1. Introduction to Open Access
Robert Perret
Savvy Skills for Researchers
October 2011
University of Idaho
2. What is Open Access?
• Free of charge(to the reader)
• Free of most copyright and licensing
restrictions
• Online
• Digital
• Immediate (No delays or embargoes)
• Full-text
3. What is Open Access?
• Simply removing the price barrier is not
sufficient
• Tolerating “fair use” is not sufficient
4. What is Open Access?
• Per the Bethesda and Berlin statements, to be
OA the copyright holder must consent in
advance to let users
copy, use, print, index, distribute, transmit and
display the work publically, as well as to make
and transmit derivative works
• Essentially the only right retained under OA is
the right to proper attribution of authorship
5. History of Open Access
www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/ARPANET.html
• 1969 – Steve Crocker sends a “Request for
Comment” on his paper about IMP software
across ARPANet.
12. http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTwj-
H3pjRpNmynksyoAj5QdDVUFejpl7VixKcvrBarVU367JEw
• 1987 Syracuse University launches New
Horizons in Adult Education, the first
free, online peer-reviewed journal
30. What OA is intended to do
• Block plagiarism and misrepresentation
• Impedes commercial re-use
• Authorizes and facilitates legitimate
scholarship
31. What OA is not intended to do
• Legitimize vigilante behavior (wikileaks)
• Facilitate expropriating
• Encouraging infringing
• Justify piracy
32. What OA isn’t
• OA is not the same as universal access. OA
does not address:
– Filtering and censorship barriers
– Language barriers
– Handicap access
– Connectivity barriers
34. OA Credibility
• The value, rigor, and integrity of peer review is
independent of the price or medium of a
journal
• The same procedures, standards, and even the
same reviewers and editors can be used
35. Journal vs. Repository
• OA journals have the ability to maintain the same
standards and practices as traditional peer-
reviewed journals
• Repositories do not have a quality-control
function, merely a preservation/access function
• Repositories can also contain
theses, dissertations, course materials, data
files, audio and video files, institutional
records, and digitalized special collections
36. OA “Business Model”
• In the traditional publisher paradigm, authors
write, reviewers review, and editors edit
without direct compensation.
• All of this is supported by research
institutions.
• Publishers package the writing and then sell
the product back to the research institutions
that created the writing in the first place.
37. OA “Business Model”
• Academics write and edit for impact and career
advancement, not (directly) profit, so OA is compatible
and even advantageous
• Institutions are already paying for published research
(twice) with diminishing returns on access
• Supporting the system by paying once upfront instead
of on an ongoing basis is advantageous for institutions
in the long run
• Large institutions will publish more articles and bear
more cost, but will be buying the same prestige and
impact they are already buying at a lower cost, with
greater access for everyone, including themselves
38. Reduced cost
• OA reduces the cost of scholarly publishing by:
– Eliminating print
– Eliminating subscription management
– Eliminating DRM
– Reducing legal expenses
– Reducing marketing costs by relying on social
media and search engines
39. Mitigated costs
• Some OA resources offset costs by:
– Author/publication fee
– Advertising
– Add-ons
– Auxiliary Services
40. Need for Open Access
Journal costs outpace
inflation by 400%
since the 1980s!
Quantity of scholarly
information is
growing while access
is disappearing!
41. Advantages to institution
• Broader access to resources
• Lower-cost in the long-run
• Facilitates text and data mining
• Increases author visibility and impact
• Advances mission to share knowledge
42. OA and public funding
• Open Access publishing is now often required
to receive public funding, except for classified
military research, patentable discoveries, and
research that generates royalties
43. Open Access Fund
• Pool of money set aside by an institution or
other research-sponsoring entity specifically
to defray or cover OA journal processing fees
• Cornell University, Dartmouth
College, Harvard University, MIT, and UC
Berkeley
44. Advantages for authors
• Wider audience and greater impact than
subscription journals (Studies vary by
discipline and journal, but 2011 studies
showed an increase of citation between 130%-
740%. Looking at the past several years, it
seems safe to say that OA publishing easily
doubles the number of citations in most
cases.)
http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html
45. Advantages for journals/publishers
• Increased visibility may attracts:
– Submissions
– Advertisers
– Readers
– Citations
• May be combined with subscription strategies
46. Open Access Availability
• Estimated 4200 open access peer-reviewed
journals
• Directory of Open Access Journals is a great
resource
• It has been estimated that about 20% of
scholarly papers are published OA http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-
biblio.html
47. Open Access vs. Creative Commons
• Creative Commons is a standardized system
for indicating that an author has granted
permissive rights to a work
• OA and CC are not the same thing
• However, sufficiently permissive CC licenses
may be compatible with OA
• Similar impetus
48. Author Permission
• Be aware that if you have already transferred
copyright to a publisher, you must now seek
permission for OA publication, even repository
storage
49. Green OA
• However, many publishers provide blanket
permission for Green OA, or placing any pre-
publication draft in an OA repository
• This can include drafts that have been through
the peer review process – anything up until
you sign the contract on the final proof
• Project SHERPA is an online clearinghouse for
publishing agreements – including Green OA
51. Citations
• Björk, B.-C., Welling, P., Laakso, M., Majlender, P., Hedlund, T., &
Guðnason, G. (2010). Open Access to the Scientific Journal
Literature: Situation 2009. PLoS ONE, 5(6), e11273.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011273
• Eyal Amiran. (2010). The Open Access Debate. symploke, 18(1-
2), 251-260.
• Jacobs, N. (2006). Open access key strategic, technical and
:
economic aspects. Oxford: Chandos.
• Laakso, M., Welling, P., Bukvova, H., Nyman, L., Björk, B.-C., &
Hedlund, T. (2011). The Development of Open Access Journal
Publishing from 1993 to 2009. PLoS ONE, 6(6), e20961.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020961
• Willinsky, J. (2006). The access principle the case for open access
:
to research and scholarship. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.
