Open Access issues and challenges

1. Open Access: issues and
challenges
Alma Swan
SPARC Europe
Key Perspectives Ltd
Enabling Open Scholarship
University Health & Medical Librarians Group
28 February 2014, London

2. Levels of OA in the UK

3. Biomedical sciences
%

4. Clinical sciences
%

5. Issues and challenges
• Books (and the humanities in general)
• Data
• Policy, especially:
– Policy effectiveness
– The benefits of aligned policies
• Institutional responsibility:
– Impact
– TDM
– Paying for OA

6. Issues and challenges
• Books (and the humanities in general)
• Data
• Policy, especially:
– Policy effectiveness
– The benefits of aligned policies
• Institutional responsibility:
– Impact
– TDM
– Paying for OA

7. Policy effectiveness
• Mandatory
• Crystal clear
• Championed well
• Monitored
• Linked to something that researchers care
about

8. University of Liege

9. Policy effectiveness:
implementation in Liege
• Mandatory
• Championed well
• Monitored
• Linked to something that researchers care
about – their careers

10. Policy alignment
• Liege policy emulated in other universities
• And by HEFCE

11. Institutional responsibilities
• Gradually showing up on the radar
• Not just because of funder policies
• Institutional benefits:
– Greater impact
– Better outreach
– More cash

12. EU’s CIS

14. Institutional responsibilities
• Gradually showing up on the radar
• Not just because of funder policies
• Institutional benefits:
– Greater impact
– Better outreach
– More cash
• ROI
• Social value

15. Particular issues for institutions
• Impact:
– New measures (not just short/medium term)
– Raison d’etre

16. It is one of the noblest duties of a
university to advance knowledge and
to diffuse it, not merely among those
who can attend the daily lectures, but
far and wide.
Daniel Coit Gilman
First President, Johns Hopkins University

17. Particular issues for institutions:
impact
• New measures (not just short/medium
term)
• Raison d’etre
• Public engagement and lay contributions to
research

18. Particular issues for institutions:
responsible licensing
• Do not sign agreements with publishers that limit
OA or obstruct its aims:
• Govern Green OA
• TDM

19. Particular issues for institutions:
paying for OA
• Manage your APC fund to benefit OA
• Encourage author responsibility
• Make sure you get value
• Don’t let the Big Deal morph into the
Big OA Deal
• Encourage attempts to deconstruct the
publishing process and pay for the
component services

20. Particular issues for institutions:
sustaining OA
• Service infrastructure
• Many began as projects
• Sustainability plans not always robust
• May not be workable in the longer term
• First steps being taken to address this issue
• Libraries and funders have roles

21. Thank you
a.swan@talk21.com
www.spareurope.org
www.openscholarship.org
www.pasteur4oa.eu