SCOAP3 Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics

Anne Gentil-BeccotCERN Library scoap3.org

National Technical LibraryPrague, 23 October, 2009

scoap3.org

•High Energy physics•A conundrum•The SCOAP3 model•Fund-raising

High-Energy Physics (or Particle Physics)

High-Energy Physics (or Particle Physics)

"What is the world made of?” & "What holds it together?”

HEP aims to understand how our Universe works:— discover the constituents of matter and energy— understand their interactions— unveil the ultimate texture of space and time

Experimental HEP builds the largest scientific instruments ever to reach energy densities close to the Big Bang (Half of the community, 20% of literature)

Theoretical HEP predicts and interprets the observed phenomena (Half of the community, 80% of literature)

CERN: European Organization for Nuclear Research (since 1954)

• World leading HEP laboratory, Geneva (CH)• 2500 staff (mostly engineers,administrators/services)• 10000 visitors (physicists from 580 institutes in 85 countries)• Ready to start 27km (6bn€) LHC “big-bang machine”

• Invented the web• CERN convention, 1953: “… the results of its experimental and theoretical work shall be published or otherwise made generally available”

• Four 2500-strong teams fully committed to OA• Seminal articles describing LHC construction OA in SISSA/IOPp Journal of Instrumentation– 7 articles/1600 pages/8000 authors. 60’000+ downloads/2 months

The HEP “preprint culture”L.Goldschmidt-Clermont, 1965, http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00000445/02/communication_patterns.pdf

• Scientific journals of ‘60s too slow for HEP• Mass-mail preprints to institutes worldwide• Ante litteram (institute-pays) Open Access• CERN library starts index and display preprints• Leading research libraries “serve” preprints

• The community creates its tools: • SPIRES (1974), bibliographic database in HEP, became first www server - jointly managed by SLAC, DESY, Fermilab

• arXiv (1991), preprint repository in Physics

CERN Library, circa 1960

scoap3.org

•High Energy Physics•A conundrum•The SCOAP3 model•Fund-raising

•0.1%

•97%

•5

•<10%

Some numbers...

HEP scientists searching on publishers’ sites

Where do HEP scientists get their info?

• Survey of 2’000+ scientists (10% of community)

• Library/community answers to info needs

• Google as proxy of arXiv, SPIRES, publishers

Gentil-Beccot et al. arxiv:0804.2701

•0.1%

•97%

•5

•<10%

Some numbers...

HEP scientists searching on publishers’ sites HEP journals’ content freely available on arXiv

97% of HEP journals’ content is in arXiv

•0.1%

•97%

•5

•<10%

Some numbers...

HEP scientists searching on publishers’ sites

HEP journals’ content freely available on arXiv

Citation advantage of green OA in HEP

• SPIRES counts: citations to/from preprints/articles

• Citation peak before publications and 5 times higher

• Scientific discourse proceeds on discipline repository

Citation acceleration

•0.1%

•97%

•5

•<10%

Some numbers...

HEP scientists searching on publishers’ sites

HEP journals’ content freely available on arXiv

Citation advantage of green OA in HEP

HEP scientists reading HEP journals

(As many scientists as analyzed here go straight to arXiv)

arXiv 82%

Publisher server 18%

∼30,000 clicks (choice between arXiv and journal)

Do HEP scientists read journals ?Gentil-Beccot et al. arxiv:0906.5418

HEP and its 6-8 journals: a conundrum

• Scientists do not read journals, they read arXiv

• But journals are essential to the community

• Independent peer-review

• Officialdom, evaluation of researchers / career

• Libraries’ subscriptions implicitly support the peer-review system rather than buying access

scoap3.org

•Who are we?•A conundrum•The SCOAP3 model•Fund-raising

The SCOAP3 Model Sponsoring Consortium for

Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics

A consortium sponsors HEP publications and makes them

Open Access by re-directing subscription money.Today: (funding bodies through) libraries

purchase journal subscriptions to (indirectly) support the peer-review service and to allow their users to read articles.

Tomorrow: funding bodies and libraries contribute to the SCOAP3 consortium, which pays centrally for the organization of the peer-review service, through a call for tender. Articles are free to read for everyone.

The HEP publishing landscape

•80% of articles published in 5 leading journals by 4 publishers•These would be the initial SCOAP3 partners

SCOAP3 is not limited to any set of journals but open to all high-quality HEP journals!

Source: SPIRES, 2006

scoap3.org

•Who are we?•A conundrum•The SCOAP3 model•Fund-raising

How much will it cost? No more than we spend

today!• Worldwide budget envelope:

Today learned society prices—JHEP ~1M€ for 20% of HEP —APS ~2000$/article

5000-7000 articles/year in 6-8 journals

• Total: 10M€/year

SCOAP3 fundingFair-share: contribute as per peer-

review usage

J. Krause et al. CERN-OPEN-2007-014

Czech republic: 0.3%

International consensus

•Only viable if every country is on board!•Go beyond majority and well-wishing•Success through consensus and unanimity•Not a weakness, but a strength!

How far are we?65% of the SCOAP3 budget envelope pledged by

libraries, consortia and founders worldwideAustria

BelgiumCERNDenmarkFranceFinlandGermanyGreeceHungary

Australia

Canada>150 U.S. libraries (75%)

ItalyNetherlandsNorwayRomaniaSlovakiaSwedenSwitzerlandSpainJISC (UK)

Israel, Turkey

6.5M€(65%)

3.5M€(35%)

How do we build it?Three steps in sequence1. Libraries and consortia worldwide sign

Expression of Interest to re-direct subscriptions to SCOAP3

• Library by library in the U.S.• Nationwide (consortia) elsewhere

2. Establish an international Governing Board3. Issue a Call for Tender towards the publishers

Founding CERN, 1953

SCOAP3 Expression of Interest

Letter of intent gauging partners’ interest

Pledge re-direct HEP subscriptions to SCOAP3 (conditional on publishers’ positive response)

Not yet a commitment to pay Indispensable for moving forward

How do we build it?Three steps in sequence1. Libraries and consortia worldwide sign

Expression of Interest to re-direct subscriptions to SCOAP3

• Library by library in the U.S.• Nationwide (consortia) elsewhere

2. Establish an international Governing Board3. Issue a Call for Tender towards the publishers

Founding CERN, 1953

How do we build it?Three steps in sequence1. Libraries and consortia worldwide sign

Expression of Interest to re-direct subscriptions to SCOAP3

• Library by library in the U.S.• Nationwide (consortia) elsewhere

2. Establish an international Governing Board3. Issue a Call for Tender towards the publishers

Founding CERN, 1953

SCOAP3 Call for Tender• Request price-per-article for peer-review & OA— OA conditions

Irreversible OA Author rights Push into repositories

— Financial conditions: Unbundling of journal packages Reduction of subscription prices No double payment

Novelties of SCOAP3• No additional expenses for OA article fees for anyone: authors, libraries, founders

• Discipline-wide re-direction of subscriptions

• Transparently provide scientists with: Academic freedom, quality and prestige, OA.

• Link price and quality through the call for tender

• Correlate volume and price through contracts

• Tackle yearly subscription price increases

Recent Open Access developments in HEP

While waiting for SCOAP3 to become operational publishers offer some no fee Open Access solutions! – Springer: experimental HEP articles and letters in Eur. Phys. Jour. C

– EPS: HEP articles in Europhys. Lett.– Elsevier: HEP articles from the LHC– (In addition, SISSA/IOPp institutional membership implies 20% HEP is OA)

SCOAP3: opportunity for change!

•Libraries can make Open Access happen !

•Anticipate expectations of scientists

•Generate change in Scholarly Communication

•Let’s now act in Czech Republic, too!

Thank you!

Anne.Gentil-Beccot@cern.ch

http://scoap3.org

Background Material

The HEP publishing landscape

•5000-7000 HEP articles/year, according to definition of HEP•Practically all articles available as arXiv.org OA pre/post-prints•90% of articles are in theory •80% of articles published in 6 leading journals by 4 publishers•62% of articles by not-for-profit (nor-for-loss) publishers

SCOAP3 is not limited to any set of journals but open to all high-quality HEP journals!

Source: SPIRES, 2006

U.S. and European HEP journals

Study of 11326 HEP articles published in 2005-2006 in PRD,JHEP,PLB,NPB,EPJC,PRL and NIMA

Krause et al. CERN-OPEN-2007-014

OA solutions in HEP must be geographically global, in the same way

HEP research is a global endeavor

Origin of articles in U.S. journals

Origin of articles in E.U. journals

QuickTime_ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

arXiv.org the archetypal repository

• P. Ginsparg, LANL, 1991. Now Cornell Library

• E-mail based, then immediately on the web

• No mandate, no debate, author-driven

• 1/2 Million preprints. Growing beyond HEP

http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_03/Lectures/Colloquium/presentations/090506Ginsparg.pdf

Evolving publication habits Source: SPIRES

Phases of stability alternated with fast growth/decline

N.B. Only articles which appeared in the six largest HEP journals are considered.

Open Access business models in HEP

Hybrid model: Per-article OA fee on top of subscriptions

• Negligible success in HEP. Author FAQ: why pay something (peer-review) you can get for free (the library pays subscriptions)

SPONSOREDARTICLE

Author-pays: No subscriptions. Authors (institutions) pay per-article journals processing fees

• Model in its infancy in HEP. Author FAQ: why pay something you can get for free elsewhere (the library pays subscriptions)

Institutional membership: for a (small) fee in addition to subscriptions, all articles with at least one author from the institution are OA– Leading laboratories and the entire France trying this scheme.

– Authors like OA without financial barriers in high-IF journals

(<<1%)

(<<1%)

(~4%)

(and percentage of HEP literature)

Community support for OA publishing

• LHC scientists (8000 scientists from 54 countries, 1000 US faculty) strong position on OA: "We strongly encourage the usage of electronic publishing methods for our publications and support the principles of Open Access Publishing, which includes granting free access of our publications to all. Furthermore, we encourage all our members to publish papers in easily accessible journals, following the principles of the Open Access Paradigm."

• Seminal articles describing construction of LHC are published OA in SISSA/IOPp Journal of Instrumentation– 7 articles/1600 pages/8000 authors. Large-scale OA publishing operation

– 60’000+ downloads from journal site in two months!

• 3000-scientists CMS collaboration at LHC votes to “privilege SCOAP3-friendly journals” for its articles

Recent Open Access developments in HEP

While waiting for SCOAP3 to become operational publishers offer some no fee Open Access solutions! – Springer: experimental HEP articles and letters in Eur. Phys. Jour. C

– EPS: HEP articles in Europhys. Lett.– Elsevier: HEP articles from the LHC– (In addition, SISSA/IOPp institutional membership implies 20% HEP is OA)

Practicalities and budget envelope

• Physical Review D (APS) income ~3.9M$/year (31% of arXiv:hep)

• Journal of High Energy Physics (SISSA/IOP) income~1.3M$/year (19% of arXiv:hep)

• A published PRD article costs APS ~2000$

• 6-8 journals publish 5000-7000 articles/year

HEP Open Access price tag: 14M$/year

Guesstimating the costs...

•Five “core” journals: PRD, JHEP, PLB, NPB, EPJC•Carry a majority of HEP content: aim to convert entirely to Open Access

• Two “broadband” journal: PRL, NIM•10%,25% and 50% HEP: conversion to Open Access of this fraction

• Other, lower-volume, high-quality HEP journals•conversion to Open Access of the HEP content

The SCOAP3 tender concept - 1

Publisher of Journal A

Publisher of Journal B

Publisher of Journal K

Publisher of Journal Z

...

...

?

?

?

?

1500 $

2500 $

2000 $

1800 $

SCOAP3

The SCOAP3 tender concept - 2

Journal K

Journal Z

...

...2000 $

1800 $

Quality K

Quality Z

Journal K

Journal A

Journal B

Journal C

...

...

Journal Z

1

2

13

26

3

Journal A

Journal B

1500 $

2500 $

Quality A

Quality B

Journal C 4000 $

Quality C

Rank by a combination of (high) quality and (low) price

The SCOAP3 tender concept - 3

Journal K

Journal A

Journal L

Journal R

...

2000 $

1500 $

2000 $

1800 $

Journal Z 1800 $

Journal F 4000 $

Journal Q 3000 $

Journal P 800 $

Journal W 5000 $

1300

2000

1000

1000

1000

300

200

50

100

2.6 Mln $

3.0 Mln $

2.0 Mln $

1.8 Mln $

1.8 Mln $

1.2 Mln $

0.6 Mln $

2.6 Mln $

5.6 Mln $

10.6 Mln $

12.4 Mln $

7.4 Mln $

8.6 Mln $

13.0 Mln $

Journal Price Volume Contract Expenditure

Ranked by (high) quality and

(low) price

... ...

Novelties of the SCOAP3 model

Converting an entire field by re-directing subscription funds avoids

“paying more for OA”

Number of articles

Expenditure

?

Time“Flipping” the entire volume avoids surprises!

SCOAP3 timelineFunding partners identify country-by-country schemes to re-

direct journal subscriptions to SCOAP3 and pledge their contribution to SCOAP3

Once a sizeable fraction of budget is pledged, reflecting the worldwide character of HEP and SCOAP3:

SCOAP3 will be formally established, with international governance

SCOAP3 can issue a tender to publishers

Publishers answer the tender agreeing to:Journal licence packages are un-bundled, the OA titles are removed

and subscription prices are reduced accordingly

In the case of long-term subscription contracts, publishers will be required to reimburse subscription costs pertaining to OA journals

SCOAP3 international governing board adjudicates contracts, taking into account journal quality and prices

Contracts with publisher are signed and funds are transferred to SCOAP3 which then pays publishers.

Aim to 3-year tendering cycle, with funding commitments in sliding windows