Building an Open Access World

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Building an Open Access World

• Vivian Siegel, Ph.D.
• DASER Summit, 12/03/05

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Open Access Publishing

• What give you one definition
• Why the ideology
• Starting an open access journal
• Transitioning to open access

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What is open access publishing?

• Free and unrestricted online access to the
  research literature and databases
• Users are licensed to download, print, copy,
  redistribute, and use
• Papers are deposited in public databases that
  serve as archives and that allow sophisticated
  searches

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Why open access?(the egosystem)

• It best matches the needs of researchers (both as
  readers and authors)
• It best matches the goals of the funders of
  research
• It best meets the publishing mandate to
  disseminate information as widely (and as
  rapidly) as possible

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The message from Elsevier

• Access Impact Value
• open access maximizes the impact of the research
  that you publish

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Freely available articles are cited more
frequently
From Brody et al., 2004
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Transitioning to Open Access
Open access
Subscription- based
?
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Starting vs Transitioning to Open Access

• Brand new journal
• Develop reputation
• Build Submissions
• Build Readership, Usage
• No Legacy Data
• Can set expectations

• Established journal
• Established reputation
• Established Submissions
• Established Readership
• Legacy Data
• Legacy Economics

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Additional challenges for PLoS

• Brand new organization
• Need to build brand reputation
• Need to build business infrastructure

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What made PLoS possible

• Philanthropy
• Credibility within Scientific Community
• Support from Scientific Community
• Support from Library Community

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Starting an Open Access Journal

• Brand new journal
• Develop reputation
• Build Submissions
• Build Readership, Usage
• No Legacy Data
• Can set expectations

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Building Submissions(the Impact Factor effect)
Submissions to PLoS Biology DOUBLED the month the
IF was released!
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The economics of open access
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Ways to fund open access

• Philanthropy (angel funders)
• Article processing fees (author side charges)
• paid primarily by the funders of research (what
  PLoS advocates) or perhaps from other sources
• Could be a mix of submission and publication fees
• Memberships
• Advertising (Biotechniques)
• Commercial reprints, other content delivery
• Open access to research articles but not to
  value-added material such as reviews (BMJ)
• Print supports online version

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Author-side charges are not new

• Subscription model
• Page charges
• Color charges
• Correction charges
• Reprints or pdf

• PLoS model
• Article processing fee

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Costs to Publishing

• Copy Editing
• Figure Manipulation
• Professional Editors
• Front Section (reviews, editorials)
• Fee Waivers

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The Costs of Publishing in PLoS
BiologyProduction Only

• Production costs for published research articles
  only
• Per page costs Per page costs Per article cost
  (assume 11-page article)
• Pre-editing macro 0.90/page 10/article
• Copy editing 20/page 220/article
• Figure preparation 13.65/page 150/article
• Layout 16/page (text) 176/article
• 12.50/page (graphics) 138/article
  (avg.6/article)
• Proofs/correction 4.75/page 52.25/article
• XML Mark-Up 3.25/page 35.75/article
• PDF creation 1.50/page 16.50/article
• Figure conversion to JPEG 1.60/page
  17.50/article
• XML upload/QC 3.75/page 41.25/article
• Deposit to CrossRef/PMC 1.15/page
  12.50/article
• TOTAL 74.05/page 869.75/article
• Electronic Manuscript Management (20
  acceptance) 200/article
• TOTAL (including electronic manuscript
  processing) 1069.75/article
• From PLoS White Paper http//www.plos.org/download
  s/oa_whitepaper.pdf

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Offsetting the costs of Publishing
Offsetting the editorial and front section costs
of high-end journals will help mitigate
financial risks due to plan uncertainties
Option 1 Subsidize with Revenue from Other
Journals Journals with lower rejection rates and
productions costs can bring in a larger
margin Option 2 Charge more for High-End
Journals Risk the market may not be able to bear
the cost. Is 5000 too much? 10,000? Option 3
Fund the Front Section Separately Published
authors should not have to cover the costs of the
front section. The front section could be funded
separately in a number of ways, such as
advertising, sponsorships, even subscriptions for
front section (e.g., BMJ model). Option 4
Obtain Funding for Fee Waivers If journals are to
be needs blind, then there need to be established
mechanisms for covering the costs of those who
cannot pay. These costs need not be passed on to
those who can pay. Option 5 Editorial Oversight
Fee For typical high end journals, 80-90 of
Editorial time is spent on papers that dont get
accepted. Those that do get accepted require
significant editorial time and oversight. An
Editorial Oversight fee provides a potential
means to recover this cost.
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Transitioning to Open Access
Open access
Subscription- based
?
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Encourage existing journals to offer options

• Open access option (e.g., PNAS) slowly increase
  numbers of papers while working out the economics
• Keep front section under subscription barrier
  (BMJ)
• Transition immediately but incent libraries and
  individual subscribers to keep print
  subscriptions (NAR)

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Encourage authors to make accessibility of their
research a priority

• Choose open access journals and options whenever
  they can
• Archive in a freely accessible repository when
  they cannot

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Encourage investors in research (funders and
institutions) to cover publication costs

• Already happening in biomedicine, where the cost
  of publication is about 1 the cost of research
• Major shifts would need to happen in other
  fields, such as ecology, where the publication
  charge might equal the cost of the research. This
  may be a place for institutions to take the lead,
  as they already subsidize publication costs
  through subscriptions

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Reduce the costs of publication

• Develop open source publication management
  software
• Give more control and responsibility to authors
  for copy editing and figure manipulation
• Print on demand

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Transitioning to Open Access
Open access
Subscription- based
!