Springer Nature has today announced its latest transformative agreement (TA), with Italy’s National Research Council (CNR), and also announces the renewal of TAs with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium in Austria and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU).
“Open research is fundamentally changing the way that researchers communicate and collaborate to advance the pace and quality of discovery. New and dynamic open research-driven workflows are emerging, thus increasing the findability, accessibility, and reusability of results. Distribution channels are changing too, enabling others — from patients to businesses, to teachers and policy makers — to increasingly benefit from new and critical insights. This in turn has dramatically increased the societal impact of open research. But what remains less clear is the exact nature and scope of this wider impact as well as the societal relevance of the underpinning research….”
“What impact does open research have on society and progressing global societal challenges? The latest results of research carried out between Springer Nature, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) and the Dutch University Libraries and the National Library consortium (UKB), illustrates a substantial advantage for content published via the Gold OA route where research is immediately and freely accessible.
Since the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were launched in 2015, researchers, their funders and other collaborative partnerships have sought to explore the impact and contribution of open research on SDG development. However – until now – it has been challenging to map, and therefore identify, emerging trends and best practice for the research and wider community. Through a bibliometric analysis of nearly 360,000 documents published in 2017 and a survey of nearly 6,000 readers on Springer Nature websites, the new white paper, Open for All, Exploring the Reach of Open Access Content to Non-Academic Audiences shows not only the effects of content being published OA but more importantly who that research is reaching.”
“The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), The Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU), The Dutch Research Council (NWO) and Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, have formed a novel partnership that includes publishing and reading services as well as the joint development of new open science services for disseminating and evaluating knowledge. The partnership runs until 31 December 2024….”
“In recent weeks it has emerged that Elsevier is negotiating a new deal with VSNU, a consortia of Dutch Universities. According to press reports on leaked details of the deal, Elsevier is discussing a contract to provide Dutch universities with access to its journals at no extra cost (a major concession after decades of significant annual increases for most of their customers). However, the deal comes with significant new strings: Elsevier will essentially accept a “zero revenue growth” position for its journal in exchange for the universities purchasing a large set of their data analytics products. While the exact details of the deal are unconfirmed (and Elsevier has indicated that there are several inaccuracies in the leak), we have no reason to believe that the main storyline is incorrect.
There are many reasons why signing a deal like this would represent a very insidious precedent for the academic community. …”
Abstract: Research into publication cultures commissioned by VSNU and carried out by Utrecht University Library has detailed university output beyond just journal articles, as well as the possibilities to assess open access levels of these other output types. For all four main fields reported on, the use of publication types other than journal articles is indeed substantial. For Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities in particular (with over 40% and over 60% of output respectively not being regular journal articles) looking at journal articles only ignores a significant share of their contribution to research and society. This is not only about books and book chapters, either: book reviews, conference papers, reports, case notes (in law) and all kinds of web publications are also significant parts of university output.
Analyzing all these publication forms and especially determining to what extent they are open access is currently not easy. Even combining some the largest citation databases (Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions) leaves out a lot of non-article content and in some fields even journal articles are only partly covered. Lacking metadata like affiliations and DOIs (either in the original documents or in the scholarly search engines) makes it even harder to analyze open access levels by institution and field. Using repository-harvesting databases like BASE and NARCIS in addition to the main citation databases improves understanding of open access of non-article output, but these routes also have limitations. The report has recommendations for stakeholders, mostly to improve metadata and coverage and apply persistent identifiers.
“The VSNU endorses the objectives of and has been actively involved in the developments on Open Science as stated in the National Plan Open Science (NPOS). Open Science aims to bring about a fundamental improvement of science by making the scientific process transparent and ensuring that research output is widely available. The social impact of science can in turn be strengthened through greater involvement in and accessibility of scientific output, including articles and research data. …
In addition to supporting the objectives of Plan S, the VSNU also recognises the concerns among scientists in particular. Before Plan S can make the desired contribution to our Open Access ambitions, these concerns must be properly addressed:
“This eZine gives readers the opportunity to contribute their views on how to achieve the goal of 100% open access. You can contribute by responding to the polling questions given for the various topics.
Major steps still need to be taken to further strengthen the link between science and society. In the year ahead, the VSNU will be bringing together various themes such as valuing and rewarding academics, open science and open access. Not only do we expect this development from ourselves, but also from the parties we work with. International ‘alignment’ is therefore very important if we are to achieve the desired disruptive effect regarding the transparency of science which is paid for with public funds. We are eager to see what we can achieve in this area and look forward to the resulting social impact….”
“In February 2017, in order to implement the European agreements in the Netherlands, the National Open Science Plan was presented by ten parties including KNAW, NWO/ZonMw and VSNU/UKB. One of the main ambitions of this plan is to achieve 100% open access publication by 2020: i.e. scientific publications (articles, (sections of) books, reports) paid for by the government will be directly accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world, for consultation and reuse from 2020 onwards.
The VSNU/UKB is the driving force behind this main ambition, which means that it has the task of initiating joint policies and then ensuring coordination between the key players in the field. Together with the parties which are most closely involved, agreements have been reached for the coming period (2018 – 2020). This is still taking place under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. In the coalition agreement and the 2018 Higher Vocational Education Sector Agreement, it is specified that open access and open science are the norm for scientific research.
The Open access roadmap 2018-2020 eZine focuses on the five pillars of the plan. In this version, we provide background information about the progress and developments for each pillar. You can also give your opinion on the next steps to be taken….”
“The results of publicly funded research must be freely available to all. By 2020, universities want to make all peer-reviewed articles by Dutch researchers open-access publications as standard. Following a request by the government, in 2013 the VSNU formulated a plan to achieve this goal.
‘The Dutch universities’ strategy is unique on the international stage,’ says Koen Becking, executive open-access negotiator for the VSNU and Executive Board President at Tilburg University. Together with Tim van der Hagen, Executive Board President at Delft University of Technology, and Anton Pijpers, Executive Board President at Utrecht University, he leads executive negotiations with the major publishing houses….
The Dutch approach is such a success because the universities have formed a single negotiating body and are supported by the government. In this regard, Becking refers to the government’s open-access policy, which was continued by the new government in 2017….”
“As part of its negotiations with Wolters Kluwer to extend the contract for legal and fiscal professional literature, the VSNU has agreed open-access terms. The 27 academic journals in Wolters Kluwer’s collection of otherwise mainly professional literature will be subject to new and explicit open-access embargo rules. The parties have agreed that academic articles from these 27 journals will be eligible for publishing in the public domain 6 to 12months after the date of their publication on Navigator and Wolters Kluwer’s other platforms.”
From Google Translate: “The agreements between the Dutch universities and Cambridge University Press (CUP) are unique, says Board Chairman Jaap Winter of the University, university association VSNU negotiator.
The agreement with CUP universities have open access surrendered at once. Seventeen fully open access journals and 339 hybrid journals, Dutch researchers from June 1 to publish at no extra cost.
This is in discussions about open access as the ‘golden road’: the items are in the archives of the magazine itself and anyone can read them. Another form of open access is less far and is called the ‘green road’. Then scientists can make their articles freely accessible in an archive of their own university or at their website, but they are in the magazine itself still behind a paywall.
The Dutch universities will only renew subscriptions to scientific journals and publishers open access one step closer. Negotiations with Oxford University Press this faltered .
In old subscription science actually pays twice: researchers write articles yourself and additionally paid subscriber to read the magazines. The results of (mostly publicly funded) research are also not accessible to outsiders.
The advocates of open access, including Secretary Sander Dekker, want to change that. Ideally pay science no longer to articles read , but to publish . The articles themselves are free for everyone.”
“Elsevier and the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) share the commitment to maximize the visibility of Dutch Medical Research throughout the world. To support this common goal, Elsevier has developed a pilot to provide free public access to the final published journal article (PDF) as part of an open archive. Currently over 5,000 articles are available as part of this pilot.
Participation in the pilot is open for any author from a Dutch University publishing medically related research in Elsevier journal. After acceptance, authors will select the option ” A (medical) investigator from one of the Dutch Universities” in the funding body section of the Access and Rights form. Elsevier will include their article in the open archive enabling free public access twelve months after publication….”
“The VSNU didn’t get all it wanted but it took a large step and plans to take more in the future. It also hopes that other universities will follow its lead.
Here’s where things get more complicated. We don’t know how much the Dutch universities must now pay for the Elsevier big deal. Clearly Elsevier raised its price so that a certain number of APCs from Dutch researchers could be considered built-in or pre-paid. But we don’t know the size of the price increase….It’s a pity that the price of the agreement is secret. If other universities knew the price, they could bargain more effectively with Elsevier (and other publishers). Because they don’t know the price, this success will spread more slowly than otherwise. This cuts against VSNU’s hope that other universities will take the same steps, just as it cuts against lobbying claims often made by Elsevier and other large publishers that open-access initiatives “interfere with the market”….Still, it’s a step forward. I hope other universities are moved to try harder bargaining than they’ve tried in the past. And I hope they succeed….
Here are two other caveats to keep in mind.
First, this kind of success helps entrench the APC or fee-based business model for gold OA. Charging author-side fees is a legitimate model. But (despite a popular myth) it’s only a minority model today, and there are good reasons why. The no-fee model works better for many authors, many disciplines, many journals, and many regions of the world. Giving no-fee journals an incentive to start charging fees is backward. And moving toward a business-model monoculture for gold OA is perverse.
Second, Dutch universities could have adopted green OA policies years ago. But none did, even though more than 500 other universities around the world have already done so. Green and gold have different advantages and I support both. Hence I support those who support gold. But because green and gold are compatible, even complementary (see Section 3.2 <http://goo.gl/tcSEnA> of my book <http://bit.ly/oa-book), it’s a serious tactical mistake to neglect the advantages of green while pursuing the advantages of gold. It’s like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. This is exactly what the Dutch universities have done. (It’s also what the Finch Committee and RCUK did at the national level in the UK, and what Sander Dekker seems to want to do at the national level in the Netherlands.). Green mandates don’t require bargaining with publishers. They don’t require paying more in subscriptions. They don’t pressure authors to publish in some journals rather than others. Depending on their terms, they can require immediate or unembargoed OA, and require open licenses. And they help create a world in which OA is the default, which makes negotiating with publishers easier and less expensive.”