On the Verge of Revolution - Open-access Publishing
Jinfo Blog

30th June 2006

By Christine Hamilton-Pennell

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Online technology has revolutionised how scholars communicate with each other. It is also changing how publishers do business. Those of us who rely on published papers as information sources, submit scholarly papers for publication, or have other interests in the economies and trends of publishing, can't afford to remain in the dark about how online technology affects both content and its availability.

But there's good company in the dark: So many new variations of scholarly online publications are now in the marketplace that it can be extremely challenging to understand the distinguishing characteristics. Yet part of our job as information professionals is to understand, to make good choices and to provide sound advice to others on how and when to rely on each form.

What's online?

Online isn't what it used to be, back in the days when it was news to have access to scholarship via online databases. Today, 'online' can mean library databases like ProQuest, or it can mean an open-to-all web-based publication; it can mean a subscription-based web publication, or it can mean the web-based subset of a printed journal. With the widespread adoption of web-based publishing of various kinds, the definition of 'online' has become less specific.

Most commercial and professional society publishers now provide some form of online access to their journals, usually through online subscriptions. Many journal websites offer limited free content as well (usually tables of contents and abstracts). Publishers frequently license their content to online library databases such as ProQuest or EBSCOhost, or partner with services such as HighWire Press, which produces the online versions of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly content.

Online scholarly publishing is definitely in flux, and it's not yet clear which digital models will survive the shake-out. But one online development arguably holds the greatest potential for revolutionising scholarly publishing: the push for free and open access to scholarship and research.

What is open access?

According to Peter Suber, open access project director at Public Knowledge, a public-interest advocacy group in Washington D.C. focusing on information policy: "Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes it possible is the interest and the consent of the author or copyright holder" [1].

In the open-access model, authors retain copyright to their scholarly works but must bear more of the costs of disseminating it.

Open-access publishing was developed in response to spiralling journal subscription costs and the need for free and immediate access to research results in scientific, technical and medical fields. The library community has embraced the open-access concept through initiatives such as the Association of Research Library's Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and support of repositories such as BioMed Central [2].

The publication costs for OA literature shift from the user (subscriber) to the content producer (author). In other words, OA journals charge fees for dissemination of the content, not access to it, as in the traditional subscription models [3]. The two primary delivery vehicles are OA archives or repositories and OA Journals:

• OA archives contain un-refereed preprints or refereed postprints, but do not offer peer review. The archives typically belong to either universities or disciplines (for example, ArXiv.org <http://arxiv.org/> for physics), and there are negligible costs to maintain them.
  
  
• OA journals are peer-reviewed electronic publications that involve editors and reviewers in much the same way as traditional print journals. The essential costs of producing the journal are recouped through author fees [usually US$500 (approximately GBP270) to US$2000 (approximately GBP1090)] or sponsorships from universities or professional societies. Educational institutions may pay the publishing (dissemination) fees, and these charges are usually reduced or waived for authors in transitional countries [4].
  
  

Economic impact

Commercial publishers, as well as professional societies, are concerned about the move toward open-access publishing. They believe it leads to an untenable business model that threatens the viability of niche journals. Nevertheless, they recognise that OA is here to stay, and may even become the dominant scholarly publishing model [5]. They are experimenting with different business models, including online subscriptions offering free access to content after an embargo period (usually two to twelve months).

Since there are no costs incurred for licensing, rights management or subscription administration, it should theoretically cost less to produce an open-access journal than its traditional counterpart. But a study of the economic impact of open access shows that it is too early to tell whether full open access will be a viable business model. Most full OA journals are not generating surpluses and most depend on revenues from grants, authors, and institutions and on volunteer labour [6].

For commercial publishers, the changes associated with online publishing in general are having a greater influence on their operations than the OA movement, but it has definitely had an impact [7]. Scholarly societies often support the concept of OA but are concerned about the loss of subscription revenues that support their other activities [8]. The Medical Library Association studied the impact of providing open access to its journal and found that revenue from subscriptions dropped sharply after its introduction. On the positive side, OA did not affect the number of association members and actually increased the readership and reach of the journal [9].

Quality control

Questions have been raised about the quality of articles published in open-access journals, since many more articles can be published online than in print journals, and authors can self-publish. In point of fact, serious e-journals perform quality checks, and most commentators see no reason why the traditional refereeing system with editorial boards can't be used in the online environment. The quality of content in scholarly journals is more a function of the quality control system in place than the publishing medium [10].

Some proponents of open access have argued that, in reality, the traditional peer review and publication process has not assured quality control or 'efficient scientific exchange' [11]. Much important information probably gets lost in the process because it is essentially a thumbs-up or thumbs-down approach that rejects the majority of submissions [12]. Instead, open access allows for a variety of new forms of quality control [13]:

• Open peer review offers a general debate about a manuscript
  
  
• Mixed systems allow a combination of open and anonymous peer review
  
  
• Different levels of quality control and refereeing standards can be used for different types of papers
  
  
• Labelling can indicate the level of quality control or screening a manuscript has received
  
  
• Ex-post quality control allows for correcting errors, attaching reader comments and ratings, and better citation and use-tracking calculations
  
  

In short, open access has the potential to revolutionise the current peer review system by allowing it to become 'a multi-dimensional communicative process', instead of a unidirectional activity [14].

Future trends in OA

In the scientific, technical and medical fields, there have been several recent initiatives to make the results of publicly funded research freely available online. These include repositories such as BioMed Central <http://www.biomedcentral.com/> and the Public Library of Science <http://www.plos.org/>. In 2005 the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) requested that its grantees upload manuscripts to an online repository no later than 12 months after publication. Unfortunately, researchers have been slow to comply. A year after this voluntary policy took effect, NIH estimated that fewer than 4 per cent of eligible manuscripts were uploaded, and there is now a push toward a mandatory policy [15].

National legislation has been introduced in the United States that would require every federal agency that sponsors more than $100 million annually in research (a total of 11 agencies) to establish an online repository and make its grantees deposit articles within six months of publication [16]. There is also increasing pressure from outside the U.S., particularly in the European Union, to have mandatory posting of publicly sponsored research in centralised, free online repositories [17]. A European Commission report released in April 2006 urged European agencies funding scientific research to guarantee open access to research outputs [18]. Research Councils UK (RCUK), the umbrella group for Britain's research councils, is still working on its own policy a year after releasing a draft policy on open access that would have required scientists funded by the research councils to deposit papers in an online repository. The report was welcomed by supporters of open access but generated hostility among some commercial journal publishers and professional societies. RCUK has been involved in ongoing discussions with publishers, scientists, government departments and other groups in an attempt to refine its position [19].

There is no question that these worldwide movements toward open access are putting pressure on commercial and professional society publishers. It is still too early to determine what direction these developments will lead.

Some commentators predict that open access will inevitably become the norm for scholarly communication, and that 'once a critical mass of scholars publishes in open-access journals, their colleagues will follow' [20]. They envision an all-electronic, unified publication archive for all pre-prints and refereed papers that provides for different levels of quality control review and labelling [21].

Others in the scholarly community, particularly those in the humanities and social sciences, see a different scenario. They believe that for the foreseeable future, print and electronic journals will coexist in a complementary fashion. Print journals are still the preferred scholarly publishing format in many of those fields. 'Economic and functionality concerns are pushing scholarly journals toward electronic media, while traditional views of the prestige and importance of publication for the advancement process act as a counterforce' [22].

Staying on top of change

By giving 'teeth' to the legislation for adding content to OA repositories, we will certainly see an increase in materials available through OA in the United States and European Union; other regions may soon follow suit. In the meantime, researchers, authors and users of information from scholarly publications should ask the following questions when evaluating an information source or publication outlet:

• Is the publication an unrefereed preprint or has it undergone some form of quality review? Repositories of preprints allow access to the literature at a much earlier stage, but peers may not yet have vetted it.
  
  
• What form of quality control does the publication employ to scrutinise the content of papers that are submitted? Most quality journals -- both print and online -- still use a formal review process involving an editor and peer reviewers or an editorial board to review content.
  
  
• Do the peer reviewers or editorial board comprise noted scholars in the field? When evaluating the validity of content, it's important to know the expertise of those who have reviewed it. It's especially helpful if reviewer comments are included along with the paper.
  
  
• Which version of the paper are you accessing? Because many OA sites provide access to revisions and different versions of a paper, it's important to know which version you are viewing, and whether revisions or corrections have been made at a later date.
  
  
• What organisation or institution has sponsored the OA publication or archive? If an OA journal is not sponsored by a university, learned society or government research agency, it's especially important to review the credentials of the editor.
  
  

Read more about open access

For more information about open-access publishing, check out these resources:

Directorate-General for Research, European Commission, Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publishing Markets in Europe, 2006 <http://digbig.com/4hrnh>.

"Framing the Issue: Open Access." Association of Research Libraries <http://www.arl.org/scomm/open_access/framing.html>.

Kaufman-Wills Group, The Facts about Open Access: A Study of the Financial and Non-Financial Effects of Alternative Business Models for Scholarly Journals. Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (2005) <http://www.alpsp.org/publications/pub11.htm>.

"Open Access." Denison Update 4, Special Issue (2004) <http://denison.uchsc.edu/newsletter/issues/updatespecial04.html>.

Richardson, Martin. "Assessing the Impact of Open Access: Preliminary Findings from Oxford Journals," (2006) <http://www.oxfordjournals.org/news/oa_report.pdf>.

Suber, Peter. "Open Access Overview," (2006) <http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm>.

Willinsky, John. The Access Principle: The Case for Open Access to Research and Scholarship. MIT, 2006.

References

[1] Peter Suber, "A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access," <http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/brief.htm>. Accessed 5/8/06.

[2] Marcus Banks, "Connections Between Open Access Publishing and Access to Gray Literature," Journal of the Medical Library Association 92, no. 2 (April 2004), 164.

[3] Donald T. Hawkins, "Does Open Access Publishing Really Work in Practice?" Information Today 22, no. 1 (January 2005), 40.

[4] "Open Access: The Facts," World Summit on the Information Society, <http://www.wsis-si.org/>. Accessed 5/23/06.

[5] Hawkins, 40.

[6] Kaufman-Wills Group, The Facts about Open Access: A Study of the Financial and Non-Financial Effects of Alternative Business Models for Scholarly Journals, Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (2005), 24-25, accessed 7/4/06, 24-25 <http://www.alpsp.org/publications/pub11.htm>.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Banks, 164.

[9] T. Scott Plutchak, "The Impact of Open Access," Journal of the Medical Library Association 93, no. 4 (October 2005), 419.

[10] Michael Nentwich, "Quality Control in Academic Publishing: Challenges in the Age of Cyberspace," Poiesis & Praxis 3, no. 3 (July 2005), 192.

[11] Ulrich Poschl, "Interactive Journal Concept for Improved Scientific Publishing and Quality Assurance," Learned Publishing 17, no. 2 (April 2004), 105.

[12] Nentwich, 192.

[13] Ibid, 184-189.

[14] Ibid, 193.

[15] Lila Guterman, "NIH Has Little to Celebrate on 1st Anniversary of Its Open-Access Policy, but Changes May Be on the Way," Chronicle of Higher Education (May 11, 2006), <http://chronicle.com/>, accessed 5/16/06.

[16] Sara Ivry, "Some Publishers of Scholarly Journals Dislike Bill to Require Online Access to Articles," The New York Times (May 8, 2006), <http://www.nytimes.com>, accessed 5/8/06.

[17] Guterman.

[18] Stephen Pincock, "Will the EU Beat UK in Open Access?" The Scientist (April 21, 2006), accessed 7/4/06. <http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23341/>,

[19] Ibid.

[20] Banks, 164-165.

[21] Nentwich, 196; Miller and Harris, 88-89.

[22] Jordan J. Ballor, "Scholarship at the Crossroads: The Journal of Markets & Morality Case Study," Journal of Scholarly Publishing 36, no. 3 (April 2005), 161.

The research for this article was used with the permission of the University of Colorado.

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