9 | The Future is

Roshae Miller, Department of Communications

Open Access has been a recent topic of discussion for academia and publishing agencies. The conversation surrounding the movement has a lot to do with sustainability, quality and academic infringement. However, the quality of any literature, especially a scholarly journal, is a function of its authors and editors, not its access policy, and depending on the selected model, Open Access does not necessarily infringe on academic freedom. Most importantly, article publishing charges (APCs) have been introduced by some publishers to make Open Access practicable, while remaining free to readers.

Keywords: open access, sustainability, quality, academic infringement

Close to completing a two-year research project on vascular and interventional radiology, Yanique discovered that she was unable to gain access to a newly published scholarly article whose abstract seemingly overlapped with her own research topic. Strapped for cash, Yanique went to see the librarian at her school to find out if the institution could purchase the article. The librarian proceeded to tell her that the school had been negotiating with that specific publishing company for some time, but was unsuccessful in striking a deal regarding the cost of their service. Disappointed, Yanique completed her research with thoughts of how that article might have helped her improve her thesis, if only she could access it.

Research is a pertinent part of learning that is not only required in the academic community, but for all professionals (Zarah, 2017). Information gathered from conducting research, fuels new ideas that scholars and professionals alike rely heavily on to assist with understanding, problematizing, improving or solving the various phenomena prevalent in society (Sprac, n.d.; UNESCO, 2015). The information revolution brought on by the has played an enormous role in having a plethora of research journals published online. Journal articles are increasingly

Copyright © 2018 Miller. Open Access 84 being offered and retrieved in digital formats as opposed to paper editions (Laakso et al., 2011). Locating research has become faster and easier, but not necessarily more accessible, because many scholarly published articles are hidden behind a . This has prompted an ongoing debate in the industry about whether or not online literature should be made Open Access (Banks, 2004; Gwynne, 2017; Suber, 2004). Open Access is a model for retrieving scholarly peer reviewed journals online, free of charge with little or no copyright restrictions (Laakso et al., 2011; Sprac, n.d.; Suber, 2004; UNESCO, 2015). The existing procedure for sharing research is being stifled by an old model that dismisses the presence of new technology (Sprac, n.d.). Opponents of Open Access argue that it not a viable model for producing quality scholarly journal articles (Shaw, 2013). However, champions for Open Access have been advocating to increase the information available to scholars and professionals to ultimately improve their quality of education and work (Manista, 2017; Sprac, n.d.). Still, amidst the tug of war between those for or against Open Access, it undeniably represents a fast-growing segment in the publication of academic journals. This paper will explore the history of Open Access, the various business models as well as a few arguments surrounding the movement.

The Emergence of Open Access

The high production cost for physical journals accompanied burdensome distribution, a long waiting time for authors to get published or be listed in indexing services, increasing subscription rates for maintenance and archiving of back volumes. This has led to “Serials Crisis” where prices for journals, have risen beyond the budget that most libraries or universities could afford (Panitch & Michalak, 2005; UNESCO, 2015; Laaskso et al., 2011). Responding to these challenges, university libraries began developing initiatives for Open Access in the 1990s.

In 2002, the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), a statement of principles relating to Open Access, was released to the public.

An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for

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the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds (BOAI, 2002, para 1).

The Bethesda Statement on Publishing Open Access was another initiative that unfolded in 2003, which defined and supported the Open Access movement. The Berlin Declaration on Open Access was a third important statement which followed the BOAI and the Bethesda Statement on Publishing Open Access. This statement acknowledged the increasing importance of the internet and the previous discussions on the need for open access.

These initiatives surfaced in response to the increase in publication prices and accessibilities issues with research, alongside the belief that research funded by taxpayers should be able to be accessible by them free of charge (Gwynne, 2013; Laakso et al., 2011; Manista, 2012; UNESCO, 2015). This is because a majority of researches are funded by the government or through institutions. Researchers publish their findings without the expectation of payment. Other researchers review the submitted work through the process of peer review, which is also free of charge. However, once the work is published, those who contributed to the research (taxpayers and the institutions that supported the research itself), have to pay again to access the findings (Manista, 2012; Sprac, n.d.; UNESCO, 2015).

Open Access Business Models

Retrieving scholarly peer reviewed journals online for free can be regarded as the main function of the Open Access movement. Publishers, who enforce Open Access, have sort to apply compatible business models for the movement. As a result of this, different categories of Open Access have emerged (Burtle, 2017; Meadows, 2012). These forms of access and usage varies from a free model in which there is no associated cost with “full permission to copy, download, print, distribute, archive, and even change format to its usage with varying restrictions” (UNESCO, 2015, p. 3). Some categories carry a publishing fee or article processing charges (APCs) as a way to generate funding for Open Access publishing. The APC method was

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 86 developed in 2002 by a start-up publishing company called BioMedCentral (Bjork, 2012). It is important to note that Open Access does not necessarily mean free. The costs attached to Open Access journals are distinctly different and mostly consists of copy-editing and web-hosting. According to Laakso et al. (2011), “Open Access business models have been introduced in parallel to these traditional subscription-based models” (p. 1).

There are three levels of access within academic publishing that determine how open and accessible scholarship is for a reader. The first level is often referred to as “toll access”, which indicates that a work is available for a price (a “toll” fee). This level of access is applicable to scholarship that has both financial barriers and usage rights). The second level is “Gratis Open Access”, which removes just the financial barrier; in this way, the work is accessible for free but has usage rights. The third level, “Libre Open Access”, is the most accessible, and removes financial and some usage rights barriers. As Suber explains (2012), within Libre Open Access, there are various levels of usage rights:

• Public domain - works in public domain may be used in any way without violating copyright. • license (CC-0) - for authors to assign their works to the public domain. • Creative Common Attribution license (CC-BY) - allows any use so long as the work is attributed to the original author • Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial (CC-BY-NC) - requires attribution but blocks commercial use. • Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC-BY-ND) - requires attribution and allows commercial use but blocks derivative works (p. 69).

In addition to the level of access, Open Access is also typified by its mode of delivery. Here too, there are three categories of delivery: (1) Gold Open Access, (2) Green Open Access and (3) Hybrid or Paid Open Access. Gold Open Access refers to work published in a scholarly journal that makes its articles immediately available online and free of charge to members of the public (Christensen, 2013). According to Vincent and Wickham, Green Open Access is work that is made publicly available in a repository after serving a period of restriction or embargo (as

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 87 cited in Christensen, 2013). The Hybrid Open Access model refers to traditional closed access subscription journals, which offer individual authors the possibility to open up their articles for free access through the payment of a fee. The author, the author's organization, or the research funder is able to pay this fee (Bjork, 2012; Burtle, 2017). All three types of Open Access make the research free for readers. Additionally, there is the controversial Black or Pirated Open Access, “which provides access to a large part of the pay-walled article output which cannot be found in repositories” (Bjork, 2017, p. 1). In essence, scholarships originally hidden behind a pay-wall are made accessible to readers for free. This form of Open Access, although very common, is illegal.

The Argument of Sustainability, Quality and Academic Infringement

Open Access has, understandably, been met with concerns regarding its viability, sustainability and quality. Despite the advantages of OA, many scholars remain apprehensive about it because they are under the impression that the movement’s aim is to make publishing completely free, which is not viable. However, Open Access advocates are aware that publishing is a business and Open Access literature is not free to produce or publish, hence the different forms of Open Access and Open Access APCs (Bjork, 2012; Van Noorden, 2013). Open Access is much less expensive to produce, as opposed to conventionally published journals. Therefore, the argument put forth by advocates is not to necessarily make it free, but find other ways to cover associated production costs instead of creating access barriers and charging the readers. This forms the basis for many Open Access advocates, to make the literature free for users and not free for the producers (Hagemann, 2002; Suber, 2012). After all, if the government covered a large amount of the fees generated for conducting research through grants (from tax-payers dollars), it only makes sense for taxpayers to have free access to the information.

One way in which journals have managed the associated costs of publication is by using the APC method, which is one variant of Gold Open Access. According to Bjork, 2012:

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APCs should be set initially at the level of the average current subscription revenue per article, so that the publisher’s income would remain constant if the whole journal converted to full OA, as well as during the gradual transition if subscription prices were reduced linearly as uptake grew. The strategy would thus be risk-free from the publisher’s viewpoint (p. 1497).

This type of Open Access has expanded at a fast pace, increasing in market share every year (Meadows, 2012; Tananbaum, Tenopir & Anderson, 2016). This is because within this model, the financial viability shifts from the demand to the supply side with APCs. Ideally, this model would be sustainable for academic research institutions, in that it would cost them cumulatively no more in APCs than what they pay now in the traditional subscription model (Tananbaum, Tenopir & Anderson, 2016).

Other opponents of Open Access argue that journals and other publishers represent important gatekeepers and Open Access will essentially compromise the quality of scholarly journals. They argue that the peer review process guarantees that published research is relevant, accurately reported, and of high technical quality. They believe that these processes cost money and, by undermining the subscription model, Open Access threatens the revenues that have traditionally funded scientific publications (Gwynne, 2013). This argument is flawed on several points, however. First, quality is not an issue that plagues Open Access alone, as traditional subscription-based journals have the same issues with quality due to issues in the peer-review process more generally (Meadows, 2012). The quality of a scholarly journal is a function of its authors, editors, and referees, not its business model or access policy (Suber, 2013). Second, the Open Access model does not dismiss the peer review process. In fact, the majority of Open Access journals have a peer-review process as rigorous as subscription journals. This misconception may have developed because vanity publishers or predatory publishers are increasingly taking advantage of the Open Access movement. These publishers scout professional email lists, then proceed to solicit article submissions for a cost. They could have false-front or non-existent peer review processes (Beall, 2012). Therefore, the onus is on the author to ensure that their work is being submitted to credible publishers.

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Opponents argue that Open Access infringes on academic freedom, as researchers are often required to only submit work to that specific publisher as part of their institutional policy. Admittedly, as Johnston (2017) posits, not all Open Access policies are created equal as it pertains to their potential tensions with academic freedom. Green open access mandates can respect author freedom to publish where they please (Johnston, 2017). According to Suber (2013), this maybe the reason why a vast majority of university open access mandates are green, not gold. In accordance to Johnston (2017), “policies that simply encourage Open Access or request faculty to opt-in to a policy are not in conflict with academic freedom given that faculty are under no obligation whatsoever to follow the policy” (p. 6). The Canadian Tri-Agency policy is one that requires the faculty to provide open access to their work within a given timeframe without the option of a waiver this may appear to introduce potential conflicts with freedom of publication (Johnston, 2017). The Green Open Access and Hybrid Open Access models immensely reduce the possibility of an obstinate conflict between researchers who need to comply with an Open Access policy and publisher’s contracts. However, the emphasis of such policies is on ensuring faculty compliance with the policy, rather than developing a policy that emphasizes protection of the researcher’s academic freedom. It therefore, cannot be concluded that policies which introduce requirements of this kind necessarily violate the researcher’s academic freedom, if it is the researchers themselves who have opted to sign with models of such policies (Johnston, 2017; Suber, 2013).

Conclusion

The internet has contributed greatly to the emergence of the Open Access movement, as scholarly journals are increasingly being produced in digital formats. The movement, which has been characterized as the most recent development in the history of increasing access to knowledge, advocates for research to be free of cost to its users, preventing them from paying twice for literature that they have already paid for through tax deduction. Individuals like Yanique would never have to worry about paying “tolls” to access scholarly literature, she would instead have no barriers to the journals needed to advance her research. Similar to the traditional subscription-based model, some publishers have introduced article publishing charges (APCs) to

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 90 make Open Access viable and sustainable while remaining free to readers. Additionally, Open Access does not disregard the peer review processes. The quality of a scholarly journal is a function of its authors, and to an extent its editors, not its business model or access policy. Authors must therefore put deep consideration into ensuring that wherever they submit their research, it can be trusted to undergo a thorough peer review process. Many Open Access publishing companies adhere to a preferred Open Access model and have developed its own institutional policy. Depending on the model, Open Access does not necessarily infringe on academic freedom. The type of policy that an institution decides to accept has that power.

Advantages and disadvantages accompany every new initiative. However, misconceptions surrounding Open Access may have resulted in its ongoing debate. The opportunities significantly outweigh the risks. According to Meadows (2012), “exciting new prospective services and products beckon; and a mixed economy, in which subscription journals, hybrid journals, and Open Access journals co-exist peacefully, is already becoming a reality” (para. 9). Undoubtedly, the Open Access movement has gained support from many scientists, educationists, publishers, research institutions, professional associations and library organizations, as a result of its ultimate aim to make research available to all, irrespective of the users paying capacity (UNESCO, 2015). Therefore, this seismic shift in scholarly publishing is inevitable and is only a natural step in the future of online publishing.

References

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