This document discusses open access from the perspective of a researcher. It describes the researcher's publishing process and costs of open access fees. While open access ensures dissemination, the current system favors publishers over researchers. The researcher argues for alternative open access models that cover research costs while providing open dissemination of publications, data, and software at no additional expense.
1. Open access: a researcherās perspective
Antonio Gasparrini
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
Open Research and Data
Open Access Week
22 October 2012 - Birbeck College, London
2. My background
Graduated in biology in Italy, then 4 years working as
epidemiologist in a cancer research center in Florence
MSc + postgraduate school (still in Italy) + PhD (in UK) in
medical statistics,
Worked at LSHTM in the last 5 years, mainly in statistical
methodology and software development
3. My MRC fellowship
Awarded a Research Methodology fellowship from MRC (Dec
2011 ā Nov 2014)
Project developed on my previous research
Success of this project critical for next funding application
Need to comply with the MRC regulations on open access
My budget for open access costs: 6000Ā£ in total
4. Outline
Some points:
My perspective: as scientist and junior academic
Publishing: steps and costs
My publications as a case study
Open research: beyond publications
5. The scientistās perspective
I favour a system which:
guarantees high-quality research
allows the independent assessment of research ļ¬ndings
ensures the dissemination of the such ļ¬ndings
6. The academicās perspective
I favour a system which:
covers the costs of my research
delivers a fast and eļ¬ective peer-review process
provides tools for disseminating my work
7. Publishing a research paper: steps
Literature review
Drafting the manuscript
Choice of the journal and submission
Review and acceptance
Copyright agreement
Open access fee
Publication
Actors: the researcher, the institution, the research community,
the funder, the journals/publishers
An eļ¬cient and fair system?
8. A ļ¬rst article
Published online in Statistics in Medicine (2012):
The choice of the journal
Copyright transferred
Open access fee ā¼2250Ā£
Impact factor 1.99
10. A second article
Firstly submitted to Biostatistics:
Copyright transferred
Open access fee ā¼2250Ā£
Impact factor 2.145
Rejected, re-submitted to BMC Med Res Method:
Copyright retained
Open access fee ā¼1475Ā£ (ā¼1255Ā£ with LSHTM discount)
Impact factor 2.67
11. A third article
Published in Journal of Statistical Software (2011):
Not automatically indexed in PubMed
Included āmanuallyā through PubMed Central
Copyright retained
Open access fee: 0Ā£
Impact factor 4.01
12. Open research: beyond publishing
Open data: research data collected with public funding available
to other researchers
Open source and free software
Reproducible research: open and thorough assessment of
research ļ¬ndings
13. A similar case
Statistical software is mainly based on commercial programs
(e.g. Stata, SAS, SPSS)
Substantial fees to be paid by research institutions
However, implementation of novel methodologies provided by
researchers
Same story: researchers working (for free) for third parties...
14. An alternative model
An example: the R software
A project entirely based on a community of users and developers
Comparison with commercial programs
Model also applicable to publishing
15. The third article again
The manuscript is freely available at journalās web site and other
repositories
The code for the analysis is included as supplementary material
The software is implemented and fully documented in a free
statistical package
The data are stored online and freely available through the
software
All of this at no cost
16. The internet era
Diļ¬erent approach to search and dissemination: what role for
journals?
Drop in editorial and publication costs: do we really need
publishers?
Role of funders, institutions and research community is critical
Why so late?!
17. The open access era
Important changes: Wellcome and RCUK policies
Limitations of the Finch Report
Alternative models already available
Changes require a diļ¬erent approach from researchers