl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/5yr_ongoing-resource-expenditures_by_type.pdf">hyperinflation</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-journal-publishing-is-headed-for-a-day-of-reckoning-80869">No library</a> can afford to license all the journals its faculty and students want access to, and many researchers around the world are shut out completely. Compounding the problem, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">consolidation in the scholarly publishing market</a> has reduced competition significantly, causing even more price inflexibility.</p>
<h2>Excessive profits?</h2>
<p>Academic publishers certainly bear costs. They pay for professional editors and programmers, they manage the peer review process, they market their journals and so on. However, their revenues far exceed these costs and are among the highest of any companies in the world. Elsevier’s profit margin is reported to be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kittyknowles/2018/06/13/blockchain-science-iris-ai-project-aiur-elsevier-academic-journal-london-tech-week-cogx/">nearly 40%</a>, far higher than even Apple at <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins">around 23%</a>.</p>
<p>Where social media platforms like Facebook profit from – and indeed, would not exist without – the content generated by users, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/04/the-guardian-view-on-academic-publishing-disastrous-capitalism">the parallel is true</a> for academic journals. Companies like Elsevier receive articles from university faculty and other researchers for free, summarizing research that was often publicly funded by government grants. Then other faculty and researchers serve on their editorial boards and peer-review those articles for free or a nominal fee. Finally the company publishes them in journals available only behind a paywall.</p>
<p>And there’s the rub: the paywall. The great promise of the internet was that it would make <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free">knowledge more freely and easily accessible</a>. In the world of academic research – where new discoveries are made and new knowledge is born – the hope 20 years ago was that the advent of online platforms would make research articles universally available. It would also bring down the cost of publishing scholarly journals and, consequently, begin to reduce the multimillion dollar subscription costs borne by universities and other research institutions.</p>
<p>Instead, articles are not readily available to everyone, subscription costs have continued to rise, and subscribers’ rights have eroded, including what they can do with articles they buy and their ability to provide long-term access to them.</p>
<p>What happened to sharing knowledge with the people who need it, funded or created it?</p>
<h2>A model for the digital age</h2>
<p>Maybe it’s time to just blow up the whole system and start over. But today’s scholarly system of sharing knowledge evolved over hundreds of years and contains certain qualities – peer review of accuracy, editorial judgment, long-term preservation – that still matter deeply.</p>
<p>While research products – books, journals and articles – would definitely benefit from modernization in the digital age, we at the University of California are focusing on fixing the business model first. Paywalls and online subscriptions may make sense in other parts of the media ecosystem, but it’s not a good model for academic publishing, where authors and reviewers are paid by universities and research grants (with public money) rather than by publishers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The open access movement would get rid of paywalls and let anyone read anything for free.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/set-ornate-gates-heaven-opening-under-158678495">Inked Pixels/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fortunately, the academy has another option for a publishing business model that can better achieve the promise of the internet: open access. In that model, authors, or their funders or institutions, pay the publisher a fee to cover the cost of publishing each article. In exchange, the articles are made freely available for everyone to read online, anywhere, anytime. Article quality is preserved by the same unpaid peer-review system. Libraries at research institutions could shift their payments from licenses and subscriptions to publication fees for their affiliated authors. The cost is theoretically the same, but everyone can read everything for free. </p>
<p>The University of California has long <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/open-access-policy/">supported the ideals of open access</a> – allowing everyone in the world to access the knowledge created by its faculty and researchers, for the benefit of all. In fact, since open access became an option for publishing, more and more UC authors, following the <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375">global trend</a>, have independently chosen to pay their publisher a fee in order to make their article freely available to the public.</p>
<p>But those fees come on top of the <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-publishing-giant-elsevier">tens of millions of dollars</a> that the university is already paying the publisher for access to the same articles. This “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-of-the-tax-dollar-double-dip-1459379449">double dipping</a>” by publishers was the final straw in UC’s resolve to change the system.</p>
<p>Several years ago, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Sp-B_0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I worked</a> with colleagues within the University of California and other academic research institutions to study the <a href="https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/icis/uc-pay-it-forward-project/">costs of publishing with this open access model</a>. We found that, while costs would shift and more research-grant funds may need to be applied to publishing fees, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284316481">overall it would be affordable</a> for research universities, at least in North America where libraries are relatively well funded. With these results, UC could see a way out of its dilemma. </p>
<p>When UC’s contract with Elsevier was up for renewal, we resolved to put our ideas into practice and pursue the twin goals of increasing open access to UC’s research while containing or lowering our journal-related costs – and finally achieving something of the promise of the internet. While I was not on UC’s negotiating team, I was among the group of faculty and library leaders that worked closely with them and decided to take this step.</p>
<p>Now, UC’s researchers will have to find other ways to get Elsevier journal articles than the online access they have become accustomed to. Many of those articles are already <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/open-access-on-the-rise-study-31125">freely available</a> on the web and the rest can be borrowed from libraries or requested from authors. There are also a growing number of tools like <a href="https://unpaywall.org/">Unpaywall</a>, which searches the web for free copies of articles, to help researchers with that transition. But for busy researchers with little time to spare, convenience is king, and they’ll likely soon learn from experience why achieving 100% open access to research articles is so important.</p>
<p>UC’s goals are ambitious and their implementation will be complex. Changing a system this intricate is akin to modernizing the FAA’s air traffic control system – a million planes are in the air at any moment and altering anything can have serious consequences elsewhere. But we have to start somewhere or the whole system is at risk, and UC has placed its bet. We join an expanding <a href="https://oa2020.org/mission/#eois">global movement</a>, and we believe we’re now on the path to a better system for sharing knowledge in the 21st century.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-of-californias-break-with-the-biggest-academic-publisher-could-shake-up-scholarly-publishing-for-good-112941">an article</a> originally published on March 7, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MacKenzie Smith receives funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The UC libraries let their Elsevier journal subscriptions lapse and now the publisher has cut their online access. It’s a painful milestone in the fight UC hopes may transform how journals get paid.MacKenzie Smith, University Librarian and Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1138562019-04-10T14:04:45Z2019-04-10T14:04:45ZHow the open access model hurts academics in poorer countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264835/original/file-20190320-93048-iv2dqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Open access journals come with hidden costs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">rvlsoft/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/58.full">The rise</a> of open access publishing should be applauded. Scientific research and literature should be made available to everyone, with no cost to the reader.</p>
<p>But there’s a catch: nothing is actually free and someone has to pay. The open access model merely changes who pays. So rather than individuals or institutions paying to have access to publications, increasingly, academics are expected to pay for publishing their research in these “open access” journals. In this way, publishers continue to make money even though they no longer charge readers to access their journals. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that payment has been transferred from institutions and individuals paying to have access to researchers having to pay to have their work published.</p>
<p>And these are substantial. For example, PlosOne charges academics US $1,595 per paper; PlosBiology charges US $3 000. Cell Reports charges US $5 000. Some journals call this cost a “publication fee”. Others refer to “article processing charges”. Ironically, the revenue received in this way is much higher than journal subscriptions – and yet the costs are minimal because the publications are digital with no hard copy costs and little administration. </p>
<p>The cost is usually borne by individual researchers in many institutions. This is a huge burden particularly in developing countries with weaker currencies. Some universities are able to cover part or all of the cost of open access articles, but some make no provision. Universities in most economies, particularly in the developing world, are under <a href="http://www.cedol.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Steve-Maharey-article.pdf">huge financial pressure</a>.</p>
<p>An urgent discussion is needed around the cost of research publications. A more equitable system, in which the full costs and benefits are properly rewarded, is crucial. </p>
<h2>Rising costs</h2>
<p>There has been some debate about the rising cost of journal subscriptions and the University of California has recently “<a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/04/demanding-open-access-uc-rebuffs-worlds-largest-publisher/">broken away</a>” from academic publisher Elsevier, stopping its subscriptions entirely.</p>
<p>There is however, little focus on the costs of open access to researchers in the developing world. Most people we have spoken to inside academia are under the impression that these costs are waived. But that’s only the case for some journals in 47 of the world’s “<a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/dpad/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/publication/ldc_list.pdf">least developed” nations</a>; researchers in the 58 other countries in the developing world must pay the full price.</p>
<p>Currently, individual research programmes must bear the rising cost of open access publication. University researchers write grants for funding research and providing graduate students with scholarships. Few granting agencies take the cost of open access publication into account – and so publication costs eat into whatever precious grant funding researchers get.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://fabinet.up.ac.za/index.php/people-profile?profile=908">research programme</a> I (Professor Wingfield) run, we’ve found that it is just too expensive to only publish in open access journals. Many of the articles in subscription journals are now made available online between six months and a year after publication. This time lag can be problematic in fast moving fields.</p>
<p>The cost of a PlosOne article is 20% of the cost of a Masters student’s scholarship. So the choice is “do I give a Masters student a scholarship, or publish more in open access journals?” We are trying to do both and we are sure that’s the approach many research programmes are trying to take. But as more journals take the open access route this is going to be more difficult. In future, if we want to publish more articles in open access journals, we will have to reduce the number of Masters, Doctoral and post doctoral students in our programmes.</p>
<p>This isn’t a problem that’s unique to our research groups or university. Colleagues in Europe and the US are also concerned about the cost of publishing in open access journals. But the problem is amplified in institutions located in developing economies.</p>
<h2>Finding solutions</h2>
<p>One of the solutions to this problem lies with publishing houses. Of course publishers want to make money. But if they’re serious about genuine open access and getting more authors from the developing world then some serious discussions are needed about reworking the current model. </p>
<p>One suggestion is to “flip” the current model, so there would only be open access and no subscription-only journals. This, however, may still be too expensive for many universities in the developing world who currently cannot afford journal subscriptions.</p>
<p>Some journals are already helping authors by offering incentives and rewards to reviewers. Editors approach experts in their fields to review manuscripts, this is the basis of peer review. These reviewers receive no remuneration for their input but are essential for the peer review process. In some cases, journals offer reviewers subscription access for a year. This only benefits the individual reviewer, not the organisation which pays their salaries. </p>
<p>This isn’t an ideal approach for universities. Perhaps publishers could consider a voucher approach in which vouchers accrue to the institution that pays the reviewer’s salary. These vouchers could contribute towards subscription costs or the article publication charges. More altruistic publishers could even donate vouchers to universities in the developing world.</p>
<p>The use of such vouchers would also have the potential of encouraging academics to undertake reviews. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find reviewers for journal articles. Knowing that there is some benefit to their institutions would inspire more people to accept the work of reviewing. </p>
<p>Another possible solution is pressuring open access journals to waive charges for researchers in developing countries. Academics could also be encouraged to write first for journals that are affiliated to societies. Profits from these kinds of journals go back into supporting science through research grants, travel grants and meeting support. </p>
<p>And researchers must start incorporating publishing costs when applying for grants. Some major funders already encourage this, as does South Africa’s National Research Foundation <a href="https://www.nrf.ac.za/sites/default/files/documents/IFRR%20Framework%20and%20funding%20Guide%202018-%20Final%202Feb2018.pdf">in some cases</a>. Other granting agencies should be urged to do the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brenda Wingfield receives funding from NRF (National Research Foundation) and DST (South African Dept of Science and Technology) as the DST/NRF SARChI (research chair) in Fungal Genomics. I am the vice president of Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) and the Secretary General of the International Society of Plant Pathology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Millar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An urgent discussion is needed around the cost of research publications.Brenda Wingfield, Vice President of the Academy of Science of South Africa and DST-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics, Professor in Genetics, University of Pretoria, University of PretoriaBob Millar, Professor and Director, Centre for Neuroendocrinology, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1129412019-03-08T01:28:07Z2019-03-08T01:28:07ZUniversity of California’s break with the biggest academic publisher could shake up scholarly publishing for good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262542/original/file-20190306-100784-oqhxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=155%2C248%2C2355%2C1691&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Libraries subscribe digitally to academic journals – and are left with nothing in the stacks when the contract expires.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/maveric2003/137231015">Eric Chan/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The University of California recently made international headlines when it <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-terminates-subscriptions-worlds-largest-scientific-publisher-push-open-access-publicly">canceled its subscription</a> with scientific journal publisher <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/">Elsevier</a>. The twittersphere <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ucelsevier">lit up</a>. And Elsevier’s parent company, RELX, saw its stock <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-stocks/uk-main-index-bounces-back-on-wpp-strength-relx-tumbles-idUKKCN1QI42N">drop 7 percent</a> in response to the announcement.</p>
<p>A library canceling a subscription seems like a simple, everyday business decision, so what’s the big deal?</p>
<p>It was not just the clash-of-the-titans drama between the University of California, whose scholars <a href="https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2018/chapters/chapter-9.html">produce nearly 10 percent</a> of the nation’s research publications, and Elsevier, the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-uc-elsevier-20181207-story.html">world’s largest publisher</a> of academic research. </p>
<p>The story made headlines because it’s symptomatic of the way in which the internet has failed to deliver on the promise to make knowledge easily accessible and shareable by anyone, anywhere in the world. The UC-Elsevier showdown was the latest in a succession of cracks in what is widely considered to be a <a href="https://www.researchinformation.info/news/new-report-warns-%E2%80%98failing-system%E2%80%99-scholarly-publishing">failing system</a> for sharing academic research. <a href="https://leadership.ucdavis.edu/people/mackenzie-smith">As the head of the research library at UC Davis</a>, I see this development as a harbinger of a tectonic shift in how universities and their faculty share research, build reputations and preserve knowledge in the digital age.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262544/original/file-20190306-100796-1cwusvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accessing a journal no longer means going to a periodicals room.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/13873472463/in/faves-52792775@N00/">Newton W. Elwell/Boston Public Library/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving from stacks to screens</h2>
<p>Here’s how things traditionally worked.</p>
<p>Universities have always subscribed to scientific journals so their researchers can study and build on the work that came before, and won’t needlessly duplicate research they never knew about. In the print age, university library shelves were lined with journals, available for any researcher or – in the case of public universities like the University of California – any member of the public to peruse and learn from.</p>
<p>Now, for almost all journals, and a growing number of books, libraries sign contracts to license access to digital versions. Since academic publishers moved their journals online, it has become rare for libraries to subscribe to printed journals, and researchers have adapted to the convenience of accessing journal articles on the internet.</p>
<p>Under the new business model of licensing access to journals online rather than distributing them in print, for-profit publishers often lock libraries into bundled subscriptions that wrap the majority of a publisher’s portfolio of journals – <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals">almost 3,000 in Elsevier’s case</a> – into a single, multi-million dollar package. Rather than storing back issues on shelves, libraries can lose permanent access to journals when a contract expires. And members of the public can no longer read the library’s copy of a journal because the licenses are limited to members of the university. Now the public must buy online copies of academic articles for an average of US$35 to $40 a pop. </p>
<p>The shift to digital has been good for researchers in many ways. It is far more convenient to search for articles online, and easier to access and download a copy – provided you work for an institution with a paid subscription. Modern software makes organizing and annotating them simpler, too. With all of these benefits, no one would advocate for going back to the old days of print journals. </p>
<p>But this online system did not improve the picture overall. Despite digital copies of articles costing nothing to duplicate and the cost of producing an article online being lower than in the past, the cost to libraries of licensing access to them has continued to experience <a href="https://www.arl.org/storage/documents/5yr_ongoing-resource-expenditures_by_type.pdf">hyperinflation</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-journal-publishing-is-headed-for-a-day-of-reckoning-80869">No library</a> can afford to license all of the journals that its faculty and students want access to, and many researchers around the world are shut out completely. Compounding the problem, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">consolidation in the scholarly publishing market</a> has reduced competition significantly, causing even more price inflexibility.</p>
<h2>Excessive profits?</h2>
<p>Academic publishers certainly bear costs. They pay for professional editors and programmers, they manage the peer review process, they market their journals and so on. However, their revenues far exceed these costs and are among the highest of any companies in the world. Elsevier’s profit margin is reported to be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kittyknowles/2018/06/13/blockchain-science-iris-ai-project-aiur-elsevier-academic-journal-london-tech-week-cogx/">nearly 40 percent</a> far higher than even Apple at <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/profit-margins">around 23 percent</a>.</p>
<p>Where social media platforms like Facebook profit from – and indeed, would not exist without – the content generated by users, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/04/the-guardian-view-on-academic-publishing-disastrous-capitalism">the parallel is true</a> for academic journals. Companies like Elsevier receive articles from university faculty and other researchers for free, summarizing research that was often publicly funded by government grants. Then other faculty and researchers serve on their editorial boards and peer-review those articles for free or a nominal fee. Finally the company publishes them in journals available only behind a paywall.</p>
<p>And there’s the rub: the paywall. The great promise of the internet was that it would make <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free">knowledge more freely and easily accessible</a>. In the world of academic research – where new discoveries are made and new knowledge is born – the hope 20 years ago was that the advent of online platforms would make research articles universally available. It would also bring down the cost of publishing scholarly journals and, consequently, begin to reduce the multi-million dollar subscription costs borne by universities and other research institutions.</p>
<p>Instead, articles are not readily available to everyone, subscription costs have continued to rise, and subscribers’ rights have eroded, including what they can do with articles they buy and their ability to provide long-term access to them.</p>
<p>What happened to sharing knowledge with the people who need it, funded or created it?</p>
<h2>A model for the digital age</h2>
<p>Maybe it’s time to just blow up the whole system and start over. But the system of sharing knowledge that scholars have today evolved over hundreds of years and contains certain qualities – peer review of accuracy, editorial judgment, long-term preservation – that still matter deeply.</p>
<p>While research products – books, journals and articles – would definitely benefit from modernization in the digital age, we at the University of California are focusing on fixing the business model first. Paywalls and online subscriptions may make sense in other parts of the media ecosystem, but it’s not a good model for academic publishing, where authors and reviewers are paid by universities and research grants (with public money) rather than by publishers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262775/original/file-20190307-82688-17ky3w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The open access movement would get rid of paywalls and let anyone read anything for free.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/set-ornate-gates-heaven-opening-under-158678495">Inked Pixels/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fortunately, the academy has another option for a publishing business model that can better achieve the promise of the internet: open access. In that model, authors, or their funders or institutions, pay the publisher a fee to cover the cost of publishing each article. In exchange, the articles are made freely available for everyone to read online, anywhere, anytime. Article quality is preserved by the same unpaid peer-review system. Libraries at research institutions could shift their payments from licenses and subscriptions to publication fees for their affiliated authors. The cost is theoretically the same, but everyone can read everything for free. </p>
<p>The University of California has long <a href="https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/open-access-policy/">supported the ideals of open access</a> – allowing everyone in the world to access the knowledge created by its faculty and researchers, for the benefit of all. In fact, since open access became an option for publishing, more and more UC authors, following the <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4375">global trend</a>, have independently chosen to pay their publisher a fee in order to make their article freely available to the public.</p>
<p>But those fees come on top of the <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/why-uc-split-publishing-giant-elsevier">tens of millions of dollars</a> that the university is already paying the publisher for access to the same articles. This “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-of-the-tax-dollar-double-dip-1459379449">double dipping</a>” by publishers was the final straw in UC’s resolve to change the system.</p>
<p>Several years ago, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_Sp-B_0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I worked</a> with colleagues within the University of California and other academic research institutions to study the <a href="https://www.library.ucdavis.edu/icis/uc-pay-it-forward-project/">costs of publishing with this open access model</a>. We found that, while costs would shift and more research-grant funds may need to be applied to publishing fees, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284316481">overall it would be affordable</a> for research universities, at least in North America where libraries are relatively well funded. With these results, UC could see a way out of its dilemma. </p>
<p>When UC’s contract with Elsevier was up for renewal, we resolved to put our ideas into practice and pursue the twin goals of increasing open access to UC’s research while containing or lowering our journal-related costs – and finally achieving something of the promise of the internet. While I was not on UC’s negotiating team, I was among the group of faculty and library leaders that worked closely with them and decided to take this step.</p>
<p>Our goals are ambitious and their implementation will be complex. Changing a system this intricate is akin to modernizing the FAA’s air traffic control system – a million planes are in the air at any moment and changing anything can have serious consequences elsewhere. But we have to start somewhere or the whole system is at risk, and UC has placed its bet. We join a <a href="https://oa2020.org/mission/#eois">global movement</a> that began in Europe and is expanding around the world, and we believe we’re now on the path to a better system for sharing knowledge in the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MacKenzie Smith receives funding from Mellon Foundation, IMLS, NSF. </span></em></p>Digital publishing hasn’t resulted in the free and open access to information many envisioned. Universities are increasingly fed up with a system they see as charging them for their own scholars’ labor.MacKenzie Smith, University Librarian and Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1055832018-10-26T12:10:34Z2018-10-26T12:10:34ZThe cost of accessing academic research is way too high. This must change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242028/original/file-20181024-48697-1b6kk5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's huge societal value in opening up access to knowledge resources.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maksim Kabakou/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the last week of October each year, libraries and open access activists around the world celebrate <a href="http://www.openaccessweek.org/">Open Access Week</a>. It’s a week dedicated to increasing access to knowledge resources hosted by libraries, such as online journals and academic books.</p>
<p>Open access is very beneficial to society because research and knowledge is shared widely at no cost to the user. Ordinarily, a great deal of research and information is locked behind paywalls, where it’s only accessible at a high fee. Open Access gives users access to material under an open licence. This means that copyright permission need not be obtained each time material is used or reused. </p>
<p>Globally, the scholarly publishing system is in dire need of financial and legislative change. To address this issue, the Max Planck Digital Library in Munich has <a href="https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/faces/ViewItemOverviewPage.jsp?itemId=item_2148961">produced a White Paper</a> that aims to completely reform the business model of academic journals. The paper proposes that individual countries change the underlying legal and financial structures that challenge the high subscription fees levied by publishers.</p>
<p>Could a country like South Africa manage the changes as advocated in the White Paper? Getting new financial models going will be difficult because of the complexity of the industry’s internal workings and a shortage of data on actual expenditure. However, the country is making headway on the legal framework front. </p>
<h2>What’s missing</h2>
<p>There’s been a <a href="https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2016/02/16/what-should-we-make-of-secret-open-access-deals/">marked shift</a> over the past five decades in how academic publishers do business. Initially, every subscriber paid the same price. Then some price discrimination was introduced: libraries pay more than individuals; and consumers are asked to pay a unique price based on how much they can afford.</p>
<p>But the system isn’t transparent because publishers require institutions to sign non-disclosure agreements about payment. This is done to protect business models and pricing structures. It means there’s no transparency and we simply don’t know how much publicly funded universities <a href="https://f1000research.com/articles/3-274/v3">are paying</a> to commercial publishing houses.</p>
<p>To get a snapshot of what’s being paid in South Africa one of us did a quick survey to establish what the estimated expenditure for resources and copyright would be for South African public universities. We <a href="https://www.chelsa.ac.za">asked libraries</a> to provide this information for 2018. </p>
<p>Fifteen institutions responded to a request for estimated expenditure in 2018 relating to e-resources, book budgets and copyright fees. </p>
<p>It emerged that 15 of the country’s 26 higher education libraries will pay just over R1 billion (USD$69 million) in 2018 towards electronic and printed resources. This amount increases by 5% per year on average with the exchange rate of these international resources adding to the expense. In addition, 14 of the 15 mentioned institutions will pay about R31 million (USD$1.8 million) to the <a href="https://www.dalro.co.za/">Dramatic, Artistic and Literary Rights Organisation</a> for copyright licences on prescribed works. </p>
<p>The fact that knowledge resources expenditure for research and teaching purposes in the South African higher education sector is runs into the billions should be an issue of major concern. But the fact that there’s little collated information available makes it difficult for the tertiary sector to lobby for national licences, fee reductions, and sector reform. </p>
<p>Since an estimated 80% of the collections in academic libraries are purchased from international publishers, the majority of money flows out of the country to publishers in developed countries. Moreover a great deal of research produced locally is published internationally and forms part of the cohort of knowledge that is given to international publishers for free. These publishers legally become the copyright holders through publishing agreements and sell back information to libraries and institutions. </p>
<p>Getting new financial models going will be difficult. This is because there’s no national initiative tracking payments that universities and research councils make to national and international publishers for books, electronic resources, interlibrary loans, copyright fees, and other costs. </p>
<p>This is a problem because journal publishers <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">raise about 75%</a>
of their revenue from library subscriptions. And the academic knowledge contained in those journals is estimated to be worth billions of dollars.</p>
<p>This knowledge is <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502">controlled by five monopoly publishers</a>, despite the fact that the research itself is mostly funded by governments, and paid for by the taxpayer. </p>
<h2>Legislative shifts</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://libguides.wits.ac.za/Copyright_and_Related_Issues/Version3_2018">Copyright Amendment Bill</a> offers some hope for change. The current Act is restrictive and allows only for limited exceptions.</p>
<p>Should the bill pass, it will be the first time in four decades that South Africa has taken steps to update its copyright law. This will align legislation to the digital era with improvements relating to limitations, exceptions, and fair use. </p>
<p>The new law will facilitate access to academic knowledge in the educational and library sectors through fair use provisions. It also introduces a generous number of educational exceptions to the exclusive rights of authors and creators. </p>
<p>These legal flexibilities will help university libraries service delivery, disseminate information, and preserve their collections. The bill has received <a href="https://libguides.wits.ac.za/Copyright_and_Related_Issues/SA_Copyright_Amendment_Bill_2017">overwhelming support</a> from the library, archival, and higher education sectors both nationally and internationally. </p>
<p>This is important because South Africa is party to various international intellectual property agreements that require the same standards to be applied in member countries. </p>
<p>The Amendment Bill, if passed, will allow educators to improve their range of teaching resources. And, finally, it’s hoped that access and resource-sharing will improve. This can happen through a more balanced copyright law, the creation of new open access works, and lower subscription fees. This will happen if national site-licences are negotiated, and fair use is enforced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Globally, the scholarly publishing system is in dire need of financial and legislative change.Leti Kleyn, Research Fellow, University of PretoriaDenise Rosemary Nicholson, Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/967232018-05-16T20:14:19Z2018-05-16T20:14:19ZWhat was missing in Australia’s $1.9 billion infrastructure announcement<p>When we think about infrastructure it’s most often about bridges or roads – or, as in this week’s federal government AU$1.9 billion <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/government-response-2016-national-research-infrastructure-roadmap">National Research Infrastructure announcement</a>, big science projects. These are large assets that can be seen and applied in a tangible way. </p>
<p>It’s not hard to get excited over <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/funded-research-infrastructure-projects">money that will support</a> imaging of the Earth, or the <a href="https://www.ala.org.au/">Atlas of Living Australia</a>. </p>
<p>But important as these projects are, there’s a whole set of infrastructure that rarely gets mentioned or noticed: “soft” infrastructure. These are the services, policies or practices that keep academic research working and, now, open. </p>
<p>Soft infrastructure was not featured in this week’s announcement linked to budget 2018. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/budget-2018-when-scientists-make-their-case-effectively-politicians-listen-96124">Budget 2018: when scientists make their case effectively, politicians listen</a>
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<h2>Ignored infrastructure</h2>
<p>An absence of attention paid to soft infrastructure isn’t just the case in Australia, it’s true globally. This is despite the fact that such infrastructure is core to running the hard infrastructure projects. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.openssl.org/">Open SSL software library</a> – which is key to the security of <a href="https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/OpenSSL">most websites</a> – has just a handful of paid individuals who work on it. It’s supported by fragile <a href="https://figshare.com/articles/Software_in_Research_Underappreciated_and_Underrewarded/5518933/1">finances</a>. That’s a pretty frightening thought. (There’s another issue in that researchers doing this work get no academic credit for their efforts, but that’s a topic for another time.)</p>
<p>There are other high profile, globally used, open science infrastructures that also exist hand to mouth. The <a href="https://doaj.org/">Directory of Open Access journals</a> which began at Lund University relies entirely on voluntary donations from supporting members and on occasional sponsorship. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php">Sherpa Romeo</a> – the open database of publishers’ policies on copyright and self-archiving – came out of projects at Nottingham and Loughborough Universities in the UK. </p>
<p>In some ways these projects’ high visibility is part of their problem. It’s assumed that they are already funded, so no-one takes responsibility for funding them themselves – the dilemma of collective action.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-just-available-but-also-useful-we-must-keep-pushing-to-improve-open-access-to-research-86058">Not just available, but also useful: we must keep pushing to improve open access to research</a>
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<h2>Supporting open science</h2>
<p>Other even more nebulous types of soft infrastructure include the development and oversight of standards that support open science. One example of this is the need to ensure that the metadata (the essential descriptors that tell you for example where a sample that’s collected for research came from and when, or how it relates to a wider research project or publication) are consistent. Without consistency of metadata, searching for research, making it openly available or linking it together is much less efficient, if not impossible.</p>
<p>Of course there are practices in place at individual institutions as well as national organisations. The soon-to-be-combined organisations -Australian National Data Service, the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources project and Research Data Services (<a href="https://www.ands-nectar-rds.org.au/">ANDS-Nectar-RDS</a>) - are supported by national infrastructure funding. These provide support for data-heavy research (including for example the adoption of <a href="https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples">FAIR</a> - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable standards for data). </p>
<p>But without coherent national funding and coordination, specifically for open science initiatives, we won’t get full value from the physical infrastructure just funded.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-insights-of-the-large-hadron-collider-are-being-made-open-to-everyone-70283">How the insights of the Large Hadron Collider are being made open to everyone</a>
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<h2>What we need</h2>
<p>What’s needed now? First, a specific recognition of the need for cash to support this open, soft infrastructure. There are a couple of models for this. </p>
<p>In an article last year it was suggested that libraries (but this could equally be funders – public or philanthropic) should be committing around <a href="http://intheopen.net/2017/09/join-the-movement-the-2-5-commitment/">2.5% of their budget</a> to support open initiatives. There are some international initiatives that are developing specific funding models - <a href="http://scoss.org/">SCOSS</a> for Open Science Services and <a href="https://www.numfocus.org">NumFocus</a> for software. </p>
<p>But funding on its own is not enough: we need a coordinated national approach to open scholarship – making research available for all to access through structures and tools that are themselves open and not proprietary.</p>
<p>Though there are groups that are actively pushing forward initiatives on open scholarship in Australia – such as the <a href="https://aoasg.org.au/">Australasian Open Access Strategy Group</a>, the <a href="http://www.caul.edu.au/">Council of Australian University Librarians</a>, and the <a href="https://acola.org.au/">Learned Academies</a> as well as the <a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/arc-open-access-policy">ARC</a> and <a href="https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/grants-funding/policy/nhmrc-open-access-policy">NHMRC</a> who have open access policies - there is no one organisation with the responsibility to drive change across the sector. The end result is inadequate key infrastructure - for example, for interoperability between research output repositories.</p>
<p>We also need coherent policy. The government recognised a need for national and states policies on open access in its response to the <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/departmental-news/government-response-productivity-commissions-intellectual-property-report">2016 Productivity Commission Inquiry on Intellectual Property</a>, but as yet no policy has appeared. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-spend-millions-on-accessing-results-of-publicly-funded-research-88392">Universities spend millions on accessing results of publicly funded research</a>
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<p>It’s reasonable to ask whether in the absence of a national body that’s responsible for developing and implementing an overall approach, what the success of a policy on its own would be. Again, there are international models that could be used. </p>
<p>Sweden has a Government Directive on Open Access, and a <a href="http://www.kb.se/dokument/open%20access/OpenAccess_National_Library_Sweden_2017_2019.pdf">National Body for Coordinating Open Access</a> chaired by the Vice-chancellor of Stockholm University. </p>
<p>The Netherlands has a <a href="https://www.neth-er.eu/en/news/Netherlands-Publishes-National-Plan-Open-Science">National Plan for Open Science</a> with wide engagement, supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. In that country, the Secretary of State, Sander Dekker, has been a key champion. </p>
<p>The EU has had a long commitment to open science, underscored recently by the appointment of a high-level envoy with specific responsibility for open science, <a href="https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/open-access-scientific-publications-must-become-reality-2020-robert-jan-smits_en.html">Robert-Jan Smits</a>.</p>
<h2>Private interests might take over</h2>
<p>Here’s the bottom line: national coordinated support for the soft infrastructure that supports open science (and thus the big tangible infrastructure projects announced) is not just a “nice to have”. </p>
<p>One way or another, this soft infrastructure will get built and adopted. If it’s not done in the national interest, for-profit companies will step into the vacuum.</p>
<p>We risk replicating the same issues we have now in academic publishing - which is in the hands of multi-billion dollar companies that report to their shareholders, not the public. It’s clear how well that is <a href="https://theconversation.com/publisher-pushback-puts-open-access-in-peril-42050">turning out</a> – publishers and universities globally are in <a href="https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-cancellation-tracking/">stand offs</a> over the cost of publishing services, which continue to rise inexorably, year on year.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/publisher-pushback-puts-open-access-in-peril-42050">Publisher pushback puts open access in peril</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I am the Director of the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group.</span></em></p>“Soft” infrastructure includes the services, policies or practices that keep academic research working and open. Without a funded, coordinated national approach the private sector may take control.Virginia Barbour, Director, Australasian Open Access Strategy Group, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921022018-02-21T05:03:39Z2018-02-21T05:03:39ZWhy we developed a microscope for your phone – and published the design<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207206/original/file-20180221-161929-1iqfjtt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soon you could be looking at microscopic creatures with your mobile phone. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21543-2">Scientific Reports</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>My colleagues and I have developed a 3D printable “clip-on” that can turn your smartphone into a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21543-2">fully functional microscope</a>. </p>
<p>We’ve released the design <a href="http://cnbp.org.au/online-tools">online</a> so that anyone can print it and modify it to suit their needs. </p>
<p>But why? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blood-tests-and-diagnosing-illness-what-can-blood-tell-us-about-whats-happening-in-our-body-80327">Blood tests and diagnosing illness: what can blood tell us about what's happening in our body?</a>
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<p>For a lot of medical diagnostics, you need to look at small stuff – down to the level of individual cells. To do that, you need a microscope. </p>
<p>There’s been a push over the past decade or so by scientists and engineers to bring diagnostics into the home, and to other areas where you can’t really bring traditional lab equipment.</p>
<p>Scientists are hoping that this will allow them to, for example, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep13368">detect malaria</a> and other <a href="http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/286/286re4">blood borne parasites</a> in the field in Africa. </p>
<p>And the backbone of a lot of portable medical diagnostic devices is a mobile phone-based microscope. </p>
<h2>A good place to start</h2>
<p>You may not think of your mobile phone as being anything like a microscope, but it has almost all the parts you need. The lens and camera sensor are arranged exactly as they would be inside a microscope – all you need to do to get some magnification is stick another lens in front. </p>
<p>The next part is to think about how you are going to illuminate your sample, which is often just as important as the lenses you use. </p>
<p>There’s been a lot of great work over the past decade or so engineering mobile phone microscopes with amazing capabilities – for example, <a href="http://cellscope.berkeley.edu/">the Fletcher lab at UC Berkeley</a>, and <a href="http://innovate.ee.ucla.edu/">the Ozcan lab at UCLA</a> – and a lot of it has to do with custom illumination. </p>
<p>The engineering involved to assemble these mobile phone microscopes is not trivial, however. You often need a decent amount of skill and a lab to be able to put these devices together. We wanted to see how simple we could make a microscope, meaning the fewest extra parts and assembly steps possible. </p>
<h2>Guiding the flash</h2>
<p>We figured that it made a lot of sense to use the internal flash in the camera to light up your sample. The challenge is that the flash points in the wrong direction – you need to turn it around to shine through the sample and into the camera.</p>
<p>Redirecting light like this usually requires something fancy like a mirror or a prism. But we realised that the flash on a phone is so bright we can just use the diffuse reflection (glare) off regular plastic. So we designed the clip to have a series of tunnels that confine light and turn it around to face the sample and camera. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207201/original/file-20180221-161923-150t9id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207201/original/file-20180221-161923-150t9id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207201/original/file-20180221-161923-150t9id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207201/original/file-20180221-161923-150t9id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207201/original/file-20180221-161923-150t9id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207201/original/file-20180221-161923-150t9id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207201/original/file-20180221-161923-150t9id.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Left: Wireframe schematic of the clip on device. Flash illumination is indicated by the blue arrow. Upon striking the illumination backstop (made of the same 3D printed resin as the rest of the clip), this light is reflected diffusely towards the sample and then through the lens into the camera. Right: Cutaway 3D model of the clip-on device, showing the illumination tunnels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21543-2">Scientific Reports</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>A lot of light is absorbed by the 3D printed resin of the clip, which is black. But it’s not perfectly black, and even the tiny fraction of light that makes it through the tunnels and reflects off of the black surface is more than enough to light up a microscopic sample. And that’s it – no mirrors, prisms or illumination lenses are needed. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-scientists-invent-new-colours-80897">Explainer: how scientists invent new colours</a>
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</p>
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<h2>Light and dark</h2>
<p>Next, of course, you need something to look at. The local pond is a good place to start. Put some water on a slide or in a capillary tube and you will find many cool-looking microorganisms going about their lives. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u40Su77F5Fo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A microorganism viewed with the mobile phone microscope.</span></figcaption>
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<p>This type of illumination is called bright-field microscopy. But we actually went a bit further, and showed that you can turn the flash off and use the Sun to perform dark-field microscopy - where the specimen is lit up, but the field around it is dark.</p>
<p>The clip is designed in such a way that sunlight (or ambient room light) gets trapped in the glass sample slide, and can only be redirected into the mobile phone camera if it hits an object in the sample. If the sample slide is empty, the background is dark (hence dark-field). If there is an object it shines bright on the dark background, and as such this is a great way to detect really subtle objects such as cells (which are mostly water) sitting in water.</p>
<p>What we’re hoping is that our design, or something like it, gets used for ultra simple, cheap and robust mobile phone based devices – be it for medical diagnostics in underserved areas such as the remote Australian outback and central Africa, or monitoring microorganism populations in local water sources. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-weve-evolved-to-fight-the-bugs-that-infect-us-75057">How we've evolved to fight the bugs that infect us</a>
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<p>We’ve released the design <a href="http://cnbp.org.au/online-tools">online</a> so that anyone can print it and modify it to suit their needs. This part is important because the mission of low-cost microscopy is to ease access to this high tech equipment. This is best accomplished when everyone has the opportunity to make one for themselves or to adapt it freely.</p>
<p>The clip can be printed using any 3D printer - we prefer the <a href="https://formlabs.com/">Formlabs</a> family of printers - and you’ll need black resin. The cost in resin per clip is typically a couple of dollars at most. You’ll also need a lens to put in the clip. We buy ours from an <a href="http://www.wholesaleiphoneparts.com.au/">online retailer</a> and then remove the lens from the camera module.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92102/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antony Orth receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Even though you don’t think of your mobile phone as being anything like a microscope, it’s got almost all the parts you need.Antony Orth, Research Officer , RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/883922017-12-12T03:59:42Z2017-12-12T03:59:42ZUniversities spend millions on accessing results of publicly funded research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198056/original/file-20171207-31552-nb47pq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research findings are published in peer-reviewed academic journals, many of which charge universities subscription fees. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>University research is generally funded from the public purse. The results, however, are published in peer-reviewed academic journals, many of which charge subscription fees. </p>
<p>I had to use freedom of information laws to determine how much universities in New Zealand spend on journal subscriptions to give researchers and students access to the latest research - and I found they paid almost US$15 million last year to just four publishers.</p>
<p>There are additional costs, too. Paywalls on research hold up scientific progress and limit the public’s access to the latest information.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-just-available-but-also-useful-we-must-keep-pushing-to-improve-open-access-to-research-86058">Not just available, but also useful: we must keep pushing to improve open access to research</a>
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<p>The project took more than three years because universities originally refused to release the information. I had to make a complaint to the Ombudsman, the government official charged with determining whether information from the state sector should be publicly disclosed. </p>
<p>The Ombudsman’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5673583">final opinion</a> ruled unambiguously that the public’s right to know outweighs any commercial interests of the publishers and universities. </p>
<h2>The cost of knowledge</h2>
<p>The following points stand out in a preliminary analysis of spending by New Zealand universities on subscriptions to journals from Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and Taylor & Francis between 2013 and 2016. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>The total amount spent on the four publishers is substantial, around US$14.9 million in 2016 (the total spending on all publishers is likely at least 2-3 times that). The University of Auckland, with 33000 students and 2200 academic and research staff, spent US$3.8 million, including US$1.6 million on Elsevier.</p></li>
<li><p>The mean expenditure per academic/research staff member in 2016 was around US$1800.</p></li>
<li><p>The University of Canterbury is getting a much worse deal than the others, 35% above the mean.</p></li>
<li><p>The rate of increase of subscription costs (17%) over the period clearly exceeds the Consumer Price Index inflation rate over the period (2-3% in New Zealand, USA and Europe).</p></li>
<li><p>The publisher with the highest percentage increase over the period was Taylor & Francis (33%).</p></li>
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<h2>Obtaining the information</h2>
<p>Many journal subscription prices are high (for example, the prominent biology journal Cell is over US$2000 per year), especially given that the funding for the research typically comes from public sources. </p>
<p>With the advent of the internet, many people predicted a major drop in expenditure on journals, but the opposite <a href="http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2017/04/publishing/new-world-same-model-periodicals-price-survey-2017/#_">has occurred</a>. One reason is that the main commercial publishers use anti-competitive practices such as bundling of unrelated journals (so-called “<a href="http://econ.ucsb.edu/%7Etedb/Journals/BundleContracts.html">Big Deals</a>”) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JsNT1gKe7I">confidentiality clauses in contracts</a>. </p>
<p>Price secrecy allows sellers to use differential pricing and weaken the negotiating situation of buyers, leading to market inefficiency. The fact that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingelfinger_rule">each journal has a monopoly</a> on its specific content means that journals cannot be easily substituted by others.</p>
<p>In 2014, Timothy Gowers and others used freedom of information laws to <a href="https://gowers.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/elsevier-journals-some-facts/">extract the relevant price information from universities in the UK</a>. In 2009, less extensive <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/26/9425.abstract">work in the USA</a> had also been done by Ted Bergstrom and colleagues. Data from <a href="https://avointiede.fi/web/openscience/publisher_costs">Finland</a> and <a href="http://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/cost-of-publication">Netherlands</a> has recently been made public. </p>
<p>I requested data from seven of New Zealand’s eight universities, which collectively have around 8400 academic/research staff and 130000 students. The process was long and required persistence. Following the Ombudsman’s ruling, the universities complied, supplying me with data on spending on journals from Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and Taylor & Francis. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Wd6x2/4/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="573"></iframe>
<p>There are some subtleties, such as assumptions about exchange rate conversions and exactly which products from the listed publishers the money is spent on. Interested readers can consult the <a href="https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5656054">raw data</a>.</p>
<h2>Is open access the answer?</h2>
<p>The restricted access inherent in the subscription model makes it hard for journalists, politicians and the general public to use scholarship for better evidence-based decision making.</p>
<p>Recently, open access journals have emerged. They place no barriers on readers but still have production costs. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access#Journals:_gold_open_access">“Gold Open Access” model</a>, in which authors or funders typically pay for each article, has become popular with traditional publishers. They often set the article processing charge level at around US$2000 to US$3000. </p>
<p>The analysis above implies that wholesale conversion to such article processing charges will not save money for universities. <a href="http://bjoern.brembs.net/2017/11/is-a-cost-neutral-transition-to-open-access-realistic/">Several independent estimates</a> put a reasonable article processing charge at no more than US$500 (less in some disciplines).</p>
<p>The key problem is not the particular model of payment for journal article production and distribution, but the dysfunctional market in publishing services. Although they are a large part of the problem, commercial publishers are not entirely to blame. For example, the research community uses historical journal reputation to evaluate researchers, making it harder for new, better run journals to enter the market. </p>
<h2>The right kind of open access</h2>
<p>Even with the best will in the world, there is an inevitable time lag for new journals to become established. To make faster progress, it is necessary to decouple the ownership of current journal titles from the provision of editorial and publication services, so that competition among publishers helps to control prices. This reclaiming of community control is the most fundamental of the recently formalised <a href="http://fairoa.org">Fair Open Access Principles</a>. </p>
<p>New organisations such as <a href="http://mathoa.org/">MathOA</a>, <a href="http://psyoa.org">PsyOA</a>, <a href="http://lingoa.eu">LingOA</a> and the <a href="http://fairoa.org">Fair Open Access Alliance</a> have been set up to facilitate large-scale conversion of subscription journals to an open access model, with community control of journals and no direct author payments. This of course involves mass defections by editorial boards.</p>
<p>We expect that global savings of at least 75% of current payments to journals can be made by using modern publishing providers such as <a href="https://scholasticahq.com/">Scholastica</a> and <a href="https://www.ubiquitypress.com/">Ubiquity</a>, and by reallocating subscription payments toward article processing charges. What is the research community waiting for?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark C. Wilson is a board member for MathOA, and its delegate to the Fair Open Access Alliance. Both of these are nonprofit organizations registered in the Netherlands.</span></em></p>Universities in New Zealand spent close to US$15 million on subscriptions to just four publishers in 2016, data that was only released following a request to the Ombudsman.Mark C. Wilson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875352017-11-21T14:30:08Z2017-11-21T14:30:08ZAfrica must keep its rich, valuable data safe from exploitation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195178/original/file-20171117-7588-k3w20r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=70%2C52%2C824%2C802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Data should be open, shareable - but not at the expense of African researchers and communities.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a data revolution underway in Africa. It’s being driven by major international research collaborations like the <a href="https://skatelescope.org/">Square Kilometre Array</a> (SKA) project. This and similar initiatives are producing volumes of data the continent has never witnessed before.</p>
<p>All of that data then needs to be carefully managed throughout every stage of the research project. That’s why <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK215270/">data stewardship</a> – a job that didn’t exist in academia ten years ago – has today become the key to the integrity of any academic research enterprise. </p>
<p>Data stewardship refers to the person or people in an organisation responsible for describing data accurately, then arranging it so it’s easily found, understood in context and, ultimately, used appropriately.</p>
<p>High-profile projects like the SKA are supported by important national infrastructure initiatives, such as South Africa’s <a href="https://www.csir.co.za/national-integrated-cyber-infrastructure-system">National Integrated Cyber Infrastructure System</a>. These help to boost the country’s capacity for high levels of research data management.</p>
<p>The continent’s universities are also scrambling to provide necessary data services to researchers. This is important to make sure that academics comply with international funding agencies’ complex data management requirements. But there are more than technical or operational considerations to managing and sharing the huge volumes of data being sourced in Africa. </p>
<p>Political, ideological, cultural and historical factors also matter. Data is emerging as a powerful force in the digital economy. Will other nations and regions try to control the flow of information from Africa? That’s <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/term-3-scramble-africa-late-19th-century">what happened</a> the last time Africa had something valuable to offer in the form of oil reserves and minerals. </p>
<p>Africa must develop its capacity for data stewardship. This is a critical resource to refine the data according to “<a href="https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples">FAIR</a>” data principles outlined by global bodies. These call for data to be open, shareable and reusable – an important way to prevent the exploitation of Africa’s research data.</p>
<h2>Opening up access</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/library/reports/the_africa_data_revolution_report_2016.html">Africa Data Revolution Report 2016</a>, backed by the United Nations Development Programme, argues that in the African context open data means not only sharing and reuse: it also requires inclusion. This means that the benefits of gathering and sharing data should accrue to all, from institutions to individual researchers and entire communities.</p>
<p>That principle differs sharply from the historical paradigms of data production, dissemination and usage in Africa. Census planning was an early example of data gathering on the continent. Far from being a neutral act, this <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12321499">data was used</a> to construct ideologies of race. It became a tool for exclusion and segregation, especially under colonial and apartheid rule.</p>
<p>This history explains why many researchers in Africa are now committing themselves to this principle of openness. South Africa’s research community is particularly sensitive to the benefits of sharing data openly to promote social, economic and political inclusion and the integration of marginalised
communities. </p>
<p>Those who <a href="https://icsu.org/cms/2017/04/open-data-in-big-data-world_long.pdf">support open data</a> see that it drives greater scientific integrity, global participation. They understand that it enables a strategic response to Africa’s societal challenges. The continent’s public health researchers and epidemiologists are <a href="https://www.nia.nih.gov/sites/default/files/2017-06/sharing-research-data-to-improve-public-health-in-africa_0.pdf">leading the way</a> here.</p>
<p>But of course, researchers have their reservations too. South Africa’s academics insist on the right to make the decision whether to share their data openly – and where to share it. Few universities have developed policies on research data management. These are necessary to guide research communities in collecting good, standardised data that can be shared at the end of a research project. </p>
<p>Another concern among African scholars is the problem of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/global-academic-collaboration-a-new-form-of-colonisation-61382">helicopter science</a>”. The risk in international research collaborations is that non-African partners tend to drive the research agenda. They gather uniquely African data and then export it for analysis and publishing elsewhere. The African partners then lose out on research incentives like peer recognition and reward. They also can’t, for instance, patent products based on that relinquished data in future.</p>
<p>These concerns must be taken seriously as Africa continues its data drive. A focus on collaboration among African universities and research institutions is crucial in developing national policies that both meet the FAIR principles of Open Data and ensure equity and fairness in research contracts. All of this work will ultimately offer greater protection against the risk of “helicopter science”.</p>
<h2>A collaborative ‘cloud’</h2>
<p>One example of this sort of crucial collaboration is work that’s been undertaken by Data Intensive Research Initiatives of South Africa <a href="https://www.dirisa.ac.za/">DIRISA</a>. The organisation plans to develop a shared data service from core funding awarded to a consortium of universities in the Western Cape province. </p>
<p>This consortium, established in late 2016, is known as <a href="http://www.researchsupport.uct.ac.za/ilifu">ILIFU</a>, a word which means cloud in isiXhosa. Part of the ILIFU project includes the deployment of the <a href="https://figshare.com/">cloud-based Figshare platform</a>. This offers an institutional repository for research data. It serves researchers who need a place to store and disseminate their data with discrimination. </p>
<p>The project is South Africa’s first national data infrastructure grant. It will give more access to research infrastructure, software and data to all the country’s researchers. That includes those from under-resourced communities, where access to this kind of infrastructure should “leave no one behind”.</p>
<p>The opportunity to work collaboratively in providing shared data infrastructure heralds another conscious mind shift for African research. We are beginning to see open data not as a commodity but as a source of renewable energy. It generates new value every time it’s reused – and, ultimately, it can power the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87535/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dale Peters does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A focus on collaboration among African universities and research institutions is crucial in developing national policies that meet the principles of open data while keeping it safe from exploitation.Dale Peters, Director: UCT eResearch, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.