1. Impacts, consequences and outcomes
of open polices in Europe
Webinar for AOASG
30 May 2019
Dr Danny Kingsley
Scholarly Communication Consultant
@dannykay68

2. Five things to discuss today
• Cascading cancellations
• Credibility crunch-point
• Metric management
• Policy pandemonium
• Being blindsided

3. Cascading cancellations
Offsetting agreements were only able to take us
so far….

4. Considerable activity in past year
Country/organisati
on
Publisher activity Date Links
Norway Cancelled Elsevier
subscription
March 2019 https://www.editage.com/insights/norway-joins-the-ranks-of-
germany-and-sweden-cancels-subscription-with-elsevier
University of
California
Cancelled Elsevier
subscription
February 2019 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00758-x
Hungarian
Consortium EINZ
Did not renew
Elsevier subscription
December
2018
http://eisz.mtak.hu/index.php/en/283-hungarian-consortium-
terminates-negotiations-with-elsevier.html
Bibsam
Consortium -
Sweden
Cancelled
agreement with
Elsevier
16 May 2018 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05191-0
French national
consortium Coupe
rin.org
Cancelled
subscriptions to
SpringerNature
30 March 2018 http://couperin.org/breves/1333-couperin-ne-renouvelle-pas-l-
accord-national-passe-avec-springer
Dutch consortium
VSNU
No agreement with
Royal Society of
Chemistry
12 March 2018 https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/394-no-
agreement-with-the-royal-society-of-chemistry-
publishing%C2%A0.html
SPARC maintains a Big Deal Cancellation Tracking list -
https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-cancellation-tracking/

5. Outcomes
• Feb 2018 - Germany estimated to be saving £8.7million per
year
– https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/will-other-
countries-follow-germany-battle-elsevier
• July 2018 - Elsevier cut off access to Sweden and Germany
– https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05754-1
• Feb 2019 - “Thousands of scientists run up against
Elsevier’s paywall”
– https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00492-4
– Researchers: some articles are impossible to get, causes
“unnecessary delays” to work, “This is damaging to research,
and punishes researchers, not publishers.”
– Libraries: most of these article requests are fulfilled within a
working day, suspects that scientists are turning to other articles
or journals

6. Outcomes
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-
opinion/elsevier-and-norway-agree-on-new-
open-access-deal-65789
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/cup-oa-
partnership-university-california-988666
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/german-
institutions-and-wiley-reach-open-access-publishing-deal-
65327

7. Different models
• Norway and Elsevier meet a nine million Euro agreement including a Gold Open
Access clause (including a three percent price increase):
https://www.scidecode.com/2019/04/norway-and-elsevier-meet-a-nine-million-
euro-agreement-including-a-gold-open-access-clause/
• In France the Couperin Consortium reached a price reduction of more than 13%
over four years in an agreement with Elsevier - without Gold Open Access but with
built-in Green OA.
https://www.scidecode.com/2019/04/does-the-french-couperin-consortium-beat-
the-german-wiley-deal/
• University of California’s CUP agreement means the subscription "reading" fee will
go down as UC's OA publishing goes up, the university will see no "significant"
overall increase to the cost of its contract. https://www.uksg.org/newsletter/uksg-
enews-443/cup-uc-publishing-deal
• The German annual fee will be based on the number of papers they publish in
Wiley journals which should roughly equal what these institutes had previously
been paying Wiley https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/groundbreaking-
deal-makes-large-number-german-studies-free-public

8. Implications
• Do you know what your institution (university,
funder etc) is spending on OA? (even in the UK
where block grants are centrally managed, there
is still huge additional APC spend)
• Do you have any idea how many of your
institution’s publications with a specific publisher
are OA? In gold OA journals vs hybrid?
• Why isn’t ‘institutional contribution’ part of the
discussion? Authoring, peer review and editing
are all un-quantified gifts from the academy –
and should be counted in these negotiations

9. Credibility crunch-point
This is our new reality
https://thenorwichradical.com/2017/01/12/post-truth-
politics-and-the-war-on-intellect/

10. During the pre-Brexit vote discussion
https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c

11. Who is the expert?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/opinion/pruitt-attack-science-epa.html
“Scott Pruitt, the administrator
of the Environmental Protection
Agency, has announced that he
alone will decide what is and
isn’t acceptable science for the
agency to use when developing
policies that affect your health
and the environment.”
Mr Pruitt is a lawyer. He resigned
in July 2018.
His replacement, Andrew
Wheeler, is a former coal
lobbyist.

12. This morning
https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/selling-science-in-trust-deficit-days/

13. The credibility of science is under
threat
• “Speaking as a scientist, cherrypicking
evidence is unacceptable,” Hawking said.
“When public figures abuse scientific
argument, citing some studies but suppressing
others, to justify policies that they want to
implement for other reasons, it debases
scientific culture.”
• https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/14/i-would-not-have-survived-
nhs-enabled-stephen-hawking-to-live-long-life

14. We have to be above criticism
• “Incipient and actual attacks upon the integrity of
science have led scientists to recognize their
dependence on particular types of social structure.
Manifestos and pronouncements by associations of
scientists are devoted to the relations of science and
society. An institution under attack must re-examine its
foundations, restate its objectives, seek out its
rationale. Crisis invites self-appraisal. Now that they
have been confronted with challenges to their way of
life, scientists have been jarred into a state of acute
self-consciousness: consciousness of self as an integral
element of society with corresponding obligations and
interests.”

15. We have to be above criticism

16. Normative Structure of Science
Robert K Merton, “The Normative Structure of Science”, 1942 essay in
The Sociology of Science edited by Norman W Storer, published 1973
http://www.collier.sts.vt.edu/5424/pdfs/merton_1973.pdf

17. These are eroding
• The four Mertonian norms of science (1942)
– universalism: scientific validity is independent of the
sociopolitical status/personal attributes of its participants
– communalism: all scientists should have common
ownership of scientific goods (intellectual property), to
promote collective collaboration; secrecy is the opposite of
this norm.
– disinterestedness: scientific institutions act for the benefit
of a common scientific enterprise, rather than for the
personal gain of individuals within them
– organized scepticism: scientific claims should be exposed
to critical scrutiny before being accepted: both in
methodology and institutional codes of conduct.

18. Fightback - Reproducibility

19. Fightback - Integrity
https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-
z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/inquiries/parliament-
2017/research-integrity-17-19/publications/

20. Fightback - Replicability
https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-
z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/inquiries/parliament-
2017/research-integrity-17-19/publications/

21. Fightback - (back to) Reproducibility
https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-
z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/inquiries/parliament-
2017/research-integrity-17-19/publications/

22. Implications
• The reproducibility/integrity/replicability agenda
is a positive one
• It identifies causes of problems (hint – the
academic reward structure)
• It identifies potential solutions (study
registration, CredIT taxonomy etc). Many of these
relate to the Open Research agenda
• It owns the issues – that’s the strongest place to
be
• But why is this happening?

23. Metric management
https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-
analysis/research-policy/open-
science/Pages/forum-for-responsible-
research-metrics.aspx
https://responsiblemetrics.org/wp-
content/uploads/2019/02/2015_metrictide.pdf

24. One of eight priorities for EC
https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscienc
e/pdf/integrated_advice_opspp_recomme
ndations.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=none

25. All over the UK and Europe
https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/managingyourpublicat
ions/publicationsandresearchreputation/indicators/responsibleme
trics/
https://www.cwts.nl/research/research-
themes/responsible-metrics
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/research/environment
/responsible-metrics/

26. Note these are mostly library webpages
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/library/research/openr
esearch/understandingmetrics/responsible_use
_of_metrics.htm
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/support/publishing/r
esponsible-use-of-metrics/
https://www.dur.ac.uk/library/research/evalu
ate/responsiblemetrics/

27. DORA is now *linked* to funding
https://wellcome.ac.uk/news/wellcome-updating-its-open-access-policy

28. Australian signatories to DORA
https://sfdora.org/signers/
But surely all
institutions have to do
is ‘sign up’?
It doesn’t mean
anything has to change
- does it?

29. Incentives for publication are not in
themselves problematical
https://www.notredame.edu.au/research/research-at-notre-
dame/research-development/publication/publication-incentive
https://informatics.sydney.edu.au/news/sihincentive/

30. However… not all incentive schemes are equal
“The University will also continue to
provide financial incentives for
publications in the prestige journals
Nature and Science which contribute
significantly to the University’s
performance in international ranking
schemes. Consideration will be given to
expanding this scheme where it can be
demonstrated that such publication
measurably enhances the University’s
ranking or reputation.”
https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/00
34/169873/research-and-innovation-plan.pdf
UNSW is also offering cash incentives. A lead
UNSW author will get $500 for published
papers that appear in selected prestige
publications. There is $1000 for each paper
identified in the Times Higher and QS five-year
windows as a “highly cited paper” appearing in
the Web of Science. UNSW corresponding
authors of articles published in
Nature and Science will receive $10 000 from
the university, with “sliding amounts” for other
authors.
https://campusmorningmail.com.au/
news/unsw-pays-for-performance/

31. Why this matters: Risk averse research
• Scientists we interview routinely
say that they dare not propose
bold projects for funding in part
because of expectations that they
will produce a steady stream of
papers in journals with high impact
scores.
• Our analysis of 15 years' worth of
citation data suggests that
common bibliometric measures
relying on short-term windows
undervalue risky research
– Reviewers are blinkered by
bibliometrics : Nature News &
Comment. 26 April 2017
– http://www.nature.com/news/reviewe
rs-are-blinkered-by-bibliometrics-
1.21877
• Research today is driven by last
year’s publications.
• Scientists write to influence
reviewers and editors in the
process. … They use strategic
citation practices.
• The greater the novelty of the
work the greater likelihood it is to
have a negative review …
Scientists understand the novelty
bias so they downplay the new
elements to the old elements.
– Professor James Evans, 2015
Researcher to Reader conference
– https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.ca
m.ac.uk/?p=539

32. Why this matters: Attrition crisis?
Hard work, little reward: Nature readers reveal working hours and research challenges,
Nature News, 4 November 2016, http://www.nature.com/news/hard-work-little-
reward-nature-readers-reveal-working-hours-and-research-challenges-1.20933

33. Implications
• Increased focus on metrics perverts goals of
research institutions and researchers
• It has gone too far, to the detriment of
research itself and those who are doing the
research
• We need to move away from ‘publication of
novel results in high impact journals’ as being
the only thing that counts.
• Have I mentioned Open Research yet?

34. Policy pandemonium
From Bill Hubbard Getting the rights right: when policies collide
http://www.slideshare.net/UKSG/hubbard-uksg-may2015-public

35. It begins
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
1st online
journals
arXiv started
Los Alamos Subversive
Proposal
Stevan
Harnad
1st Big Deal
WWW begins
Commercial
restrictions
lifted on
WWW

36. The noughties
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
DSpace
MIP & HP Labs
ePrints project
Instigated by
Stevan Harnad
Systemic
Infrastructure
initiative
Australia
1st Open
Repositories
Sydney
1st OA Policy
QUT Costs & Business
Model Report
Wellcome Trust
Sci Publishing -
Free for all?
UK Parliament
Position statement
on OA
RCUK
OA Policy
Wellcome Trust
OA Policy
NIH (replacing
voluntary 2005 one)
1st Repository
Fringe
Edinburgh
ResearchGate
May 2008
Mendeley
August 2008
Academia.edu
September 2008
BASE starts
Economic Analysis
Report
Wellcome Trust

37. The teens
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
RCUK Policy starts
1 April 2013
Google Scholar
citations
November 2011
Strengthen policy
Wellcome Trust
Finch Report
July 2012
UK Govt invests
£10mil
Sept 2012
CHORUS
Publisher-led
initiative
SHARE
University-led
initiative
SciHub start
Elsevier wins court
case
Against SciHub
HEFCE REF policy
starts
1 April 2016
Original end
RCUK policy
31 March
2018 (now
Coalition for
responsible sharing
vs ResearchGate
CORE starts
AOASG starts
Plan S
4 Sept 2018
EPSRC Start
checking data
sharing
May 2015
Birth of UKRI
1 April 2018
Plan S
feedback
8 Feb 2019
Wellcome Policy
5 Nov20182014 REF

38. Open Science Monitor - European Commission. 28 March 2017
http://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=home&section=monitor
Meanwhile the focus has moved on

39. Statements on Open Research
https://www.cam.ac.uk/6000thThesis
https://osc.cam.ac.uk/open-research/open-research-position-
statement
https://www.reading.ac.uk/research/research-
environment/open-research.aspx

40. What do we mean??
Statement/declaration Year link
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment 2012 http://www.ascb.org/dora/
Force11 Joint Declaration on Data Citation Principles 2014 https://www.force11.org/datacitation
FAIR data principles 2015 https://www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples
Science International - (draft) Accord on Open Data 2015
http://www.icsu.org/news-centre/news/science-international-to-
agree-international-accord-on-open-data
Leiden Manifesto for research metrics 2015
http://www.nature.com/news/bibliometrics-the-leiden-manifesto-
for-research-metrics-1.17351
Science Europe Principles on Open Access publisher
services
2015
http://www.scienceeurope.org/uploads/PressReleases/270415_O
pen_Access_New_Principles.pdf
European open science cloud for research - position
paper
2015
http://libereurope.eu/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/OSC_Position_Paper-final-30.10.15.pdf
The Hague declaration on Knowledge Creation in the
Digital Age
2015 http://thehaguedeclaration.com/
Principles of the Scholarly Commons 2017 https://www.force11.org/scholarly-commons/principles
> 90 declarations and position statements from around the world
http://tinyurl.com/scholcomm-charters
There are so many different definitions of Open Research/Science
that now there is an attempt to define the definitions
https://im2punt0.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/defining-open-
science-definitions/

41. Oh yes, that Plan S thing
• Plan S announced – 4 Sept 2018
• Implementation guidelines released – 28 Nov 2018
• Feedback responses due - 8 Feb 2019 (over 600 responses from 40 countries)
• Robert-Jan Smits departs as European Commission’s special envoy for OA – 28 Feb 2019
• Robert Kiley (Wellcome Trust) starts as interim cOAlition S coordinator – Mar 2019
• Nominal ‘start date’ of Plan S – 1 Jan 2020
https://www.scienceeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/cOAlitionS.pdf

42. Plan S – much discussion
https://unlockingresearch-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=2433
67 items to 1 April 2019 and 51 in 2018 - and these
are the ones I found. There are many others.

43. Mixed response from researchers
https://forbetterscience.com/2018/09/11/response-to-plan-
s-from-academic-researchers-unethical-too-risky/
http://eurodoc.net/joint-statement-plan-s.pdf

44. Feedback was consistent
• Theme 1: Clear support for the transition to open access and the
goals of Plan S.
• Theme 2: Concern that the implementation guidance reflects
models that work for STEM but will negatively impact HSS scholars.
• Theme 3: The technical requirements for publication, repository,
and other platforms are poorly thought out.
• Theme 4: The predicted effects on small, independent, and society
publishers raise concerns for the viability of these publishers.
• Theme 5: Setting a fair and reasonable APC sounds fair and
reasonable but it is also likely impossible.
• Theme 6: Scholars and organizations in the Global South object to
being told what they want.
• Theme 7: The timelines are not feasible.
Taking Stock of the Feedback on Plan S Implementation Guidance (published 11 Feb)
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/02/11/with-thousand-of-pages-of-feedback-
on-the-plans-s-implementation-guidance-what-themes-emerged-that-might-guide-next-
steps/?informz=1

45. Outcome - embargo breakthrough
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/meet-plan-s-open-access-mandate-journals-
mull-setting-papers-free-publication
NOTE: If you care about this at all, there is an explanation of why there is NO (nothing
whatsover) evidence to support the argument that without embargoes libraries will
cancel subscriptions here: “Half life is half the story” https://unlockingresearch-
blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=331

46. One policy so far - Wellcome Trust
Any paper resulting from
work funded by Wellcome
Trust submitted for
publication after 1 Jan 2020
must be compliant (fully
gold, or in transformative
journal) and in PubMed
Central under a CC-BY
license
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/win-open-
access-two-major-funders-wont-cover-publishing-
hybrid-journals
Useful information here: “Advice for Oxford
authors on the new Wellcome Trust OA
policy”
http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk/2019/04/11/ad
vice-for-oxford-authors-on-new-wellcome-
trust-open-access-policy/

47. UK policy landscape is even more
complicated now
http://openaccess.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/16/open-access-policy-timeline-may-2019/

48. Endless amounts of discussion

49. Implications
• The policy landscape is fast moving and
confusing across the world
• Australia is not immune
• Plan S has ‘focused the minds’ of some in this
ecosystem
• We need to broaden our focus and language
to include Open Research / Scholarship /
Science

50. Being blindsided
Vertical integration resulting from Elsevier’s acquisitions, from Alejandro Posada and George Chen, (2017)
Rent Seeking and Financialization strategies of the Academic Publishing Industry - Publishers are
increasingly in control of scholarly infrastructure and why we should care- A Case Study of Elsevier
http://knowledgegap.org/index.php/sub-projects/rent-seeking-and-financialization-of-the-academic-
publishing-industry/preliminary-findings/

51. Note how it is pitched
https://www.coimbra-group.eu/wp-content/uploads/Burgelman2018-OS-COIMBRA-
december.pdf

52. Elsevier – ‘not a commercial product’*
https://datasearch.elsevier.com/faq#/ * ‘At the moment’

53. Elsevier is not alone
https://www.digital-science.com/researchers/

54. Why use your institutional services?
https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/me
ndeley-data-platform/for-institutions
https://www.springernature.com/gp/authors/res
earch-data-policy/ - £265 per dataset

55. Who needs an Office of Research, a
Library or Student Services?
https://researcheracademy.elsevier.
com/
https://edservices.wiley.com/why-
partner/services-and-solutions/

56. Implications
• Publishers are muscling in (and they are better
resourced than libraries… actually they are
resourced *by* libraries)
• We need a global view of the infrastructure
landscape across whole institutions
• There is a big risk that all the research outputs
OTHER than the final published paper end up
behind a paywall
• Did I mention Open Research?

57. Summary & Suggestions
• Cascading cancellations
– We need much better data
• Credibility crunch-point
– Take the front foot in this area
• Metric management
– The rules determine behaviour. Question the rules.
• Policy pandemonium
– Open access is the end point, but the journey needs to be
open too
• Being blindsided
– Take a global view. Oh, and get procurement involved

58. Thanks and questions
Dr Danny Kingsley
Scholarly Communication Consultant
Email: danny@dannykingsley.com
Twitter: @dannykay68