OPEN ACCESS: What is it? Why should we have it? Where is it now? Alma Swan Key Perspectives Ltd Truro, UK

Old paradigms Use of proxy measures of an individual scientists merit is as good as it gets It is a journals responsibility to disseminate your work Printed article is the format of record Other scientists have time to search out what you want them to know Key Perspectives Ltd

New paradigms Rich, deep, broad metrics for measuring the contributions of individual scientists Effective dissemination of your work is now in your hands (at last) The digital format will be the format of record (is already in many areas) Unless you routinely publish in Nature or Science, getting it out there is up to you Key Perspectives Ltd

Open Access: What is it? Online Immediate Free (non-restricted) Free (gratis) To the scholarly literature that authors give away Permanent Key Perspectives Ltd

Open Access: Why should we have it? Benefits to researchers themselves Benefits to institutions Benefits to national economies Benefits to science and society Key Perspectives Ltd

Why we should have Open Access Greater impact from scientific endeavour More rapid and more efficient progress of science Better assessment, better monitoring, better management of science Novel information-creation using new and advanced technologies Key Perspectives Ltd

Why researchers publish their work Key Perspectives Ltd

Self-archiving in the PhilSci Archive has given instant world-wide visibility to my work. As a result, I was invited to submit papers to refereed international conferences/journals and got them accepted. Key Perspectives Ltd An authors own testimony on open access visibility

And yet …. Only 15% of the worlds research output is Open Access Key Perspectives Ltd

Open Access increases citations Key Perspectives Ltd Range = 50%-200% (Data: Stevan Harnad and co-workers)

Open access increases citations (other studies) Lawrence 2001 (computer science) Kurtz 2004 (astronomy) Brody & Harnad 2004 (all disciplines) Antelman 2005 (philosophy, politics, electrical & electronic engineering, mathematics) Key Perspectives Ltd

Lost citations, lost impact Only around 15% of research is Open Access…. ….. so 85% is not ….. and we are therefore losing 85% of the 50% increase in citations (conservative end of the range) that Open Access brings (= 42.5%) Key Perspectives Ltd

National economies Belgian scientists: articles in 2005 Number of citations: If all had been OA, there would have been (42.5% more) citations Since the Belgian Government invested 1.29 bn in S&T in 2005 ….. This means lost impact worth 0.55 bn to the Belgian economy Key Perspectives Ltd

And for individual scientists…. Diamond, A M (1986) What is a citation worth? J. Human Resources 21, 200 ( Marginal value of one citation is USD (depending on field and number of citations: an increase from 0 to 1 citation is worth more than from citations) Update for inflation (170%) = USD Convert to euro = Now lets look at one Belgian scientists situation…. Key Perspectives Ltd

Mark Veugelers 170 citations Could have been 42.5% higher (or more) = 242 citations Each citation is worth 100 Value of lost impact = Conservatively!!! Key Perspectives Ltd

Science is faster, more efficient Key Perspectives Ltd

Measure, assess, and manage science more effectively Assess individuals, groups, institutions, on the basis of citation analysis Track trends: growth, latency, longevity Identify hubs and authorities Identify silent, unsung contributors Predict impact, directions Manage, assess scientific programmes to the benefit of our societies Key Perspectives Ltd

Find a researcher ….. Key Perspectives Ltd

Follow the citing trail … Key Perspectives Ltd

Follow the citing trail … Key Perspectives Ltd

Track citation history Key Perspectives Ltd

New knowledge from old Text-mining and data-mining technologies UK: National Text-Mining Centre The Grid / e-research / cyberresearch Example: NeuroCommons Key Perspectives Ltd

Where is Open Access now? Key Perspectives Ltd

Repositories: interoperable Show their content in a specific form Harvested by search engines Form a database of global research Freely available Publicly available Permanently available Key Perspectives Ltd

Open Access repositories circa 600 worldwide 10 in Belgium (4 for e-theses) Open source software (e.g. EPrints from Southampton University) Key Perspectives Ltd

Average number of articles in an institutional repository … 297! Key Perspectives Ltd

Publisher permissions (by journal) Key Perspectives Ltd

Publisher permissions 92% of journals permit self-archiving SHERPA/RoMEO list at: Or at: Key Perspectives Ltd

Author readiness to comply with a mandate 81% 14% 5% Key Perspectives Ltd

Institutions with a mandate already University of Southampton School of Electronics & Computer Science (since 2003) (90+% compliance already) CERN (2003) (90% compliance already) Queensland University of Technology (2004) (40%+ compliance and growing) University of Minho, Portugal (2005) Key Perspectives Ltd

(Data courtesy of Arthur Sale)

Developments on mandating Wellcome Trust NIH RCUK CURES Act (USA) FRPAA (USA) National Institute of Technology, India Universities in UK and Australia Key Perspectives Ltd

A new twist … Researchers will deposit the full article immediately upon acceptance The metadata MUST be revealed (set as Open Access) The rest of the article may be made Open Access when appropriate Key Perspectives Ltd

Why we should have Open Access Greater impact from scientific endeavour More rapid and more efficient progress of science Better assessment, better monitoring, better management of science Novel information-creation using new and advanced technologies Key Perspectives Ltd

Thank you for listening Key Perspectives Ltd