http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/create_change/events.html

I’ve also made some additional comments as a result of correspondence asking me to comment on the sharing of raw data and other matters:

As someone who has spent time working both in the life sciences and engineering I am aware that timely access to raw data is a very important part of freely sharing the results of publicly funded scientific research. Sequencing and structural data are a great example of how raw data sharing openly can make a huge difference to the progress of research. I think that where possible and practical raw data arising from publicly funded ought be made easily accessible online too; though it is hard to define what this means in a general sense - it has to be done on a field by field basis. Perhaps a good step would be to require all applicants for public grants to consider how they will share their raw data and that could be reviewed by those assessing the application.

There is a deep cultural aversion to data sharing in some areas; I have seen research groups where even when given the tools to enable the easy sharing of data individuals have gone to great lengths to try and retain personal ownership and control over data. From what I’ve seen of UK academia there is a counterproductive focus on an individual’s own independent work and not their contribution to a team effort or the greater good. As with many problems I think the solution starts with education and there’s a need to get across the importance of free data-sharing right from the beginning of science education in schools.

I think publication of results in some form at least akin to journal articles; in a centrally searchable manner is in many fields likely to remain important. I do not believe that simply allowing authors to post their work on their own websites or in institutional repositories is sufficient to ensure open access; I believe the publishers are pushing this option as it leaves the opportunity open for them to justify their business model to those (eg. MPs) who do not look into the matter in depth and are dazzled by impressive sounding “principles” espoused by research councils but which have not resulted in substantial enough change. Allowing self-publishing enables publishing companies to argue they are providing a useful service by making information easily accessible and searchable whereas if they did not restrict the way publications can be reused this problem would be solved by distributed, centrally accessible, open access repositories.

You’ve inspired me to check the copyright of journals I do use. The American Physical Society seems quite good (and they’re good journals), you can put pdfs on your webpage, use the preprint servers etc.

All this said, I agree, I’ll be writing to my MP and linking them here.

I know from my own experience talking to university staff that they often feel unable to change things for the better because they feel their jobs would be at risk if they did things differently.

At Cambridge University many professors look to the students to change policy as more often they don’t have families and mortgages to support so are more able to to take risks. However students are increasingly constrained too and also have a lot to lose.

I agree the solution is for Governments to take action. At the next general election I hope to be able to vote for a candidate who supports research funded by UK taxpayers being made available in an unrestricted manner via open access journals and repositories.

The pickle that I find myself in is that I’m on a temporary contract at a UK university with very little chance of ever getting a full time position. If I ever get a chance to publish in something like Nature I just cannot afford to pass on it - my job depends on it. Even if I did have a permanent job I’d still have to ferociously compete for funding. It’s not being a career scientist - it’s surviving.

Hopefully the world’s governments and the journals can get this sorted. I just don’t think it’s fair to ask the players to change the game.

Even if this occurs the information is still not free, how it can be used and where it can be published is still tightly controlled by the publisher despite it being information the UK taxpayer paid to create.

What they’re not able to do I suspect is release it to WhatDoTheyKnow.com or place it in an open access repository.

By including restrictions that publication is restricted to institutional, or the author’s own sites the ability of someone looking for a publication to be able to find it would not be high. Without freedom to republish and archive the ability to locate an article, and also ensure it is archived and stays available online indefinitely are diminished. I think that we should require UK funded research results be published without restriction on their use so that they can be submitted to free online repositories. Submitting to publishers’ licences restricting what can be done with a publication simply maintains their position and business. Theirs is a business which charges the public for information they have already paid through their taxes to create, I don’t think the UK taxpayer should continue to support it.

I think it is worth arguing on the basic point first - results of research funded by the UK taxpayer ought be freely available - the UK Taxpayer should demand that.

That is neither publishing in an OA journal (Gold OA) nor the posting of unrefereed, unpublished research. It is Green OA self-archiving of refereed, published research.

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum

With the exception of the title the only mention of “Open Access Journals” in my article is in the quote from the Civil Service Scientist Tony Hutchings.

Most publishers won’t let you publish a copy of your article on your website and also agree to publish it in their journals. In any-case that creates a system such as the one we have with the paper I have featured in the article; the author is controlling access and those wishing to access the document have to approach him and ask for a copy. That is not open access in my view.

My comments are in favour of open access publication of all descriptions. I think we need a culture change where there is much greater openness and information sharing. While I think there ought be publication of data on research group websites, institutional pre-print websites etc. I do think that publication of the final results of a publicly funded project ought be in an open access journal of some description or otherwise submitted to an online repository such as pubmed central.

Here we see again the main reason OA is so slow in coming: The conflation of OA with publishing in OA journals (Gold OA), leaving out the most powerful, fastest and surest way of providing OA, which is to publish in any journal you like, and to make the article OA by self-archiving it free for all online (Green OA).

See: http://bit.ly/3JyQB

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum