UK hears open access evidence

LONDON—The first stage of the UK's investigation into scientific publishing wrapped up this week with small publishers and open access advocates saying that the way science is funded, published and archived will need to be changed, if open access publishing is to be adopted. “Unless we see a big change in the way that research is funded, open access isn't sustainable in any format other than as an experiment,” Julia King, of the UK Institute of Physics, told the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee. The institute publishes the New Journal of Physics, an open access “experiment.”Harold Varmus, of the US-based open access group Public Library of Science, and Vitek Tracz, from for-profit open access publisher BioMedCentral (partner of The Scientist), underlined the need for transform the system. They argued, however, that open access was not a choice but an imperative.Tracz spoke about the need to make a “deep change in the scientific culture.” “This whole discussion,” he said, “is not about business models but about how science findings are recorded.”One note of discord came from the UK's Royal Society, which issued a statement on Monday saying that an “author pays” open access model of publishing would put them and the British government under increased funding pressures. In response, Varmus noted that scientists already pay up to $3000 per paper they publish in page and figure fees. Both he and Tracz insisted that open access does not compromise quality.One change both small and open access publishers agreed on was the need to create public archives for science papers and data.The UK's investigation was announced last year after an initial approach by the British Library, which is working to create a digital archive of electronic science publications and was concerned about sustainable funding for their project. During an evidence session held Monday, everyone present concurred that the British Library's initiative should be given support.Sally Morris of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers said many UK publishers were turning to the British Library to act as a centralized digital archive of papers. All present appeared to agree that this was an area in which the government could play a decisive role. There was a sense among committee members that this could lead to a recommendation to the government. The US National Institutes of Health currently runs PubMed Central, one of the only centralized digital archives.Open access advocates hope that the second phase of the committee's investigation will address this issue further. In April and May, the committee plans to hear evidence from libraries, academics and government. Stevan Harnad, from the University of Southampton, told the American Scientist Open Access Forum that the Select Committee's call so far “continues to propagate this planetary tidal wave (which will soon dissipate) in which open access is being equated exclusively with open access 'publishing,' instead of with open access 'provision.'” The second definition includes both publishing and open access self-archiving of articles previously published under the existing model. The technological barriers to effective open access provision were mentioned in yesterday's hearing, though Nigel Goddard of Axiope, a company that creates software to facilitate open access, suggested that in large part these were the same problems that the business community faces and will solve. “The issue,” he said, “is that scientists do not have the culture and incentive to organise their data. There should be a (low) financial incentive to help scientists do this.”Harnad hoped that the next phase of the investigation will focus more on this angle: “Here, I hope, the other road to open access will be given some of its due.”

UK hears open access evidence

Investigation finds wide support for British Library archiving suggestion

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