Open Access PublishingCalum Land

BioMed Central Ltd

CODIST-II 2nd May 2011

Agenda• What is Open Access?• Open Access Repositories• Digital Bridge or Digital Divide?• BioMed Central and Africa• How can Open Access benefit Africa?• Open Access advocacy• An Open Access journal case study

About BioMed Central

• Largest publisher of peer-reviewed open access journals

• Launched first open access journal in 2000

• Became part of Springer in 2008

• Now publishes 207 open access journals

• >90,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published • All research articles published under Creative Commons

license

• Costs covered by article processing charge (APC)

What is Open Access?

The old world of access to knowledge

The new world of access to knowledge

Open Access Publishing

• Traditional journals– take ownership of the research– provide access to subscribers only

• Open access journals– have no subscription barriers– take advantage of the economics of the internet to

allow universal access– research is openly licensed to allow reuse

Characteristics of Open Access• The publisher charges directly for the service of

publication/ dissemination

• Research permanently available via the Internet

• No barriers to access such as subscription costs• Licensed so as to allow redistribution and reuse

(Creative Commons)• Archived in an internationally recognized repository

(e.g. PubMed Central)

Who Pays?

• Open access journals do have costs• Publication fee is a very small fraction of the cost of

doing research• Most open access publishers, including BioMed

Central, give waivers to developing countries• In other cases, open access journals have central

support, so no charges for authors or readers

Business Model• Article-processing charge (APC) covers:

• Editorial: handling of manuscripts• Technical: development, maintenance and operation of online

journal system• Production: Formatting and mark up of articles, inclusion in

indexing services• Marketing: Making sure readers and authors know about the

journal• Customer service: Responding to authors/readers

• Web technology is used to keep costs low• BioMed Central’s charges (~$1680) are at the lower end

Routes Towards Open Access

Gold Open AccessPublishing in an open access journal Þ Full and Optional Open Access journals

Green Open Access Depositing articles in an Open Access repository

Subject repositories– PubMed Central– ArXiV

Institutional repositories– E.g. UNECA Instutional

Repository

Open Access Repositories

Open Access repositories• Supports the Green Route• Allow archiving of articles published both in

traditional journals and open access journals• Traditional publishers typically only allow

author version to be archived• Many require a 6 or 12 month embargo

period• Open access articles can be deposited and

made immediately available

Open Access Publishing,then and now…

20112000

And many more…

African Journals Online

The internet has the potential to radically expand access to

knowledge

Digital divide or digital bridge?

African internet connectivity is improving dramatically

Cellphones

Source: African Mobile Factbook 2008

International Telecommunications Union report (2009)

“The increase in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions over the last five years has defied all predictions and Africa remains the region with the highest mobile growth rate”

Growth of mobile phones in Africa

Mobile phone networks are already aiding scientific data gathering

“Many African postgraduates lack access to, and the skills for working on, computers.”Association of Commonwealth Universities 2010

ICT LevelsInternational Telecommunications Union report (2009)

Although the number of Internet users has grown faster than in other regions:

“Africa’s ICT penetration levels in 2009 are still far behind the rest of the world and very few African countries reach ICT levels comparable to global averages”

“The University Access Program is an initiative designed to catalyze Internet usage in Sub Saharan Africa Universities through the provision of affordable laptops, wireless access and bandwidth.”

“Computer Aid has provided over 180,000 PCs to where they are most needed in more than 100 countries across Africa and Latin America.”

BMC/Nature 10K fun run in support of ComputerAid

As connectivity improves, other access barriers become significant

Open access journals do away with access barriers

BioMed Central and Africa

OA Waiver Fund

All African countries receive automatic fee waiver, except:

• Libya • Namibia• South Africa

Algeria Botswana Equatorial Guinea Gabon

Growth in manuscript submissions from Africa to BioMed Central

Manuscript submissions from Africa as fraction of total

Top 10 journals for publications from Africa in last 12 months

How can Open Access benefit Africa?

UN Millennium Development Goals• Reduce child mortality, improve maternal

health• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other

diseases• Ensure environmental sustainability• Develop a global partnership for

development

Who needs access to the results of research?

Public

Professionals

Researchers

Research on global health issues has expanded greatly

• Developing world health issues are finally attracting substantial research spending

• Private philanthropic initiatives have played an important role

Why do research if it is not accessible where it is most relevant?

• Wellcome Trust • Medical Research Council• US National Institute of Health• Howard Hughes Medical Institute• European Research Council• EC Seventh Framework Program

Many research funders are now requiring Open Access

• Harvard University (and other members of Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity)

• More than 100 mandatory institution-wide open access policies world-widehttp://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/

• But still very few in Africa…

Many universities are now requiring open access

Open Access Advocacy

Institutional Membership• Supporter membership

Institution pays a flat fee, authors pay a discounted Article Processing Charge

• Prepay membershipInstitution covers cost of publication centrally, at a discounted rate

• Shared Support membershipInstitution and researchers share the cost at a discounted rate

BMC Foundation Membership• A new type of membership created for

developing nations• Designed to support Open Access

advocacy• Same benefits as other institutional

memberships• No cost

Benefits of Foundation Membership

• A BMC Webpage• A Member welcome pack• Membership usage reports• Member logo/badge for use on

institution website• PR of Membership

Criteria for Foundation Membership

• Institution should have a Open Access policy in place

• Institution should have published at least 5 articles in BioMed Central journals in the last year

• Member web page screen shot

Open Access journals

Malaria Journal - an open access journal case study

Malaria Journal homepage

Annual growth in submissions to Malaria Journal

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 20100

100

200

300

400

500

600

Submissions

Top 20 African countries publishing in Malaria Journal (no. of articles)

Impact Factor trend

A highly accessed Malaria Journal article

15,000+ downloads31 citations

Parasite to Prevention - Malaria Journal’s scientific conference

• Inaugural conference October 2010, Edinburgh, Scotland

• Full bursaries for participants from low-income countries, supported by Gates Foundation

• Next conference 2012, probably in Africa

Other high profile open access journals relevant to tropical diseases

Gateways

The latest open access research on global health issues

The benefits of open access for the developing world

Thank you