Open access in chemistry: from ACS Spring Meeting 2011

Open access in chemistry:information wants to be free?
Jan Kuras, Deborah Kahn, Bryan Vickery
Chemistry Central
London, UK
American Chemical Society National Meeting, March 27-31, 2011
Technical session: Internet and Chemistry

Information wants to be free?
Free of access restrictions?
Free of charge?
Free of standards and organization?

Objective:“An honest and philosophical assessment of open access in chemistry”
A good time to review...
20 years of more widespread interest in OA...
Over 10 years since BioMed Central, PubMed Central, PLoS started...
(10 years since Internet Journal of Chemistry launched...)
About 5 years since PubChem, Chemistry Central, ChemSpider, eMolecules started...
A major Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP) undertaken in 2010
No scientific concepts were harmed in the making of this presentation

What Open Access is
Free & permanent unrestricted online access
Authors retain copyright
Data can be redistributed and reused freely
What Open Access isn’t
Self publishing
A means to bypass peer review

What motivated open access?
Serials crisis: rising subscription prices, decreasing library budgets
Online publishing opportunities & technologies, and subsequent data linking, integration, reuse and mining
The “Open” movement: open data, open source, open standards, open access
Unrestricted access to publicly funded research to maximize impact

Significant timelines in the open access movement 1991-2011
PubChem
OASPA
SPARC
eMolecules
Chemistry
initiatives
Bethesda
Statement
ChemSpider
Open
Archives
Initiative
Budapest
Initiative
Chemistry
Central
ChEMBL
arXiv
2010
2004
2002
1998
2000
2008
2006
1991
NCBI/
GenBank
Berlin
Declaration
BioMed
Central
PLoS
PubMed
NIH OA
mandate
Wellcome
OA mandate
ICSA
US Federal Research
Public Access Act
PubMed
Central
Biomedicine
initiatives

Chemistry publishing: current position
Number of chemistry journals? Well, CAS indexes over 1,500 core journals
No chemistry-specific server for peer-reviewed papers cf. PubMed Central
No pre-print culture cf. arXiv for physics
No funder mandates such as Wellcome Trust, NIH
University/Research institute mandates frequently not implemented by chemists

Open access in chemistry: current position
Directory of Open Access Journals: approx. 130 chemistry journals (amongst approx. 6,000 total OA journals)
Publishers include: Chemistry Central; Beilstein; Hindawi; Bentham; MDPI
Lots of Society, University and Independent journals
IUCr Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online
Business model: article-processing charge (APC)
Either passed on to author or covered by publisher
Major publishers allow authors to make papers OA through additional payment
ACS; RSC; Wiley-Blackwell; Springer ; Elsevier
Some publishers allow self-archiving
RSC; Elsevier; Springer; Nature

Journals listed in
Chemistry
journals
~130 OA chemistry journals

Recent studies & reports on OA
The value of new scientific communication
models for chemistry (Velden, Lagoze: 2009)
Open access to the scientific journal literature:
situation 2009 (Björk et al: 2010)
Study of Open Access Publishing
(SOAP 2010)

Open Access to the Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009
OA prevalence on an article basis accessible through Google search
Random sample of 1,837 science journals
Sources: Web of Science; Scopus; DOAJ, Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory
9.7% Chemistry journals
Study year was 2008; time of study was Sept-Oct 2009 to ensure capture of “embargoed” and delayed OA articles
Overall, 20.4% papers were freely available
8.5% in OA journals (“Gold”); 11.9% in repositories (“Green”)
At 13%, chemistry has the lowest share of OA papers
5.5% in OA journals (“Gold”); 7.4% in repositories (“Green”)
Earth sciences (33%); Physics (23.5%); Medicine (22%); Biological sciences (19%)

Value of new scientific communication models for chemistry
Failure of new communication models in chemistry
Compare GenBank, PubMed Central, arXiv
Barriers not technical: chemists embracing open initiatives & technologies
CML, InChI, open source tools, open notebook science, OA journals and repositories
Issue of latency: delayed in comparison with other disciplines?
Complex socio-technical issues: IP and secrecy about research details?
Influence of societies and society publishing
with commercial interests and proven journal business models
Influence of journal prestige, impact factors, citation advantage, etc.
The “reward system” is coupled to the communication system by relying on IFs and citations, which makes chemists risk-averse in trying new models

Study of Open Access Publishing (SOAP)
Multidisciplinary study including physical, life and social sciences, financed by the European Commission
Coordinated by CERN with Springer, SAGE & BioMed Central; Max Planck Digital Library; and UK Science & Technology Facilities Council
To “describe and compare the offering and demand for open access publishing in peer-reviewed journals”
Assessment by large scale multidiscipline international survey
Reached over 1.5 million recipients with over 54,000 respondents
42,000 Responses analyzed, including over 2,300 chemists
Caveat: “self-selection” bias in favour of scientists with an interest in OA

Demographics: chemists’ experience and affiliation
n=2338

Number of OA articles published by respondents in last 5 years
By subject areas

Would OA journals be beneficial in chemistry?
Smallest “Yes”
in survey
n=2308

Percentage of researchers who say OA journals would be beneficial
By subject area

Percentage of chemists who say that OA journals would be beneficial
By research experience
“Emerging”
chemists?

Less
Society
influence?

Why are OA journals beneficial in chemistry?
n=967

Why aren’t OA journals beneficial in chemistry?
n=192

What are the reasons not to publish in OA journals?
Same across all sciences
n=503

Publication fee charged for last OA article?
n=1058

How was the publication fee covered?
n=381

How easy was it to obtain funds for publication?
n=330

The prevalence of Impact Factors in OA journals
Compared to

Finally, responses from chemists on positive, neutral and negative statements about open access

n=2139
n=2131
n=2140

n=2137
n=2124
n=2144

n=2133
n=2123
n=2140

Analysis and Conclusions
Chemistry has the lowest share of OA journals and papers amongst the physical and life sciences
Chemists have similar concerns around quality and funding as exist(ed) in other sciences
Plus there are further habitual and cultural issues in chemistry, e.g. society influence, the reward system
There are positive indications of support for open access in chemistry
Is OA in chemistry approx. 5 years behind life sciences?

Positive signs from SOAP
Almost 80% of chemists agree that OA journals are beneficial
Equally spread across experience levels and types of research institute
Compares favourably with biology and medicine at 90%
Major reasons why OA is considered beneficial
Benefit to the scientific community, author and public
Financial considerations
Over 50% of chemists have published 1 or more papers in OA journals
Contributions from biochemists, medicinal chemists, cheminformaticians, crystallographers
Compares unfavourably with over 80% of biologists

The obstacles
Major reasons for not publishing in OA journals for chemists:
Lack of funding , presence of publication fees (44%)
Perception of journal quality (38%)
Publication fee charged:
Almost 60% were not charged
For remainder: fee included in research funds (30%) or unassigned research funds used (30%)
Over 50% of chemists state it is difficult to obtain funds
Fewer than 50% of chemists in universities and research institutes are likely to publish in OA journals

Changes for OA to grow in chemistry
Change in habits, culture and the conservatism amongst chemists
Satisfaction with current model – no appetite for change
Support for university/research institute OA mandates
Attitudes of societies, influence of society publishing
with commercial interests and proven journal business models
Perceptions of journal prestige, and influence of impact factors, citation advantage, etc.
The “reward system” is coupled to the communication system by relying on IFs and citations, making chemists risk-averse in trying new models
Availability and provision of publication funds
From funding bodies and universities/research institutes
OA Mandates from funding agencies and universities/research institutes

Factors to accelerate progress
Advocacy amongst key opinion leaders in chemistry
OA chemistry journals obtaining Impact Factors
Transfer of high quality journals to OA model
More chemists supporting open initiatives and technologies
In outliers e.g. cheminformatics, crystallography
Embracing mainstream chemistry
The growth of the “Open” movement:
Open data, open source, open access, open notebooks

Our prediction.....
“Over the next 5 years, open access in chemistry will continue to grow steadily in support and in publication volumes. This will be primarily driven by chemists in outlying subject areas wanting to enhance the visibility, verifiability and reproducibility of their data, and to a lesser extent by mainstream researchers. Important ‘tipping points’ will be increased availability of funds, OA mandates from funders and universities/research institutes, and journals obtaining and improving their impact factors.”

Thank you for your attention
Jan Kuras
jan.kuras@chemistrycentral.com
www.chemistrycentral.com
www.chemistrycentral.com/blog
twitter @Chem_Central
...come talk to me...

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Open access in chemistry: from ACS Spring Meeting 2011

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