open access and researchers: from "publish or perish" to "be visible or vanish"

Open Access and Researchers

Dr Xiang Ren

By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.

What is Open Access

Why Open Access?

Research article access/impactFinancial sustainability

Financial sustainability

Research article access/impact• 1.8 million articles published

each year, 50% are read only by their authors and journal editors; more than half are never cited.

• Citation advantage of open access publications and even open data

Gold Open Access and Green Open Access

What is Green Open Access? Researchers can deposit a version of their published work into a subject-based repository or an institutional repository. Every university in Australia has a repository for this purpose.

What is Gold Open Access? Alternatively researchers can publish in an open access journal, where the publisher of a scholarly journal provides free online access. Business models for this form of OA vary. In some cases, the publisher charges the author’s institution or funding body an article processing charge (APC). All Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals use this model.

AOASG

Open Access Policies• Access (mandates)

• The US: NIH Public Access Policies, Presidential Policy Memorandum

• The UK: RCUK, Wellcome Trust• The EU: Horizon 2020, 60% by

2016• Australia: ARC and NHMRC• China: CAS and NSFC OA

mandates• …

• Impact (redefine)

• NHMRC: Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, … consider the value and impact of all research outputs (including datasets and software) in addition to research publications, and consider a broad range of impact measures including qualitative indicators of research impact, such as influence on policy and practice

• RCUK: change from Impact Plan to Pathways to Impact: “What will be done to ensure that potential beneficiaries have the opportunity to benefit?”

Engage Stakeholders and Public

• Open Access widens public access to research scholarship

• Willinsky: research scholarship should be openly available “… to all who are interested in it and all who might profit by it”

Research Impact: Altmetrics

• Article-level and immediate metrics

• Assess the uses of scholarship comprehensively

• Reflect the benefits of research for wider communities

Two Maxims in Academia

• “Publish or perish" • “Visible or vanished"

Choose Right OA Journals

http://www.nature.com/news/price-doesn-t-always-buy-prestige-in-open-access-1.12259

Publish with Hybrid or Non-OA Journals

• You need to consider: APCsJIF Non-OA journals: embargo period Copyright issues Suitability …

Self-archive and Self-promote

Dr. Xiang Ren E: xiang.ren@usq.edu.au T: @renxiangcn

Thank You!