We've failed: Pirate black open access is trumping green and gold and we must change our approach

Key points

• Sci‐Hub has made nearly all articles freely available using a black open access model, leaving green and gold models in its dust.
• Why, after 20 years of effort, have green and gold open access not achieved more? Do we need ‘tae think again’?
• If human nature is to postpone change for as long as possible, are green and gold open access fundamentally flawed?
• Open and closed publishing models depend on bundle pricing paid by one stakeholder, the others getting a free ride. Is unbundling a fairer model?
• If publishers changed course and unbundled their product, would this open a legal, fairer route to 100% open access and see off the pirates?

     

OA知识库和OA期刊的对比分析

OA知识库和OA期刊各有优劣.OA知识库有经济优势,但存在质量方面的问题;OA期刊有质量保证,但存在经济层面上的问题.我国目前是发展OA知识库和OA期刊的最好时期,可以将两者结合起来发展.     

Authors and open access publishing

Surveys were carried out to learn more about authors and open access publishing. Awareness of open access journals among those who had not published in them was quite high; awareness of ‘self‐archiving’ was less. For open access journal authors the most important reason for publishing in that way was the principle of free access; their main concerns were grants and impact. Authors who had not published in an open access journal attributed that to unfamiliarity with such journals. Forty per cent of authors have self‐archived their traditional journal articles and almost twice as many say they would do so if required to.     

Academic authors,scholarly publishing,and open access in Australia

This paper briefly describes the rapidly changing research evaluation and funding landscape in Australian universities, specifically in relation to open access and institutional repositories. Recent announcements indicate that funding and evaluation bodies are becoming increasingly concerned that publicly funded research be made publicly available. The paper then reports a survey of all levels of academic staff plus research students at one Australian university, conducted in May 2006, prior to the introduction of an institutional repository. The survey, in line with previously reported surveys, found that while there was a high level of engagement with scholarly publishing, there was a low level of awareness of, or concern with, either open access (‘green’ or ‘gold’) or the roles repositories can play in increasing accessibility of research. Practically, this indicates that much work needs to be done within this university to increase knowledge of, and change behaviours with regard to, open access and repositories if the university and its academics are to make the most of new funding requirements and research evaluation processes.     

Learned society members and open access

The individual members of 35 UK learned societies were surveyed on their attitudes to open access (OA); 1,368 responses were received. Most respondents said they knew what OA was, and supported the idea of OA journals. However, although 60% said that they read OA journals and 25% that they published in them, in both cases around one‐third of the journals named were not OA. While many were in favour of increased access through OA journals, concerns were expressed about the cost to authors, possible reduction in quality, and negative impact on existing journals, publishers, and societies. By contrast, less than half knew what self‐archiving was; 36% thought it was a good idea and 50% were unsure. Just under half said they used repositories of self‐archived articles, but 13% of references were not in fact to self‐archiving repositories. 29% said they self‐archived their own articles, but 10% of references were not to publicly accessible sites of any kind. The access and convenience of self‐archiving repositories were seen as positive, but there were concerns about quality control, workload for authors and institutions, chaotic proliferation of versions, and potential damage to existing journals, publishers, and societies.     

Medical research charities and open access

This paper provides an analysis of the attitudes and activities of UK medical research charities in relation to open access (OA). Both quantitative and qualitative data are presented derived from a recent survey of charities covering areas such as policy development, funding arrangements, and business process design for OA. Positions on key issues including green and gold OA, funding article‐processing charges (APCs), and publication licences are assessed. Modelling of potential APCs as a percentage of overall annual research spend is undertaken to show possible costs of a charged‐for gold system. Medical research charities clearly regard OA as important and some see it as an opportunity to further their mission. However, many expressed significant concerns particularly about the costs and expertise required to support OA. Further co‐ordination of policy development and action across the sector and with other stakeholders is recommended in order to help ensure optimal implementation of OA.     

开放获取实现模式及其资源与服务

本文围绕开放获取的实现模式和开放获取资源及服务两个方面问题,对开放存取两种实现模式进行了探讨,并对目前存在的主要开放获取资源与服务进行了介绍,旨在更好地利用开放资源与服务。     

Green and gold open access in India

This paper examines the characteristics of 462 open access (OA) journals being published in India under the green, gold and hybrid models. The sample of journals was selected from DOAJ, IndianJournal.com and Open J‐Gate. Journal characteristics were measured in terms of growth, subjects, publishers, and citations under each model. While characteristics such as growth, subject, and publisher have been identified by exploring the journal's website only, the citation count of these journals has been calculated by using Google Scholar and the Indian Citation Index. The gold road is now the most popular form of OA publishing in the subcontinent. There is a great variation in the size of OA journals and in their publishers. One publisher has more than 77 journals, but 264 publishers publish a single journal only. Overall, the OA journal landscape is greatly influenced by a few key publishers and journals. While 43% of journals charge publication fees and the fees vary from as low as US$10 to as high as US$400, the highest impact factor of the gold OA journals has been noted as 0.58. The data presented here suggest that publication fees are not a major barrier to authorship within the fields of computer science, pharmacy, and medicine.     

OA and IP: open access,digital copyright and marketplace competition

For over 200 years copyright law has enabled, and scholars and their publishers have depended on, a state‐granted monopoly, creating ‘artificial scarcity’ to give publishers a period during which they can charge higher prices than the market would otherwise dictate and thus recover their costs, plus (usually) a profit. But today we have instant access to digital works, and easy, worldwide distribution for almost no cost to the reader beyond those of computers, Internet access, and electricity. The monopolistic mechanism of ‘artificial scarcity’ now turns one of the most critical advantages of the digital world into something to be fought tooth and nail. The solution is not stronger and longer copyrights. It more likely will emerge from experimentation to find business models that can fund the creation of works, still a costly undertaking, without sacrificing the digital benefit of almost free distribution to everyone who might desire to access them.     

开放存取影响下的图书馆

文章概括了开放存取资源的基本特点,指出开放存取对图书馆期刊采购、图书馆服务、馆藏建设、信息保存等方面存在的影响.分析当前网络环境下,图书馆界对开放存取应持有的态度:图书馆应积极支持和参与开放存取,不但要成为开放存取运动的宣传者,而且还要自建开放存取资源,提供数字存档仓库,并积极开发、利用开放存取资源.     

The Croatian national open access journal platform

Until recently, Croatian scientific journals were accessible only in print form and only to a relatively small audience. A national online journals platform was therefore planned to offer publishers a simple tool for building online versions of their journals and to make them open access. The platform, named Hr?ak, was launched in 2006, supported by governmental funds. It currently includes 170 open access (OA) journals. Most journals include backfiles from 2006 onwards; the average archived period is 6.3 years. 56.5% of the journals come from the fields of social sciences and humanities. Metadata from the Hr?ak platform are regularly harvested by OA repositories. To increase the number of Croatian journals covered by relevant bibliographic and full‐text databases, Hr?ak has forged links with Elsevier, Thomson Reuters and EBSCO. So far, the main achievements include assisting publishers in the process of electronic publishing, and improving accessibility to Croatian scientific output.     

Scholarly publishing and open access in the Nordic countries

This study examines aspects of scholarly journal publishing in the Nordic countries. On average half of Nordic journals publish online. In most Nordic countries, commercial publishers predominate; however, in Finland the majority are society publishers. The number of open access journals is low, in line with international figures. There is concern to maintain local languages in journal publishing. A majority of the journals publishing in local languages are within social science, humanities, and arts; the STM sector publishes in English. English‐language publications are favoured in research assessments, international recognition, and impact, while the visibility of local‐language scholarly journals in international databases is low. The Nordbib program supports Nordic scholarly journals and fosters co‐operation with publishing companies and learned societies over migration to e‐publishing; it also supports open access. The article discusses future challenges for journal publishing, pointing out the problems of small journal publishers and the need for co‐operation between stakeholders.     

Scholarly communication and open access: Perspectives from Korea

This article reports on scholarly communication and open access (OA) in Korea. Drawing on a range of databases, articles, and reference sources, it provides unique insights. In contrast to the UK/US model of scholarly communication, in Korea, most scholarly journals are published by discipline‐based scholarly societies and research institutes affiliated to universities. Payment for publication is the norm, and typically features article processing charges and scholarly society membership fees for both OA and toll access (TA) journals. Online access to journals in Korea is provided by commercial vendors who enter into contracts with the scholarly societies for exclusive use. Three online access models apply – TA, gold OA, and dual access – with the use of these models varying between disciplines. In parallel with this access provided by commercial vendors, there are a number of government‐funded open access repositories (OARs) to which university researchers are requested to deposit their research outputs, as well as OARs run by universities and other research institutes.