Presentation for NISO's Virtual Conference: 'Scholarly Communication Models: Evolution or Revolution?' Speaking as himself, rather than as the Managing Director of DOAJ, Lars Bjørnshauge gives his own views on what is wrong with the current state of publishing, open access, and the culture of prestige, tenure and promotion within academic institutions. Presented on 23rd September 2015

1. OPEN:
MUCH MORE THAN A
DIFFERENT BUSINESS MODEL.
NISO Virtual Conference: Scholarly
Communication Models: Evolution or
Revolution?
September 23rd 2015
Lars Bjørnshauge
lars@doaj.org
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

2. I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO TALK ABOUT……
 my understanding of open access,
 what does it mean to be open?
 what's new and what's changing?
 how do I see the future of scholarly communication,
 what are the important issues that should be faced and addressed by
the community in order to reach a future where open is the default?
 These are big questions
 I will try my best!
 Not speaking on behalf of SPARC Europe or DOAJ – but on behalf of
myself!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

3. WHERE DO I COME FROM?
 Academic library management (25 years)
 Early out with the big deals, which suddenly enabled libraries to provide
access to much, much more content for the authorized users
 But found myself prevent by so-called unauthorized users to gain access
to publicly funded research!
 At the beginning of the millennium the emerging discussions about open
access came in handy
 A few months after the Budapest OpenAccess Initiative I founded the
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – launched in May 2003 with
300 journals.
 A lot has happened since then!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

4. SO, WHERE ARE WE WITH OPEN ACCESS?
 OA has gathered momentum
 Steady growth can be recorded in the proportion of new research
papers being published in open access journals or made freely available
via repositories
 More than 10,000 open access journals, thousands of repositories
 More than thousand institutions and research funders have signed the
various OA declarations
 Hundreds of open access policies and mandates in place
 But……
 OA still is not the default
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

5. DRIVERS
 Researchers, who want to share their stuff to the widest possible
audience
 Technologies and communication tools
 Librarians, feeling that open is close to the heart of their profession
 Experimental and emerging business models facilitating open access
 Emerging development of incentives (sticks and carrots):
 Institutional and funder open access policies
 Institutional and funder mandates
 But it is going too slow! – the incentives are not strong enough to bring
about significant changes!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

6. AND IT´S NOT EASY!
 Stephen Curry (well known UK professor,science blogger and OA-
advocate) – last week at the OASPA conference in Amsterdam:
 ”I hate open access, it is too complicated!”
 Different business models – APC-payment is a heavy administrative
burden!
 Different licenses, different re-use permissions etc.
 Different funder policies and mandates
 Complicated for authors/institutions to comply with different funder
mandates
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

7. WHAT PAYS OFF IN THE CURRENT SYSTEM?
 Researchers:
 Publish in quality prestige journals – go for the High Impact Factor (not
necessarily citations!) and you will be rewarded (promotion, tenure and
grants)
 Don´t bother too much about
 whether your results are actually accessible to the widest audience
 whether your data is archived and open
 whether your software is documented and available
 whether your research is actually reproducable
 For your career it doesn´t really matter that much!
 Institutions:
 Attract the researchers above and the institution will receive more grants
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

8. THE SCHOLARLY SYSTEM I (AND OTHERS) WANT TO SEE:
 Characteristics:
 Research results are accessible to everyone.
 Research is verifiable and reproducible.
 Research is evaluated based on its actual impact not based on the
wrapper
 Research findings are evaluated in the open after dissemination.
 Researchers are rewarded based on all what they do.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

9. THIS MEANS THAT:
 Research will be disseminated in the open with generous reuse
permissions.
 Research data will be archived and made accessible.
 Software associated with research will be documented and available as
well.
 Research evaluation is transparent.
 Researchers are rewarded not only based on citations, but also for the
social and societal impact of their research, they are rewarded for
documenting their data and software, they are rewarded for contributing
to “peer review” etc.
 In short: researchers will be rewarded for all that they do
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

10. WHAT IS NEEDED IS A SYSTEM-WIDE CHANGE:
 A change in the rewards system and system of incentives
 A change in the culture of research
 It should be regarded as bad behavior, unethical behavior
 not to publish in the open,
 not to make you data available and
 not to document you software.
 Published research findings that lack any of these three characteristics
should not merit, should not count!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

11. WHO CAN THE CHANGE THE SYSTEM?
 The current scholarly communication system and especially the current
reward systems, the system that motivates the behavior of researchers has
developed behind the scenes of the actors.
 There are many stakeholders, some cannot really change the system and
some can.
 I would say that libraries are the victims of an unsustainable system.
 The publishers and service providers exploit the conditions offered to
them, so you can´t really blame them either.
 Younger researchers have to comply with the dominant system to make
a career
 Those who have the power to change the game are the those who decide
about promotion and facilitate the distribution of funding for research,
namely Research Funders and presidents of universities and research
centers, vice-chancellors, deans, department heads etc.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

12. ACADEMIC FREEDOM
 Now, what does all this mean for Academic Freedom?
 Academic freedom applies to what you are researching, what you are
investigating, the methods you apply etc.
 Based on your agreement with your institution and the grants you get to
do your work.
 It is often argued that the decision on where you publish, how you
publish, the permissions you give etc are part of your academic
freedom.
 No one should tell me where to publish!
 I beg to disagree!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

13. ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITY
 Applies to how you share your research, your findings, your data, your
software!
 We need stronger mandates from research funders and research
institutions.
 Research funders and research institutions should be very specific as to
how they expect researchers to disseminate their findings!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

14. CAN THEY REALLY CHANGE THE CULTURE?
 On obvious problem is of course that those, who today are decision
makers in research funding organizations and research institution (like
universities), have made their career in the system and the culture that
has to change!
 To some extent there is a generation problem!
 But there is light at the end of the tunnel.
 Research funders and their associations have issued open access
policies, and universities as well.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

15. FUNDERS ARE ON THE MOVE...
 The Global Research Council has open access as one of their two action
lines. So far not that groundbreaking, but …
 Science Europe has adopted Principles on the Transition to Open Access
to Research Publications April 2013 and New Principles on Open Access
Publisher Services April 2015 – recommending among other things,
 that Authors hold copyright of their publication with no restrictions
and
 that all publications shall be published under an open license,
preferably CC BY
 And of course we have the Gates Foundation OA-policy which really is
state of the art
 So were not starting from scratch but there is a long way to go.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

16. ...SO ARE RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
 Hundreds of research institutions have open access policies and
mandates.
 Most of them are quite soft; a few of them are stronger.
 A well-known example is the OA-mandate of the University of Liège,
Belgium, where a publication which is not available through the local
repository will not count in promotion and tenure.
 So far this is an exception.
 What is needed is more and much stronger mandates from research
funders and research organizations, combined with an immediate
change in the rewards system.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

17. I AM CALLING FOR…
A coalition of responsible research
funders and research institutions
 Who will take the open agenda further and mandate openness in its widest
possible sense
 Open publications, open data and open software
 Who will immediately change the reward system within their domains and
evaluate contributions
 not based on where you publish, but based on
 what you publish and
 how you publsh
 and will foster competition by introducing price caps on APCs
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

18. A COALITION OF RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH
FUNDERS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS!!
I know that this is a long shot!
But should we really continue to try to repair a system
that, essentially, has its origins in the print age, that is
unsustainable and that does not serve science?
Or should we build new system that can actually
serve science for the 21st century?
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

19. OUT OF THE BOX!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge
If we were to invent a system
of scholarly communication –
what would it look like?
I have given this my best shot!

20. WOULD YOU BOARD THE FLIGHT?
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge
If your airline has the same quality
assurance procedures, the same
transparency as our current
scholarly communication system?
Would you board that flight?

21. FINITO!
THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY AND
FOR YOUR ATTENTION
lars@doaj.org
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge