What are the Basis of Open Access? Not Volunteerism, Harnard Says

First published at SPARC OA Forum, December 26, 2003 in response on Open Access activist Stevan Harnard draft letter for institutions to sign to support OA (*)

"...I do not agree with Stevan Harnard "no need to specify the possibility of subsidy and volunteerism" while [defining what OA journal is, and] stating "e.g., by instead charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish".

Are subsidy and volunteerism (A) the key elements of academic science (B) that need to be published (C)? As this ABCs' major goal is Public Interest will it be correct to mention in the S. Harnad letter proposal only the statement that imply interests other then public (at least in case of the BMC?): "e.g., by instead charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish"?

To make sure: It is the voluntarism (or more precisely activism or dedication) of individual scientists and assembled editorial groups who committed themselves to run the BioMedCentral specialist journals, (representing today NEAR HALF of all BMC journals, ). To run these journals editors had to accept the following BMC Conditions:

BioMed Central is the sole publisher and owner of the journal (although this is negotiable for journals proposed by scientific societies).

BioMed Central will pay the journal and its officers no monies, except for the possibility of a payment relating to the number of published articles.

(quoted from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/authors/startajournal)

The question is: Will the public (not BMC corporate) interest be better served when these journals are published by Editorial Groups, perhaps with modest support of a grant or a library/communication technology expert at their Institution, so, there will be no [profiting BMC or covering the cost of the PLoS Biology launch parties] article publication cost at all? If so, why not to include grant or other funding mechanisms for Open Access in the proposed letter?

Please note that as I stated in my earlier letter of today ( archived at this link ) the low cost (or even free for not-for-profit usage) end user technology is available to ensure no technical compromise for such titles, reserved to be published (not only editorially managed) by those who need them to communicate with peers, not make profit or have an office package in a not-for-profit "charging the author" publishing setting. The missed is the community education that one need to initiate. The educational follow up for this letter will be forthcoming.

Sincerely,


Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD
http://neurobiologyoflipids.org/

(*) Avialable at the bottom of this page

"Open Access" is NOT "Charging the Author or Institution" for Publication

First published at SPARC OA Forum, 26 December 2003

Dear Colleagues,

I wonder why to institutionalize "open access" journal as the one that (proposed item 8) "recover costs by charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish".

I lead the journal, Neurobiology of Lipids, that does not charge authors for article publication, and runs at the annual cost of below the cost of one article at BioMedCentral, BMC (500$, please note that PloS biology article publication cost is even higher, 1500$/article). The fee imposed by BMC was the issue near all my colleagues-scientists on the Editorial Board did not agree with.

In my view the current formulation of item 8 (of Stevan Harnad "Draft letter for institutions to sign to implement BerlinDeclaration", see the bottom of this letter original text) follows the compaign of PLoS and BMC for aggresive promotion (that has nothing to do with Neurobiology of Lipids constant growth of subject readership and article access' hits comparable with the top rated BMC titles) and institutionalization of the strict definition of Open Access to fit it into their particular operation/business models.

This compaign in my view exploits (making revenues in case of BMC?) the average scientific and librarian community member poor understanding of desktop2internet publishing capabilities. When the community is properly educated and the end user (not only BioMedCentral) simplicity of internet publishing operation is realised (like a desktop word processor software, or e.mail program operation: does anyone need an operator for an e.mail program or MS Word, 500$ per e.mail preparation/delivery or document typing?) there may be no need for a part of BMC business, as interested committed scientists will be easy doing themselves what now is offered by BMC as Start-a-new-journal fare. These journals run at no-monies by scientists (BUT owned by and profiting BMC) currently compose near 50% of BMC titles.

I do claim that the low-cost technology is available and that the community just need to be educated about it. When this is achieved not-for-profit journals will be run with no technical quality compromise (scholar excellence/quality was always an editorial-not publisher- duty) by scientists with NO need to "recover their [low] costs by charging the author-institution for each outgoing article they publish". Such journals operation may well be supported by small grants (with no budgeting for promotional lanch parties in several countries that multi-million grant to PLoS could itemize) or Institutional/Library budgets.

"Open access" is ethics, not business model of "charging the author or institution" for article publication. Failure to appreciate the above in my view indicate an unfair bias that will be used against Open Access movement by those opposing it.

The proposed "Item 8" should NOT be incorporated in the proposed "Draft letter for institutions to sign to implement Berlin Declaration" in the present form. I request Item 8 and other relevant places to be modified not to limit the definition of "open access" in favor of current major players.

As a holiday joy make 3D Virtual Holy Land tour.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Alexei Koudinov
Neurobiology of Lipids
http://neurobiologyoflipids.org

Competing interest declaration: I do not have any competing financial interest. I am a founding, managing and publishing editor of the Neurobiology of Lipids, an unpaid position. Neurobiology of Lipids (ISSN 1683-5506) has no affiliation with any professional association, publisher, industry member, commercial enterprise, public, educational or government organization. The viewpoint presented in the above letter is my personal view. Also, please see my Open letter on Call to boycott Cell Press.

On Open Access Textbooks

Heather Morrison, Open Access Textbooks, Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, December 27, 2005. Excerpt by Peter Suber Open Access News Blog (28 December 2005):

"There are many curious ironies about the open access movement, and indeed the shift from print to electronic in general. Not least of these is that while advocacy efforts focus on the peer-reviewed research article, progress towards open access is happening in areas where no advocacy efforts are directed at all, to my knowledge. One such area is open access textbooks. This came to my attention one day when searching for online math textbooks. I was not expecting to find free texts at all, on the assumption that textbooks were an area where the commercial sector would obviously prevail - after all, who would write an entire textbook without expectation of financial compensation? Imagine my surprise, then, to find the extensive list of Textbooks, Lecture Notes and Tutorials in Mathematics by Alexandre Stefanov. All resources are free, and are divided into topics such as general mathematics, number theory, algebra, algebraic geometry, topolisis, analysis, geometry, mathematical physics, probability theory, formatting documents (TEX, LATEX, etc.). Alexandre links to a number of other substantial lists, including the list of Online mathematics textbooks, including over 40 textbooks as of October 2005, maintained by George Cain, School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology.....The more I think about it, the more open textbooks make sense, particularly in mathematics. Printed textbooks are expensive - one cannot ask students to purchase more than one mathematics textbook. Yet it seems obvious that the student is much better off having access to the dozens of free textbooks that are already available. If a student is having difficulty understanding a concept explained one way, does it not make sense to provide an alternative explanation?

(PS: There's a growing number of OA textbook sites, but as far as I know just one searchable portal that tries to be comprehensive: Jason Turgeon's Textbook Revolution. Check it out.)"

Wiki-style strategies to improve knowledge acquisition

Christian Wagner, Breaking the Knowledge Acquisition Bottleneck Through Conversational Knowledge Management, Information Resoures Management Journal, January/March 2006 (Thanks to John Daly and Peter Suber OANews Blog) :

Abstract: Much of today's organizational knowledge still exists outside of formal information repositories and often only in people's heads. While organizations are eager to capture this knowledge, existing acquisition methods are not up to the task. Neither traditional artificial intelligence based approaches nor more recent, less-structured knowledge management techniques have overcome the knowledge acquisition challenges. This article investigates knowledge acquisition bottlenecks and proposes the use of collaborative, conversational knowledge management to remove them. The article demonstrates the opportunity for more effective knowledge acquisition through the application of the principles of Bazaar style, open-source development. The article introduces wikis as software that enables this type of knowledge acquisition. It empirically analyzes the Wikipedia to produce evidence for the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Medical College New Digital Library to Integrate Latest Digital Info Technology

"Unique digital library opening on December 28, Deccan Herald, December 26, 2005. An unsigned news story. Excerpt: The soon to be inaugurated state-of-the-art digital library at Bangalore Medical College (BMC) is unique in scale and concept. A gift by the alumni of the college to mark its golden jubilee celebrations, users of the library can have access to full text articles from leading international and national journals, multimedia presentations by leading doctors and can also access materials in other libraries like the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Nimhans. The information is catalogued using open sources database Dspace. BMC Alumni Association claims the facility is the “best and biggest” in any medical college in the country. Association President Dr H C Satya and Vice-President K M Srinivasa Gowda told reporters that the entire library was wi-fi-enabled."

Source: P.Suber. Digital library for Bangalore Medical College to launch this week. OANews Blog (26 December 2005) [FullText]

"The Creative Industry is the Reuse of Ideas"

Yin Ping, Open access, China Daily, December 26, 2005. Excerp by Peter Suber (Open Access News Blog, 26 December 2005):

Is the system of intellectual property (IP) that we had in place at the end of the 20th century the most appropriate one for the 21st century? That is the question John Howkins raised at a forum on creative industries and IPR protection during Shanghai International Creative Industry Week which ended on December 6. Howkins brands the question "the elephant in the room,"something very big and important but so embarrassing that everyone pretends it isn't there. A leading British expert in the creative industries, Howkins has 30 years experience in the film and TV industries, and is well versed in the need for effective IP laws. It is universally accepted that IP laws provide a way to register ownership and protect property. But, as Howkins points out, IP laws have another purpose, one he believes is widely underestimated. "They should also enable people to have access to what has been created," Howkins says. These two purposes appear contradictory. According to Howkins, major industrial companies, led by US, European and Japanese entertainment, publishing, design, pharmaceutical and engineering industries, all put heavy emphasis on the first purpose. Western governments, which are keen to make their national economies competitive and to protect jobs, also believe IP assets must be protected as much as possible and at all costs, Howkins says. "To them, the more IP, the better." But Howkins prefers another approach, which puts access above protection. To him, access to existing ideas, knowledge and data is the starting point of all new ideas. "New ideas are two old ideas meeting together," he says. "The creative industry is the reuse of ideas." Historically, Europe, the United States and Japan industrialized when their patent and copyright laws were weak and enforcement was patchy, he says. Likewise, many developing countries would benefit from similarly weak IP as they look to industrialize. Major steps forward continue to be made by those who choose not to seek IP protection, for example, free and open source software, the World Wide Web, the Global Positioning System and the map of the human genome. "My argument is that IP certainly offers incentives and rewards but may do so at the cost of slowing down and inhibiting future work," Howkins says.

Funder Mandates Kills Unjust Embargoes!

"Kate Worlock, Wellcome Trust: The End Of The Embargo? EPS, December 22, 2005 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:

OUP, Blackwell and Springer have changed their copyright agreements with authors to allow immediate self-archiving of Wellcome-funded research. What will agreements of this sort mean for publisher embargo periods?...To date, attempts to request rather than require researchers to self-archive have fallen on rather deaf ears, so moves like this from Wellcome will be welcomed by open access supporters. According to open access advocate Peter Suber, if all of the NIH-funded researchers complied with the request to deposit articles in PubMed Central, about 5,000 papers would be submitted each month. In reality, only 1,878 articles were deposited between May and September....From 1st October, Wellcome made it a condition of funding that papers emanating from its grant awards be placed in an open access repository. This reflects the Research Councils UK's (RCUK) draft position statement, issued in September 2005, which also made article deposit a condition of funding....Meanwhile the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US established a working group (PAWG) in May 2005 to review statistical evidence on the impact of its policy and suggest any changes to the policy which might further its goals...[A]t the group's November 15th meeting, it recommended that the researchers be required rather than requested to submit an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication to PubMed Central, and that delays or embargoes imposed by publishers could be no longer than six months (down from 12 months)....Another element was recently added to this mix with Senator Joseph Lieberman's introduction of the CURES Act, a bill which would mandate the deposit of articles within four months of publication. There is evidence that authors do not always obey embargo periods - Key Perspectives' research found that of the eight primary research papers published in the first issue of Nature Physics, seven were available on the web on the day of publication despite a six month embargo. At present most publishers require embargo periods of between six and 12 months before an article may be placed in a repository, but these recent announcements, plus the reality of researchers' actions, will put pressure on this position. In the short term publishers may choose to shorten their embargo periods and to use this action as a bid to attract authors or to position themselves as forwards-thinking. However, this type of competition cannot last long - by the end of 2006 we may have witnessed the death of the embargo."

Source: P. Suber. Will funder mandates and author attitudes kill embargoes? Open Access News Blog (23 December 2005) [FullText]

Its' a Christmas and Hannukah Time: Holiday Tradition, Evolution, and Open Access

Mike Eisen, Fight Intelligent Design - Publish in PLoS! Open Science Blog, December 22, 2005. Excerpt:

Now that a federal judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that intelligent design (ID) has no place in the classroom, the scientists who rallied to defend evolution will return to academia happy that science has weathered yet another assault. But this battle will not be won in the courtroom. Antipathy toward evolution is the natural consequence of a growing gulf between the scientific community and the public. Until scientists close this gap, much of the public will continue to dismiss Darwin’s theories, and we risk losing the broad public support on which science depends. Rather than blame public ignorance, scientists must accept responsibility for this distressing trend. We go about our business rarely thinking of the public as an audience for, or interested party in, our work....I propose a simple solution. We should give the public access to the peer-reviewed scientific journals in which we publish our ideas and discoveries. It is certainly the right thing to do - afterall, the public paid for most of this research, they should be able to see what their tax dollars have produced. But does the public want to read these papers? I believe they do. Many non-scientists whose interest is piqued by science stories in the popular press would love to learn more about the research directly from scientists who carried it out. People facing medical decisions would love to read the most accurate and up to date information about diseases and their treatments. When they do, they will find that much of the scientific literature is surprisingly comprehensible to a lay audience (and much more will be once authors know the public may read their work). And anyone who reads these papers will be left with a better understanding of how science works, and why we believe the things we do....[Open-access journals] invite the public in, and [the public has] responded – downloading, reading and even blogging about scientific articles like never before. Simply by choosing to publish in open access journals, scientists can honor the importance of public access and engage the public directly in their work....We must ensure that hiring, grant review and tenure committees give heavy weight to efforts (or lack thereof) to engage the public. But more importantly, we all must ask ourselves if that Science or Nature citation is worth furthering the dangerous divide between science and the public? Non-scientists can help scientists engage as well. Next time you read about some cool new scientific advance, find the paper on which this story is based. If you can’t access it, email the authors and request a copy – and ask them why they didn’t make it available to you in the first place. You’ll be letting them know that the public is interested in what they do, and holding them accountable for their decisions. Maybe next time they will publish in a journal that reaches you.

(PS: Mike Eisen is one of the co-founders of PLoS, and this essay marks the launch of his blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, Mike!)

Source: P.Suber. OA science for lay readers will help fight ID. Open Access News (23 December 2005) [FullText]

Google is Changing Medicine

Dean Giustini, How Google is changing medicine, BMJ, December 24, 2005. An editorial. Excerpt by Peter Suber (OANews, 23/12/2005):

"What a remarkable year it has been for those of us monitoring changes in the global information landscape. Since last Christmas, there has been a flurry of activity: the digitisation of the world's libraries began in earnest (despite the copyright fracas); open access publishing gained much-needed support internationally (especially in science and medicine); and Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo introduced a number of customisation tools for desktops and mobiles, podcasts, blogs, and video searches....For all the benefits technology provides, it does provoke anxiety. In a recent letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, a New York rheumatologist describes a scene at rounds where a professor asked the presenting fellow to explain how he arrived at his diagnosis. Matter of factly, the reply came: "I entered the salient features into Google, and [the diagnosis] popped right up." The attending doctor was taken aback by the Google diagnosis. "Are we physicians no longer needed? Is an observer who can accurately select the findings to be entered in a Google search all we need for a diagnosis to appear --as if by magic?" In a post-Google world, where evidence based education is headed is anyone's guess.5 Googling your diagnosis; Googling your treatment—where is all this leading us?...Google has won the battle of the search engines, at least for the time being (see example in table), and its more serious minded offspring, Google Scholar, is rapidly gaining ground. Within a year of its release Google Scholar has led more visitors to many biomedical journal websites than has PubMed (J Sack, personal communication, 2005)....As scientific societies and associations consider moving their journals to open access models, Google Scholar and Elsevier's Scirus will likely provide a reliable gateway to this information. The most useful feature to come out this year on Google Scholar is "cited by" referencing. This free tool links searchers to other scholarly papers that have cited the paper being viewed. Scholar also provides links to local library catalogues through its library link program and through an international database called WorldCat....Apparently, Google's data mining techniques are well suited to analysing gene sequences in the human genome project. It may even be possible for patients to "google their own genes" one day. But "do no evil" is a far cry from "do what's best for humanity." Google is still a business. However, if it wishes to do something for medicine, Google should consider creating a medical portal. Call it Google Medicine; design an interface with medical filters and better algorithms; lead to the best evidence (just don't forget to consult with librarians about where the evidence is located). This kind of all purpose tool is badly needed in medicine, particularly for developing countries."

(PS: How are search advances, from Google and others, changing your field?)

Ukrainian Parliament Makes Open Access (OA) a National Priority

On December 1, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a resolution (in Ukrainian) identifying OA as a priority for the nation. Excerpt from Iryna Kuchma's summary (in English):

Ukrainian Parliament (Verhovna Rada) passed resolution On Recommendations of Parliamentary hearing on Developing information society in Ukraine (from 01.12.2005 -- 3175-IV) where open access is called one of the priorities in developing information society in Ukraine. In [Clause] 2 Developing informational infrastructure of this Resolution it is recommended for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to create favorable conditions for developing open access repositories in archives, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions. In [Clause] 5 Creating accessible electronic information resources it is recommended for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to stir to activities on creating accessible national electronic information resources especially with scientific-technical and economical information; to develop model regulation on repository of electronic documents; and for the Ministry of education and science of Ukraine to speed up development of state program on ICT in education and science including the close on development of open access resources in science, technology and education with open access condition to state funded researches....Open Access is also one of the priorities in National strategy on developing information society in Ukraine introduced to Ukrainian Parliament by Parliamentary Committee on Science and Education. Open Access recommendations in Ukraine were first introduced by the participants of Open Access Scholarly Communication Workshop, February 17-19 2005, organized by International Renaissance Foundation, Open Society Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, International Association of Academies of Sciences and National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy and supported by the British Council Ukraine. "

Source: Peter Suber Open Access News Blog (22 Dec 2005) [FullText]

Israel Academia Corruption: Think Twice Before Supporting Hebrew U and the Weizmann Institute

"While the media constantly focuses on alleged irregularities in the administration of Torah institutions, reports that turn out to be unfounded and inciting, a highly critical report on corruption at Israeli universities received minimal coverage in the mainstream press.

According to a report, State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg released last week, the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science were found to have serious flaws and irregularities in their account books from 2001 to 2003.

Degel HaTorah General Secretary MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni sent a letter to the acting president of the Press Council to complain about the lack of reportage on the grave figures. "To the best of my knowledge this report was not published in the mainstream press, not even in brief, while with regard to their counterparts -- institutions of higher Torah learning, i.e. the yeshivas -- any report or finding of vastly lesser significance receives front-page headlines.

"In a state where one of its principles is freedom of information and the right of the public to know without press censorship based on political views, is it desirable for such a phenomenon to take place?" wrote Rabbi Gafni, demanding that his complaint come before the Press Council's Presidential Board and its Court of Ethics.

According to the Comptroller's report, which covered the management of research and development (R&D) projects funded by external bodies and the activity of the National Science Foundation, the leading provider of research grants, the three universities that were audited transferred surplus income that did not need to be spent on the original research into private research accounts of various researchers. These surplus funds accumulated regularly because costs that really were classified as regular expenses and really were funded out of the regular budget were also listed as expenses that were associated with the research that was being funded by organizations providing financial support. These surpluses were not reported to the sources of funding. Had the respective universities returned the surplus funds to the financial supporters, more grants would have been available for other researchers.

Even the supervision of research expenses was found to be faulty. At the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, rather than keeping records of the research assistants' original work hours, reports were filled out based on declarations of the researcher, made long after the work was completed, just before the submission deadline. Such an arrangement is an obvious temptation for corruption, though there was no definite indication that any occurred. In addition, expenses such as reimbursements for researchers' car expenses, office renovations, business-management courses, etc., were covered using monies from the research accounts.

The Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute reported the same expenses to two different underwriters, in 13 cases. In doing so, the universities deviated from the terms of their contracts with the funding providers regarding research costs that had not been approved. The Comptroller lodged the most severe criticism against the Weizmann Institute for keeping two sets of books, one with the researcher and another with the funding provider.

At the Hebrew University, some 1,250 research studies are conducted annually at a total cost of NIS 288 million ($63 million). At Tel Aviv University, some 1,350 studies are conducted at a cost of NIS 144 million ($32 million) and at the Weizmann Institute, some 1,100 studies are conducted at a cost of NIS 190 million ($42 million).

The Comptroller found that the universities submitted explicitly false reports to public bodies that provide them funding, reporting that all of the funds had been expended and then surreptitiously transferring the remaining funds to their workers' research accounts.

As a result of the various accounting irregularities, "the universities and researchers received from the funding providers monies for which they were not eligible according to the funding providers' guidelines or the contracts signed with them," writes the Comptroller. "The principle of academic freedom and scientific research cannot serve as justification for deviating from standard accounting regulations and proper disclosure."

An audit conducted by the National Science Foundation revealed that the Foundation did not maintain sufficient supervision of financial management of the grants it provides. Even after the Foundation received information from the State Comptroller on the overlapping funding at the universities, it did not check whether grant recipients were indeed eligible for the funds they received.

In conclusion, the report says the universities must disclose more to the financial supporters, manage the research budget and report on expenses, based on accepted accounting guidelines, while increasing supervision and control over the use of research funds.

Following the release of the original Comptroller's report, the Council for Higher Education's Budget Planning Committee and the Board of University Chancellors set up a committee to formulate uniform regulations and guidelines and to advance the changes needed to rectify the defects. The committee submitted its recommendations in December 2003. The Budget Planning Committee adopted the regulations and directed the universities to implement them immediately. The universities agreed to the recommendations in principle and intend to update the regulations within the next few months, says the report.

In reaction to the State Comptroller's report, MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni said he would request that the Knesset be specially convened during the summer break, to discuss the scandal at the universities. He also asked Attorney General Mani Mazuz to look into the matter.

Rabbi Gafni said government ministries, including the Justice and Education Ministries, have long known that billions of shekels are transferred to the universities without any supervision or control, calling it an open secret. "I raised this issue several times in the Education Committee, but there were those who silenced the matter.

"We live in "two different countries," he says. "One nation embitters the lives of yeshiva managers with a system of supervision and control, scrupulously checking every student's identification card and then leaking to the press that `there are dishonest institutions' although nobody ever uncovered irregularities at the yeshivas. In the second nation, billions of shekels are funneled to institutions of higher education without any supervision or control, while university administrators spend enormous sums on inflated salaries, benefits, sabbatical years abroad, cars and lavish offices.

"There is no equality in the State of Israel," he says. "Only NIS 850 million ($190 million) was cut from higher education out of its enormous budget of NIS 6.4 billion ($1.4 billion). The entire yeshiva budget now comes to no more than NIS 500 million ($110 million), though the number of students is the same."

Rabbi Gafni demanded that the Attorney General apply the same stringent supervision found at Torah institutions to the universities and implement the same criteria.

MK Rabbi Yisroel Eichler sent the Attorney General a similar request. "I have never been able to comprehend why nobody at universities checks how many students arrive at the science `kollel,' what time they arrive and how many hours they study per week. Neither do I understand the enormous gap between the wages of lecturers and professors and the measly allowance given to maggidei shiur and roshei yeshivos of great stature in Torah. However, this is not a legal matter but a political and social one.

"I hereby request that the same criteria and fences to protect the public purse be implemented at the universities and the various kinds of secular cultural institutions. I would be interested to know how many cultural institutions would meet these criteria.""

Source and copyright: G. Kleiman, Betzalel Kahn and Itim. Comptroller's Report: Account Management Seriously Flawed. Shema Yisrael (25 August 2004) [FullText]

Open Access is not About Bypassing Peer Review

"Kim Thomas wrote a short piece on Friday for Information World Review on the September CIBER report. I didn't blog it because it was very short and didn't say anything new. But I'm still bothered by the title that IWR gave the piece: Academic authors favour peer review over open access, and decided I had to say something. IWR knows perfectly well that the OA movement is about removing access barriers to peer-reviewed research, not about bypassing peer review. It also knows perfectly well that the CIBER report did not make this mistake. Because IWR has many accurate articles about OA to its credit, it should recognize that the title of the Thomas article is harmful and misleading. I hope it will publish a correction."

Source: OA News Blog by Peter Suber (11 Dec 2005) [FullText]

Open Access Scholarship Archiving: Mandates Work, Requests Don't, Australian Data Say

Arthur Sale, Comparison of IR content policies in Australia, a preprint, self-archived December 8, 2005.

Abstract: Seven Australian universities (of 38) have established institutional repositories (also known as IRs or eprint archives) that can be analyzed for content and which were in operation during 2004 and 2005. The paper analyses their performance and concludes that a requirement to deposit research output into a repository coupled with effective author support policies works in Australia. Voluntary policies do not, regardless of any author support, consistent with international data.

From the body of the paper: Only QUT had a formal requirement for authors to deposit all research output in their IR during 2004 and 2005. All the other universities had voluntary deposit policies, and still have. Some universities in the sample profess little or no interest in the self-archiving of postprints, and see their repositories as serving other functions, or are working on other activities. Some universities are reported to have a Author Support (AS) approach to their authors; others do not. It is difficult at this stage to disentangle AS from a requirement policy through lack of a AS metric, though it probably has a significant impact. However the AS impact is believed to be less than that of having an effective and enforced deposit policy, even if only loosely enforced, which is the justification for this analysis....No Australian university with a voluntary policy collects significantly more than 15% of the DEST [Department of Science, Education and Technology] reportable content and most much less. This is consistent with international data for which 15% is accepted as an average limit. The DEST reportable content is itself estimated at being only 50% of university research output. QUT stands out at 4X higher than its nearest competitor (2005 data, 2.4X in 2004). Detailed analysis of QUT’s collection rates suggests that the deposit rate surged after March 2005, and that QUT can expect to have a final success deposit ratio for 2005 near 60% and a success ratio for 2006 documents nearer to 80%. The difference is attributed to the deposit policy coupled with good author support practices....A requirement to deposit research output into a repository coupled with effective author support policies works in Australia. Voluntary policies do not, regardless of any author support, consistent with international data. It is well overdue for DEST to rule that postprints of all research that Australian universities report to DEST must be deposited in an institutional repository, to take effect say for 2007. The costs to the universities are ridiculously small; the benefits from increased global research impact, and enabling Australians to access the research they fund through the public purse, are enormous. "

Source: P.Suber OA News (10 Dec 05) [FullText]

Will tobacco industry sponsored study by Hebrew U. and the Weizmann Institute increase tobacco sales and down anti-tobacco activism?

by Alexei Koudinov, MD, PhD

As editor and publisher of based in Israel independent, non-profit, non-governmental International scholarly journals Neurobiology of Lipids and Doping Journal, I would like to add to the discussion of Jerusalem Posts' Judy Siegel-Itzkovich publications (of 12/12, 14/12 and 16 December 2005) on the support of tobacco research by Hebrew University and Weizmann Institute from a major tobacco manufacturer.

Clearly, Molecular Psychiatry publication by Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem and the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot adds to the pro-tobacco propaganda and harms global anti-tobacco message.

Many readers could notice the study abstract statement that "Despite the health hazards, cigarette smoking is disproportionately frequent among young women" and that "a significant contribution of genetic factors to smoking phenotypes is well established..."

Only those with a subscription to Molecular Psychiatry (or those who paid 30 US$ for the view of this article full text) could further notice (in the article Acknowledgement section) that "Research described in this article was supported in part by Philip Morris USA Inc. and Philip Morris International (investigator designed, independently reviewed grant)..."

I have little doubt that despite the article statement (that Philip Morris grant support was investigator designed and independently reviewed), tobacco giant had many ways to direct the desired study and manipulate the publication.

First, the grant proposal by Hadassa Medical Center's Dr. Lerer in order to be funded, apparently had to be "independently" favorable reviewed by Philip Morris Grant Committee. Would one think this committee could approve scientific project that could threaten Philip Morris business?

Second, it is well possible, that while Lerer's tobacco project is "investigator designed", the Molecular Psychiatry publication is smart designed by Philip Morris. Grant terms that Lerer and associated Institutions had to accept for a project funding could well include the condition of Philip Morris screening a resulting manuscript prior to its' submission for publication in science journal, and the right to suppress the publication of undesirable data.

"We editors of medical journals worry that we sometimes publish studies where the declared authors have not participated in the design of the study, had no access to the raw data, and had little to do with the interpretation of the data. Instead the sponsors of the study often pharmaceutical companies have designed the study and analysed and interpreted the data. Readers and editors are thus being deceived. Editors are also concerned that the declared authors might not have ultimate control over whether their studies are published. That decision may rest with the funders of the research perhaps a government department or a pharmaceutical company which could mean that results unfavourable to the funders are suppressed. This distorts the scientific record and again deceives readers, allowing them to read only favourable results. Editors have taken steps to counter the problem by revising the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and changing editorial practices."

"Drummond Rennie, a deputy editor of JAMA, has told the now famous story of how Boots went to great lengths to try to suppress a study that showed that its product levothyroxine was not superior to its competitors' products. The authors came from the University of California, San Francisco, which insists, wisely, that its academics keep control of publication of their papers. Unfortunately in this case the authors did not. The head of the sponsored research office of Massachusetts General Hospital estimates that about 30-50% of contracts submitted by companies have unacceptable clauses on publication that must be renegotiated. A survey of over 3300 members of life science faculties in 50 universities found that a fifth had had publication of study results delayed by more than six months at least once in the past three years. One reason for this delay was to slow the dissemination of undesired results. Certainly there seems to be a proliferation of stories of companies suppressing publication, despite forceful arguments that failure to publish amounts to research misconduct."

Citation source: Richard Smith. Editorials: Maintaining the integrity of the scientific record. Editors make a move. British Medical Journal (BMJ) 323: 588 (15 September 2001) [FullText]

Look at a second sentence of the abstract, the only article text available to the public for free: "A significant contribution of genetic factors to smoking phenotypes is well established." Is this the major message Philip Morris wanted to broadcast by the publication of Israeli scientists? Is this the statement self censored authors included in the abstract to please the funder, long interested in the genetics of smoking (San Francisco Chronicle, 27 December 2005). Hidden to the public view (by 30$ access barrier) the article acknowledgement section reads that "Research described in this article was supported in part by Philip Morris USA Inc. and Philip Morris International (investigator designed, independently reviewed grant), the Genome Infrastructure Program of the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology and the Crown Human Genome Center at the Weizmann Institute of Science..." Smart statement, isn't it? Does it mean major tobacco manufacturer, Israel Governmental Ministry of Science and Technology, and The Weizmann Institute of Science work hand in hand to provide support for certain parts of the reported tobacco project? Is this collaboration mutually beneficial and rewarding? Could it be not rewarding for a commercial entity?

The first look at Bernard Lerer's (the senior author) contribution at PubMed, the major database for biomedical publications by the US National Library of Medicine, suggests he is a successful scientist-administrator, directing research on a broad spectrum of projects. He also serves as editor of the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. His fellow workers (graduate students? postdoctoral fellows?), apparently think this Molecular Psychiatry publication is very important for their future academic development (read "for professor appointment and tenure-track university promotion"). Such "future career at stake message" is implied by fellow co-authors inability to decide who is the first author of the publication, and the article footnote that "these authors contributed equally to this work".

Obviously, fellow authors did not have a chance to think of the ethics behind their publication support by tobacco industry. Is this a major issue to bring to the agenda of Israel Medical association meeting, reported by Jerusalem Post to held this week and discuss the Tobacco Industry support of Medical research in Israel? Could it be different in an institutional settings, having closed-to-public-view corrupted practices of research funds management? At the Weizmann Institute, for example, top scientist could be listed as other scientist grant co-participant without knowing about it. Was this a practice exercised by present Institutes' Academic secretary at a time of his Institutional "Grants and Projects" office head post? He could also prohibit ones' applying for a promising grant project after a telephone call by at-that-time Vice President of the Institute, a member of Genetics Department, now involved in tobacco industry support scandal. This was reported by Rehovot community journal half-a-year ago (MyRehovot.info/ru of June 4 and May 25). Could it be different when the President of the Institute and the Dean of the Graduate School both serve for bio tech companies, without reporting their commercial ties to their peers and students? No wonder institutional scientists keep silence, as talks on such "transparency" and policies could easy lead them to the street out of "prestigious" learned institution. Given corrupted tentacles (when alarmed, an inability or unwillingness to investigate administration wrongdoing by Institutional science bodies well fit the code of silence) and the fact there are just few Universities in Israel, the talks on Institutional corruption by insiders may be useless and lead to a lifetime domestic academic unemployment. The financial offences associated with research grant management by Hebrew University and The Weizmann Institute were reported in the Comptroller's Report "Account Management Seriously Flawed" (25 Aug 2004, available here).

Nature Publishing Group, the publisher of Molecular Psychiatry, apparently, is not innocent either. Nature has a proven record of brazen lie and inability to combat commercial interest in scientific publication. It is detailed in a written evidence "Editorial and Publisher corruption", published proceedings (by United Kingdom Parliamentary publishing house) of Science and Technology Committee inquiry on scientific publication (pp. 394-404, Ev386, Science and Technology - Tenth Report, Volume II, Oral and Written Evidence, House of Commons Publication HC399II 20 July 2004) . Aside from the authors' responsibility to follow the "Universal Requirement for Manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals" (that Prof. Lerer also have to observe as a journal Editor-in-Chief), the requirements' latest revisions (BMJ 323: 588, 2001), and Nature thoughts on the issue, more transparent statement on the tobacco Industry support of the Molecular Psychiatry article by Greenbaum et al. seems a must, especially, because Philip Morris web site does not make funded research grants information easy available. If no transparency, why we should believe Philip Morris grants are "investigator designed" and "independently reviewed".

It would be too simplistic to narrow the Molecular Psychiatry publication with an individual Israel scientist sympathy to commercially supported big bucks bargain science projects. At stake is the damage of ethics of the entire Israeli biomedical science, caused by the wrongdoing of irresponsible university R&D science officials, missed students ethics education and ethics culture, and the lack of Israel science openness.

About the author:

Dr. Koudinov is MD, PhD, neuroscientist, biochemist and editor. For over a decade he has been involved in Alzheimer's research and the basic science on the role of fats in brain function, memory, and brain disorders. He has published more then one hundred refereed articles, scientific correspondence items, and meeting abstracts, and lead independent OA peer-reviewed scholar publications, Neurobiology of Lipids and the Doping Journal. Both journals have no affiliation with any professional association, publisher, industry member, commercial enterprise, public, educational or government organization. Dr. Koudinov also serves as founder of Israel Scholar, a non-profit independent web-based project devoted to the broad spectrum of issues of academic life and scholar advocacy in Israel. Conflict of Interest by Israel Professors and wrong doing by administrators of Israeli Universities is of Israel Scholar direct interest. At present Israel Scholar is focused on the issues of scholarly communication, so called Open Access (OA), a free public access to scientific literature. Currently, Israel Scholar is setting Israel Scholar Works, a digital archive for creative work by the faculty and staff of Israel Academic Institutions and Jewish scholars all around the world. Israel Scholar Works aims to unite Israel and Jewish scholarship, to make it available for free to a wider audience, and to help assure its long-term preservation.

Mandated Open Public Access for publicly-funded medical research in the US

"Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) introduced a bill into the U.S. Senate yesterday that would mandate OA to publicly-funded medical research within four months of its publication. Officially titled the American Center for Cures Act of 2005, the bill is informally known as the CURES Act. It would create a new agency within the NIH, the American Center for Cures (ACC), whose primary mission would be to translate fundamental research into therapies. The bill is very large and covers a lot of territory, but for our purposes the critical part is Section 499H. Like the existing NIH policy, the CURES Act would apply only to the author's final peer-reviewed manuscript, although copyright holders would have the option to replace it with the final published text. Public access would be provided by PubMed Central. The bill goes beyond the NIH policy in several important ways. It requires free online access and does not merely request it. It shortens the permissible delay to four months. It extends the OA policy beyond the NIH to research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Healthcare Research. Finally, it explicitly says that non-compliance may be a ground for the funding agency to refuse future funding. The bill is co-sponsored by Thad Cochran (R-MS).

See the summary of the bill (discussing all its important provisions except the OA mandate), the section-by-section breakdown (the OA mandate is in Section 499H), and some quotations from supporters.

(PS: This is a major step. It would effectively mandate OA to all medical research funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, making it more effective and wider in scope than the NIH public-access policy. More later, I promise.)

Source: Peter Suber OA Newss. Mandated OA for publicly-funded medical research in the US. (9 Dec 2005) [FullText] [Followup comments]

Royal Society Fellows Defend Open Access

Donald MacLeod, Science academy defends open access policy, The Guardian, December 8, 2005.

Excerpt by Open Access News: "The Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, today hit back at critics of its "negative" attitude to making research freely available on the internet, claiming it was under attack from commercial interests. A letter signed by 46 society fellows, including two Nobel laureates, criticised the academy for opposing open access agreements, under which scientists agree to make their findings freely available on the internet as well as publishing them in academic journals. The letter had been coordinated by BioMed Central, a commercial publisher of open access journals, which stood to gain from open access publishing, said a spokesman for the society. BioMed Central admitted it had helped coordinate the letter, along with another open access publisher, the Public Library of Science, but said the initiative came from fellows angered by the Royal Society's position. The letter accuses the society of putting its own interests as the publisher of a learned journal before the interests of science. The increasingly heated debate has been sparked by proposals from the UK research councils to require scientists to make their findings freely available online as a condition of receiving grants. The Royal Society issued a statement denying it was taking a negative stance on open access and calling for a study of various forms of open access publishing. "We are simply concerned that open access is achieved without the risk of unintended damage to peer-review, quality control and long-term accessibility of the scientific literature." A spokesman added: "The Royal Society is absolutely supportive of the principle of open access and is committed to the widest possible dissemination of research outputs. The society is itself a delayed open access publisher, providing free access after 12 months, and provides immediate access to researchers in developing countries and also to scientific papers that are of major public interest - for example the results of the farm scale evaluation of genetically modified crops. "However, there is understandable concern that if researchers can access large numbers of final versions of journal papers from repositories, then they will not be prepared to subscribe to these journals. The society is not in favour of policies that might reduce scholarly communication by undermining the established subscription model of publishing before the alternatives (such as author-pays journals) have been fully explored and have been shown to be viable in the long-term." A BioMed spokeswoman said: "We have not made any attempt to conceal the fact we were involved, but nor did we brand it as a BioMed initiative because it isn't - it's very much fellows of the Royal Society writing to the Royal Society." She added: "It is in the commercial interests of BioMed that open access is successful, but it is also in the commercial interests of publishers and learned societies that the subscription model prevails."

Dog genome sequence complete and Open Access

Peter Suber, Open Access News Blog (8 Dec 2005):

"I'm sure you've heard that researchers have sequenced the genome of the dog. But it's important to add that the sequence data are OA at several sites around the world (here, here, here, here, here, and here).

(PS: The fact that the sequencing effort cost $30 million was not an argument to restrict access to the data and meter it out only to paying customers. On the contrary, like most science, this was an investment in future research and future benefits, not an investment in an income-producing asset. Scientific research best repays the investment when it is shared among all who can make use of it.)"

Libraries are changing faster than their public image

OCLC released a report today, Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources showing that "information consumers view libraries as places to borrow print books, but they are unaware of the rich electronic content they can access through libraries."

From the press release:

"We wanted to know more about people's information-seeking practices and preferences, how familiar people are with the wide variety of e-resources libraries provide for their users, and how libraries compare to other information resources, particularly Web-based resources," said Cathy De Rosa, Vice President, OCLC Marketing & Library Services, and a principal contributor to the report... Among the findings of the report:.. Respondents do not trust purchased information more than free information... "The information resource market— tools, content and access—is growing, not shrinking, providing more options and more choices to people using the Web to search for information and content," said Ms. De Rosa. "Libraries are seen as a place for traditional resources— such as books, reference materials and research assistance— and to get access to the internet. The results of this survey confirm that libraries are not seen as the top choice for access to electronic resources."

Source: Peter Suber Open Access News Blog (8 December 2005) [Fulltext]

Helena Spongenberg, Group: Online Content Cannot Remain Free, Associated Press, December 6, 2005. Excerpt and note(below) by Peter Suber of Open Access News:

European publishers warned Tuesday that they cannot keep allowing Internet search engines such as Google Inc. to make money from their content. "The new models of Google and others reverse the traditional permission-based copyright model of content trading that we have built up over the years," said Francisco Pinto Balsemao, the head of the European Publishers Council, in prepared remarks for a speech at a Brussels conference. His stance backs French news agency AFP, which is suing Google for pulling together photos and story excerpts from thousands of news Web sites. "It is fascinating to see how these companies 'help themselves' to copyright-protected material, build up their own business models around what they have collected, and parasitically, earn advertising revenue off the back of other people's content," he said. "This is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term." The news section of Google's Web site doesn't display ads. But the Mountain View, Calif.-based company depends on visitors clicking on ads in other parts of its Web site to generate a substantial portion of its revenue, which totaled $4.2 billion through the first nine months of this year. Responding to Balsemao's remarks, Google spokesman Steve Langdon said: "Search engines do not reproduce content. They help users find content by pointing to where it exists on the Web." Google removes Web sites from its news index if a publisher doesn't want the content listed, Langdon said. Balsemao said consumers were drawn online by free content but this needed to change, he said. "The value of content must be understood by consumers so that new business models can evolve. Industry must have legal certainty and the confidence that their intellectual property will be protected.

(PS: Note to Balsemao: Excluding your content from search engines is unlikely to be sustainable for publishers in the longer term.)

FireFox Scholar to be Available Soon

"Jeffrey Young, Browser-Based Software Will Help Scholars Organize Information Found Online, Researchers Say, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 2005 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:

The Web browser has become an essential tool for many academics, a versatile window into books, journal articles, blogs, and other research materials. Why not create a customized browser with professors' needs in mind? That is the logic behind Firefox Scholar, a software package under development by researchers at George Mason University that will help users organize and cite materials they have found online. The open-source software, which developers plan to release free sometime next year, will plug into the popular Firefox browser, which is also open source. "A good way of thinking about it is incredibly smart bookmarking," says Daniel J. Cohen, an assistant professor of history at George Mason who is working on the project. "You're not just bookmarking the page, but you're automatically [capturing] author, title, all that info that scholars want to save."...For the browser-based software to work fully, however, digital archives must format their books and articles in a way that lets it sort out where elements like title, author, and other bibliographic information reside. Some digital collections already do that, and others could make minor adjustments to comply, says Mr. Cohen. Roy Rosenzweig, a professor of history and new media at the university, says the new browser would also allow researchers to automatically save a copy of an online article or Web page and make annotations on those saved pages. That's better than a shoebox full of notecards and photocopied articles, says Mr. Rosenzweig.... A beta version of the software is expected by summer or later next year..."

Source: P.Suber. Open Access News (6 Dec 2005) [FullText]

To Download FireFox with Google toolbar now, use the button below.

Fellows of the UK Royal Society endorse Open Access

"Forty-two Fellows of the Royal Society (FRS), including five Nobel laureates, have written an open letter (December 7) to the Royal Society dissenting from its November 24 position statement on OA. The letter remains open for more signatures. Excerpt:

As Fellows of the Royal Society, we would like to express our disappointment with the Society's recent position statement on open access to published research. The society's statement, which takes a largely negative stance on open access, appears to be aimed at delaying implementation of the Research Councils UK's proposed policy on access to research outputs. As working scientists who support open access to published research, we believe that the Society should support RCUK's proposal, rather than oppose it. The proposed RCUK policy will ensure that the results of research funded by the Research Councils are made freely and rapidly available, maximizing their utility not only to the scholarly community in the United Kingdom and around the world, but also to practitioners (including doctors and nurses) and to the British public whose taxes largely support the research. The RCUK policy has strong backing from librarians and academics, and has received official support from Universities UK, the organization that represents UK university vice-chancellors and principals. In seeking to delay or even to block the proposed RCUK policy, the Royal Society appears to be putting the concerns of existing publishers (including the Society itself) ahead of the needs of science. The position statement ignores considerable evidence demonstrating the viability of open access, instead warning ominously of 'disastrous' consequences for science publishing. We believe that these concerns are mistaken. The move towards open access to research literature builds on the tradition of making research data openly available, a standard that is well established within the scientific community. For example, free availability of genetic data, such as the genome sequences of humans, mice, pathogens and plants, has greatly accelerated the pace of research in both academic and commercial settings.

(PS: The letter shows that the Royal Society did not speak for its Fellows or even consult them on this question.)

Source: P.Suber. OANews Blog (6 December 2005) [FullText]

Open-source agriculture

C. Neal Stewart, Jr., Open-Source Agriculture, ISB News Report, December 2005. Excerpt by Peter Suber (OA News Blog):

"Computer software is amenable for duplication, modification, and improvement and therefore has greater utility and value … DNA as well. Sharing software freely has enabled the open-source movement and has led to numerous innovations in operating systems and products. What about open-sourcing DNA–is that the key to agricultural innovation and feeding an ever-growing population? One person who thinks so is Richard Jefferson, of GUS reporter gene fame, who is the director of CAMBIA and its new offshoot, BiOS (Biological Innovation for Open Society). BiOS and other organizations such as PIPRA (Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture) are promoting open access to biological innovations targeted to agricultural improvement, especially for crops most important to the developing world. Currently there are relatively few companies, located mainly (about 75%) in the private sector, that hold patents on crucial agricultural biotechnologies; however, Jefferson believes those few companies could be using those patents to "dominate then destroy an industry." Alternatively, he is advocating parallel engineering -–that is, the creation of redundant inventions to endow freedom to operate. A perfect example of this is the TransBacter system -�