Category Archives: oa.oa2020

Deal or No Deal | Periodicals Price Survey 2019

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“Pressure increases on publishers to move more quickly to open access, but this leaves many questions unanswered

For the past decade, libraries have battled declining university budgets and increasing serials expenditures. With each Big Deal package renewal or cancellation, librarians and publishers have asked themselves: Did I make the best deal? Did I make the right deal? Recent developments in open access (OA) promise to bring major reform to academic publishing and, with that, new challenges and opportunities to the way that librarians and publishers choose to deal….”

[GOAL] OA2020 Mainland China Signatory Libraries responded to Plan S Guidance on Implementation

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“The followings are the discussed response to Plan S Guidance on Implementation.

01 We are in broad support of Plan S and its goals to ensure immediate and complete open access to journal articles resulting from publicly funded research to the world. We applaud the effort of Plan S to provide strong incentives to make research open access. We support an international effort to achieve this goal worldwide as soon as possible.

02 We fully recognize that the need for forceful and accountable policies by public funders in research, education, and libraries, to facilitate open access against various entrenched interests or the inertia of the status quo. We urge all in research, education, publishing, platforms, repositories, and libraries to engage diligently in transformative efforts abreast with time to meet the challenges.

03 We support the Final Conference Statement of the 14th Berlin Conference on Open Access with its commitments. We urge all the publishers to work with the global research community to effect complete and immediate open access according to the Statement.

04 We support the principles and roadmaps of OA2020 Initiative which aims to transform a majority of today’s scholarly journals from subscription to OA publishing, while continues to support new forms of OA publishing. We believe the transition process can be realized within the framework of currently available resources. We see no legitimate reasons for, and will object to, any attempts to increase spending from the original subscribing institutions in the transformation.

05 We support that authors retain copyrights of their publications in open access publishing through journals or open access platforms.

06 We support that open access publications are made under open licenses. We support the use of the CC_BY license as the preferred one but recommend that other CC licenses also be allowed as compliant to Plan S.

07 We recognize the strong need for compliant requirements, agreed by the research communities, for open access journals and platforms. We agree that infrastructural instruments like DOAJ and OpenDOAR can be utilized to help identifying and signaling compliance, but we urge that cOAlition S and other funders recognize and support other appropriate mechanisms for the purpose and require any such instruments are put under international oversight by the global research community to ensure their no-for-profit nature, inclusiveness, objectiveness, integrity, and efficiency.

08 We commend the recognition by Plan S that there exist different models of financing and paying for Open Access publication. We support an inclusive range of immediate open access publishing approaches. We support the transparency and monitoring of open access publication costs and fees.

09 We urge that cOAlition S and other funders, through Plan S or other means, provide financial support for no-fee OA journals. The wide range of support approaches to no-fee OA journals should be encouraged to enhance the diversity of open access publishing and competiveness of publishing market, and to avoid the perverse effect of giving no-fee journals an incentive to start charging fees. While the support can start with general term statements, measures can be timely designed and tested to encourage quality, integrity, transparency and openness, and increasing host investment and other diverse and appropriate income.

10 We support that where article processing charges (APCs) apply, efforts are made to establish a fair and reasonable APC level, including equitable waiver policies, that reflects the costs involved in the quality assurance, editing, and publishing process and how that adds value to the publication. We hold it very important that any such effort should take into consideration of the diversity in the world to ensure applicability and affordability of any such measures across countries and disciplines.

11 We commend the support and requirements of Plan S for financing APCs for open access publication in subscription journals (‘hybrid Open Access’) only under transformative agreements. These agreements should be temporary and transitional, with a shift to full open access within a very few years.

12 We understand the purposes and the benefits of using ORCIDs in journal publications. Considering different paces of adopting ORCID in different regions and disciplines, we recommend that it is implemented as a preferred condition, at least in the short beginning years. We recommend the same treatment for using DOI.

13 We support the Plan S recommendation that “all publications and also other research outputs deposited in open repositories.” We recommend that Plan S make full acknowledge and use of the full range of capabilities of open repositories to support open access, long-term preservation, research management, and re-use.

14 We encourage that Plan S takes the transformative green OA mechanism as one of venues to implement open access, as long as the embargo period of com

Transformation from subscription model toward OA publishing model: JUSTICE OA2020 Roadmap

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“JUSTICE has seen that there is no other way to overcome the situation except to consider new models, and has been gathering information about worldwide trends. As part of information gathering, we endorsed the OA2020 Expression of Interest in August 2016, and we have analyzed Japanese financial and publication data to confirm the feasibility of transformation. Creating the JUSTICE OA2020 Roadmap is following this work. Our goal is to clarify the way to go through the transition period until a fully OA publishing model can be realized. Academic institutions, including Japanese ones, have already paid APCs(4) in addition to subscription fees as the cost of scholarly communication, and total amount of these costs have been increasing. If we leave the cost increases unchecked, we will not be able to keep the subscription model (cannot read) or pay for APCs (cannot publish). We need to shift our axis from read to publish to avoid this future, and at the same time, we have to find a model which is able to manage the total cost of publication (subscription fees plus APCs)….”

Towards 2020: progress in each of the five pillars

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“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….”

transcript OPEN Library Political Science | National Contact Point Open Access

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“As part of the open-access transformation, we want to give new inspiration for open access to scientific content. Therefore, we have launched the “transcript Open Library Political Science” project in cooperation with the transcript publishing house. The aim of the pilot project is the development of a publisher and library equally manageable, transparent and economically sustainable open-access e-book business model. The deficits of existing approaches should be adequately addressed. That means, that instead of buying the E-Books, the participating libraries enable the open access publication of all forthcoming books “Political Science at transcript 2019” (20 titles) via a fee in the crowdfunding model. Through that, the library budgets unlatch the titles to the benefit of everybody instead of supporting isolated access for single institutions. The model is supported by the Political Science Information Service (FID) at Bremen State and University Library….”

Aligning strategies to enable Open Access

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“The conference brought to light strong consensus and alignment among the diverse international communities represented around the necessity of stepping up efforts to move away from the subscription-based system of scholarly publishing to open access-based business models. A major focus was placed on transformative agreements (eg “read and publish”), which were identified as perhaps the most viable instrument at the moment to accelerate the transition to open access. As it became clear from statements made by representatives from Japan, the United States, South Africa and others, that readiness to adopt this approach is now extending beyond Europe, where it originated, and is currently being adopted in several countries; in particular, this was emphasized in a bold statement from China, the nation with the largest share of research publications.

After aligning on the goals and strategies during the first day of the conference, the CEOs of the three largest publishers of scholarly journals, Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, and Springer Nature, were invited by the President of the Max Planck Society, Martin Stratmann, to discuss the global demand for transformative agreements on the second day. The message conveyed to the publishers was that the global research communities are committed to complete and immediate open access, to retaining author copyrights and to negotiating transformative agreements that are temporary, transitional, and cost-neutral as a means to shift to full open access within just a few years with the expectation that cost savings in scholarly communication will follow as market forces take hold. The publishers were called upon to move towards complete and immediate open access according to these principles.

It also came out that there is a strong alignment between the approaches taken by OA2020, Plan S, the Jussieu Call and other approaches dedicated to drive more open access into the system of scholarly communication….”

China backs bold plan to tear down journal paywalls

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“In a huge boost to the open-access movement, librarians and funders in China have said that they intend to make results of publicly funded research free to read immediately on publication….

It is not yet clear when Chinese organizations will begin implementing new policies, or whether they will exactly adopt Plan S’s details, but Robert-Jan Smits, the chief architect of Plan S, says the new stance is a ringing endorsement for his initiative. …

In three position papers, seen by Nature, China’s National Science Library (NSL), its National Science and Technology Library (NSTL) and its Natural Science Foundation, a major research funder, all said that they “support the request of the OA2020 initiative and Plan S to transform, as soon as possible, research papers from publicly funded projects into immediate open access after publication, and we support a wide range of flexible and inclusive measures to achieve this goal.” …

Funders and research institutions in China have since 2014 encouraged — and funded — scientists to publish their papers in open-access formats, and to archive manuscripts openly online….

Two other non-European countries are expected to sign up to the plan in the coming weeks, said Smits….”

Aligning strategies to enable Open Access | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

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“The 14th Berlin Open Access Conference, hosted by the Max Planck Society and organized by the Max Planck Digital Library on behalf of the Open Access 2020 Initiative (oa2020.org), has just come to an end after two intense days with 170 participants from 37 countries around the world discussing where the research organizations and their library consortia stand in their negotiations with scholarly publishers in transitioning scholarly publishing to open access….

The conference brought to light strong consensus and alignment among the diverse international communities represented around the necessity of stepping up efforts to move away from the subscription-based system of scholarly publishing to open access-based business models. A major focus was placed on transformative agreements (eg “read and publish”), which were identified as perhaps the most viable instrument at the moment to accelerate the transition to open access. As it became clear from statements made by representatives from Japan, the United States, South Africa and others, that readiness to adopt this approach is now extending beyond Europe, where it originated, and is currently being adopted in several countries; in particular, this was emphasized in a bold statement from China, the nation with the largest share of research publications….

The message conveyed to the publishers was that the global research communities are committed to complete and immediate open access, to retaining author copyrights and to negotiating transformative agreements that are temporary, transitional, and cost-neutral as a mean to shift to full open access within just a few years with the expectation that cost savings in scholarly communication will follow as market forces take hold. The publishers were called upon to move towards complete and immediate open access according to these principles.

It also came out that there is a strong alignment between the approaches taken by OA2020, Plan S, the Jussieu Call and other approaches dedicated to drive more open access into the system of scholarly communication.”

Final Statement of the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference

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“Participants from 37 nations and five continents, representing research performing and research funding institutions, libraries and government higher education associations and rectors’ conferences, associations of researchers and other open access initiatives gathered at the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference held 3-4 December 2018 in Berlin. They affirmed that there is a strong alignment among the approaches taken by OA2020, Plan S, the Jussieu Call and others to facilitate a full and complete transition to open access. The statement that follows represents the strong consensus of all of those represented at the meeting.

We are all committed to authors retaining their copyrights,
We are all committed to complete and immediate open access,
We are all committed to accelerating the progress of open access through transformative agreements that are temporary and transitional, with a shift to full open access within a very few years. These agreements should, at least initially, be cost-neutral, with the expectation that economic adjustments will follow as the markets transform….”

STATEMENT [FROM THE] FIRST CONSORTIUM ASSEMBLY FROM IBERO-AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

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“We agree with the economic principle that states that the proposal OA2020 only seeks to change the nature of the market, which makes the inflation of the magazine’s price to be more likely, as the change to Open Access by charging APC “leaves out” the libraries from the game and leads the academics to confront big commercial editors. In this way, even if minor costs in magazines were produced, there are two additional dysfunctions in a complete APC model: the problem of perception and the seriousness of the preying magazines problem….

We agree that an OA expansion policy, through the payment of APC fees, is impossible to undertake from a financial point of view for the participant countries. To not create grants to pay a publication in OA-APC magazines is recommended to the institutions….”

MIT Open Access Task Force

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This white paper is the first deliverable of the OA task force. Its goal is to give MIT students, staff, and faculty an overview of the open access landscape at MIT, in the United States, and in Europe to help inform discussions at the Institute over the next year. These discussions, which will take place at community forums and in other venues, including the task force idea bank, will help inform the task force as it develops a set of recommendations across a broad spectrum of scholarly outputs, including articles and books, data, educational materials, and code. 

Liberation through Cooperation: How Library Publishing Can Save Scholarly Journals from Neoliberalism

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Abstract:  This commentary examines political and economic aspects of open access (OA) and scholarly journal publishing. Through a discourse of critique, neoliberalism is analyzed as an ideology causing many problems in the scholarly journal publishing industry, including the serials crisis. Two major efforts in the open access movement that promote an increase in OA funded by article-processing charges (APC)—the Open Access 2020 (OA2020) and Pay It Forward (PIF) initiatives—are critiqued as neoliberal frameworks that would perpetuate existing systems of domination and exploitation. In a discourse of possibility, ways of building a post-neoliberal system of journal publishing using new tactics and strategies, merging theory and praxis, and grounding in solidarity and cooperation are presented. This includes organizing journal publishing democratically using cooperatives, which could decommodify knowledge and provide greater open access. The article concludes with a vision for a New Fair Deal, which would revolutionize the system of scholarly journal publishing by transitioning journals to library publishing cooperatives.

Stakeholders united in the charge for transformation: Plan S and the Open Access 2020 Initiative

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“This decisive action on behalf of the research funding community reinforces the efforts of the Open Access 2020 Initiative, constituting a strategic alignment in the drive to accelerate the transition to open access with concrete measures aimed at removing our financial support of a scholarly communication system based on paywalled subscriptions.

By designating the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing as not compliant with the principles of Plan S, the funding bodies of cOAlition S are putting an end to “double dipping” and, thus, increasing the leverage power of their investments in precisely the same way that national consortia are using their subscription expenditures as leverage to inject open access into license negotiations. Like the successful flanking tactics in the Battle at Marathon, research funding organizations and research performing institutions (via their libraries and consortia) are now working on both sides of the scholarly communication chain to rein in the expenditures flowing to subscription publishers and lay siege to paywalls….”

Will Europe Lead a Global Flip to Open Access? – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“From a distance, you might think that journal publishers should be celebrating their success in Europe. They are being offered the open access (OA) crown, locking in OA contracts and article flows. But, European policy targets are adding complexity. The emergent problem is straightforward: there appears to be no realistic path forward that achieves the 2020 OA targets without resulting in substantial revenue reductions for existing publishers. Will Europe miss its OA target? Or will publishers miss their revenue targets?…”