Open Access: a challenge on the boil for scientists and publishers
A Round Table session on Open Access [OA], introduced and moderated by Professor Sir John Enderby, President of the Institute of Physics [IoP] from 2004 to 2006, was hosted during the 2013 EPS Council meeting. Participants with various interests and backgrounds1 exchanged their views on the evolving landscape of scientific publications. Professor Enderby opened the discussions by a presentation of the different, counteracting interests in scientific publications of researchers, funders, librarians and information managers, publishers, small and medium enterprises, and the general public. The recent statements by governments on the implementation of open access [OA] constitute a major change in the paradigm of scientific publication.
Almost all of the learned societies involved in the debate are also scientific publishers, and they presented the challenges to face the economic transition from a subscription-based model to an “author-pays” model. For all learned societies income from publications is a non-negligible fraction of their budget, allowing the financing of other community building services. Participants warned that unwanted consequences of the author-pays model may arise, for example, discrimination against women and/or young researchers or the increase of self-plagiarism, and also acknowledged the “ethical” role that learned societies might play in this respect.
The European Molecular Biology Organization [EMBO] has made a quantitative study of the scientific and economic impact of its journals for subscription, hybrid and OA versions. For a full OA model, estimates suggest that it may be necessary to publish up to three times more papers to achieve the same financial stability as with current subscription models, raising questions as to whether quality standards can be maintained. (The EPS has already alerted on this risk in its 2009 position paper.) Within the physics community, the American Physical Society [APS] is one of the major publishers, publishing 10 journals with over 19 000 papers. The APS supports the idea of open access under the condition of a constant scientific quality guaranteed by peer review. The APS has started to propose different free access models to its complete archives for public libraries and high schools.
All participants in the round table agreed on the complex situation in the domain which intimately entangles the assessment of both researchers and their research funding proposals with their publication record, and many learned societies and academies have strongly advised against the exclusive use of numerical bibliometric data for evaluation. A related problem is of course that publishers are seeing increasing number of publications, and although self-regulation can in principle ensure that quality standards are maintained, this is again complicated, and places more burden on authors, referees and publishers. The use of a wider range of qualitative and quantitative measures of assessment is also an important part of any discussion on this point.
There was a strong consensus that learned societies must work to find common ground on this subject in order to speak with a common voice. The active involvement and input from scientists (who play a central role in the publication process as authors, readers, and as referees) is to be encouraged in order to ensure that future publication models work in the best interest of all members of the community. The publication of a common statement is envisaged.
- In alphabetical order: John Dudley, EPS president; Martin Huber, European Astronomical Society [EAS], and former chairman of the board of EPL journal; Daniel Kulp, editorial director, American Physical Society [APS]; Bernd Pulverer, head of scientific publications, EMBO; Angela Oleandri, editorial manager of EPJ journals series founded by EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica [SIF] and Springer; Ulrich Schubert, president of the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences [EuCheMS], Jacques-Henri Weil, board member of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies [FEBS] [↩]
