Perspective The Open Access Movement Grows Up: Taking Stock of a Revolution

Heather Joseph* SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Washington, DC, United States of America

Introduction these digital articles in previously unimag- with any significant movement for change inable ways. Rather than being con- where there are significant societal, ethi- It’s been just over a decade since the strained to reading one article at a time, cal, and financial outcomes at stake, there concept of Open Access (OA) first cap- hopping from siloed website to siloed is no such thing as an overnight success. tured the attention of the scientific and website, scholars could now envision a Implementing such wholesale changes scholarly research community, bringing world where articles could be used in bulk in the context of traditional scholarly with it the promise and potential of a and treated as digital data. They would journal publishing proved to be an ex- shining new digital landscape, in which now have the opportunity to download a traordinarily challenging venture. A com- knowledge is freely shared and freely used, significant corpus of the literature, run plex set of interwoven factors—from and the pace of scientific discovery is computational or data mining technolo- copyright transfer routines that indiscrim- accelerated for the benefit of all. gies, and facilitate entirely new ways of inately transferred limitations from a Early meetings, convened by diverse using scholarly articles. paper-based world to the digital environ- groups of thought leaders around the Scholars also recognized the extraordi- ment, to evaluation practices that have world, resulted in a handful of key nary potential that OA held for authors to intimately tied funding, tenure, and pro- Declarations that provided a strong intel- open up their work to vast new audiences motion decisions to publication in estab- lectual and philosophical foundation for across disciplinary and geographic bound- lished flagship ‘‘high-end’’ journals, and the movement, and also reflected the aries, offering the chance to gain new not to mention the fact that scholarly convergence of opportunities that allowed readers and allowing significant and mea- publishing is a multibillion dollar revenue- scientists to consider a completely new way surable increases in the visibility and generating industry [3] with absolutely no of sharing information. As the participants impact of their work. This increased access interest in ceding their claim on this layer in one such key meeting, the Budapest also had significant implications outside of of content—came at times to resemble a Open Access Initiative (BOAI), noted in research labs, democratizing the ability of Gordian knot that at times seemed impos- 2002: educational institutions to access high- sible to unravel. quality information and providing a new Yet, despite these substantial obstacles, An old tradition and a new technology have channel for businesses, entrepreneurs, and over the past decade, we have seen the converged to make possible an unprecedent- interested members of the public—in acceptance and adoption of OA grow, ed public good… [1] many cases, for the first time. steadily and inexorably, year in and year In the view of many, OA provided a out. How has this been possible? It’s The tradition referred to by the BOAI is compelling vision of the future of research tempting, when writing a retrospective, the longstanding practice of scholars to communication, and one that was ripe to simply point to a person or an event (or publish papers in journals without expec- with promise. This spurred some early set of them) and say: these were the tation of payment; the new technology is, community declarations of support, in- catalysts; this was the precipitating event of course, the Internet. The idea that these cluding a notable petition sponsored by that made it all happen. And while OA, of two elements could be seamlessly com- the Public Library of Science (PLOS) that course, does have its notable leaders and bined to ensure that anyone, anytime, was signed by more than 30,000 individ- benchmark events, the collective move- anywhere in the world could have the uals who collectively declared their intent ment has always been greater than the ability to immediately and freely access the to act in support of OA practices [2]. sum of its parts. results of scholarly research online ignited With such a compelling vision and with This was driven home to me at a recent a firestorm of excitement in many quarters such clear, tangible benefits serving as meeting in Mexico City. Public Knowl- across the academy. drivers, a wholesale move to an OA system edge Project founder John Willinsky Early supporters of the concept quickly should have been easy, no? Not quite—as recounted the experiences he’d had a recognized its potential to transform the research process. Not only would it allow Citation: Joseph H (2013) The Open Access Movement Grows Up: Taking Stock of a Revolution. PLoS them to access tens of thousands of articles Biol 11(10): e1001686. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001686 that were previously unavailable for them Published October 22, 2013 to read, but it would also allow them to use Copyright: ß 2013 Joseph. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The Perspective section provides experts with a Funding: The author received no specific funding for this work. forum to comment on topical or controversial issues of broad interest. Competing Interests: Heather Joseph is on the Board of Directors of PLOS. * E-mail: [email protected]

PLOS Biology | www.plosbiology.org 1 October 2013 | Volume 11 | Issue 10 | e1001686 decade ago, traveling throughout Latin environment, has become the widely for adoption of these licenses is demon- America and working to promote the idea established, fully accepted goal of the strably moving in the right direction. of the academic community taking back global OA movement. A fourth and final piece of infrastruc- control of their research output by using Because of this strong foundation, it is ture is the adoption and implementation of OA. ‘‘Sometimes there’d be 15 people in now a widely held belief that until its policies supporting OA. From being non- the room, and sometimes a few hundred,’’ results are communicated as broadly as existent just ten short years ago, dozens [9] he noted. ‘‘But I was so sure that at the possible, a piece of research is only half of policies have now been established on end of each discussion, all of them would completed. This clear vision has helped to the campus level, largely driven by the rush up to me and say, ‘Sign me up! I’m set the stage for the kind of consistent— grassroots efforts of faculty, students, and in.’’’ He recalled his disappointment and measurable—progress we’ve seen librarians. These campus-based policies when, time and time again, that simply over the past decade towards making OA have played a key role in demonstrating didn’t happen, and he found himself, as he a reality. that OA is consistent with—and even continued his work over the subsequent essential to—achieving the core mission years, regularly wondering if anyone was We’ve Built a Robust of higher education institutions, listening at all. Infrastructure On the national level, funder-based Returning to Mexico this year, almost policies designed to fully leverage both exactly 10 years later, he had his answer: a To move OA from the theoretical to the the public and private sectors’ investment thriving culture of OA has emerged, with practical, we need a solid infrastructure in in research by providing OA to research academic and research institutions sup- place to support it. We can look to four outputs have begun to rapidly proliferate porting the creation and publication of key pieces of infrastructure that provide around the world, sending perhaps the several thousand OA journals via plat- excellent indicators of just how far the OA strongest signal yet that the underlying forms like SCIELO and Redalyc, and a movement has come in successfully imple- rules of the scholarly communication thriving network of open digital reposito- menting a truly open ecosystem for game are undergoing a sea change. ries. communicating research and scholarship: As I listened to him speak, it occurred to The first is the establishment of a robust We’re Building the Global me that his experience mirrored not only set of OA journals. The Directory of Open Community my own but also those of countless others Access Journals (DOAJ) currently lists during the last decade. Whether on a nearly 10,000 fully OA journals [4], from By any measure, the infrastructure need- campus or in a research lab, in the office of around the globe and in a vast variety of ed to support OA has blossomed in the past a co-author or a faculty advisor, in a disciplines. As groundbreaking publishers decade. But of course, infrastructure is truly conversation with a policy maker or a (notably PLOS) have led the way in valuable only when it is fully put to use. It’s research funder, or even just in our own demonstrating that OA journals can be difficult to point to mechanisms that accu- organization with our own colleagues, this both high quality and financially sustain- rately measure the growth of the global simple process of making the case for OA, able. Over the past decade, submissions to community who actively consider them- of planting the seed through education OA journals, while starting off relatively selves part of the OA movement, but some and advocacy, has played out again and slowly, have begun to accelerate at a rapid useful indicators are out there. We can look again, thousands of times around the pace [5], and the discussion today centers at the geographic diversity of authors world. For me, the story of the last 10 on when—not if—OA will become the submitting and publishing papers in OA years has truly been the story of these dominant form of journal publishing [6]. journals as one indicator, or the proliferation myriad individual actions building one A second crucial piece of the infrastruc- of national OA policies in countries ranging upon another, resulting in a full-fledged ture is the establishment of OA reposito- from Argentina to Australia as another. global movement making OA the norm in ries. Higher education institutions, re- But as John Willinsky’s story alluded to how we share research and scholarship. search facilities, funders, and earlier, though these indicators of com- Over the past decade, the OA move- governments have established more than munity might be hard to measure, it’s not ment has both expanded and matured. 2,000 [7] repositories around the globe. impossible to do so. Just five years ago, Although there’s certainly no official This provides an important mechanism to SPARC and Students for Free Culture ‘‘Open Access advocate’s checklist’’ that ensure that research articles, along with thought the people who were committed we’ve been working from to help us research data and other important re- to promoting the idea of OA might find it measure and mark our progress, a few search outputs, can be housed, networked, useful to have a day set aside where OA areas stand out as places where can we curated, and sustainably archived, and education and advocacy could actively be truly measure how far we’ve progressed. also ensures that they can be accessed not encouraged. They held a ‘‘National Day only by this generation of researchers, but for Open Access’’ in October of 2007, We’ve Imagined a Better Future by future generations as well. which garnered participation by just 12 A third requirement is the consistent campuses in the US. However, the event The strong, consistent definition of OA, employment of open licenses. For OA to piqued the interest of potential partici- established in the Declarations noted achieve both of its aims—accessibility and pants around the world, and just two short earlier in key meetings in Budapest, Berlin, utility—we need the flexibility to operate years later, demand was so strong that the Bethesda, and Salvador de Bahia, provides within the current copyright environment event was expanded into the current the community with a vision of an ideal to allow digital articles to be fully accessed ‘‘Global Open Access Week’’ event, which ‘‘end game’’ to collectively aspire to. The and reused. The adoption of Creative last year included participation by tens of need for the free, immediate availability Commons licenses (particularly the CC- thousands of individuals, and events in 130 on the open Internet of articles reporting BY license) has been steadily, albeit slowly, countries around the globe. OA commu- research results, coupled with the rights to climbing [8]. While much more work nity growth has been both organic and fully use these articles in the digital remains to be done here, the trend line exponential.

PLOS Biology | www.plosbiology.org 2 October 2013 | Volume 11 | Issue 10 | e1001686 We’ve Begun to Accelerate the OA journals, depositing in OA reposito- tors have a broader palette of article- or Culture Change Needed to ries, choosing an open license, etc.— author-level indicators to work from, Make OA the Norm requires concrete incentives. they’ll be able to paint a much more Perhaps the single biggest development robust picture of impact. As these new The growth of the community has been that has the potential to accelerate behavior metrics are put to use by and become encouraging, but there is still a long way to change and grow the community is the more widely accepted as measures in go toward making OA the norm. In recent development of Article-Level Metrics. The evaluation processes, chances are good years, social media has helped to acceler- emergence of a novel set of measures that that authors will become much more ate education and advocacy efforts, pro- can be applied in a transparent manner to willing to publish in OA outlets. viding new platforms for the community to individual articles to accurately assess their Overall, the story of the OA movement leverage efforts that used to be, by nature, importance—and impact—has strong ap- over the past ten years has been one of one-off conversations. The power of chan- peal to authors and research evaluators alike. demonstrable progress. To be sure, the road nels like Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook to As noted earlier, one of the biggest has not been a smooth one. There have amplify conversation, encourage action, barriers to encouraging a wholesale move been stumbles, wrong turns, false starts, and and establish a sense of community has toward publishing in an OA journal has bruising battles, particularly in the policy been invaluable in raising awareness. been the concern that this behavior won’t arena. But if we weigh the indicators of However, we’ve learned that simply be rewarded in the evaluation processes progress made by the OA movement making people aware of the potential of for funding, tenure, and promotion. These against the intensity and complexity of the OA is often not enough to spur changes in important assessments have come to rely obstacles it has faced in the first decade, behavior. In order to encourage the heavily on citation indicators as the there’s reason for great optimism as we head adoption of OA practices—publishing in preferred metric. However, once evalua- into the next ten years.

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