From: Colin Steele <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 7:08 PM * Plan S: how important is open access publishing?* The advent of Plan S promises to turbocharge the open access movement, but amid pushback from researchers and publishers, Rachael Pells examines whether the demand for published research truly merits the disruption Times Higher Education, January 24, 2019 By Rachael Pells For Graham Steel, the need to access scientific research was personal. After his brother, Richard, died at the age of 33 from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal neurodegenerative condition, he started to read relevant medical papers to learn more. Working as an insurance claims handler at the time, Steel had no connection to the academic world, but began to share scientific findings, copyright permitting, with other family members of vCJD patients through the website of a charity he had become involved in. “Simply by placing information online in an open manner…traffic increased by 4,000 per cent,” he tells Times Higher Education 17 years on. “As such, even before I knew what open access was, it was abundantly clear that being open was the main key to outreach.” Now a publishing consultant and adviser to non-profit research network Open Knowledge International, Steel has repeated his story time and time again for the benefit of those who still need convincing of the need for open access. But recent developments suggest that he is going to have to tell it many more times still. The progress that open access has made since the movement began two decades ago is impressive. The number of open access journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals rose from 4,800 in 2009 to 9,500 in 2017, for instance, while about 30 per cent of all published academic work is currently available for free through open access platforms. But, despite the adoption of open access mandates by numerous research funders around the world in recent years, advocates remain frustrated by the pace of change, while university libraries chafe against the ongoing cost of subscriptions, on top of open access fees, epitomised by the recent cancellation of Elsevier contracts by research institutions in Germany and Sweden, as well as, potentially, California. ________________________________ Hence, many open access advocates cheered last September when a group of European funders, under the auspices of the European Commission, unveiled their “Plan S”. Unlike previous funder mandates, which typically permitted embargo periods before papers had to be made freely available, the plan requires research to be made freely available immediately on publication, from 2020. Plan S – the S could stand for science, speed, solution or shock, according to the plan’s chief advocate, Robert-Jan Smits, the commission’s special envoy for open access – quickly gained momentum and its original 11 signatories, which included UK Research and Innovation, were quickly joined by a host of other major funders, including from the US, with unexpected support even being offered by Chinese agencies. “The response has been amazing,” Smits tells THE. Yet, he admits, “there are still some challenges ahead. We need to go global and overcome the barriers held up by stubborn, vested interests, ranging from commercial publishers to individuals and institutions that are fearful of change and feel comfortable in a system driven by the journal impact factor as a single metric for assessing output and quality.” [SNIP] Register to read entire article: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/plan-s-how-important-open-access-publishing --------------------------------------------- Colin Steele Emeritus Fellow ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences The Australian National University Room 3.31, Beryl Rawson Building #13 Acton, ACT, 2601 Australia P: + 61 2 6125 8983 E: [log in to unmask]