Mind the Gap

Features Special Feature Mind the gap

Rhonda Oliver (Group Head of Publishing of the Biochemical Society and Managing Director of Portland Press Limited)

In December 2009, the US Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office ofthe President and the White House Open Government Initiative launched a public consultation on Public Access Policy. The Administration sought comments from public on the access to publicly funded research results, such as those that appear in academic and scholarly journal articles. Currently, the Downloaded from http://www.portlandpress.com/biochemist/article-pdf/32/2/24/4024/bio032020024.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 National Institutes of Health (NIH) require that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online, free, within 12 months of publication. The Administration canvassed opinion on whether this policy should be extended to other science agencies and, if so, how.

Introduction We are very concerned by the prospect of any move The Biochemical Society is an international member- to impose free release of peer-reviewed journal articles ship-based learned society which was founded in 1911. with short embargo periods, or no embargo at all, when The Society is based in London and its mission is to there are no authoritative data on whether such a move promote the advancement of the molecular biosciences would affect the viability of our journals in the long run. and to represent the interests of all those working in We welcome the recognition of the importance of the sector. peer-review, as we make a In addition to being a “we do not believe that the US Government significant financial invest- scientific learned society, should expropriate journal articles in which ment to manage the pro- the Biochemical Society is the Biochemical Society (through Portland cess by which a submitted also a not-for-profit pub- Press Limited) has invested and added con- manuscript becomes part lisher via its wholly owned siderable value.” of the ‘minutes of science’ subsidiary, Portland Press in the shape of the ‘version Limited, and therefore this response to your consulta- of record’. However, our value-added activities are not tion is made from both perspectives. paid for by US taxpayer dollars and we do not believe Portland Press Limited publishes a number of books that the US Government should expropriate journal and journals, including the Society’s flagship journal, articles in which the Biochemical Society (through the Biochemical Journal, which was founded in 1906, Portland Press Limited) has invested and added consid- and has been serving the scholarly scientific commu- erable value. nity for over 100 years. We also publish on behalf of Publishers are experimenting with a number of a number of other learned societies; for example, the journal business models and we believe that we should International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular be allowed to retain control of our own business models, Biology, the International Federation for Cell Biology, operating in a free market. Peer-reviewing research is a the Société Française des Microscopies and the Société very expensive activity and has to be paid for by some- de Biologie Cellulaire de France. In 2009, we launched body. It is therefore extremely important that any policy a new open-access journal on behalf of the American to mandate access to research outputs funded by the US Society for Neurochemistry. Government does not destabilize the scholarly publish- The Biochemical Society welcomes this opportunity ing system that has served the scientific community, and to respond to the OSTP open consultation, recognizing society as a whole, so well. as it does the vital role scholarly publishers play in the communication of science. Although based in the UK, our authors and read- Key words: digital data , ers are international. Around 25% of submissions to the fraud, gamma correction, Biochemical Journal come from the USA, and the USA histogram equalization, accounts for ~50% of our online subscriber usage. Any image processing, neutral public access policy adopted by the US Government will Portland Press launched ASN Neuro a Gold Open Access Journal contrast stretching therefore have a significant impact. on behalf of the American Society of Neurochemistry in 2009

Question 1

How do authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities and the Federal Government contribute to the development and dissemination of peer-reviewed papers arising from federal funds now, and how might this change under a public access policy?

Researchers and their organizations provide the facili- ties and knowledge to conduct scientific research and Downloaded from http://www.portlandpress.com/biochemist/article-pdf/32/2/24/4024/bio032020024.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 educate the researchers of the future. Publishers play a vital role in the validation, certi- fication, dissemination and digital preservation of the outputs of scientific research. We fund and support the peer-review process, which, combined with our journal brands, enables the scientific literature to be ranked and sorted, by quality and scientific discipline. The Biochemical Society accepts the principle that governments, via their taxpayers, fund substantial amounts of research carried out in the biomedical sci- ences, and therefore that these taxpayers should have access to those outputs. However, governments do not pay for the versions of record that are the end-product of the scientific literature. It is essential that any policy does not harm or limit the ability of publishers to create the peer-reviewed scholarly literature, for example, by drastically reduc- ing our legitimate right to generate revenues from the value-added publishing services that we provide.

Question 2

What characteristics of a public access policy would best accommodate the needs and interests of authors, primary and secondary publishers, libraries, universities, the Federal Government, accessibility to research outputs. users of scientific literature and the public? Any public access policy should respect the free market in which publishers operate to allow them to find As the Federal Government has paid for the data arising new ways to expand access in a sustainable fashion. from scientific research, the basis of any federal public There is no one optimal embargo period for all access policy should be restricted to the immediate scientific disciplines and, in respect of the current NIH public posting of a research report summarizing the public access mandate, we believe that any reduction in major findings of the research. Such reports would ben- the current 12-month embargo period would be very efit from being tailored for the members of the general damaging to the Biochemical Society’s needs. public, i.e. by providing context and significance to a non-specialist audience. In this respect, we commend Question 3 patientINFORM, a free online service that provides patients and their families access to important research Who are the users of peer-reviewed publications information relating to a number of diseases. arising from federal research? How do they access patientINFORM is a collaborative project, actively and use these papers now, and how might they if managed and funded by STM (of which the Biochemi- these papers were more accessible? Would others cal Society is a member). It is a very good example use these papers if they were more accessible, of publishers working together to enhance the public and for what purpose?

The primary users of the peer-reviewed literature are repositories such as PubMed Central (PMC) would be academics and researchers in universities, research in- more helpful about sharing their usage data. stitutions and in industry. There is a shortage of data In 2006, as part of the centenary celebrations of the regarding the real demand from the public for access to Biochemical Journal, the journal archive back to 1906 the peer-reviewed scientific literature. was digitized and deposited in PMC. It became imme- There are data to show that ~96% of STM journals diately apparent that this was shifting usage away from are available online and that this is now overwhelmingly our own website. how the literature is accessed by users. It is well known that librarians use usage statistics to There is little evidence that lack of access to the inform their cancellation decisions, so this was a matter scholarly literature is a problem for users (see RIN Study of great concern to us. This situation was compounded on Access to Professional and Academic Information in by a refusal by PMC to provide us with the detailed us- Downloaded from http://www.portlandpress.com/biochemist/article-pdf/32/2/24/4024/bio032020024.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 the UK, August 2009) and most academics have access age information we need to understand and manage the to the literature via subscriptions taken out by their situation. institutions. In addition, the Biochemical Society makes its jour- Question 5 nals accessible to users in the developing world through the Research4Life programme (HINARI, AGORA, etc.) What features does a public access policy need to – as do many other publishers in both the commercial have to ensure compliance? and not-for-profit sectors. Unsurprisingly, there is evidence that users predomi- Question 4 nantly wish to access the version of record. Relying on individual authors to submit their ar- How best could federal agencies enhance public ticles resulted in low levels of compliance – even after access to the peer-reviewed papers that arise such compliance was mandated by their grant givers. from their research funds? What measures could We offer authors the choice to pay to make their agencies use to gauge whether there is increased article freely available online immediately on publica- return on federal investment gained by expanded tion (so-called Gold Open Access), but take-up is low. If access? authors opt to pay, then we deposit the version of record on their behalf, and there is evidence that compliance It is difficult to answer this question when there is a lack rates are higher where this is the case. of any evidence that there is a real (as opposed to a per- However, it is essential that such compliance should ceived) demand from the public for access to the peer- be sustainably funded by a clear mechanism that will reviewed literature. It would be helpful for government enable publishers to recover their investment in produc- agencies to work with publishers to assess the actual ing the version of record. public demand for such access, as this is likely to vary considerably from discipline to discipline. Question 6 It is not clear where the remaining gaps in access exist, but we believe most publishers would wish to What version of the paper should be made public work with other stakeholders in the scholarly publish- under a public access policy (e.g. the author’s ing community to identify and find methods of closing peer-reviewed manuscript or the final published such gaps. version)? What are the relative advantages and It is not clear to us how repositories represent good disadvantages to different versions of a scientific value for money or whether, for the most part, they du- paper? plicate efforts already being carried out by publishers. We deplore the wasteful proliferation of different The only version of a paper that has been paid for by versions of articles posted on institutional repositories, public taxes is the unrefereed manuscript or research other than the version of record, which we believe may report. Therefore this is the only version that the public be harmful to the scholarly record. should be able to access as of right. It would seem most cost-effective if the research Any subsequent version will have benefited from reports arising from public investment in research were the publisher’s investment in peer review, copyediting, linked directly to the publisher’s own website, where the proofreading, reference checking and linking, image final version of record is already posted at no additional formatting and other value-added services – for exam- expense to the public. ple, we have recently supported researchers at the Uni- However, in the meantime, it would be helpful if versity of Manchester to develop a suite of tools (Utopia

Documents) to semantically enrich journal article PDFs Question 8 (see www.biochemj.org/bj/semantic_faq.htm). We must be able to continue to recoup the real costs of carrying How should peer-reviewed papers arising from out these activities, whether from selling subscriptions federal investment be made publicly available? or charging author-side payments for public access. In what format should the data be submitted in Errors in manuscripts are often detected and cor- order to make it easy to search, find and retrieve, rected after the peer-review process; sometimes these and to make it easy for others to link to it? Are are of a serious nature. We are very concerned that there existing digital standards for archiving and versions other than the version of record will confuse interoperability to maximize public benefit? How readers and undermine the trust and confidence in the are these anticipated to change? scientific record and may cause harm. Downloaded from http://www.portlandpress.com/biochemist/article-pdf/32/2/24/4024/bio032020024.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Governments should take advantage of the investments Question 7 and infrastructure already provided by publishers by linking to the version of record online. At what point in time should peer-reviewed Digital standards for archiving and interoperability papers be made public via a public access policy are still emerging, but there are a number of successful, relative to the date a publisher releases the final efficient, industry-led solutions already in existence, for version? Are there empirical data to support an example the Digital Object Identifier (DOI, managed by optimal length of time? Should the delay period the DOI Foundation), CrossRef and Portico. be the same or vary for levels of access (e.g. final We believe that the publishing industry, not govern- peer-reviewed manuscript or final published ments, is best placed to respond to future technological article, access under fair use versus alternative challenges in an innovative and cost-effective fashion. licence), for federal agencies and scientific There are a number of initiatives in the pipeline that disciplines? support this view, for example CrossCheck, CrossMark and ORCID. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ embargo. The pace of research is different from subject discipline to subject Question 9 discipline as is evident by the Thomson/ISI metric ‘cited half-life’. This is an indicator that commercial value is re- Access demands not only availability, but also tained well beyond 12 months. For example, in 2009, the meaningful usability. How can the Federal cited half-life for the Biochemical Journal was 9.5 years. Government make its collections of peer- We do not support efforts to make the embargo reviewed papers more useful to the American period less than 12 months based on our experience of public? By what metrics (e.g. number of articles or depositing journal articles after 6 months in PMC. This visitors) should the Federal Government measure policy led to an increase in cancellations that was only success of its public access collections? What reversed when we moved to delayed access of 12 months are the best examples of usability in the private on our own website (i.e. no longer depositing in PMC). sector (both domestic and international)? And However, there are no reliable data on the mid- to what makes them exceptional? Should those long-term effects of large-scale deposit of peer-reviewed who access papers be given the opportunity to articles under different embargo periods on the viability comment or provide feedback? of the journals concerned. Before endangering the future of the scholarly record of peer-reviewed research, we sug- The number of articles deposited might be a measure gest that it would be wise to gather evidence on the effect of the success of author compliance in the face of in- of public access policies before they are implemented. creasingly draconian funders’ mandates, but it is not To this end, the Biochemical Society is participating clear that number of downloads or visitors will provide in the PEER project. This important EU-funded initia- meaningful measures of success. tive is investigating the effects of large-scale systematic Publishers’ peer-reviewed articles should only be depositing of authors’ final peer-reviewed manuscripts made accessible to the public if publishers are adequate- on reader access, author visibility and journal viability. ly recompensed for their use by government(s). In this PEER is an excellent example of a collaborative, case, the public would have access to existing and future responsible and evidence-based approach that will run tools and services provided by publishers, including until 2011. We suggest that a similar evidence-led ap- public engagement services, which would enhance their proach to policy development should be considered by usability and relevance to the public. ■ the USA.