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Yesterday (6 Sept 2012) I attended a talk held at the Australian National University entitled “Open Access & Scholarly Publishing in 21st Century”, given by Peter Booth Wiley, Chairman of the Board of Wiley & Sons. I have added my complete notes from the event below, but in summary Peter had some interesting things to say about the changing nature of scholarly communication declaring the pdf ‘dead’ as we move from a static to an interactive publishing experience. [The impression I had from this section of the talk was that he was trying to argue that open access should just wait for a while until this settles a bit and we can work out what it is we are dealing with…] Peter invoked many of the usual myths that we would expect from a publisher in this context, not least that publishers maintain the quality of the scholarly communication process by running peer review [MYTH no 1: publishers take responsibility for the ‘integrity’ of the scientific endeavour] When the discussion moved to open access he stated that open access publishing is growing rapidly, but there is a problem with pushing for open access in a less than thoughtful way. For those who were aware of the discussion about open access here in Australia in the last days of the previous CEO of the Australian Research Council, these words eerily echo Margaret Sheil’s comments about the ‘supporters of open access being naive’ - http://theconversation.edu.au/open-access-not-as-simple-as-it-sounds-outgoing-arc-boss-6628 Some of the big issues in the open access debate he gave were – people assume people want their research to be free – but this is not always the case. Sometimes they want to commercialise it first [MYTH no 2: Open access threatens commercialisation. This is spurious. Open access only talks about published work – which is either not up for commercialisation or has been published after the commercialisation has been dealt with] Another issues is different countries can develop in different ways. Some countries may not be as open as others, and might believe in controlling information. So those in the open access world are funding research for the closed world. Peter actually mentioned China here, an interesting invocation of the Yellow Peril given we were in the College of Asia Pacific. [MYTH no 3: open access means communists will steal all our research. Not even worth validating this racist point of view with a rebuttal] Then there is the question of who pays. He said there is one UK institution costed out to open access (through article processing fees) and they discovered it would cost more than closed access, and this could impact research. [MYTH no 4: Open access costs more. This is silly for several reasons. For a start, the argument assumes total move to gold open access, which is unlikely in even the medium term. Given, there would be a small handful of institutions for whom this is the case. But overall it would be cheaper for everyone. And given the UK is saying we need to invest BP38 million each year to oA gold publishing, perhaps that could be directed towards the few institutions who are producing large amounts of research output.] The last myth was invoked in answer to my question about why if they believe (as he stated) their mission is to provide information to people regardless of where they are, they are a ‘no to green’ publisher. He said “if we were to make everything available immediately open access you would be asking us to commit suicide”. [MYTH no 5: the publishing industry will collapse. For a start it has been happening in the physics community for 21 years and that is still going. But actually we are not asking for all journal published versions to be OA , we are asking for permission to make the accepted version available in a repository - 1. If the author says they are OK with it 2. if the author actually has an accepted version available. Given he spent the past hour talking how things are moving from the static to the dynamic – then surely the value-add of the publisher and the premium people will pay for is that dynamism. So how is having a static pdf in a repository going to threaten that business model?] The reason for the event was to celebrate a new society where AusAID has provided financial assistance for both the journal & society. The journal is published by Wiley as an online, unrestricted open access journal. At the talk there was no mention of the cost, but for those who are interested, article processing fees in Wiley’s OnlineOpen program are US$3,000 per paper -http://authorservices.wiley.com/bauthor/onlineopen.asp The only bright spot in the talk was I am now in contact with Mark Robertson who is the Australian Wiley representative, so I can talk to him about a few of our issues here in Australia. Dr Danny Kingsley Manager. Scholalry Publishing and ePublishing Australian National University [log in to unmask] Notes from the talk: Peter began by introducing himself – the company has been in existence since 1867, he is the 6th generation and has been on the board of directors for 28 years. Wiley opened their first office in Sydney in 1962. They expanded beyond text, trade and technical publishing into scholarly publishing when they acquired Blackwell in 2007. He said that things in scholarly publishing are changing so fast that it is very hard to predict anything. Peter defined open access as a journal article resulting from research funded by government is deposited in a repository without charge. He then gave some quotes that he felt framed the area – 1. Steve Brand’s comment to Steve Wosniak’s that “information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. 2. and ‘On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time” - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free 3. Kurt Vonnegut’s book the Cat’s Cradle. In this world you get what you pay for 4. The cost of information is getting lower and lower 5. ‘There ain’t no such thing as free content’ The future of research and knowledge publishing – see the development of R&D as a driver of growth. He gave a disclosure – he is an author who values the content he created. He likes to control the content. As a publisher he needs to sort out the free on one hand and retain the value of knowledge on the other. Open access publishing is growing rapidly – there is a problem with pushing for open access in a less than thoughtful way. The Wiley company is knowledge publishers – they are proud of the reputation of quality content. They see their mission as being content to people regardless of where they are. They know that cost is a barrier to knowledge. Information is carefully edited to people can access and use it in confidence, in many cases the material is reworked by their won editors. A doctor reviewing an article on cancer needs to know that the information is highly reliable. [MYTH no 1] The company has partnerships with organisations – economics societies, the society of public health, college of surgeons, and the new Asia and the Pacific group. They help societies fund professional programs etc. Anyone who says they can predict the future of publishing are wrong. Open access has come from three forces – the sheer quantity of information now available, the cost to librarians (which is beyond their means), the means of creating content and the form it takes are rapidly changing. Add to this – traditional publishers are transitioning at different speeds eg: PloS…and EPress. [Note there is some disquiet at ANU that the Crawford School chose to give Wiley considerable amounts of AusAID money when we have an inhouse open access press…] All the open access discussion focuses on the journal article. Peter wanted to start with the world of content – and what that is beginning to look like. The expectations of young people are very different to older ones. There are also initiatives in higher education which parallel open access – Wiley has developed ‘Wiley teaching platforms’. This creates heightened expectations among graduates. He made the distinction between static and dynamic content. The pdf became the standard format for sharing information – this went beyond what it could do and we are now aware of the limitations. The first generation of open access focused on getting content digitised. There was an investment in servers and the first generation of digital tools. But even with online content things in publishing didn’t change. We have now moved into a brave new world. Wiley, Nature, Pub Med central – creating tools and content . The question becomes – are you a software company? No they will always be a content company. Peter then described how interactive articles allow the reader to click through the article into other articles and other websites. There are opportunities for enhanced learning environment. Peter then described a couple of examples of interactive learning devices – a convergence of the library & the research lab. It is a dynamic content experience – more costly and will be held more tightly by the publisher. [The impression I had from this section of the talk was that he was trying to argue that open access should just wait for a while until this settles a bit and we can work out what it is we are dealing with…] In the future – publishers are moving beyond the journal article. Peter then mentioned the 3 models for open access – and asked if anyone wanted to hear that – the room very emphatically said yes. He explained Gold – subscription to author pays through the funder, green as a ‘mandate that material must be deposited in an archive within a period of time’ – giving the example of NHMRC – and hybrid – where subscribers still pay and authors pay to deposit. Some of the big issues he gave were – people assume people want their research to be free – but this is not always the case. Sometimes they want to commercialise it first [MYTH no 2] Another issues is different countries can develop in different ways. Some countries may not be as open as others, and might believe in controlling information. So those in the open access world are funding research for the closed world. Peter actually mentioned China here. [an interesting invocation of the Yellow Peril given we were in the College of Asia Pacific] [MYTH no 3] Then there is the question of who pays. One UK institution costed out to open access (through article processing fees) and they discovered it would cost more than closed access, and this could impact research. [MYTH no 4.] So, Peter asked – where is the funding for the value add going to come from? Conclude at this very early stage of the debate [really, the one that is more than 20 years old?] we need to work carefully and think about the consequences. Think about the cost of the… Potential for using off the shelf experiences but always driven by graphic increase in knowledge. Even if the cost declines, there are more journals and more subjects. Sometimes he feels optimistic sometimes pessimistic. In answer to my question about why they are a ‘no to green’ publisher: If we were to make everything available immediately open access you would be asking us to commit suicide. [MYTH no 5] Dr Danny Kingsley Manager, Scholarly Communications and ePublishing Room 3.18a Chifley Library, Bld 15 Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 p: 02 6125 6839 e: [log in to unmask] w: http://www.anu.edu.au/research/access CIRCOS provider no: 00120C