Monday, February 26, 2007

Canada, the time has come to prioritize open access!

According to Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law:

The time has come for the federal government, its funding agencies and the Canadian research community to maximize the public's investment in research by prioritizing open access.

In an article in the Toronto Star and on Michael Geist's blog, Michael Geist succinctly explains what is happening in the area of open access, and why.

Here is an excerpt (thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News:

Last month, five leading European research institutions launched a petition that called on the European Commission to establish a new policy to require that all government-funded research be made available to the public shortly after publication....

Despite scant media attention, word of the petition spread quickly throughout the scientific and research communities. Within weeks, it garnered more than 20,000 signatures, including several Nobel prize winners and more than 750 education, research, and cultural organizations from around the world.

In response, the European Commission committed over $100 million toward facilitating greater open access through support for open access journals and for the building of the infrastructure needed to house institutional repositories that can store the millions of academic articles written each year.

The European developments demonstrate the growing global demand for open access, a trend that is forcing researchers, publishers, universities and funding agencies to reconsider their role in the creation and dissemination of knowledge....

The [current subscription] model certainly proved lucrative for large publishers, yet resulted in the public paying twice for research that it was frequently unable to access.

Cancer patients seeking information on new treatments or parents searching for the latest on childhood development issues were often denied access to the research they indirectly fund through their tax dollars....

While today this self-archiving approach is typically optional, a growing number of funding agencies are making it a mandatory requirement....

Notwithstanding the momentum toward open access, several barriers remain.

First, many conventional publishers actively oppose open access, fearful that it will cut into their profitability. Indeed, soon after the launch of the European petition, Nature reported that publishers were preparing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to counter open access support with a message that equates public access to government censorship.

Second, many universities and individual researchers have been slow to adopt open access, with only a limited number of universities worldwide having established institutional repositories to facilitate deposit of research by their faculty....

Third, Canadian funding agencies are increasingly at risk of falling behind their counterparts around the world by dragging their heels on the open access front.

With the notable exceptions of the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the International Development Research Agency, which last year introduced proposals to require open access for their funded research, Canada's major funding agencies have been slow to move on the issue....

The failure to lead on this issue could have long-term negative consequences for Canadian research.

Given the connection between research and economic prosperity, the time has come for the federal government, its funding agencies and the Canadian research community to maximize the public's investment in research by prioritizing open access.

This post belongs in the Canadian Leadership in the Open Access Movement Series.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Elsevier Revenue to Open Access

Is there enough revenue in the current scholarly publishing system to fund an open access system? This post explores what would happen if Reed Elsevier's revenue were redeployed to support for open access, and the answer is a resounding yes! For example, Reed Elsevier's 2005 revenue was sufficient to pay for over 6 million BioMedCentral articles. To illustrate how this compares with Reed Elsevier's current production, 6 million articles divided by Elsevier's approximately 2,000 titles results in an incredibly prolific over 3,000 articles per journal. Even a small fraction of Reed Elsevier's revenue could fund an absolutely amazing amount of open access. For example, 10% of Elsevier's revenue would pay for 460,000 articles in Public Library of Science; divided into Elsevier's current 2,000 titles, the result is a far above average 230 articles per journal (picture a quarterly journal with 58 articles per issue). 1% of Elsevier's revenue would be sufficient to provide hosting and support services for 141,538 journals at SFU Library, or about 70 times Elsevier's current journal production.

Details are below. For numbers and calculations, see the Elseviertooa Open Data edition:

Let's explore what happens if Reed Elsevier's revenues were redeployed to open access.

In 2005, Reed Elsevier reported total revenues of 6 million Euros, the equivalent of $9.2 billion U.S. dollars using Feb. 24, 2007 currency conversion.

If this revenue were redirected to open access, how much would it cover?

4.6 million Public Library of Science articles

or

6.2 million BioMedCentral articles

or

18.4 million Hindawi articles

or

14 million OJS journals hosted & supported by SFU Library

or

12.2 million OJS journals hosted & supported by Scholarly Exchange

How does this compare with Elsevier's current production of roughly 2,000 journals?

4.6 million PLoS articles divided into 2,000 journals: 2,300 articles / journal

6.2 million BMC articles divided into 2,000 journals: 3,140 articles / journal

18.4 million Hindawi articles divided into 2,000 journals: 9,200 articles / journal

Any of these would quality as extremely prolific journals. For example, some of the most prolific journals of the American Chemical Society average between 700 and 800 articles per year. Average journals publish a great deal fewer articles.

The amount of open access publishing that could be accomplished would be amazing with even a fraction of Elsevier's revenue. For example, a quarter of Elsevier's revenue would pay for 1.15 million PLoS articles. Divided amongst the 2,000 journals now produced by Elsevier, this means an average of 575 articles per journal per year, far above average.

Even with only 10% of Elsevier's revenue, it would be possible to publish 460,000 PLoS articles per year, or an average of 230 articles per journal assuming Elsevier's 2,000 journals. To illustrate how prolific this average is - this would be a monthly journal with an average of 19 articles per issue, or a quarterly journal with an average of 58 articles per issue.

1% of Elsevier's revenue would be sufficient to support and host 141,538 journals at SFU library, or 70 times Elsevier's current production of 2,000 journals.

Care to play with these numbers yourself? Check out:
Elsevier Revenue to Open Access: Open Data edition

This post was inspired by William Walsh's posting of summary of Elsevier's 2006 U.S. lobbying. Total expenditures: $2.84 million, an increase of 610% over 1998. (Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News.

Here is an update on my estimate of how many Open Journal Systems journals could be hosted and supported using Elsevier's U.S. lobbying budget alone:

SFU Library: $650 US equivalent per journal (from $750 Cdn for single journal):
4,369 journals (more than twice Elsevier's current production)

Scholarly Exchange: $750 US per journal: 3,786 journals (nearly twice Elsevier's current journal production)

[Disclosure: I work for SFU Library, one of the partners in the Public Knowledge Project which produces Open Journal Systems]. This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Update December 27, 2011: see Jeff Hecht's correction to these figures in a comment on Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week.
The Reed Elsevier profits quoted include other Reed Elsevier business figures, not just scholarly publishing operations. 

Jeff's comment in full:

The Poetic economics blog evidently mis-read Elsevier’s financial statement. Elsevier is part of Reed-Elsevier, which also includes Lexis-Nexis (not involved in scholarly publishing; it’s a database of legal and general publications), Reed Exhibitions and Reed Business Information. The 2009 adjusted operating profit for Elsevier is 693 million pounds sterling, or about $1096 million dollars. That’s still a LOT of money, but is only about 60% as much as you quote, so if you divide the profit by 1.5 million scholarly articles, you get $730. So the numbers don’t work out as neatly as you thought, that doesn’t invalidate your basic point.

(Full disclosure – I am a consultant and write for New Scientist, which is part of Reed Business Information, but am not an employee.)
Thanks, Jeff!


This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access Series.

Open access, scholarly communications, and the processing fee model

There are arguments that the processing fee model approach to open access could introduce much needed competition into the scholarly publishing industry, and that this approach could simply result in a replacing a subscriptions crisis based on a price spiral with a processing fee price spiral. In my opinion, both arguments are correct. There are many variations of approaches to the processing fee model. Some introduce incentives to seek best services at best prices, and hence stimulate competition. One example is a funding agency providing a set amount or percentage fordissemination of research results, with discretion for the author to spend the full amount on publishing one article, or seeking a better price for publishing services,and using the remaining funds for other purposes. Other approaches, such as agreeing to a blanket fee for publication that is higher than the true costs of publishing an open access article, seem designed to reward inefficiencies and hencecreate the processing fee price spiral.
Following is a post to American Scientist Open Access Forum, Feb. 24, 2007 on this topic, which provides more detail. Thanks to Jan Velterop and Steve Hitchcock for their contributions on this topic.

To avoid confusion, let me first of all clarify that there are a number of business models for open access journals. The majority do not rely on processing fees at all.

For those that do, I agree with Jan Velterop that a gold processing-fee model has the potential to introduce competition into the marketplace. Steve Hitchcock is also correct, that a gold model could simply repeat the cost spiral.

The key factor is how a processing-fee model is approached. If a funding agency, university, or library decides to pay or partially pay processing fees, the gold processing-fee approach will only introduce competition into the system if there is incentive to seek out the publishing services with the most reasonable prices for the
services provided.

Let's look at a couple of different scenarios:

Funder A allows for a certain percentage of a research grant to be used for dissemination of research results, let's say $3,000. It is up to the researcher to decide whether to spend the $3,000 on processing fees for one article, or whether to publish in a quality journal with a lower fee, and use the rest of the funds for other dissemination-related purposes. For example, depending on the publisher's fee, this might leave enough left over to pay a graduate assistant to do most of the writing, or even cover or partially cover the costs of attending a conference to present a paper on the research outcome. With this scenario, I would predict competition in the scholarly publishing industry, and ultimately better quality
services at lower prices.

Funder B allows for a certain amount to pay for processing fees. Let's take $3,000 US as an example. For many publishers, this amount is higher than true costs of publishing an online open access article, and allows for double-dipping (revenue from both subscriptions and processing fee charges). With this scenario, I would predict increasing inefficiencies in the scholarly publishing industry, and the processing fee cost spiral that Steve Hitchcock warns of.

Similarly, if libraries choose to support processing fees, this may or may not be beneficial, depending on exactly how this is approached. Paying processing fees for fully gold OA journals with an established reputation for quality of service and reasonable prices would be extremely helpful in the transitional period. A sliding scale approach to paying for such fees (e.g. 100% up to $1,000, 75% up to $1,500, and so forth) would provide the incentives for faculty and departments to seek reasonable fees, and hence stimulate competition. Simply paying both processing fees and
subscription fees for hybrid journals creates incentives for inefficiencies. Hybrid processing fee / subscription approaches are an approach to transition that holds promise for reducing these incentives for inefficiencies (e.g., faculty at subscribing libraries pay lower fees, libraries deduct processing fees from subscription cheques). This is complex, and worth spending some time on
negotiations and model development.

Given these complexities, in my opinion it is best if funders adopt a simple mandate, requiring open access to the results of research they fund, and the authors' own work (with revisions suggested by peer reviewers). Funders have every right to make this requirement immediate on publication, or acceptance for publication. Publishers provide a valuable service, but they do not have any rights. Every business must adapt to changing environments, and the scholarly publishing industry is no exception.

Some publishers claim that if articles are available open access, there will be a precipitous decline in subscriptions. There is no evidence that this is likely, and much evidence that this is extremely unlikely, such as the experience of physics publishing peacefully coexisting with nearly 100% OA in arXiv for 15 years, the
fact that those who rely on the publishing services, the authors, are faculty members who are consulted in any cancellation decisions, and the fact that many of the larger library contracts are multi-year, and could not be cancelled suddenly.

However, even if all the library subscriptions were suddenly cancelled - so what? The monies that went into subscriptions would then be free to support gold OA publishing!

All of the worries from the publishing industry are much ado about nothing, in my opinion. Funders should overlook all the fretting about the possibility of change from an industry that is accustomed to a monopoly position, set the best policy for the public good(immediate open access, no delay), and leave all the details of the
adjustment to an OA environment to the scholars and their service providers (publishers, libraries, other university administration).

This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access series.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

BC Libraries support DOAJ!

The emerging tradition of Canadian leadership in the open access movement continues. Of the 3 first libraries outside of Europe to participate in the recently announced DOAJ membership program, 2 are Canadian - and both are from British Columbia.

Kudos to Simon Fraser University Library and the University of British Columbia Library for their early leadership in supporting this key open access initiative!

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Scholarly Publishing: High Quality at Low Cost

Advances in computing technology - hardware, software, and connectivity, combined with the age-old tradition of voluntary contributions to scholarship, mean that it is now possible to produce high quality peer reviewed journal articles at low cost.

This is a very different environment from that of a few years ago, when high quality publishing was very difficult without highly specialized equipment and skills.

A research community can now easily start up their own journal, using computers and internet connectivity readily available at their university, or homes. No extra capacity is really needed; with today's computing capacity, a whole series of journals can easily be stored on an average laptop.

Free, open source software is available, such as Open Journal Systems. [Disclosure: I work for SFU Library, one of the partners in the PKP project which produces OJS, but not directly for this project].

If researchers prefer not to do the technical work and hosting themselves, there are quality, low-cost options. For example, SFU Library provides hosting and support at rates ranging from a high of $750 Cdn per year for a single journal to a low of $600 Cdn per journal per year for 10 or more journals. See the Software@SFU Prices from the SFU Library Support Services webpage. The non-profit Scholarly Exchange provides the first year of hosting and support free, with future years at a cost of US $750 per year, and provides a range of additional support services, including arranging for revenue-generating advertising for journals.

Before exploring these options, researchers might want to check with their library, as many libraries are now providing or exploring support for the publishing of their faculty.

Once the hardware and software is set up, the most essential work to ensure quality scholarship is basically free. The articles themselves are free, and scholarly peer-reviewers provide their services on a voluntary basis. Editors, especially for smaller journals, are often volunteers as well.

Publishing software such as OJS automates much of the work of publishing. Authors receive instructions about formatting for their papers before submission, so that papers are in many senses much closer to being ready for publication at the submission stage. OJS keeps track of articles in process, editorial staff, peer reviewers, contact information, and deadline dates. Common messages are automated, and automatically tracked.

This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access series.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Year End Investments Towards Open Access: DOAJ!

One more very important addition to my list of Year End Investments Towards Open Access, DOAJ!
http://www.doaj.org/

Kudos to DOAJ for an innovative approach to long-term sustainability of open access - and, for rapid responsiveness to suggestions for improvements to the model!

DOAJ is an open access resource - it is, and will remain free - to connect readers and authors with open access journals. DOAJ has just announced a membership program, designed to provide the economic support needed for long-term open access. Please consider joining!

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) maintains a professionally vetted list of fully open access, peer-reviewed journals. Currently, there are 2,577 journals listed in DOAJ.

DOAJ is a wonderful investment for libraries - a way of keeping track of those open access journals which is a great deal more efficient than having every library try to keep up by ourselves. In addition to journal metadata, DOAJ offers search services for journals by
title, subject, or keyword, and 769 journals are searchable at the article level as well.

DOAJ is, and will remain, free. The DOAJ membership program provides rights to value-added features, such as rights to use DOAJ membership in marketing activities, and rights to lists of recently added or removed titles.

The DOAJ membership program has generated tremendous interest among libraries and consortia, around the world. Many have offered suggestions for improvement to the membership categories, particularly for libraries in developing countries, who want to
provide support but cannot afford to do so at levels that make sense at European libraries.

In response, DOAJ has just posted an Update to the DOAJ Membership Program, providing a flexible means for participation for libraries and consortia for whom the regular membership program is not affordable. Details can be found at:
http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTempl&templ=070216

Watch for an official DOAJ announcement in the near future.

Kudos to current DOAJ sponsors: The National Library of Sweden, Axiell AB,
Ebsco Information Services, and CSA.

The participation of the commercial sector in particular is welcome, and illustrates the potential for partnerships between open access initiatives and library commercial services, for mutual benefit.

For libraries wishing to consider the new, flexible membership model, here are some thoughts.

If you had to pay for cataloguing copy for 2,500 journals, how much would this cost? Currently, DOAJ is adding new titles at about a rate of 1.5 titles per calendar day - roughly 500 a year. Would it make sense to contribute what you would pay for cataloguing for 500
journals to DOAJ?

DOAJ is a search service, for 2,500 journals. Because open access is happening around the world, DOAJ includes many titles that have not been included in traditional services. There is a tremendous diversity in DOAJ - journals published in different areas of the world, written by a very international audience.

What would be a reasonable cost for such a search service? The membership fee for an individual library is 400 Euros. Is there a comparable resource - full, non-embargoed access to over 2,500 peer-reviewed journals - at such a low cost?

This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access series.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Happy Birthday - and Valentine's Day - to BOAI!

Today is the 5th anniversary of what many of us see as the first major, international defining moment of the open access movement - the Budapest Open Access Initiative.

And, what a birthday it is! The European Union Petition for Guaranteed Public Access to Publicly-Funded Research Results now has more than 20,000 signatories, including more than 1,000 institutional signatories; a new study just released shows that 85% of European researchers support the EU open access mandate; in Brussells, Ministers & Rectors have signed the Berlin Declaration; and tomorrow, in the U.S., is a student-led National Day of Action on Open Access.

While much of the action this week is in Europe and the U.S., Canada can be proud of its role in the beginnings of the open access movement. Of the 16 people at that meeting in Budapest, 3 were Canadian, world leaders in open access all: Leslie Chan, Jean-Claude Guédon, and Stevan Harnad, as previously discussed in the first post in my series, Canadian Leadership in the Open Access Movement: Budapest.

Thanks to Peter Suber for a very modest alert about BOAI (he was one of the drafters of the statement). For more details on recent events, see Open Access News.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The Mission of the STM Publisher: Scholarship - or Profit?

A number of publishers have signed the Brussells Declaration on STM Publishing today, claiming, among other things, that it is self-evident that The mission of publishers is to maximise the dissemination of knowledge through economically self-sustaining business models.

For many publishers, nonproft and for-profit alike, a genuine interest in scholarship is indeed an important part of the organization's mission. However, it is extremely misleading to claim that it is self-evident that this is the mission of publishers, as clearly many publishers have other key goals - such as profits. This is true of the commercial for-profit company for whom a key goal - if not the key goal - may be profits for shareholders. This is reflected in the Strategy and Vision of Reed Elsevier, who Since 2000, set ourselves a goal of achieving higher levels of revenues and earnings growth; the About Wiley page, which prominently displays Investing in Wiley, and Latest Corporate News - and nothing about scholarship, and the McGraw Hill Mission Statement - which has much to say about markets, growth, financial performance, and return to shareholders, along with a little about information and insight.

A number of not-for-profit publishers, as well, in open access discussions, have emphasized their reliance on profits for their publications, to fund other association programs.

Clearly, a statement that The mission of publishers is to maximise the dissemination of knowledge through economically self-sustaining business models - is not only not self-evident, it is glaringly inaccurate in not stating of of the key goals of many of the signatories, profit.

If this Declaration had been submitted for peer review - it should never have been published without revision.

For more information and links to the Brussells Declaration, see Open Access News.

Please note that this is not a thorough critique of the 10 principles of the Brussells Declaration. I'm still on the first one! This is a summary and conclusion of my three previous posts - for details, see the posts or follow the links in this post.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

The Mission of the STM Publisher: McGraw-Hill

According to the McGraw-Hill website (viewed February 13, 2007), the Mission of McGraw-Hill is:

Our mission is to provide essential information and insight that helps individuals, markets and societies perform to their potential.

We achieve growth by:
1. Purpose
Being essential to markets - influencing, transforming and expanding them.

2. Strategic Intent
Focusing on content, services, and being a solutions provider.

3. Balanced Portfolio

4. Financial Performance

5. Shareholder Return

McGraw-Hill is one of the signatories of the Brussells Declaration on STM Publishing, which declares it self-evident that The mission of publishers is to maximise the dissemination of knowledge through economically self-sustaining business models..

McGraw-Hill, if this is self-evident - why is disseminating knowledge not mentioned in your own mission statement? Or, based on your own Mission Statement - why is there no mention of balancing portfolios, financial performance, or shareholder return in the Brussells declaration?

For details and links to the Brussells Declaration, see Open Access News.


This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

The Mission of the STM publisher continued: About Wiley

Let's look at another of the signatories of the Brussells Declaration on STM Publishing.

On the About Wiley page. viewed February 13, 2007, I see a menu bar along the top of the page that says:

Corporate Information
Investor Relations
Jobs
News
Author Events
Conferences
Partner With Us
Our 200th Anniversary

Prominently displayed in the centre of the page:

Investing in Wiley
Latest Corporate News

If The mission of publishers is to maximise the dissemination of knowledge through economically self-sustaining business models, as stated in the Brussells Declaration on STM Publishing signed by Wiley and others - why does the About Wiley page say nothing about knowledge or dissemination of knowledge?

Please see Open Access News for details and links to the Brussells Declaration.


This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

The mission of the STM publisher: scholarship - or profit?

According to the Brussells Declaration on STM Publishing issued today, it is self-evident that The mission of publishers is to maximise the dissemination of knowledge through economically self-sustaining business models.

Really??

Among the signatories to this declaration are highly profitable commercial enterprises.

Here is the Strategy and Vision for one of the signatories from the Reed Elsevier website, Feb. 13, 2007 (emphasis added):

Our strategy and vision

Reed Elsevier’s corporate goal is to be the indispensable information provider for our target customers in selected professional markets. Since 2000, we have set ourselves a goal of achieving higher levels of revenues and earnings growth in each of our four operating businesses than the average growth achieved by peers within their sectors. Each year we have achieved that goal by applying a carefully thought through approach to the way in which we manage and develop our business.

This is followed by a set of Key Strategies. First on the list: Maintain a balanced portfolio in growth markets. Where is dissemination of knowledge - never mind maximum dissemination of knowledge? - Not on the list!

Thanks to Peter Suber on Open Access News for the alert.

Please note: this is not a complete critique of the 10 self-evident principles - I haven't got to the second one yet!



Saturday, February 10, 2007

Year-End Investments Towards Open Acces

Towards the end of the fiscal year, it is not unusual for libraries and other organizations to find themselves with a small fund left over, that must be spent before year-end. For those who are looking for some ideas of how to leverage this little bit of funding to further the cause of open access, here are four suggestions: a LOCKSS box; server and hardware for hosting open access journals for your faculty; invest in ongoing open access to a very high-quality philosophy encyclopedia through contributing to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy OA endowment fund; or, sponsor a workshop or two for faculty on open access publishing, or filling that institutional repository.

Why LOCKSS? Those open access archives and open access journals will need to be preserved. There is more to preservation than buying a LOCKSS box, of course, but if you're planning to get into preservation, buying the box while you have the cash just makes sense.

Server and hardware: with freely available open source software solutions such as Open Journal Systems (OJS) available, once you have the hardware in place, all you really need to support any of your faculty wishing to locally host an open access journal, is a little local expertise. [disclosure: I work for SFU Library, one of the partners in the PKP Project which produces OJS].

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: this a model for open access in perpetuity through the establishment of an endowment fund. This is worthwhile, not only to ensure ongoing open access to the encyclopedia, but to establish proof of concept for the model.

Workshop on Open Access Publishing and Self-Archiving - Suggested Format:
(note: attendees should be able to register for any one session, people might be interested in only one of some of these topics):
Speakers / discussion on:
Open source journal publishing software (e.g. OJS in an afternoon)
Open access business models (perhaps someone from SPARC or Scholarly Exchange?)
(If you have a consultant come for this purpose, perhaps arrange for another day or two for one-on-one consultation with faculty on their journals?)
Processing fee options (OA publisher rep, librarian - especially if library provides support)
Self-archiving: why, and how. Demonstrate the process, provide information on support options.

This post is part of the Transitioning to Open Access series.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

The Ouellette Declaration

The University of British Columbia can be proud of yet another Canadian leader in the open access movement, Francis Ouellette, Director of the UBC Bioinformatics Centre. Francis and his colleagues have their very own Open Access Declaration for the Ouellette Laboratory, which reads:

Francis Ouellette and members of his laboratory at the UBC Bioinformatics Centre endorse and fully support Open Access (OA) publications of the publicly funded scientific work produced by or related to activities within the laboratory. We are resolute in professing the benefits of OA to science and to society, and vigorously encourage all of our collaborators to do the same. We strongly believe that the entire community needs full access to all work that has been funded directly or indirectly by tax payers of any country.

Ouellette has a wonderful open access action list, specifically for the researcher, - the Top 10 things you should so to support the Open Access of scientific publications

For example, researchers can choose to publish in open access journals, only review for open access journals, or, when reviewing, give authors a hard time if they cite closed-access journals when open ones are available.

Francis grew up in an open access environment, scientifically speaking, having worked for 5 years at the U.S. National Institute of Health as the Coordinator of the Open Access Genbank, when legendary open access advocate Harold Varmus was head of the NIH, in an atmosphere of very strong support for open source and open access. Francis was inspired by the visionary co-founder of Public Library of Science Michael Eisen; he still uses Eisen's OA haiku in his own slides on open access.

In a human sense, Ouellette was born in Québec, spent much of his growing years in Montréal, and has been back in Canada for the past 8 years. Currently, Francis is involved in the Task Force of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research which is considering the CIHR Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs.

The CIHR policy, in draft, is considered a model for other policy initiatives. One reason is that it calls for open access to research data, as well as peer-reviewed research results.

Open data is a no-brainer for Bioinformatics, Francis' research community. This is a research community that is very dependent on mining data, often data that others create. Open access to publish research can only help to further develop better tools for text mining, says Ouellette.

Ouellette is very much aware of the squeeze libraries find themselves in today, having to fund subscriptions, while wanting very much to support open access. Ouellette's tip: university administrators need to create a special fund, for a one to two year period, to cover the transition period.

Hmm... a little one-time funding, and we can have a self-sustaining, unprecedented public good...are there any politicians listening?

This blogpost is part of the Canadian Leadership in the Open Access Movement Series, and the Transitioning to Open Access Series.

Friday, February 02, 2007

The British Columbia Library Association Resolution on Open Access

June 19, 2004, is noted on Peter Suber's Open Access Timeline as the date the British Columbia Library Association endorsed a Resolution on Open Access, one of the first library associations in the world to take this step (after IFLA, August 2002).

What is perhaps even more remarkable, given the vigorous debate at many an association, especially around that time, is that the Resolution was endorsed unanimously, with full support from BCLA members.

Since endorsement of the Resolution on Open Access, BCLA leaders have continually supported and advocated for open access, participating in Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research open access consultations with strong submissions in favour of open access.

Most recently, BCLA signed the EU Petition for Guaranteed Public Access to Publicly Funded Research Results.

On April 19, 2007 the BCLA conference will feature an all-day conference on open access, Beyond Limits: Building Open Access Collections, featuring primarily local leaders in open access initiatives (OA publishers, IR coordinators, E-LIS), with special distance-participation guests Peter Suber and Jean-Claude Bradley [disclosure: I am co-coordinator of the preconference].

BCLA reflects a spirit of openness in all of its endeavours. Listservs are open to all. People join BCLA because they know what we do, what we stand for, not because they would be denied access without membership. BCLA is a strong, vibrant, much-loved and well run association, healthy in every sense.

I am proud to be a BCLA member, and a member of BCLA's Information Policy Committee which drafted the Resolution on Open Access.

The Resolutions developed by long-time policy leaders in the Information Policy Committee often start with a Salon. Many thanks to local open access leader John Willinsky for the IPC's first Salon on Open Access, in September 2003.

If your library association does not yet have such a resolution, I recommend it. Once we understand the direction, it is much easier to figure out how to get where we want to go.

This post is part of the Canadian Leadership in the Open Access Movement series.

This post reflects my personal opinion only and does not represent the opinions or policy of the BC Electronic Library Network or the Simon Fraser University Library.