Open Access and the Developing World
Matthew CockerillManaging Director, BioMed Central Ltd
The old world of access to knowledge
The new world of access to knowledge
The internet has the potential to radically expand access to
knowledge
Digital divide or digital bridge?
African internet connectivity is improving dramatically
Cellphones
Source: African Mobile Factbook 2008
International Telecommunications Union report (2009)
“The increase in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions over the last five years has defied all predictions and Africa remains the region with the highest mobile growth rate”
Although number of Internet users has also grown faster than in other regions:“Africa’s ICT penetration levels in 2009 are still far behind the rest of the world and very few African countries reach ICT levels comparable to global averages”
Growth of mobile phones in Africa
Mobile phone networks are already aiding scientific data gathering
As connectivity improves, other access barriers become significant
Open access journals do away with access barriers
About BioMed Central
Largest publisher of peer-reviewed open access journals
Launched first open access journal in 2000 Became part of Springer in 2008 Now publishes 207 open access journals >80,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published All research articles published under Creative
Commons license Costs covered by article processing charge (APC)
BioMed Central and Africa
ComputerAid
BMC/Nature 10K fun run in support of ComputerAid
OA Waiver Fund
All African countries receive automatic fee waiver, except:
Libya Namibia Nigeria South Africa
AlgeriaBotswanaEquatorial GuineaGabon
Growth in manuscript submissions from Africa to BioMed Central
Manuscript submissions from Africa as fraction of total
Top 10 journals for publications from Africa in last 12 months
How can increased access to knowledge via Open Access help
Africa?
UN Millenium Development Goals
Reduce child mortality,improve maternal health
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability Develop a global partnership for
development
Who needs access to the results of research?
Public
Professionals
Researchers
Research on global health issues has expanded greatly
Developing world health issues are finally attracting substantial research spending
Private philanthropic initiatives have played an important role
Why do research if it is not accessible where it is most relevant?
Wellcome Trust Medical Research Council US National Institutes of Health Howard Hughes Medical Institute European Research Council EC Seventh Framework Program
Many research funders are now requiring open access
Harvard University (and other members of Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity)
More than 100 mandatory institution-wide open access policies world-widehttp://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
But still very few in Africa…
Many universities are now requiring open access
Open Access in practice
Open Access journals
What is open access publishing?
Traditional journals– take ownership of the research– provide access to subscribers only
Open access journals– have no subscription barriers– take advantage of the economics of the
internet to allow universal access– research is openly licensed to allow reuse
Who pays?
Open access journals do have costs Publication fee is a very small fraction
of the cost of doing research Most open access publishers, including
BioMed Central, give waivers to developing countries
In other cases, open access journals have central support, so no charges for authors or readers
Open Access publishing,then and now…
20102000
And many more…
African Journals Online
A new industry association
Goals of OASPA
Represents Open Access publishers Agree common definition of Open Access Establish and enforce good standards of
editorial and business practices amongst members
Identify guidelines and best practices for publishers and institutions in managing payment of publication fees
Malaria Journal - an open access journal case study
Malaria Journal homepage
Annual growth in submissions to Malaria Journal
Top 20 African countries publishing in Malaria Journal (no. or articles)
Impact Factor trend
A highly accessed Malaria Journal article
15,000+ downloads
31 citations
Parasite to Prevention - Malaria Journal’s scientific conference
Inaugural conference October 2010, Edinburgh, Scotland
Full bursaries for participants from low-income countries, supported by Gates Foundation
Next conference 2012, probably in Africa
Other high profile open access journals relevant to tropical diseases
Gateways
The latest open access research on global health issues
The benefits of open access for the developing world
Zambia
Nigeria
The Gambia
Open Access repositories
Open Access repositories
Allow archiving of articles published both in traditional journals and open access journals
Traditional publishers typically only allow author version to be archived
Many require a 6 or 12 month embargo period
Open access articles can be deposited and made immediately available
Open Repository
Hosted digital repository service, operated by BioMed Central
Built on the DSpace open-source platform Dramatically reduces time and costs
involved in setting up, maintaining and developing a repository
Hosting in UK ensures maximum international exposure
Open Repository
MSF 1
MSF 2
How can OA publishers work with Institutional Repositories?
Many institutions now have OA repositories in place
Populating the repositories is often a challenge
Open Access journals provide a stream of immediately available OA content for the repository
BioMed Central is automating this via feeds using the SWORD protocol
Connecting open access journals and open access repositories
Institutional Institutional RepositoryRepository(DSpace/Eprints (DSpace/Eprints
etc.etc.))
PublisherPublisher
Manuscript
Author final
version
1
2
Manual deposit to IR
Institutional Institutional RepositoryRepository(DSpace/Eprints (DSpace/Eprints
etc.etc.))
Manuscript
SWORD Import
SWORD Export
Published articles
from institution’s
authors
Published article
Automated deposit to IR via SWORD
University of Stellenbosch
Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the conference!