Slide for the presentation at GRC Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting, November 18, 2013 Jointly prepared by Takayuki Hasegawa, JST

1. 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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2. 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
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3. 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 (FY2011FY2015) 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
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4. Open access policy of JST
JST announced its policy on open access to publications
achieved by JST funded research projects. (Apr. 2013)
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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5. Mandated open occess to PhD theses by MEXT’s decree
Profile
Key Point of the revision(Mar. 2013)
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
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.
Based on ETD2013 "The possibility of networked electronic theses in Japan“
http://lib.hku.hk/etd2013/programme.html
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6. Growth of institutional repositories
u 383 organizations have institutional repositories (incl. share IR)
- covering most of universities with doctoral programs
N um ber
of
organi ons
w i I
zati
th
R
400
No. of Univ.
300
783
Total
PhD
awarding
436
200
351
100
57
102
145
199
230
383
259
0
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)
excerpted and modified from ETD2013 "The possibility of networked electronic theses in Japan“
http://lib.hku.hk/etd2013/programme.html
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7. Growth of institutional repositories
Institutional Repository in Japan
Full text content
2008/03
191,433
1M
2013/10
1,225,381
2013
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
source: http://irdb.nii.ac.jp/analysis/index_e.php
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
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8. Open access platforms: JST’s J-STAGE and NII’s CiNii
Profile
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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9. JSPS policy for promoting Open Access
Profile
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
9
JPY

10. Japanese contributions to OA journals
Courtesy of Asia-Pacific, NPG
Ø In case of the Scientific Reports, Japan is contributing
relatively high, next to the US and China.
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11. Collaboration with international projects
Profile
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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12. Collaboration with international projects
Profile
u SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in
Particle Physics)
Ø A consortium facilitates Open Access publishing in High Energy Physics by redirecting 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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13. 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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14. Prospects (personal)
Profile
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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15. Prospects (personal)
Profile
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
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