BioMed Central Blog
European Consultation on Scientific Information in the digital age
The European Commission (EC) has announced a consultation on ‘scientific information in the digital age’. The consultation is running until 9th September 2011 so if you’re as interested in open access and open data as we are then the EC wants to hear your opinion on the following issues:
- how scientific articles could become more accessible to researchers and society at large
- how research data can be made widely available and how it could be re-used
- how permanent access to digital content can be ensured and what barriers are preventing the preservation of scientific output
The EC is hoping to push
for improved knowledge circulation in the European research area and this
initiative is being spearheaded by Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Máire
Geoghegan-Quinn and Vice President for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes, who reiterated
the importance of open access in the following statement:
"The results of publicly funded research should be circulated as widely as possible as a matter of principle. The broad dissemination of knowledge, within the European Research Area and beyond, is a key driver of progress in research and innovation, and thus for jobs and growth in Europe. Our vision is Open Access to scientific information so that all of us benefit as much as possible from investments in science. To accelerate scientific progress, but also for education, for innovation and for other creative re-use. For the same reason we must preserve scientific records for future generations".
This Consultation will result in a Communication and a Recommendation on the access to and preservation of scientific literature, specifically with regards to research funded by the EU. Europe has always been a leader in scientific innovation and the EC feels that this is progress is aided by fast and easy access to scientific information, something that open access publishing contributes to greatly.
Posted by Kim West at 14:59 Comments (0)
EPSRC joins other major funding agencies with new open access policy
Earlier this month, the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) announced its ‘Policy on Access to
Research Outputs’, stating that all EPSRC-funded research must be published as
open access (OA) documents. From September 1st 2011, all research
must be published as either ‘Gold’ or ‘Green’ OA with the decision resting with
the author.
EPSRC joins numerous major funding agencies, such as the Wellcome Trust, NIH and NSF, in adopting an OA mandate. This policy has been adopted “in recognition of the need for increased availability and accessibility of publicly funded research findings.” Further information is available on their website.
Posted by Guy Melzack at 15:51 Comments (0)
Open access publishing: ten-fold increase in ten years
A new study into the growth of open access publishing has highlighted a ten-fold increase over the last decade. The average annual growth rate in the number of open access articles published is now over 30%, demonstrating the increasing appetite in the scientific community for peer-reviewed research to be freely available online.
The number of open access journals has also increased, on
average, 18% year-on-year over the same period. In comparison, there is a
reported 3.5% yearly
increase in the total number of peer reviewed journals with 7.7 % of all peer
reviewed journal articles coming from open access journals in 2009.
The study was conducted by a team of researchers from the HANKEN School of Economics and published in the journal PLoS One.
Posted by Guy Melzack at 12:20 Comments (0)
Open access vital for safeguarding UK scholarly research
A new commissioned report has recommended that
academic policymakers promote the adoption of gold-route open access publishing
to help increase access to scholarly journals.
Commissioned by Research Information Network (RIN), Research Libraries UK, the Wellcome Trust, the Publishing Research Consortium and the Joint Information Systems Committee, the report ‘Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications’ is the result of a wide-ranging consultation on the future of the scholarly publishing landscape with UK-based stakeholders including research funders, librarians and publishers.
The report, part of RIN's Transitions in Scholarly Communication portfolio, examines five different routes for achieving greater access to research articles, and scrutinizes the relative costs and benefits of each method. Its authors conclude that "gold open access" (i.e. open access journals such as those published by BioMed Central) offers the most attractive model for policymakers to pursue in order to increase access to research articles. Better sustainability, greater transparency of costs, and increased cost-effectiveness are all highlighted as key advantages of the open access publishing model for communicating the results of research in the UK.
RIN go on to suggest that the report shoul provide a basis for future discussion of the long-term goal of ensuring the widest possible dissemination of scholarly material and note that they hope that the recommendations provide a catalyst for the development of new approaches during the next five years.
Posted by Tara Cronin at 13:11 Comments (0)
Open Access Week 2010 - spread the word!
Open Access Week 2010 is just around the corner. Taking place between 18th-24th Oct, this global event aims to open the public’s eyes to the benefits of open access in scholarly publishing and its impact on scientific progress across disciplines and society as a whole.
BioMed Central will join in the Open Access Week celebrations due to take place across the 69 countries now registered on the Ning network.
Scheduled events include: Maximize the impact of your research - a lecture meeting, celebrating the 3rd anniversary of Otaru University of Commerce Repository (Japan) and Putting the Wisconsin Idea Online at the University of Wisconsin (USA) a seminar on the boundary-spanning implications of the internet
Open Access Week organizers, SPARC, have also set a global challenge in the run up to the week, asking the research community to report on the power of open access. Upload your stories, videos, blog posts or more to the Open Access Week website and show the world how OA has helped you to advance your research.
If you want to participate, the Open Access Directory (OAD) will provide a comprehensive database of all events running throughout the week. Event organizers can enter their details directly and share them with others, in true open access spirit.
It is encouraging to see so many developing countries participating in Open Access Week this year. To help increase awareness of open access in low-income nations, BioMed Central is hosting a two-day conference in Kenya to coincide with a sponsored shipment of refurbished PCs to Kenyatta University.
As always we will be attending the Berlin 8 Conference next month to discuss progress strategies, best practices, and future challenges for open access.
Our mascot, Gulliver, the open access turtle will be kept busy as he travels with us to conferences and visits universities, libraries and labs all over the world in a bid to bring research out of its shell.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 10:07 Comments (0)
Welcoming SpringerOpen - a new series of open access journals
Springer
Science+Business Media, BioMed Central's parent company and one of the world's largest
Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) publishers, today announced
a significant expansion of its open access publishing activity with the launch
of SpringerOpen (www.springeropen.com),
a new series of open access journals that will span all STM disciplines. Articles
published in SpringerOpen journals will be freely and immediately
accessible online, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
BioMed Central became part of Springer in 2008, and BioMed Central’s open access publishing expertise and technology is helping Springer to launch this new series of titles, which will extend the benefits of open access publishing to authors and readers across all disciplines. BioMed Central’s Open Access Membership scheme, offered to institutions, societies, funders and corporations, will be extended to include the SpringerOpen titles. Articles published in SpringerOpen journals will also be sent automatically to participating institutional repositories via BioMed Central's automated SWORD deposit mechanism.
The SpringerOpen journals will complement Springer's existing titles and BioMed Central’s growing portfolio of 200+ open access journals in medicine and life science. The first SpringerOpen journals, which will open for submissions shortly, are:
- Planetary Science
- Global Energy
- Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience
- Health Economics Review
- Journal of Mathematics in Industry
- Journal of Remanufacturing
- Environmental Sciences Europe
- Security and Intelligence Informatics
- Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Express
- Bulletin of Mathematical Sciences
- Gold Bulletin
- Psychology and Well-Being Research
It was also announced today that Springer has become a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publisher's Association (OASPA).
For the latest news about SpringerOpen, sign up for email updates via the SpringerOpen website or follow @SpringerOpen on Twitter.
BioMed Central is hugely excited by this collaboration with our Springer colleagues, which has potential to greatly extend the success of the open access publishing model, and we look forward to supporting the ongoing development of the SpringerOpen portfolio with continued evolution and improvement of our open access publishing platform, which is rapidly becoming the preferred choice for a wide range of scholarly and society journals.
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 20:20 Comments (1)
Planning financing for open access
Last week, Universities UK and JISC held a conference to educate senior university managers about the importance of open access to institutions, how to develop policies and plan financing.
A report presented at the conference demonstrates that a single large university could contribute around £3 million each year to the UK research community as a whole simply by sharing knowledge through a more open route.
Indeed, many UK universities and higher education colleges are already exploring open access, but the report suggests more could and should be done in the next five years to make open access the preferred route for publishing research. In turn, it is expected this will increase the competitiveness and creativity of the UK.
However the costs and benefits of an open access policy may well fall unequally across individual institutions. There may also be implications for institutional repository use, open access publication funds and open access policies.
To this end the Research Communications Strategy (University of Nottingham) is hosting a series of free workshops this summer. The series, led by consultant Alma Swan, is aimed at institutions' research support officers, financial modellers and repository managers or administrators. These events will take place in Glasgow, London, Birmingham and Leeds from 15-29 July.
More information about open access and central funds can be found on our website. We have also published case studies of institutions which have successfully implemented central funds, including the University of Nottingham.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 10:35 Comments (0)
Macha online - a guest post from Computer Aid
Computer Aid International's Stephen Campbell visited the community of Macha to see the impact of the Internet and the research it enables, on an African community.
You won't find the community of Macha on many maps. It's 50 miles from the nearest road in the Southern Province of Zambia, itself a land-locked southern African country - it's pretty much the last place you'd expect to find a community logged on to the Internet.
Taking advantage of a satellite link installed by John Hopkins University Malaria Research Institute, the LinkNet Cooperative (formed three years ago by the community and staffed by talented self-taught local youngsters, none of whom have graduated beyond grade 12) has established the largest wireless Mesh Network in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Wireless routers, similar to those used in homes in the UK, are used to spread a single internet connection across a wide area. This lowers costs enough to make internet connectivity affordable for homes, small businesses, schools and the local hospital and nurse training college.
By researching crop types, local farmers have already diversified - many have substituted part of their maize crop (a staple subsistence crop) with sunflower oil which generates vital cash in the local market. A small cash income for a family there sends children to school and can cover medical expenses for ill family members.
Doctors and nurses at the local hospital can seek advice on treating patients from specialists in the capital. Screening for malaria has improved thanks to the John Hopkins link and rates of malaria have dropped by 90%. Local people are using the internet for research to establish businesses whilst transaction costs for basic goods have reduced considerably.
The community has moved from net migration to cities, to net immigration from surrounding areas as income, healthcare, employment and small enterprise opportunities have increased beyond all recognition. Perhaps the biggest development, again driven by Internet-based research is the development of a bio-fuel, Jatropha, from scrub land on the edge of town. A fully-grown Jatropha tree can generate 1.5 kilos of fruit per year in this climate and, crucially, the crop times are compatible with the maize growing season - providing 400 farmers with a cash income initially and, longer term, a ready supply of fuel. The community expects to be self-sufficient in fuel inside three years.
There are thousands of communities like Macha across sub-Saharan Africa. Macha proves that access to information is the critical first ingredient in helping local communities to help themselves. We're proud to have the support of BioMed Central to help more and more projects like this.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 13:03 Comments (0)
The UK government has in recent years made significant amounts of government data openly available for reuse. They Work for You is an example of a website which creatively reuses data on UK parliamentary activity, and its parent organization, MySociety, has played an important role in encouraging the UK government towards opening up more data.
The latest development in UK government open data sharing is the launch of data.gov.uk, launched in beta test form last month , which “provides a single access point to over 2,500 central government datasets that have been made available for free re-use”.
Buried in the small print of this announcement is an important change, with significant implications for open access publishing in the UK. This change is the adoption of Creative Commons-compatible licensing for UK government open content.
Up until now, open data from the UK government was licensed via the Office of Public Sector Information’s ‘Click Use’ license scheme. The Click Use model required any potential users or distrubutors of the data to first request their own ‘Click Use’ license from the UK government website, in order to gain permission to reuse the data.
In contrast musicians, artists and other creators around the world who wish to share content openly while reserving some rights have increasingly standardized on the use of Creative Commons licenses, which do not require any such license request to be made.
BioMed Central, like many other open access publishers, uses the Creative Commons Attribution License, which requires only that the original version of the work should be correctly attributed when the work or any part of it is reused.
Until now, because work carried out by researchers at UK government agencies is often covered by ‘Crown Copyright’, and because Crown Copyright is legally distinct from the normal Copyright law, the applicability of Creative Commons licenses to such work has been in question. As a result, special license wording has in some cases been necessary for such articles published in BioMed Central journals, in order to indicate that they can be reused only under the ‘Click use’ scheme. This had the potential to cause delays for authors and confusion for readers.
The good news is that the announced intention of OPSI to move away from ‘Click Use’ licensing towards Creative Commons-compatible licensing over the coming months should entirely solve this problem, making life easier for all concerned.
It also provides an important precedent for dealing with similar challenges in other (rather arcane) areas of copyright law. For example, the World Health Organization and other supra-national bodies do not recognize national jurisdictions, which causes similar challenges for Creative Commons licensing to those caused by Crown Copyright, and requires similar workarounds via special-case license wording. BioMed Central is hopeful that a Creative Commons-compatible licensing scheme specifically designed for such supra-national bodies will soon resolve this and we are working with WHO and Creative Commons towards such a solution.
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 16:26 Comments (0)
BioMed Central has today submitted the following contribution to the US Office of Science and Technology Policy's Policy Forum on Public Access to Federally Funded Research:
(see also OASPA's contribution, also submitted today)
BioMed Central operates a commercially viable business as an open access publisher. Under our publishing model, the costs associated with research publication are covered by open access publication fees rather than by subscription revenue. We now publish over 200 online journals operating on this model. These journals go from strength to strength, and are highly ranked by journal citation metrics such as Impact Factor. Open access journals such as Genome Biology, Malaria Journal and BMC Systems Biology, to name just a few, are among the most highly-ranked journals in their respective fields.
The success of BioMed Central’s open access journals provides important evidence that immediate open access to the official and authoritative version of published research results is not only desirable but is also achievable and sustainable.
The success of the open access model is especially notable given that, until recently, in contrast to the substantial library budgets devoted to subscriptions to serials, there has been little funding explicitly allocated by academic institutions to cover open access publication fees. Authors have therefore had to make direct use of their research grant funding in order to publish in open access journals. The Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity is an important recent initiative, involving Harvard and other leading research universities, which seeks to address this disparity by providing central institutional funding support for open access journals. This can be expected to add to the already considerable momentum driving the growth of the open access publishing model.
BioMed Central supports both the goal of open access and the goal of ensuring that the value added by publishers is properly recompensed. In contrast to some of the contributors, we do not feel there is a need to ‘balance’ these two goals as we do not feel that they are in opposition.
As noted by other participants in this debate, the benefits resulting to the scientific community from open access to research are substantial. What may be less obvious is that open access need not threaten the role of STM publishers. The open access publishing model, in which publishers are paid directly for the service of publication, is proving in practice to be just as viable a business model than as the traditional model whereby publishers recover the costs associated with publication by taking exclusive rights and then selling access via subscriptions.
Given that there is a viable business model for publishing scholarly research that does not depend on restricting access, we do not feel that the US government needs to arbitrarily limit the extent and reach of its open access deposit requirements attached to its research funding. We therefore recommend that the mandatory Public Access Policy which has operated successfully with respect to National Institutes of Health funding since 2008, be extended to cover all federally funded research. We also recommend that consideration is given, over time, to reducing or eliminating the 12 month embargo period, because this embargo period covers the very period during which the results of research are most timely and valuable. Gradual reduction of the embargo period would provide a natural mechanism to encourage publishers to adopt business models compatible with open access, while avoiding disruptive upheaval.
About BioMed Central
BioMed Central (www.biomedcentral.com) is the world’s largest open access scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publisher. All research articles published by BioMed Central are peer reviewed and are made freely and permanently accessible online upon acceptance. In 2009, biomedical scientists from across the globe submitted over 29,000 research papers to BioMed Central’s 205 journals, a 30% increase over 2008.
Research articles published in BioMed Central’s journals are universally and freely accessible via the Internet without charge or any other barrier to access; articles are immediately deposited and permanently archived in multiple international archives (including PubMed Central) and authors retain copyright of their article, which can be freely distributed and reused under a Creative Commons as long as correct attribution is given.
Like many other open access publishers, BioMed Central’s business model is based on charging for the service that we provide. An article processing charge, levied at publication, covers the cost of publishing the article, including providing editorial tools, administering the peer review process, preparing the article for publication and developing and maintaining the journal website. As can be seen from the increase of submissions to open access journals year on year, a growing number of researchers are taking advantage of the funds available from funding bodies and institutions which are set aside to pay article processing charges. BioMed Central also operates a waiver policy to ensure that article processing charges are not an obstacle to publication for authors without sufficient funding. BioMed Central is a founding member of OASPA, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, which seeks to represent the growing number of open access publishers, and to encourage best practices amongst open access publishers.
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 17:59 Comments (0)
Presentation from Online Information 2009: Latest Developments in Open Access
Posted by Dane Brookes at 12:15 Comments (0)
Support solidifies for the U.S. Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPPA)
41 Nobel Laureates and scientists collaborated to show their support for FRPPA, by lobbying Congress thorough an open letter. The legislation seeks to enhance access to federally funded published research articles, ensuring they are made available in an online repository no later than 6 months after publication.
The bill will broaden the reach of scientific data for the benefit of researchers, companies and consumers alike. It is also hoped that the legislation will fuel innovation and entrepreneurship through increased dissemination of ideas, as well as raising the international profile of U.S. originated research.
The bill will bring the U.S. in line with many global research councils' public access policies as well as complementing the NIH public access policy. Furthermore the legislation would increase the accessibility of research for all higher education institutions regardless of size, propagating research to students who might not habitually have access.
Read the full letter to Congress here for a more detailed view.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 15:33 Comments (0)
National advocacy portals help spread the word about Open Access
The recently announced Open Access for Hong Kong portal, created by the Hong Kong Open Access Committee, is the latest in a series of such national OA advocacy portals which bring together information about the benefits of Open Access scholarly communication, focusing on the needs of academic researchers in a particular country.
These national Open Access portals now include:
- http://open-access.net (Germany)
- http://openaccess.hk (Hong Kong)
- http://openaccessjapan.com (Japan)
- http://openaccess.nl (Netherlands)
- http://openaccess.no (Norway)
- http://openaccess.se (Sweden)
Know of any more? Please let us know...
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 19:45 Comments (0)
Free Open Access Week webinar - 5 Open Access publishers in the spotlight for live Q&A session
There is still time to register for the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association's free Open Access Week Webinar, which is taking place at 5pm UK time, on Tuesday October 20th.
The panel session includes representatives from BioMed Central and Public Library of Science, AOSIS (an African open access publisher), Igitur (a Dutch university press), and Nature Publishing Group (which has recently announced several open access initiatives). There will be live Q&A, so this is an excellent chance for researchers, authors, editors, librarians and other interested parties to find out more about what open access publishers are planning, and to seek answers to any burning questions about open access journals.
To register for the webcast and reserve a place, just email info@oaspa.org with the subject line: OASPA Webinar.
Posted by Matthew Cockerill at 16:21 Comments (0)
Get involved with Open Access Week 19th – 23rd October 2009
Building on the success of last year's Open Access Day, October 19th-23rd will see the first international Week. The aim of Open Access Week is to help spread the word and broaden awareness of open access around the world. Last year 120 organisations in 27 countries promoted open access through a range of events, this year closer to 200 organisations will be taking part.
BioMed Central will be participating in the following events during the week:
OASPA Webinar: Live Q&A Sessions with five types of OA Publishers
Featuring representatives from five very different publishers, the webinarill discuss how open access publishing works in practice. Attendance is free, but advance registration is required as the number of participants is limited.
Date: Tuesday 20th October 17:00 - 18:30 BST
The 5th SPARC Japan Seminar
This event will include presentations from Charlotte Hubbard of BioMed Central concerning open access and Prof. Shin Tochinai of Hokkaido University regarding researcher's attitudes to open access.
Date: Tuesday, 20th October, 13:30 - 17.00 JST
Location: National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Conference: Open Access Cambridge
The event will explore different perspectives on open access, bringing together representatives from the research community, the publishing sector and from a learned society.
Date: Wednesday, 21st October, 14:00 - 17:00 GMT
Location: University of Cambridge, UK
To see what is planned for your region or for further information on how to participate in Open Access Week visit the Open Access Directory wiki. Additional resources are also available on the Open Access Week website including handouts of what Faculty, Librarians, Universities and Administrators and Research Funders can do to promote open access.
We hope to see you at one of the above events, and feel free to share your ideas and photos of open access activities on the BioMed Central Facebook site
Don't forget that BioMed Central also has a range of downloadable advocacy materials on our website to assist with promotion of open access such as posters, website buttons and ideas for hosting an open access seminar.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 11:44 Comments (0)