Open Access Challenges

Open Access Challenges
Kurt De Belder
University Librarian
Director of Leiden University Libraries & Leiden University Press

The Researcher of Tomorrow December 3-5, 2012

Discover the world at Leiden University

Open Access after 10 years
 Uptake limited (= publications, dissertations, mandates)
 Publications (case of Dutch universities & KNAW *)
Percentage of publications available in the repositories
has not risen significantly in the period 2007-2010:
varies between 7% and 30%, with an average of 20%-
21%.
Dissertations: more than 80% of dissertations are
available via Open Access.
 Mandates **: ± 160 institutional mandates & ± 53
funder mandates
* Leo Waaijers & Maurits van der Graaf: Monitor Nederlandse Onderzoek Repositories 2011, SURF, February 2012.
** Alma Swan: OA policies in the UK and the European Union. Berlin 10 Open Access Conference, Stellenbosch, 6‐9
November 2012.


 Libraries have made green open access easy for
researchers, have given it considerable support and
have assured high visibility.
 Leiden University:
 within CRIS, one step upload;
 K 15 OA publications, M 1 downloads.

 Why limited uptake by authors?
 Too much work.
 Concerns about copyright and relationship with publisher.
 Not (always) the version of record.
 I can’t be bothered.


 Libraries have set up gold open access pilots, have
reduced APC by paying membership fees for
publishing programs, negotiated APC discounts
through their licensing deals, or set up gold OA
publication funds.

 Results
 Take up is considerable when it’s free for the author or the
allocated funds are available.
 When those conditions disappear there is a considerable drop in
interest among authors.


The summer of … open access
 Working Group on Expanding Access to Published
Research Findings:
Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand
access to research publications, June 2012. (‘Finch
report’)
 European Research Council: Open Access Guidelines
for authors funded by the ERC, June 2012.
 European Commission: Towards better access to
scientific information: Boosting the benefits of public
investments in research, July 2012.
 The Royal Society: Science as an open enterprise, June
2012.

New phase for Open Access?
 OA has arrived on the political agenda.

 Makes research funding agencies allocate OA funds
within their research budgets.

 Scientific organisations are connecting new
information technology possibilities and scientific
changes to a new social and political environment.


Political agenda
UK government accepted the Finch recommendations.

Motivation behind open access movement:
 ‚enhanced transparency, openness and accountability, and public
engagement with research;
 closer linkages between research and innovation, with benefits for
public policy and services, and for economic growth;
 improved efficiency in the research process itself, through increases in
the amount of information that is readily accessible, reductions in the
time spent in finding it, and greater use of the latest tools and services
to organise, manipulate and analyse it; and
 increased returns on the investments made in research, especially the
investments from public funds.‛ (p. 5, ‘Finch report’)


Political agenda
European Commission will require OA publications
(Horizon 2020).

Vision * : free circulation of knowledge becomes the 5th
freedom of the EU.
 Undo fragmentation within the European Research Area (ERA)
 Increase speed of scientific progress
 A greater return on investment

* Based on keynote from Anneli Pauli, Deputy Director-General, DG Research & Innovation, European
Commission, LERU conference, Open Horizons – A Revolution in Open Science, 30 November 2012.


Funding agencies funding OA
Response to Finch report & government acceptance:
 Research Councils UK will give block grants to universities to support
payment of APC associated with Gold OA (starts 1 April 2013).
 HE Funding Councils develop policies that will include a requirement
that research output submitted to the Research Excellence Framework
(REF) will have to be made as widely accessible as feasible.

European Research Council
 Requires research papers & monographs to be made publicly available
no later than 6 months after the official publication date.
 Strongly encourages use of repositories.
 Reminds ERC funded researchers that open access fees are eligible
costs that can be charged against ERC grants.


View from scientific organisations
Science paradigms (Jim Gray)

The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery, 2009, p. xx


View from scientific organisations
Not just about open publications but about open
data, open science. *
 New ways of creating scientific knowledge from data (e.g. looking for
inherent patterns).
 Potential of linked data, data integration & dynamic data.
 Exploiting the data deluge.
 Closing the concept-data gap: maintaining self-correction, credibility
and replicability.
 Combating fraud
 Cause: rewards and pressures promote extreme behavior and normalise
malpratice.
 Cure: open data for review, transparent peer review.

* Science as an open enterprise


The ‘Stapel affair’
Levelt Committee, Noort Committee, Drenth Committee: Flawed science: The
fraudulent research practices of social psychologist Diederik Stapel. November
2012.

‚The discovery of the methodological defects […] did raise the critical
question for the Committees as to whether this research culture […] is also
rife throughout the field of social psychology, nationally and internationally.
Could it be that in general some aspects of this discipline’s customary
methods should be deemed incorrect from the perspective of academic
standards and integrity?‛ (p.47)


The ‘Stapel affair’
‚The Committees are therefore unable to make any statement on these
grounds about social psychology as a whole. It would nonetheless be
simplistic to dismiss the findings […] as merely a local aberration. Mr Stapel
worked in too many different places and in too many different capacities to
support that view […]. Likewise he also collaborated with too many people
from diverse universities in the Netherlands and abroad. Furthermore he
published in nearly all the respected international journals in his filed. It was
extremely rare for his extraordinarily neat findings to be subjected to serious
doubt, even in the doctoral boards of ‘his’ doctoral candidates, even in the
international review procedures, and even where the fraud was blatant. Taken
together all of the above reinforces the picture of an international research
community of which Mr Stapel, his PhD students and close colleagues were
part, and in which the customary research methods and associated standards
and values were mutually shared.‛ (p. 48)


New phase for Open Access?
Political pressure, funding policies, science
paradigm, credibility issues of science might
bring the OA process significantly further.


Costing Open Access future?
Publications

More expensive during transition
 Finch costs transition period at M£ 50-60/pa.
 UK government contributes M£ 10 as a one off.
 Major part of the extra costs will be funded by Research
Councils UK.

 Aren’t there alternatives besides pumping more money into
the system? Within the financial framework of the big
deal, move blocks of money from big deal to OA Gold?


More expensive in steady state?
 Not part of Finch report. Possible greater competition and
new initiatives from non-traditional publishers?
 Funding agencies will fund OA APC as part of the research
grant.
 Studies by John Houghton indicate that total cost of the
scholarly communication system will come down by adopting
Open Access.
 But these are system costs based on costs & benefits. Costs and
benefits don’t necessarily come together.
 So possibly steady state will be more expensive.

 All of the studies project the present way of publishing
(articles, monographs) into the future.

Data

 Insufficient storage for the amount of data that is being
created.
 These are now hidden costs or non existent costs.
 (Long term) costs for data
storage, linking, integration, retrieval, curation and scientific
use is unknown.
 Which choices will be made, which data will be selected? (data
that deals with the global grand challenges? Cf. Geoffrey
Boulton)


New challenges?
 A new bureaucracy of a centralized publication
budget, accounting, allocation, etc.?
 How can we create negotiating power with regard to
the APC pricing?
 Will we move from managing scarcity by limiting
access to managing scarcity by limiting entry? This
will be much more controversial!
 What does this mean for the publishing culture, the
way in which decisions about promotion, tenure and
funding are being made?


Getting our institutions ready.
 These issues need to be discussed more broadly
within the university. Most faculty and
administrators are unaware about the ramifications
of this change.
 University open access policy and mandate in line
with funding agencies requirements.
 Knowledge about and ability to follow up on funding
agency requirements.
 Start doing pilot projects with regard to research
data.


Leiden University Libraries – Strategic plan 2011-2015: Partner in Knowledge
http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/meerjarenbeleidsplan-ubl-2011-2015.pdf


Partner in Knowledge
 Library to become expert centre digital information
for research and teaching.

 New areas of expertise in research support:
o Virtual Research Environments (=> production)
o Data management & curation (pilots)
o Text & data mining (exploring project)
o Copyright (production)
o GIS (exploring project)
o Publication support (exploring project)
o [further areas to be identified through in-depth
focus group discussions with researchers]


Research life cycle

Leo Waaijers: The DARE Chronicle: Open Access to Research Results and Teaching Material in the
Netherlands, Ariadne, 53, October 30, 2007. http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue53/waaijers


RESEARCH

 Virtual Research Environments (VRE)
 DataLabs
 Data Information Office


PUBLICATION

 Virtual Research Environments (VRE)
 Copyright Office
 Institutional Repository
 Leiden University Press


REGISTRATION
ARCHIVING

 Current Research Information System (CRIS)
 Library assigns Digital Author Identifier for
Leiden authors
 Institutional Repository
 Virtual Research Environments (VRE) &
DataLabs (library focuses on data
management during research project)
 Digital Faculty Archives


REVIEW

 No activities by library


CURATION

 Repository materials curated at E-depot from
KB (National Library, The Netherlands).
 DataLabs to be curated at DANS and
3TU.DataCentre.
 2013 close down of first VRE => project with
research group to look at long term curation
of research materials.


DISSEMINATION

 Repository connected with general search
engines (Google, WorldCat, …), specialized
search engines (NARCIS, DRIVER, DART, …).
 Manages publication pages of faculty.
 VRE (public website, blog, wiki).
 Leiden University Press.
 Founding member of OAPEN (Open Access
Publishing in European Networks –
www.oapen.org).


IMPACT

 Publication advice (incl. knowledge about
requirements funding agencies)
 Monthly repository statistics per publication
available to authors
 Collaboration with CWTS


FUNDING

 Collaboration with LURIS (Leiden University
Research and Innovation Services).


Results
 Library becomes known within the university for
these new services and its image changes.
 Library staff is enthusiastic.
 Library is invited to participate with (large) research
funding requests.
 Extra university funding allocated for some of these
services.
 Quick reaction time in related areas (e.g. copyright).
 Unexpected opportunities present themselves (e.g.
research/teaching)
 Waiting list of research groups for VRE’s.
 Show impact of library on primary processes.

Thank you for your attention!

Questions?

k.f.k.de.belder@library.leidenuniv.nl
www.linkedin.com/in/kurtdebelder
@KurtDeBelder


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