OSC
Office of Scholarly Communication
The challenges of Open Access
Working towards an Open Research future - An Institutional Perspective
Dr Danny Kingsley @dannykay68Head, Office of Scholarly CommunicationCambridge University Library
OSCThe OSC has 3 primary responsibilities
1. Meeting funder requirements for Open Access and Research Data Management
2. External outreach focus:– Within the University– Throughout the UK– Internationally (at conferences & workshops)
3. Ensuring the library & research community is up to speed on scholarly communication matters
OSCOpportunities to work collaboratively
OSC
What are the obstacles, annoyances and hazards for institutions in making their research output
openly accessible?
A question
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Getting through to the research community
Challenge 1
OSC Cambridge research
https://www.cam.ac.uk/system/files/research_in_numbers.pdf
OSC This is Cambridge’s structure
OSC One School
There isn’t room on this slide for the three Institutes that are also associated with this School…
OSC And then there is the administration
You Tube Cambridge in Numbers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwZsb2CkMsM
OSC Irony?
Academic independence is sacred at Cambridge
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The open access requirements of the different funders are a dog’s breakfast
Challenge 2
OSC The policy landscape
The MEANS and the TIMING all conflict
RCUK – Green & Gold | HEFCE – Green only | COAF – Gold only
OSC What the researcher hears
From Bill Hubbard Getting the rights right: when policies collidehttp://www.slideshare.net/UKSG/hubbard-uksg-may2015-public
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Some publishers really are not helping
Challenge 3
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• Publishers making life difficult– Press embargoes – a threat from the shadows
https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=653
– Half-life is half the story https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=331
• Payment for hybrid open access– Cambridge expenditure on APCs in 2014
https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=79
OSC Hybrid APCs are very expensive
• The average APC levied by hybrid journals is 64% higher than the average APC charged by a fully OA title
• The Reckoning: An Analysis of Wellcome Trust Open Access Spend 2013 – 14 (3 March 2015)http://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2015/03/03/the-reckoning-an-analysis-of-wellcome-trust-open-access-spend-2013-14/
• The article processing charges for hybrid Open Access were ‘significantly more expensive’ than fully OA journals, ‘despite the fact that hybrid journals still enjoyed a revenue stream through subscriptions’
• Research Councils UK 2014 Independent Review of Implementation (March 2015) http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/openaccess/2014review/
OSC And guess what?
• ‘The two traditional, subscription-based publishers (Elsevier and Wiley) represent some 40% of our total APC spend’
• The Reckoning: An Analysis of Wellcome Trust Open Access Spend 2013 – 14 (3 March 2015)http://blog.wellcome.ac.uk/2015/03/03/the-reckoning-an-analysis-of-wellcome-trust-open-access-spend-2013-14/
• “Publishers Elsevier and Wiley have each received about £2 million in article processing charges from 55 institutions as a result of RCUK’s open access policy’
• ‘Publishers share £10m in APC payments’, Times Higher Education (16 April 2015)https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/publishers-share-10m-in-apc-payments/2019685.article
OSC
The University is doing everything it can to help researchers
What steps have we taken?
OSC Our solution
OSC We have had about 50% take-up
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• Funders should:– Align their policies– Stop paying for hybrid
• Publishers should:– Stop punishing universities for doing the right thing– Make their workflows more transparent– Stop misleading researchers on licenses and other aspects of open
access– Stop bullying researchers
• The academy should:– Wake up to themselves and take an interest in this– Question how they value and reward their peers
What about other solutions?
OSC
Dr Danny KingsleyHead, Office of Scholarly CommunicationCambridge University Library
t: @dannykay68b: https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/w: http://osc.cam.ac.uk/
Thanks!
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• Reliance on publication in fancy-pants journals– Openness, integrity & supporting
researchers https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=307
–What is ‘research impact’ in an interconnected world? https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=252
Reward system
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• Funder policies are sometimes an issue eg: not reflecting disciplinary differences– Is CC-BY really a problem or are we boxing
shadows? https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=555
– Could the HEFCE policy be a Trojan Horse for Gold OA? https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=488
Policy problems