Which Open Access Future Do We Want?, Tom Mowlam

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Which Open Access Future Do We Want?

Meeting Place Open Access Stockholm, 26 April 2016


Two possible OA futures

1. The status quo continues

2. The community takes control


The status quo is good for legacy publishers

• Higher than average profit margins

• Large publishers are getting even larger

• 6% of publishers control 90% of articles


OA is growing, but on the legacy publishers’ terms

• Avg legacy publisher APC: $2,100 / €1,900

• Too high for most of HSS

• Price is based on what the market will stand, not added value

• Legacy publishers say they are pro-OA, but systematically lobby against it


Research Works Act (H.R. 3699)

• Massive international outcry, especially from researchers

• Contained provisions to prohibit open-access mandates for federally funded research

• Congress members who introduced the act ‘motivated by large donations by the academic publisher X’



Amid boycott, X backtracks on research bill Journal publisher still opposes current U.S. rules mandating access to taxpayer-funded research CBC News Posted: Feb 27, 2012 One of the largest academic publishers in the world withdrew its support Monday from a controversial U.S. bill, the Research Works Act, that critics feel would restrict public access to published, publicly-funded research. The change of heart by Dutch publisher X follows a boycott of its journals and publishing ventures by thousands of researchers around the world.


So not all growth in OA is ideal

Source: http://sciforum.net/statistics/papers-published-per-year


Why is open access (and open science) important?


The Social Contract of Science / Research

• Validation

• Dissemination

• Further development

Scientific Malpractice

• Data • Results

• Software • Hardware, wetware…

#@%$#@% #@%$#

Source: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2015



Source: Washington Post, May 7 2013 / Imgur: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/07/map-more-than-half-of-humanity-lives-within-this-circle/


Source: Nature News, 20 April 2011, DOI: 10.1038/472276a



What does the alternative OA future look like?


This future is not what legacy publishers want it to be

• it’s more than books and journals

• It’s open science

• It’s all forms of communication

• It’s unrestricted and collaborative


This future is not what legacy publishers want it to be

• It’s truly global, not a north-south hierarchy

• It’s philanthropic, because that’s what science and open access are

• It’s cost-effective and efficient


How do we construct this future?


Wider research community initiatives

• Content propagation: Scihub

• Publisher evaluation: DOAJ, OASPA, Quality Open Access Market

• Collaborative authoring: Authorea, Overleaf

• Open source publishing platfoms: PKP, Collaborative Knowledge Foundation (CKF)

• Funder mandates: Wellcome Trust, NIH, FP7, Horizon2020, UK Research Councils


Initiatives UP is involved in

• Rua: open source book management platform

• The Ubiquity Partner Network

• Open Library of the Humanities

• FutureTDM: promoting text and data mining in the EU

• LingOA

• INASP JOLs • University Presses




http://www.luminosoa.org


Support from over 140 libraries 2015: 7 journals

2016: 11 journals

Cost per institution per article: ~$4

Funding from:





In summary • OA publishing is currently on the legacy

publishers’ terms, but these terms are not acceptable

• There are a lot of OA and open science initiatives in the research community

• The UPN is an example of pulling a large number of these initiatives together to increase the chances of large scale disruption

• This is working and points the way to a viable alternative, cooperative and fair future


Thank you! Any questions?

Or contact: [email protected]

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Which Open Access Future Do We Want?, Tom Mowlam