Open publishing

There is increasing pressure from academia to make the results of publicly funded research freely available to all. Preprint archives have grown up in some disciplines, and institutional archives are now being developed. While openly accessible preprints seem to have damaged publishers less than was originally feared, the final published versions of articles – when combined with sophisticated retrieval software – may turn out to be a different matter. Publishers have already done much to make their content more accessible through bundling, consortia licensing, access for less-developed countries, more liberal customer and author agreements, and collective licensing. Some are experimenting with open access journals, although this may not work in all disciplines. It seems clear, however, that there are elements of value in journals themselves, and in the functions performed by journal publishers, which should survive. Learned Publishing (2003)16, 171–176 Sally Morris Open publishing 171 L E ARNED PUBL I SH ING VO L . 1 6 NO . 3 J UL Y 2 0 0 3 such as chemistry, medicine and cognitive science, but with much less success. The reasons put forward for the much lower uptake in other areas include the pre-existence of a ‘preprint culture’ in high-energy physics; the relatively small community size in each subdiscipline, meaning that readers are familiar with the other groups working in the field; the very expensive nature of the research, leading to rigorous screening before an experiment is even carried out; the fact that in pure science the writer and reader communities are virtually the same; and the fact that – unlike, say, in medicine – there are no issues of commercial exploitation, and no risk to human life of publishing unvetted results. In fact, in many subject areas, journal authors are completely unaware of the existence of preprint archives, and even those who are aware of and use them do not necessarily deposit their own articles. Initially, many publishers were deeply alarmed at the idea that journal articles might already have been ‘published’ (in the strict sense of ‘made public’) before the peer-reviewed and finally edited version appeared in the journal; there was a concern that the viability of the journal in which the final version appeared might be seriously undermined. Some journals refused to consider for publication an article that had previously appeared in a preprint database (a few still do); others require such a preprint either to be taken down on formal publication, or to be replaced – either with the published version, or with a link to the published version within the journal. However, physics journals seem, so far at least, to have survived relatively unscathed, in terms of both submissions and sales; you will now find citations to preprints in the ArXiv database alongside citations to published articles. The two forms appear to coexist side by side; authors still need the benefits (to their careers, to their funding) which only publication in a prestigious journal can bring.5 A more recent development has been that of institutional (as opposed to disciplinebased) open archives;6 the D-Space initiative at MIT,7 and the DARE8 and FAIR9 programmes in The Netherlands and the UK respectively, are leaders in the field. In addition to research articles and supporting material, these archives also seek to preserve other publications by faculty (books and technical reports, for example), as well as materials produced by the institution, such as course materials, and institutional records. It is not yet clear how large a part journal articles and other formal publications will play. Individual databases of preprints and other materials, however, are not in themselves a complete solution; users have to know they are there, and have to search each database individually. Indeed, unless the contents are classified in some consistent way, they can’t even be searched systematically at all. The Open Archives Initiative10 has addressed this problem in two ways: firstly, it lays down standards for the metadata (information about the item) that should be associated with it; and secondly, it outlines a ‘Metadata Harvesting Protocol’ which enables the metadata from different archives to be gathered together, by anyone who chooses to do so, into a single searchable whole. ‘Postprints’ – the nightmare scenario? So far so good – although concerns remain, there is no hard evidence yet that the availability of preprint versions of articles, albeit searchable, seriously undermines journals’ viability. However, posting the final published version, exactly as it appears in the journal, might be another matter. Some authors have been asking for the right to do this, and a number of publishers have responded positively, sometimes even providing a PDF file for the purpose. Individual articles randomly scattered in different archive databases may not be a problem. But software is being developed11 which makes it easy to search for specific articles and find them if they are present in any open archive; in some disciplines, as Bill Arms reported at the recent ALPSP International Learned Journals Seminar, a researcher can input the table of contents of an entire journal issue and find just about every article in a free source. Now this is seriously scary for publishers; if it becomes just as easy to find a free (but otherwise identical) version of any in many subject areas, journal authors are completely unaware of preprint archives 172 Sally Morris L EARN ED PUBL I SH ING VO L . 1 6 NO . 3 J ULY 2 0 0 3 given article as to find it within the journal itself, why bother to pay? Publishers have two options: either they can say ‘no’, or they can try to modify their business models in order to live with it. Of course, how serious the threat really is depends on whether a critical mass of authors will change their behaviour; this may be unlikely – after all, author behaviour is not driven primarily by altruism, but by the normal human need to make a living, through career advancement and research funding. As long as journal publication is the only way of obtaining this, then saying ‘no’ may remain a viable option. What publishers are doing Publishers do recognize that authors want their work to be as widely read (by the right people) as possible. Learned societies in particular have a mission to advance knowledge of their discipline. There is a great deal that they can do – and are doing – short of giving the content away. Electronic publishing (although it does not reduce costs to the extent many of us – publishers as well as customers – hoped12) opens up many new opportunities. Individual articles can be sold to those who do not have a subscription or licence. Users can have access wherever they are – they are no longer tied to the physical copy in the library. Additional publications can be included in a package for very little more than the subscriber was previously paying. Additional users can be given access – for example, in a consortium of libraries – again, for very little more money. And the content can be made much more accessible through linking to and from both abstracting and indexing databases and citations.13 Publishers are also making much more content readily available through electronic versions of back volumes – in some cases going to considerable expense to digitize complete runs back to the 19th century or even earlier, either themselves or through third-party bodies such as J-Stor.14 In 2001 the Public Library of Science15 mounted a campaign to get academics to refuse to write, referee or edit for journals that did not place their back files in open archives six months after publication. Although over 30,000 academics signed the declaration, very few of them actually changed their behaviour. Interestingly, however, this seems to have been the catalyst for a change in publishers’ behaviour. When they realized the strength of opinion, many started to rethink their access policy for back volumes. Now, in many cases, these back volumes (or at least those that are a by-product of electronic publishing, from around 1998 onwards) are freely available from a given period after publication; they are not, however, in open archives but remain on the publishers’ sites. The creation of these electronic back-runs raises questions of their long-term preservation, of course, and many publishers are working with national or university libraries to address these difficult (and expensive) issues. Publishers are also alive to the problems of access to research publications in lessdeveloped countries. Many publishers are participating in one or more of the various schemes that have sprung up to provide either free or low-priced access to readers in the poorest countries of the world;16 others make their own arrangements direct. Of course, online access is not the whole answer; the availability of hardware and/or online connections may still be an obstacle. There are also initiatives, therefore, to provide other means of access, such as on CD-ROM; some publishers are also licensing local reprints at nominal royalty rates. It is noticeable, too, how publishers’ agreements – both with their customers and with their authors – have steadily become more liberal. Licences now commonly allow institutions to use electronic material for course packs and for electronic reserve collections; often they also allow interlibrary loan, either of printed-out copies or, increasingly, of electronic files. Authors, whether or not they transfer copyright to the publisher, now very commonly retain the right to post the preprint – or even the published version – on institutional and/or discipline-based websites, and to reuse the item freely for their own teaching and writing purposes. The development of reproduction rights organizations (RROs) has enabled publishers to license activities for which it is not publishers’ agreements have steadily become more liberal Open publishing 173 L E ARNED PUBL I SH ING VO L . 1 6 NO . 3 J UL Y 2 0 0 3 practicable for individual users to deal with individual publishers, through collective licences. RROs were originally developed to license photocopying centrally; however, they too are beginning to move into the digital age, licensing scanning of print publications, and are in the early stages of licensing those ‘peripheral’ uses of electronic materials that cannot sensibly be licensed directly, but which are not usually included in publishers’ own licences. As publishers become more comfortable with what is core and what is peripheral, I suspect that the attractions of the one-stop-shop approach will lead to growth in this area, too. Open access journals Some publishers have gone a step further, and have launched journals that are freely available to all.17 This does not, of course, mean that the journals are free; the processes of publication cost money, and the costs have to be recovered somehow. There are essentially only three sources from which the recovery can be made: consumers (subscribers, licensees, advertisers); creators (authors, their institutions or their research funders); or sponsors (visible or invisible subsidies, for example from the host institution). Open access journals are usually funded by publication charges paid by the authors (this differs from conventional page charges in that they replace, rather than supplement – except in a transitional phase18 – subscription charges). Of course, individual authors are highly unlikely to be able or willing to pay out of their own pockets. Research funds may be sufficient (in the sciences at least) to cover the additional cost of publication – many funders, in fact, are already willing to support this. Alternatively, in the interesting model introduced by BioMed Central,19 the institution may pay a ‘membership’ fee related to its size. This may sound indistinguishable from a subscription or licence (indeed, one of its attractions is that the money still comes from the same place in the organization), but the key difference is that it enables everyone in that institution to publish free of charge in BioMed Central’s open access journals. Open access may not work in all disciplines; in those where research budgets are small (e.g. in the arts and humanities), where electronic publication is not yet predominant or where journal rejection rates are high (assuming the fee is paid on publication, not on submission), the numbers may simply not add up. And it is hard to envisage exactly how the transition of the journal corpus as a whole could work; there is bound to be a period in which authors are confronted with the choice of publishing in a known and highly ranked journal without paying, or paying to publish in a relatively new and unknown title. But in those areas where the economics do work, the model does have some attractions; unlike library funding, it would of necessity keep pace with research output. Even traditional publishers are therefore not dismissing it out of hand. ALPSP itself is exploring the possibility of two related research projects, one looking at the entirety of the costs that need to be recovered by non-subscription means, and the other looking at the effects (on submissions, accesses, citations) of converting an existing journal from subscription to open access. Will the journal survive? One thing seems certain: the journal adds value to research information in many ways, and authors and readers want this value to persist in any new economic environment.20 The journal itself is no longer a physical object containing articles. It is, however, still a very important entity – an ‘envelope’, if you like, which contains, and acts as a kind of shorthand for, content of a particular kind. The content is not just selected for its soundness – that is not, of course, all that referees are looking for. It is also selected because it is interesting, important and relevant – in the personal view of a particular editor or editorial team, whose opinions the readers respect – to a given readership. That is why browsing the particular collections of articles in a handful of favourite journals remains equally as popular as searching, as a means of identifying articles worth reading. it is hard to envisage exactly how the transition of the journal corpus as a whole could work 174 Sally Morris L EARN ED PUBL I SH ING VO L . 1 6 NO . 3 J ULY 2 0 0 3 Will the publisher survive? Many of the functions carried out by the publisher also add considerable value (by which I mean that which is valued by the customer – the author and the reader). It is not just – as sometimes argued – peer review itself (which is managed, and the expenses of which are funded, by publishers), although this is ranked highest by both authors and readers. Content is improved by both substantive and copy-editing – this may be invisible to the reader (as it should be!), but authors are very well aware of it; arguments are made clearer, non-native speakers’ language is improved, disciplinespecific standards (e.g. in units of measurement) are checked, even citations are often checked for accuracy (essential if links are to work). Quantity control is as important as quality control – keeping the size of a journal manageable for its readers may mean increasing the rejection rate or splitting it into two separate titles. And the journal is made visible (marketing in its true sense) through inclusion in the most important abstracting and indexing databases, and by linking to and from these and citations within the individual articles. Publishers launch new journals, in response to market research identifying a need (perhaps a new discipline has arisen, or a subject has split into two). Just as in the print world, new journals take time to get established and will lose money for their first few years (it can take five to seven years for a journal to break even – patience is required, as well as deep pockets); and, of course, they do not all make it. Existing journals are developed as the discipline, and the needs of its readership, change. The question of long-term preservation of electronic journals is involving publishers much more than was ever the case with print, where we could rely on libraries to do all the work. So will publishers survive? I don’t know. As we know them, possibly not – but if the functions that add value, both to individual articles and to journals as a whole, are still important to authors and readers, then somebody will carry them out. Publishers will need imagination to see what kind of organization they will need to be in order to be paid – by somebody – to add that value in the future.