Publishing for Nothing, Science for Free

STM Open-access advocates and government committees are lobbying to make scientific literature freely available; publishers want to know how they’ll pay their bills. DCLnews reports.

Why now?

The controversy over making scientific research freely available came about because of the Internet. In the past the cost of logistics and printing were the primary issues. A large publishing infrastructure was necessary to get the job done effectively. But now the Internet and electronic distribution has reduced the dependency on the large infrastructure and "anyone can be a publisher." But there is still a need to vet the materials and provide a stamp of approval on the quality of the research, which provides a definite added-value over just anyone publishing whatever they want.

Parallels

Parallels to the open access movement can be found in the controversy surrounding open-source software (Linux vs. Microsoft products). While free software is available, and it is suitable for some, Microsoft and other vendors are also going strong. The marketplace is showing that even with free software, there is value being provided by the vendors and it has taken the private companies to provide reliable on-going support.

Government committees in the U.S. and U.K. are taking steps to promote free online access to scientific literature. Not surprisingly, open-access advocates are overjoyed. The Public Library of Science (www.publiclibraryofscience.org/), an open-access publisher, says: “[Government support] and other recent endorsements of open-access publishing amount to a stinging rebuke of the prevailing subscription-based publishing system. Open access is the only acceptable outcome.”

The way open-access works is simple: Publishers charge study authors a printing fee and release information freely. Currently, around 1,200 open-access journals are in existence, up from five in 1992.

It isn’t just government committees who are calling for more open-access journals; scientists are too. Twenty-five Nobel Prize winners joined the open-access fray at the end of August, asking the government to make all taxpayer-funded research papers freely available.

“Science is the measure of the human race’s progress,” the scientists said in a letter to Congress and the National Institutes of Health. “As scientists, and taxpayers too, we therefore object to barriers that hinder, delay or block the spread of scientific knowledge supported by Federal tax dollars - including our own works.”

Those signing the letter included DNA co-discoverer James Watson and former National Institute of Health chief Harold Varmus, a long-time supporter of open-access.

Unfair government intervention

Many publishers are concerned that open access is being forced on them by government intervention, which they see as unfair. “[We don’t] oppose open-access publishing, but only its premature and unwarranted imposition through government mandate,” the Association of American Publishers (www.publishers.org/) said in a statement.

Alan Leshner, chief of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (www.aaas.org/), which publishes Science magazine, takes a slightly different view: “I think all the problems are workable [for the free access publishing plan]. The question is how to do it so we can still pay our bills.”

He adds that the whole discussion of how the scientific community shares research results is a very productive one. “Science is about communicating results to serve society,” he says.

Risky and untried

Science is driven by researchers publishing results to communicate findings, collect funding, and gain tenure. About 25,000 scientific and scholarly journals worldwide publish studies. Most hold copyrights to papers, and charge single-paper access fees as high as $28. Yearly subscription fees rose 226% from 1986 to 2000 and averaged $840 this year.

Who provides the funding?

The federal government funds about 59% of all academic research and development, followed by universities (20%), and state and local government (7.1%), according to the National Research Council.

Those in the open access movement see this as rampant profiteering. “It’s the biggest scam ever,” says 1993 Nobel Prize winner Richard Roberts, who also signed the letter to Congress and the National Institutes of Health. Taxpayers pay for researchers to prepare, review, and edit manuscripts, he goes on, while scientific societies and large publishing firms reap the profits.

Publishers reject this argument. They say the fees are necessary for journals to survive, even for taxpayer-funded studies.

Robert D. Bovenschulte, president of the American Chemical Society’s Publication Division, is one of those unconvinced that open-access is the way ahead: “We see no compelling case to abandon our traditional subscription model for a risky, untried model, which could put our journal publishing program in jeopardy,” he says.

Reasoned step

The biggest player in research funding is the National Institutes of Health (www.nih.gov/). It has a $28 billion budget, making it a focus of the open-access debate. In July, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee approved a provision recommending that the NIH provide free public access to research articles resulting from NIH-funded research.

The committee called on NIH to offer access to authors' final manuscripts and supplemental materials via PubMed Central (www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/) six months after publication.

Publishers said the provision amounted to a "market intervention." But Rick Johnson, executive director of SPARC (Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition - http://www.arl.org/sparc/), called the proposal "a reasoned, incremental step."

NIH must inform the committee by December 1 how it intends to implement the process. DCLnews will bring more news on the open-access debate as it breaks.

DCLnews Editorial