Open: Much more than a different business model Lars Bjørnshauge, Managing Director, DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) and SPARC Europe Director of European Library Relations

1. OPEN:
MUCH MORE THAN A
DIFFERENT BUSINESS MODEL.
NISO Virtual Conference: Scholarly
Communication Models: Evolution or
Revolution?
September 23rd 2015
Lars Bjørnshauge
lars@doaj.org
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

2. I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO TALK ABOUT……
 my understanding of open access,
 what does it mean to be open?
 what's new and what's changing?
 how do I see the future of scholarly communication,
 what are the important issues that should be faced and addressed by
the community in order to reach a future where open is the default?
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

3. I HAVE BEEN ASKED TO TALK ABOUT……
 my understanding of open access,
 what does it mean to be open?
 what's new and what's changing?
 how do I see the future of scholarly communication,
 what are the important issues that should be faced and addressed by
the community in order to reach a future where open is the default?
 These are big questions
 I will try my best!
 Not speaking on behalf of SPARC Europe or DOAJ – but on behalf of
myself!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

4. WHERE DO I COME FROM?
 Academic library management (25 years)
 Early out with the big deals, which suddenly enabled libraries to provide
access to much, much more content for the authorized users
 But found myself prevent by so-called unauthorized users to gain access
to publicly funded research!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

5. WHERE DO I COME FROM?
 Academic library management (25 years)
 Early out with the big deals, which suddenly enabled libraries to provide
access to much, much more content for the authorized users
 But found myself prevent by so-called unauthorized users to gain access
to publicly funded research!
 At the beginning of the millennium the emerging discussions about open
access came in handy
 A few months after the Budapest OpenAccess Initiative I founded the
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – launched in May 2003 with
300 journals.
 A lot has happened since then!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

6. SO, WHERE ARE WE WITH OPEN ACCESS?
 OA has got momentum
 steady growth can be recorded in the proportion of new research
papers being published in open access journals or made freely available
via repositories
 more than 10.000 open access journals, thousands of repositories
 more than thousand institutions and research funders have signed the
various OA declarations
 hundreds of open access policies and mandates in place
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

7. SO, WHERE ARE WE WITH OPEN ACCESS?
 OA has got momentum
 steady growth can be recorded in the proportion of new research
papers being published in open access journals or made freely available
via repositories
 more than 10.000 open access journals, thousands of repositories
 more than thousand institutions and research funders have signed the
various OA declarations
 hundreds of open access policies and mandates in place
 But……
 OA still is not the default
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

8. DRIVERS
 Researchers, who want to share there stuff to the widest possible
audience
 Technologies and communication tools
 Librarians, feeling that open is close to the heart of their profession
 Experimental and emerging business models facilitating open access
 Emerging development of incentives (sticks and carrots):
 Institutional and funder open access policies
 Institutional and funder mandates
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

9. DRIVERS
 Researchers, who want to share there stuff to the widest possible
audience
 Technologies and communication tools
 Librarians, feeling that open is close to the heart of their profession
 Experimental and emerging business models facilitating open access
 Emerging development of incentives (sticks and carrots):
 Institutional and funder open access policies
 Institutional and funder mandates
 But it goes too slow! – the incentives are not strong enough to bring
about significant changes!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

10. AND IT´S NOT EASY!
 Stephen Curry (well known UK professor,science blogger and OA-
advocate) – last week at the OASPA conference in Amsterdam:
 ”I hate open access, it is too complicated!”
 Different business models – APC-payment is a heavy administrative
burden!
 Different licenses, different re-use permissions etc.
 Different funder policies and mandates
 Complicated for authors/institutions to comply with different funder
mandates
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

11. WHAT PAYS OFF IN THE CURRENT SYSTEM??
 Researchers:
 Publish in quality prestige journals – go for the High Impact Factor
(not necessarily citations!) and you will be rewarded (promotion,
tenure and grants)
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

12. WHAT PAYS OFF IN THE CURRENT SYSTEM??
 Researchers:
 Publish in quality prestige journals – go for the High Impact Factor
(not necessarily citations!) and you will be rewarded (promotion,
tenure and grants)
 Don´t bother to much about
 whether your results are actually accessible for the widest audience
 whether your data are archived and open
 whether your software is documented and available
 whether your research is actually reproducable
 For your career it doesn´t really matter that much!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

13. WHAT PAYS OFF IN THE CURRENT SYSTEM??
 Researchers:
 Publish in quality prestige journals – go for the High Impact Factor (not
necessarily citations!) and you will be rewarded (promotion, tenure and
grants)
 Don´t bother to much about
 whether your results are actually accessible for the widest audience
 whether your data are archived and open
 whether your software is documented and available
 whether your research is actually reproducable
 For your career it doesn´t really matter that much!
 Institutions:
 Attract the researchers above and the institution will receive more grants
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

14. THE SCHOLARLY SYSTEM I (AND OTHERS) WANT TO SEE:
 Characteristics:
 Research results are accessible to everyone.
 Research is verifiable and reproducable.
 Research is evaluated based on its actual impact not based on the
wrapper
 Research findings are evaluated in the open after dissemination.
 Researchers are rewarded based on all what they do.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

15. THIS MEANS THAT:
 Research will be disseminated in the open with generous reuse
permissions.
 Research data will be archived and made accessible.
 Software associated with research will be documented and available as
well.
 Research evaluation is transparent.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

16. THIS MEANS THAT:
 Research will be disseminated in the open with generous reuse
permissions.
 Research data will be archived and made accessible.
 Software associated with research will be documented and available as
well.
 Research evaluation is transparent.
 Researchers are rewarded not only based on citations, but as well for
the social and societal impact of their research, they are rewarded for
documenting their data and software, they are rewarded for contributing
to “peer review” etc.
 In short: researchers will be rewarded for all what they do
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

17. WHAT IS NEEDED IS A SYSTEM WIDE CHANGE:
 A change in the rewards system and system of incentives
 A change in the culture of research
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

18. WHAT IS NEEDED IS A SYSTEM WIDE CHANGE:
 A change in the rewards system and system of incentives
 A change in the culture of research
 It should be regarded as bad behavior, unethical behavior
 not to publish in the open,
 not to make you data available and
 not to document you software.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

19. WHAT IS NEEDED IS A SYSTEM WIDE CHANGE:
 A change in the rewards system and system of incentives
 A change in the culture of research
 It should be regarded as bad behavior, unethical behavior
 not to publish in the open,
 not to make you data available and
 not to document you software.
 Published research findings that lack any of these three characteristics
should not merit, should not count!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

20. WHO CAN THE CHANGE THE SYSTEM?
 The current scholarly communication system and especially the current
reward systems, the system that motivates the behavior of researchers
has developed behind the scenes of the actors.
 There are many stakeholders, some cannot really change the system
and some can.
 I would say that the libraries are victims of an unsustainable system.
 The publishers and service providers exploit the conditions offered to
them, so you can´t really blame them either.
 Younger researchers have to comply with the dominant system to
make a career
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

21. WHO CAN THE CHANGE THE SYSTEM?
 The current scholarly communication system and especially the current
reward systems, the system that motivates the behavior of researchers has
developed behind the scenes of the actors.
 There are many stakeholders, some cannot really change the system and
some can.
 I would say that the libraries are victims of an unsustainable system.
 The publishers and service providers exploit the conditions offered to
them, so you can´t really blame them either.
 Younger researchers have to comply with the dominant system to make
a career
 Those who have the power to change the game are the those who decide
about promotion and facilitate the distribution of funding for research,
namely Research Funders and Presidents of universities and research
centers, Vice-Chancellors, Deans, Department Heads etc.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

22. ACADEMIC FREEDOM
 Now, what does all this mean for Academic Freedom??
 Academic freedom applies to what you are researching, what you are
investigating, the methods you apply etc.
 Based on your agreement with your institution and the grants you get,
you will do your research.
 It is often argued that your decisions as to where you publish, how you
publish, the permissions you give etc belongs to your academic
freedom.
 No one should tell me where to publish!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

23. ACADEMIC FREEDOM
 Now, what does all this mean for Academic Freedom??
 Academic freedom applies to what you are researching, what you are
investigating, the methods you apply etc.
 Based on your agreement with your institution and the grants you get
you will do your work.
 It is often argued that your decisions as to where you publish, how you
publish, the permissions you give etc belongs to your academic
freedom.
 No one should tell me where to publish!
 I beg to disagree!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

24. ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITY
 applies to how you share your research, your findings, your data, your
software!!
 We need stronger mandates from research funders and research
institutions
 Research funders and research institutions should be very specific as to
how they expect researchers to disseminate their findings!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

25. CAN THEY REALLY CHANGE THE CULTURE?
 On obvious problem is of course that those, who today are decision
makers in research funding organizations and research institutions, like
universities, have made their career in the system and the culture, that
has to change!
 To some extent there is a generation problem!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

26. CAN THEY REALLY CHANGE THE CULTURE?
 On obvious problem is of course that those, who today are decision
makers in research funding organizations and research institutions, like
universities, have made their career in the system and the culture, that
has to change!
 To some extent there is a generation problem!
 But there are light at the end of the tunnel.
 Research funders and their associations have issued open access
policies, and universities as well.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

27. FUNDERS ARE ON THE MOVE!
 The Global Research Council has open access as one of their two action
lines. So far not that groundbreaking, but …
 Science Europe has adopted Principles on the Transition to Open Access
to Research Publications April 2013 and New Principles on Open Access
Publisher Services April 2015 – recommending among other things,
 that Authors hold copyright of their publication with no restrictions
and
 That all publications shall be published under an open license,
preferably CC BY
 And of course we have the Gates Foundation OA-policy, which is really
state of the art
 So were not starting from scratch, but there is a long way to go.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

28. SO ARE RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
 Hundreds of research institutions have open access polices and
mandates.
 Most of the soft, a few of them more strong
 A well-known example is the OA-mandate of University of Liege,
Belgium, where a publication which is not available through the local
repository will not count in promotion and tenure.
 This is so far an exception.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

29. SO ARE RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
 Hundreds of research institutions have open access polices and
mandates.
 Most of the soft, a few of them more strong
 A well-known example is the OA-mandate of University of Liege,
Belgium, where a publication which is not available through the local
repository will not count in promotion and tenure.
 This is so far an exception.
 What is needed is more and much stronger mandates from research
funders and research organizations, combined with an immediate
change in the rewards system.
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

30. I AM CALLING FOR…
A coalition of responsible research
funders and research institutions
 Who will take open agenda further and mandate the open in its widest possible
sense
 Open publications, open data and open software
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

31. I AM CALLING FOR…
A coalition of responsible research
funders and research institutions
 Who will take the open agenda further and mandate the open in its widest
possible sense
 Open publications, open data and open software
 Immediately change the reward system within their domain and evaluate
contributions
 not based on where you publish, but based on
 what you publish and
 how you publsh
 and will foster competition, by introducing price caps on APCs
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

32. A COALITION OF RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH
FUNDERS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS!!
I know that this is a long shot!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

33. A COALITION OF RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH
FUNDERS AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS!!
I know that this is a long shot!
But shall we really continue to try to do repair on a
system that essentially has its origin in the print age, that
is unsustainable and that does not serve science
or should we build new system, that can actually
serve science for the 21st century?
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

34. OUT OF THE BOX!!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

35. OUT OF THE BOX!!
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge
If we were to invent a system
of scholarly communication –
what would it look like?
I have given my shot on this!

36. WOULD YOU BOARD THE FLIGHT?
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge

37. WOULD YOU BOARD THE FLIGHT?
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge
If your airline has the same quality
assurance procedures, that same
transparency as our current
scholarly communication system,

38. WOULD YOU BOARD THE FLIGHT?
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge
If your airline has the same quality
assurance procedures, that same
transparency as our current
scholarly communication system,
would you then board the flight??

39. FINITO!
THANK YOU FOR THE OPPORTUNITY AND
YOUR ATTENTION
lars@doaj.org
Sept 23rd 2015Lars Bjørnshauge