Comments on Designing the Microbial Research Commons: Digital Knowledge Resources

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Comments on Designing the Microbial Research
Commons Digital Knowledge Resources

• Katherine J. Strandburg
• New York University School of Law

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PERSPECTIVE FOR COMMENTS IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL
NORMS AND RESEARCHER PREFERENCES

• HOMO SCIENTIFICUS PREFERENCES
• Performing research
• Autonomy in research direction
• Learning results of the collective research
  enterprise
• Scarce resources needed to satisfy preferences
• Funding
• Attention of others
• Access to these resources is mediated by
  publication if OA is to succeed it must align
  with these preferences

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I. OA JOURNALS

• THREE PATHS TO OA
• Open Access Journals (perhaps based at
  universities)
• Existing Journal Adoption of Open Access approach
• Parallel OA manuscript repositories and
  proprietary journals

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THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPACT FACTOR

• Emphasis on high status publications exacerbated
  by recent trend to quantify publication records
  using impact factor
• Table 3 (p. 67)
• IF of OA journals 4.0 (with range up to 9)
• IF of restrictive journals 5.77 (with range up
  to 50!!)
• IF of 50 trumps long-term belief in value of OA
• OA models cannot depend on scientists foregoing
  publication in high impact journals
• IF is path dependent and sticky network
  effects, preferential attachment, Matthew
  effect
• Scientists unlikely to vote with their feet for
  the OA mode

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OTHER BARRIERS TO UNIVERSITY PUBLISHED OA JOURNALS

• Problems with the law review model
• Proliferation of journals b/c each university
  needs 1 (or 2 or 5)
• Overly fine-tuned ranking of journals (rather
  than post hoc ranking based on citation) ?
  over-emphasis on placement
• Grad students are not law students
• No need for publication venue
• No time for journal editing functions
• Is law review publication really faster?
• Anecdotally, physics is 3 to 6 months
• Microbial research?
• Not convinced of synergies with university
  educational mission

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JOURNAL ADOPTION OF OA?

• Unlikely b/c of bargaining power due to IF as
  discussed above
• IP laws protect proprietary approaches and
  reform is difficult
• Some movement is seen, but direct pressure on
  high impact journals is difficult
• OA tier (e.g. Springer Open Choice)
  problematic if payment competes with spending on
  research
• Journal versions of OA not entirely satisfactory

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MANUSCRIPT REPOSITORIES

• Circumvent the need to get journals to change
  their practices
• Need journal acquiescence only
• Separate things that universities can do easily
  and well from things that are more difficult or
  harder to dislodge
• Good manuscript and good data mining, etc.
• Hard copy printing, credentialing service
• Deposit can be mandated by funding agencies to
  grant recipients
• Solves collective action problem
• Aligns incentives

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MANUSCRIPT REPOSITORIES

• NIH Experience
• Journals do not prohibit deposit in such
  repositories
• Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009
• Recently introduced in the Senate
• Mandates agencies to ensure open access deposit
  of peer-reviewed manuscripts lt 6 months after
  publication
• Consistent with Obama administration Open
  Government push
• Mitigates concerns with database protection
  statutes in Europe
• No more sole source
• Could integrate with material/data repositories
• Users of data must deposit manuscripts
• data and materials associated with manuscripts
  must be deposited

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WHAT ABOUT PROPRIETARY JOURNALS?

• May adapt to service provider role
• page charges
• Hard copies
• Archival version
• better or premium database services
  (competing with the OA repository)
• May not be commercially viable
• Scientific societies
• Universities
• Knowledge hubs
• Could replace them, take them over, partner
• Manuscript repositories path to some OA outcome

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II. DATA DEPOSITORIES

• Similar to issue of material and research tool
  sharing (see earlier publications)
• Collective action problem temptation to
  withdraw w/o contributing

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II. DATA DEPOSITORIES

• Other Scientists
• Share Don't Share
• Share U(N)MR-C U(1)MR-C
  
• Don't Share U(N)EP U(1) E-P

Scientist A
U(.) value of the database, depends on N M
first mover advantage regarding As data E
incremental value of exclusive use of As data R
reputational value of contributing, including
attribution P penalty for not contributing C
cost (including opportunity cost) of
contributing Contribute iff RP-C gt E-M U(N)
doesnt matter!
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II. DATA DEPOSITORIES

• Roughly speaking, then, success of depository
  depends on RP-C gt E-M
• Reduce costs!! (Cf. Empty Archives, Nature,
  9/10/09)
• Easy formats
• No direct fees
• Provide rewards for contributing (e.g.
  attribution)
• Note these rewards must compete w/ rewards for
  sharing informally with collaborators
• Provide penalties for non-contribution (funder
  requirements to contribute)
• Depositories work best for interdependent data

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II. DATA DEPOSITORIES

• Moral Hazard and Industry Scientists
• Withdraw w/o contributing problems may be much
  greater for industry scientists
• Different motivations
• Less concern w/ reputation, funding, etc.
• Greater access to secrecy
• Should we be concerned?
• If so, may want to consider semi-commons approach
• Fee for service or data for data