The Current Status of Open Access

in Japan

Syun TUTIYA

National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation

At GRC Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting, November 18, 2013

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7 points to report today

1.  JST’s open access policy for publications from funded research

2.  MEXT’s mandate for open access to PhD theses online

3.  Growth of open access institutional repositories from the bottom up

4.  Open access to local language(= Japanese) scholarly publications by way of free open access platforms

5.  Support for open access journal publishing

6.  Japanese scientists’ articles in open access journals

7.  Contributions to international collaboration 2

Open access: Backgrounds in Japan

u  Open access to achievements of scholarly and scientific research has been among global concerns in the 21st century from the view points of:

- rapid development of computer and network technology - financial sustainability of scholarly communication

u  The 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan (FY2011-FY2015) of Japan states the promotion of open access mentioned the importance of open access

u  In 2012, the MEXT Working Group issued

“Infrastructure Development for Strengthening the Capacity of International Scholarly Communication” - Institutional repositories as basic infrastructure of scholarly communicaiton and support for open access journals 3

Open access policy of JST

u JST reminds JST-funded researchers that they have two channels to be openly-accessed.

u Using the institutional repositories, as recommended by the national policy, JST will propose this open access with the provision of the need for the explicit consent of journal publishers and the embargo, and will clearly state the above in the application instructions.

(The embargo period is supposed to be no longer than 1 year, and the paper contents to be made public should be as per the Author's final manuscript and so on.)

u It will also be possible to implement open access by publishing papers in open access journals.

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JST announced its policy on open access to publications achieved by JST funded research projects. (Apr. 2013)

Profile�Mandated open occess to PhD theses by MEXT’s decree

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A person who has been conferred a doctor’s degree shall publicize the entire thesis on the Internet within one year on the Internet = through institutional

repositories of the institution

Key Point of the revision(Mar. 2013) �

Based on ETD2013 "The possibility of networked electronic theses in Japan“ http://lib.hku.hk/etd2013/programme.html

About 15000 PhDs are awarded each year in Japan, and all will be available open access from this year. NDL will preserve all theses harvested from institutional repositories of PhD awarding institutions.

Growth of institutional repositories

u  383 organizations have institutional repositories (incl. share IR) - covering most of universities with doctoral programs

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N um ber of organizations w ith IR

57102

145199

230 259

351383

0

100

200

300

400

2007/3/31 2008/3/31 2009/3/31 2010/3/31 2011/3/31 2012/3/31 2013/3/31 2013/9/30

source: NII IR statistic (http://www.nii.ac.jp/irp/archive/statistic/irp_2013_statistic.html)

No. of Univ. PhD awarding

Total 783 436

excerpted and modified from ETD2013 "The possibility of networked electronic theses in Japan“ http://lib.hku.hk/etd2013/programme.html

source: http://irdb.nii.ac.jp/analysis/index_e.php

Full text content

1,225,381

2008/03

2013/10

191,433

Institutional Repository in Japan�

Growth of institutional repositories

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In 2011, ca. 89,000 articles were published with Japanese authors. Out of them, 4,657 ( 5.2%) are available open access from repositories with 200,000 articles available altogether

2013 2012 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013

1M

Profile�Open access platforms: JST’s J-STAGE and NII’s CiNii

u J-STAGE - J-STAGE is a free-of-charge platform for society publlishers to

receive submissions, manage peer reviews, to publish their journals on line

- Through J-STAGE, 1439 out of 1655 registered journals are published toll free (as of Nov. 7, 2013).

- About 2.3 million, viz. about 95%, of the published articles, including retro-digitized print ones, are accessible free of charge

u CiNII - CiNII is a database service which can be searched for journal

articles published in Japan as well as books and journals in university libraries’ holdings, and provides access to full texts

- On CiNII, 1.2 million articles in 715 domesitic journals are available free of charge

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Profile�JSPS policy for promoting Open Access u  JSPS supports society publishers in publishing their

research achievements (e.g. in scientific journals) under its “Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research” Programs

u  In 2013, a new grant category “Strengthening International Scholarly Communication” (403.9M JPY in FY2013) added with old ones revised:

ü  Provide start-up funds for launching or converting to open access journals

ü  Allocate separate funds for publication of journals in English ü  Introduce criteria for “measures with which to strengthen

international scholarly communication” in review process

u FY2013: supported 31 projects for publishing open access journals (including SPACE AND GEOSPHERE, Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Cancer Science, etc.), with 298M JPY 9

Japanese contributions to OA journals

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Courtesy of Asia-Pacific, NPG

Ø In case of the Scientific Reports, Japan is contributing relatively high, next to the US and China.

Profile�Collaboration with international projects

u arXiv.org Ø  A highly-automated electronic archive and distribution server for research articles Ø  In Japan, in response to NII call, following 14 institutions are registered as a

supporting member for arXiv.org. University of Tokyo Kyoto University Osaka University Nagoya University KEK High Energy Accelerator Research Organization RIKEN Tokyo Institute of Technology National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Waseda University University of Tsukuba Kyushu University Hokkaido University Tokyo University of Science Library Hiroshima University

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Profile�Collaboration with international projects

u SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics)

Ø  A consortium facilitates Open Access publishing in High Energy Physics by re-directing subscription money

Ø  Based on the proposal from CERN, KEK, CCJUL (Coordinating Committee for Japanese University Libraries) and NII signed EoI (Expression of Interest). Concerning organizations are now discussing a possible financial support.

Ø  From January 2014, 10 OA journal will be launched.

u COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) Ø  An association whose core mission is to enhance greater visibility and application

of research outputs through global networks of Open Access digital repositories Ø  DRF (Digital Repository Federation) is playing a central role in developing

domestic institutional repositories. DRF is one of the founding members of COAR and has been participating in its activities through working groups.

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Collaboration with international projects

u OAW (Open Access Week) Ø  An annual scholarly communication event focusing on open access and related

topics Ø  Since 2003, the International Scholarly Communication Initiative (SPARC Japan)

has been implemented by NII as a project to strengthen the electronic journals of the scholarly publications of Japan’s academic societies. In collaboration with other international initiatives, i.e. SPARC US and SPARC Europe, it is working on the promotion of open access including OAW activities.

u ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID)

Ø  An international initiative offering an open and independent registry for author identification in science and academic publishing

Ø  From Japan, NII is registered as a sponsor while JST and Atlas Co., Ltd. are participating in ORCID as a member.

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Profile�Prospects (personal) u More positive mandating? - Given US OSTP Directive, FASTER and FIRST, how about others? - Can researchers be convinced? (No, but hita-hita, is Japanese answer) u  Research assessment / evaluation - emerging methodologies using openly accessible information (e.g.

altmetrics) , as citation stats are too slow for funders to use in deciding on which project to fund

u  Asian as opposed to European / North American backgrounds - Open access publishing is the only method left for us, with library money

dried up worldwide 　　- How could we deal with the coming drastic increase of articles from Asia,

where little if any scholarly communication infrastructure is implemented ? u  Realistic, i.e. budget, constraints - Someone has to pay, but who is going to pay? - NII plans a survey targeting researchers on their “willingness” to pay

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Profile�Prospects (personal) u More positive mandating?

-  Given US OSTP Directive, FASTER and FIRST, how about others?

-  Can researchers be convinced? (No, but hita-hita is Japanese answer)

u  Research assessment / evaluation -  Emerging methodologies using openly accessible information (e.g. altmetrics) as

citation stats are too slow for funders to use in deciding on which project to fund

-  Quality of open access articles and journals apparently in question

u  Asian as opposed to European / North American backgrounds -  Open access publishing is the only method left for us, with library money dried

up worldwide

-  How could we deal with the coming drastic increase of articles from Asia, where

little if any scholarly communication infrastructure is implemented ?

u  Realistic, i.e. budget, constraints -  Someone has to pay, but who is going to pay?

-  NII plans a survey targeting researchers on their “willingness” to pay 15