**Note from the blogger known as Jean--My computer decided to die during the last 30 minutes of this presentation, so I apologize for not being able to provide more detailed notes for the last portion**
Scholarly Communication 101
A standard definition of scholarly communication is the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use.
More simply, an author submits an article that is reviewed by the publisher, who makes it available to libraries for a certain cost, which is then obtained by users. Unfortunately, with this model, users are purchasing content that they possibly created or content that they supported.
Author → Publisher → Libraries = Users
Naturally, there are several obvious issues with this model
Economics of Publishing - the major issues
1. Extraordinary price increases (average 8%)
Sadly, there seems to be no correlation between price and quality. This is especially problematic in our current economy where we are already operating with reduced budgets.
2. Mergers and acquisitions
3. Bundled content, which is efficient and helps limit inflation
While bundled content allows libraries to have access to more resources, the disadvantage is that there is a loss of control over the selection. It is not uncommon to have access to a bundle that has one useful resource and 3 not-as-useful resources
4.Volume of information
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Publishers have the ability to price for profit, and this problem has seriously hurt the libraries buying power. Within this model, the traditional system is unsustainable and scholars are losing access. So, who holds the power in this system and who can help change it?
Faculty, researchers (authors)
Publishers
Librarians, library organizations
Congress, federal government
While having someone who can help impede changes, there is still more that an individual or a library can do to help promote these changes
Change strategies
-Editorial board control
-Declaring Independence
-Collective buying
-Open Access
-National policy advocacy
It's not far-fetched to believe in force by numbers as a strategic change. For libraries, the larger the group, the greater chance we can discuss and negotiate with publishers.
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What is open access? (most promising strategy to date) It’s free, unrestricted access to research literature and few restrictions on subsequent use. There are two kinds of open access, Open Access Journals (Gold Road) and Author Self-Archiving/Open archiving (Green Road)
1. Open access journals - gold road
-These journals are fully peer reviewed
-Full research content openly available on the web (online only has an inherently lower production cost)
-Publication costs covered prior to publication
-Lower cost structure
Open access - an access model
Business models vary
-Author fees, from research grants
-Subscriptions to non-research content
-Advertising
-Institutional memberships
-Institutional support, subsidies
-Related products and services
-Endowment
Example: Journal of Medical Internet Research, fully accessible online but charge for downloads of the pdf
Some examples of Open Access Publishers include:
Public Library of Science
BioMed Central
Hindawi Publishing
Directory of Open Access Journals
Total number of journals published is 22,000-25,000—so, 15-20% of all journals are open access on DOAJ
2. Author self-archiving/Open archiving - Green Road
Characteristics include:
-Make scholars preprints universally available to all
-Author deposits article in an openly accessible repository
-Disciplinary or institutional repository
-Preprint, post-print, final published version
-Must have appropriate rights
Copyright and Authors Rights
Scholars lose some or all rights for their own works in publishing agreements. To better understand this, one must understand what copyright entails
Copyrights rights include the ability to:
1. Reproduce the work
2. Prepare derivative works
3. Distribute copes
4. Perform publicaly
5. Display publicly
Remember, authors own their copyright to their journal articles and books, however one must be careful not to sign away their right
So why retain rights?
-share research widely
-Author will increase readership and citations
-Remove barriers to reuse and sharing
-Must retain rights to self archive
Retaining rights can affect the balance of power between publishers and authors. As librarians, we naturally want the shift of power in our favor
What rights to retain?
-Use own work in teaching & scholarship
-Distribute to students, colleagues
-Use for presentations, later publications
-Authorize non-commercial uses of work
-Deposit in open online archive or website
And while we may not want to admit this, publishers need some rights too
-A non-exclusive right to publish and distribute a work and receive a financial return
-Proper attribution and citation as journal of first publication
-Right to migrate the work to future formats
How to retain rights?
-An author can negotiate rights transfer with the publisher
-Read and edit the publishing agreement
-Apply an author’s addendum
-Use a Creative Commons license
--provides authors to essentially make their own license
Check Publishers Policies
And, ff the publisher will not negotiate to authors satisfaction:
-Consider publishing the work elsewhere
-Consider publishing the work in an open access journal
-Publish the work as planned with the original publisher.
**Unfortunately, I missed the next part concerning NIH Policy, so hopefully another person can fill in the last segment**