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Introduction to Open Access Philip Young University Libraries
Introduction to Open Access
Philip Young
University Libraries
Scholarly Communication
1. Do research, write article
2. Give publisher free content, free peer review, free editorial services
3. Buy back content 1. With many potential readers excluded
2. With lost control over our own work
3. At high prices and 8% annual inflation
Who are we excluding?
• Colleagues
• Scholars in the developing world
• Virginia taxpayers
• Students who graduate
What control are we losing?
• Ownership
• Finer control over permissions
• Ability to use in teaching
What are the costs?
• Monopoly market
• Prices rise faster than CPI
• Large publishers are among the most profitable businesses in the world
• Journals take up more of library budgets, less money for monograph purchases
What is Open Access?
“…digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions” -Peter Suber
The Internet + Permissions
Advantages of Openness
• Scholarly information is a public good
• Increase in “visibility, retrievability, audience, usage, and citations”
• Text and data mining
• Research integrity
• Unforeseen benefits
• Scales with growth in research
Misunderstandings
• Not intended for patentable or royalty-generating works
• Not a way to bypass peer review
• Not an assertion that publishing is cost-free
• Not all open access means publishing in an open access journal, or paying a publication fee
Two Roads to Open Access
• Self-archiving (Green OA) – Depositing a pre-print or post-print in your
university or disciplinary repository
(e.g. VTechWorks or arXiv)
• OA publishing (Gold OA) – Publishing an article in an open access journal
(e.g. PLoS)
Self-archiving (Green OA)
Benefits:
• Access for all
• You control license
• Citations
• Statistics
• Preservation
• All of your work in one place
Self-archiving (Green OA)
Problems:
• Voluntary efforts don’t scale
• Not the version of record
• Usually requires journal permission – Read contract
– Check SHERPA-RoMEO for publisher policies http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
Self-archiving (Green OA)
Self-archiving (Green OA)
If not explicitly permitted:
OA publishing (Gold OA)
Benefits:
• Access for all
• Version of record
• Greater visibility/citations
• Some use CC licensing
• Directory of Open Access Journals (doaj.org)
OA publishing (Gold OA)
Altmetrics
OA publishing (Gold OA)
Problems:
• Often not highest prestige
• Publishing fees (30% of OA journals)
• “Predatory publishers”
A few criteria
• Assess website, TOC, articles, editorial board
• DOAJ, digital preservation
• Red flags: multiple journals launched at once, irregular publishing, lack of focus, few articles published, high fees
• OASPA members: http://oaspa.org/membership/members/
Virginia Tech Mission Statement
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is a public land-grant university serving the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world community. The discovery and dissemination of new knowledge are central to its mission. Through its focus on teaching and learning, research and discovery, and outreach and engagement, the university creates, conveys, and applies knowledge to expand personal growth and opportunity, advance social and community development, foster economic competitiveness, and improve the quality of life.
Library Services at Virginia Tech
• Institutional memberships that reduce publication charges (PLoS, BMC, etc.)
• Subvention fund for those without a grant
• Hosting open access journals
• VTechWorks for archiving articles, data, etc.
• Consulting on publishing agreements
• Assisting with digital projects (Port)
What you can do
• Archive your articles, data, presentations, syllabi, reports, white papers in VTechWorks
• Use addenda to gain self-archiving rights
• Publish in an open access journal
• Start an open access journal
• Consider a departmental, college, or university-wide policy on article archiving
• Apply for publication funding and spread the word
Gratis and Libre
• Gratis OA removes price barrier – But permission needed to exceed Fair Use
• Libre OA removes price and permissions barriers – Determined by author or journal
OA journal licensing chart
Licensing
Licensing
How open is it?
Resources for Open Access VTechWorks http://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu Library Open Access page http://www.lib.vt.edu/openaccess/ Institutional memberships Subvention fund OA-related courses and awareness Directory of Open Access Journals http://www.doaj.org Publisher archiving policies http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ Copyright addendum engine http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/ Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ List of quality OA publishers http://oaspa.org/membership/members/ List of predatory publishers http://scholarlyoa.com
