Copyright Reform Should Not Be
Made A Precondition For
Mandating Open Access
Stevan Harnad
UQAM & U Southampton
Berlin 14 nov 2008
What is Open Access (OA)?
Free online access
to refereed research articles
Berlin 14 nov 2008
Open Access to What?
ESSENTIAL: OPTIONAL:
(because these are not all author give-aways,
written only for usage and impact):
to all 2.5 million annual 1. Books
research articles 2. Textbooks
3. Magazine articles
4. Newspaper articles
published in all 25,000 5. Music
peer-reviewed journals 6. Video
(and peer-reviewed 7. Software
conferences) 8. “Knowledge”
in all scholarly and (or because author’s choice to self-archive can
scientific disciplines, only be encouraged, not required in all
cases):
worldwide 9. Data
10. Unrefereed Preprints
There are two ways to provide OA:
Green OA Self-Archiving: Authors self-archive the articles
they publish in the 25,000 peer-reviewed journals
Gold OA Publishing: authors publish in one of the c. 3500
OA http://www.doaj.org/
NB: This presentation is exclusively about providing Green OA, through
university policy reform (by mandating Green OA Self-Archiving).
It is not about Gold OA Publishing, which is in the hands of the
publishing community, not the university community.
(Green OA may or may not eventually lead to Gold OA, but it will
lead with certainty to OA.)
Why OA?
• OA maximizes research progress:
uptake, usage, applications and impact
• Direct benefit of OA: research progress
• Side-Benefits of OA: developing world access,
student access, public access
Berlin 14 nov 2008
How to provide (Green) OA?
• Self-archive in Institutional Repository
• Universities and Funders Mandate Self-
Archiving
Berlin 14 nov 2008
Limited Access: Limited Research Impact
Impact cycle
begins: Researchers write
Research is pre-refereeing
done “Pre-Print”
12-18 Months
Submitted to Journal
Pre-Print reviewed by
Peer Experts – “Peer-
Review”
Pre-Print revised by
article’s Authors
Refereed “Post-Print”
Accepted, Certified, Published
by Journal
Researchers can access the
Post-Print if their university New impact cycles:
has a subscription to the New research builds
Journal on existing research
Berlin 14 nov 2008
Limited Access: Limited Research Impact
Impact cycle
begins: Researchers write
Research is pre-refereeing
done “Pre-Print”
12-18 Months
Submitted to Journal This limited
subscription-based
Pre-Print reviewed by
Peer Experts – “Peer- access can be
Review”
Pre-Print revised by supplemented by self-
article’s Authors archiving the Postprint
Refereed “Post-Print” in the author’s own
Accepted, Certified, Published
by Journal institutional repository
as follows:
Researchers can access the
Post-Print if their university New impact cycles:
has a subscription to the New research builds
Journal on existing research
Berlin 14 nov 2008
Maximized Research Access and Impact Through Self-Archiving
Impact cycle Researchers write
begins: pre-refereeing
Research is done “Pre-Print”
12-18 Months
Submitted to Journal
Pre-Print reviewed by Peer Post-Print
Experts – “Peer-Review” is self-archived
in University’s
Pre-Print revised by Eprint Archive
article’s Authors
Refereed “Post-Print” Accepted,
Certified, Published by Journal More impact
cycles:
Researchers can access the
Post-Print if their university
has a subscription to the
Journal
New impact cycles:
Berlin 14 nov 2008New research builds on
existing research
Berlin 14 nov 2008
Usage Advantage + Early Advantage: OA Articles are
Downloaded more and early downloads lead to later citations
Data from arXiv
Downloads (“hits”) in
the first 6 months
correlate with citations 2
years later
Most articles are not
cited at all
Berlin 14 nov Predictors of Later Citation Impact. Journal of the American Association
Brody, T., Harnad, S. and Carr, L. (2006) Earlier Web Usage Statistics as 2008
for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) 57(8): 1060-1072. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/10713/
(Competitive Advantage): The earlier you mandate Green OA, the sooner (and bigger) your university's
competitive advantage: U. Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science was the first in the
world to adopt an OA self-archiving mandate. (Competitive Advantage vanishes at 100% OA.)
Berlin 14 nov 2008
OA Mandates: Across all countries and disciplines, 95% of
researchers report that they would comply with a self-archiving
mandate from their funders and/or employers, and over 80% report
that they would do so willingly. -- But only 15% self-archive
spontaneously, if it not mandated. Berlin 14 nov 2008
University of Tasmania
+Repository -Incentive -Mandate
Green line: total annual output
Red line: proportion self-archived
700
600 Actual
documents
500
400
300
200 DEST
100 publication
0 s
Jun- Jul- A S Oct- N D Jan- F M Apr- M Jun-
04 04 ug- ep- 04 ov- ec- 05 eb- ar- 05 ay- 05
04 04 04 04 05 05 05
Data courtesy of Arthur Sale
Berlin 14 nov 2008
University of Queensland
+Repository +Incentive -Mandate
Green line: total annual output
4000
Red line: proportion self-archived
3500
3000
2500
Documents
2000 Total
documents
1500
DEST
documents
1000
500
0
Data courtesy of Arthur Sale
03/02/2004
03/03/2004
03/04/2004
03/05/2004
03/06/2004
03/07/2004
03/08/2004
03/09/2004
03/10/2004
03/11/2004
03/12/2004
03/01/2005
03/02/2005
03/03/2005
03/04/2005
03/05/2005
03/06/2005
03/07/2005
03/08/2005
03/09/2005
03/10/2005
Berlin 14 nov 2008
Queensland University of Technology
+Repository +Incentive +Mandate
Green line: total annual output
Red line: proportion self-archived
1800
1600
1400
1200
Documents
1000 Documents
800
600 DEST-
400 reportable
200
0
24/ 05/ 2004
24/ 06/ 2004
24/ 07/ 2004
24/ 08/ 2004
24/ 09/ 2004
24/ 10/ 2004
24/ 11/ 2004
24/ 12/ 2004
24/ 01/ 2005
24/ 02/ 2005
24/ 03/ 2005
24/ 04/ 2005
24/ 05/ 2005
24/ 06/ 2005
24/ 07/ 2005
24/ 08/ 2005
24/ 09/ 2005
Data courtesy of Arthur Sale
Berlin 14 nov 2008
Many Repositories
but few deposits
because deposit mandates are still few:
700
600 Actual
500
400
300
200
documents
DEST
15% of annual 2.5
100 publication
0
Jun- Jul- A S Oct- N
04 04
D Jan- F
04 04 ug- ep- 04 ov- ec- 05 eb- ar- 05 ay- 05
04 04
M Apr- M Jun-
05 05 05
s
million articles