policy & reform
campusreview.com.au
Open up
Scientists slam paywall publication
model as EU’s open‑access plan
gathers steam.
By Loren Smith
W
hat unites a Venezuelan
computer scientist, a Swiss
engineer, an Israeli professor and
an American ‘mad scientist’? The open-
access movement, of course.
In September, 12 European nations and
two charities announced their intention to
make all science research they fund open
access by 2020 – the result of ‘Plan S’,
forged by the EU ministers of science and
innovation in 2016.
That consortium, known as ‘cOAlition S’,
has since gained traction. Nearly 2000
(and counting) proponents, including those
mentioned above, have signed a petition in
support of it.
In the petition, posted on UC Berkeley
biologist and open-access advocate Michael
Eisen’s blog, they condemned the current,
largely paywalled model as “inequitable”.
“[It] impedes progress in our fields, and
denies the public the full benefit of our
work,” the petition says.
“Funders are uniquely positioned to
transform scholarly publishing by changing
the explicit and implicit rules under which
we all operate.
10
“We understand that effective scholarly
communication costs money, and support
substantial investment in this endeavour,
but only if it allows everyone to freely
access and use the scholarly literature.”
Implicit in this reasoning is the notion
that researchers have much to gain, and
seemingly nothing to lose, in their work
being publicly accessible. The more people
who read it, the greater the chances of
it being cited, and therefore, potentially
more prestige and career opportunities are
afforded to them. Essentially, open-access
publication provides free exposure for
researchers.
The signatories’ rationale for promoting
open-access research, however, mirrors
that of cOAlition S, which makes its case on
the basis of universality.
“Only results that can be discussed,
challenged, and, where appropriate,
tested and reproduced by others qualify as
scientific,” it provides on its website.
“Publication paywalls are withholding
a substantial amount of research results
from a large fraction of the scientific
community and from society as a whole.
This constitutes an absolute anomaly,
which hinders the scientific enterprise in its
very foundations...”
The coalition cites Robert Merton, the
‘father of American sociology’ and an
early open-access proponent, in delivering
its message.
“The institutional conception of
science as part of the public domain
is linked with the imperative for
communication of findings. Secrecy is
the antithesis of this norm; full and open
communication its enactment,” Merton
wrote in 1942.
If implemented, Plan S, available for
public comment until 1 February 2019,
will prohibit articles from being published
in around 85 per cent of journals. This
includes some of the most prestigious
ones like Science and Nature, which have
unsurprisingly opposed it.
Also resisting the plan are some
researchers. An open letter, signed by
1514 people and circulated by Lynn
Kamerlin, a biochemist at Uppsala
University in Sweden, suggests that
Plan S is too restrictive for researchers. It
also raises questions about some of the
plan’s intricacies, including the apparent
prohibition on publishing in ‘hybrid’
(only partially open access) journals.
Plan drafters subsequently indicated that
the publication of articles in hybrid journals
is fine, so long as the articles are made
free immediately.
Nonetheless, it appears that voices
like Kamerlin’s are increasingly isolated:
unlike the nations of cOAlition S (the
UK, the Netherlands, France, Poland,
Slovenia, Sweden, Norway, Germany,
Luxembourg, Italy, Northern Ireland and
Finland), Australia (via the ARC and the
NHMRC) has already mandated that all of
its nationally funded scientific research is
open access. Indeed, Australia exceeds
the principles of Plan S by encouraging
scientists who receive government
funding to share the data upon which
their research is based.
The US goes further. From 2013, the
largest Western publisher of scientific
research required large federal agencies to
make the research (and research data) they
fund open access.
Meanwhile, NSFC and CAS, two of
the largest science research funders in
China, which leads the world in scientific
publishing, volume-wise, held open-access
policies from 2014.
Altruism aside, countries may have a
practical reason for releasing their research
publicly. Sites like Sci-Hub and Library
Genesis have been illegally publishing
journal articles and books for years. So, for
governments, it could also be a matter of
playing catch-up. ■