The rationale, role and working methods of open access journals
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Caroline Sutton, PublisherCo-Action Publishing
ISAJE Meeting , Trieste; 25-26 September 2009
Co-Action Publishing• Founded in 2007 as a Swedish limited liability
company• Currently publish 5 journals and 2 books• In process of launching/taking over 7 journals• Offer consulting and support services through
Open Access Solutions• Founding member and current President of
Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, OASPA
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www.OpenAccessSolutions.com
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www.oaspa.org04/11/2023
Some statistics
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• Today there are over 4300 journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. (www.doaj.org)
• A recent study conducted by Public Knowledge Project found that a majority of the 1000 journals who replied to a survey (out of 4000) were not in the DOAJ.
• In 2008 Scopus listed over 90 000 OA articles, amounting to 6% of the Scopus content.
•Much of the new (title) growth within the publishing industry is taking place within Open Access journals
Open Access Publishers
Open Access Publishing HousesMixed model publishers
University PressesScholar Publishers
Societies
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THE RATIONALE: WHY OPEN ACCESS?
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Suggested benefits
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Visibility
High Impact
Easy Archiving
Democracy/Reduce the digital divide
Re-use of one’s work
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”serials crisis”
Reproduced under CC Attribution Share Alike 2.5 license; Image by Nino Barbieri, Jan 2004, Wikimedia Commons
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0
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1
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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Year
Av
g p
ric
e/p
ag
e
T&FBlackwellSpringerElsevierWiley
Price per Page Increases over 7 year period:
T&F 75,0 %
Blackwell 36,3 %
Springer 26,5 %
Elsevier 16,5 %
Wiley 8,4 %
Sage 104,4 %*
Average price per page for medicine in GBP
Ref: ”Trends in Scholarly Journal Pricing 2000-2006” Sonya White and Claire Creaser, March 2007. Commissioned by Oxford University Press
* On SSH, medical publishing from 2007
Reports
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*Reproduced from Wikemedia under the conditions of the GNU General Public License Exquisite-network.png
Web.2 WIKIWORLDGoogle Planet
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THE ROLE: ENABLING E-SCIENCE
*Reproduced from Wikemedia under the conditions of the GNU General Public License Exquisite-network.png
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”There is a need to change the metaphor behind our understanding of what knowledge is.”
.....John Wilbanks, Director Science Commons
Knowledge as ”paper”
Knowledge as ”product” and ”property”
Created by scientists
Owned by publishers
Archived by libraries
-- John Wilbanks, Science Commons, presentation at IATUL, June 2007
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SubscriptionsLicensing fees
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Copyright (does not allow the re-use of text freely)
Knowledge = NETWORK
Knowledge = infrastructure
”A better reflection of the reality of knowledge”
-- John Wilbanks, Science Commons, presentation at IATUL, June 2007
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”A social network diagram”, Screenshot taken by Darwin Peacock, accessed through Wikimedia; distributed under a CCL 3.0.
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”Your OA publisher helps you connect and share with the researchers in your life.” And the ones you don’t even know
about!
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www.ihop-net.org
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www.knewco.org
WORKING METHODS: OPEN ACCESS IN PRACTICE
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OPEN ACCESS = Free Access + Re-use
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Libre Open Access
Creative Commons Licenses
Most common:• Attribution 3.0
• (CCBY or CCAL)
• Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0
• (CCBY-NC)
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Copyright NoticeAuthors contributing to Global Health Action agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported license, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to Co-Action Publishing. However, authors are required to transfer copyrights associated with commercial use to the Publisher. Revenues from commercial sales are used to keep down the publication fees. Moreover, a major portion of the profits generated from commercial sales is placed in a fund to cover publication fees for researchers from developing nations and, in some cases, for young researchers.
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Paying for Open Access
• Article Processing Charge/Publication Fee• Submission fees• Grants• In-kind support• Patronage• Advertising revenue• Membership dues• Secondary publications• Future consortia deals?
No one model at present
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Impact : What does this mean
with Open Access?
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We judge the worth of a paper on the basis of the impact factor of the
journal in which it was published.
Recommended reading:Adler, R., Ewing, J. Taylor, P. Citation statistics. A report from the International Mathematical Union. http://www.mathunion.org/publications/report/citationstatistics/Browman, H. I., Stergiou, K.I.Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, Theme Section. The Use and misuse of bibliometric indices in evaluating scholarly performance., Vol. 8, no. 8 http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esep/v8/n1/
* Slide borrowed from Mark Patterson, PLoS
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• Many OA journals are new• Many still do not have an impact factor• Other OA journals have achieved very high
impact factors• Research has investigated whether there is an
”OA advantage” with mixed results
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Measuring Impact
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Measuring Impact
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If the impact factor is how we have defined impact because of the tools available to us, how CAN we measure impact today? What tools are available?
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Measuring ImpactArticle-level metrics• Usage data• Page views• Citations from Scopus• Citations from CrossRef• Social networking links• Press coverage• Comments• User ratings
Not an alternative metric : ”Our idea is to throw up a bunch of metrics and see what people use.” (Binfield in The Scientist)
ExampleFood & Nutrition Research
OA from Jan 2008
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Case – Swedish Nutrition Foundation Swedish Nutrition Foundation (SNF) owned Swedish Journal of Food &
Nutrition, which was published in partnership with one of the large traditional publishing houses.
Manuscripts submissions were modest.
Few subscriptions outside the society subscriptions.
Journal was regarded as a member benefit.
The society felt that it was time to either try something radical or drop the journal altogether.
They chose to drop the journal as it was and re-launch a new OA journal with a new and more international title.
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Universe of a Subscription Journal
Access only for those who have a subscription – for Food & Nutrition Research, approx. 700-800
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Universe of the OA Journal
Healthcare Workers – esp Physicians &
NutritionistsNutrition
advocates
General citizens interested in their
own nutrition
Gov’t agencies &
policy-makers
Researchers from related fields
Related profession
s
Industries with links
Pharmaceutical Co
(e.g. Novartis Medical Nutrition)
Print and online magazines
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Usage IncreasedDuring first six months: Over 42 000 full text article requests Over 32 000 full pages viewed by over 6 000 different visitors to the
website
Visitors were from 120 different countries while subscriptions had been from 14 countries
Over first year: Over 118 000 full page views by over 35 000 unique visitors 113 662 downloaded articles
Visitors were from 176 countries, with the US accounting for 20% of traffic.
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Are Some Journals Better Suited to OA than Others?
Ideally any journal is a candidate for OA. But there are some opportunities and challenges associated with some scenarios.
Good manuscript flow, few subscriptions – Very good candidate for OA. Few subscriptions, poor ms flow – OA can give the journal a lift if OA is
marketed as an advantage of publishing with the journal. May need to choose an economic model that subsidizes publication costs for at least an interum period.
Multi-disciplinary journals – Good OA candidates. These have traditionally been very difficult to build subscription bases for and are better suited to OA.
Currently many OA journals are in STM fields (due to pressures from funding agencies and the launch of the commercial publishers that focus only on STM), but there is no reason why SS and HUM can’t be OA. University presses seem to be focusing on these. STM journals seem to have an advantage due to wider array of funding sources.
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THANK YOU!