OA EC
Aus OKFN Deutschland
On-line survey on scientific information in the digital age
Link zur Befragung: http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=EUScientificInfo
Die Antworten wurden verfasst von Daniel Mietchen, Adrian Pohl, Ulrich Herb
Respondent
Organisation
German chapter of an international organisation
Name
Ulrich Herb
u.herb@scinoptica.com
Name of your organisation
Open Knowledge Foundation Germany
Country of residence / establishment
Germany
What role for Europe?
Circulation of knowledge, and specifically access to and preservation of scientific information
There are already many developments regarding access to and preservation of scientific information in Europe, at governmental, funding body and institutional level. For some years, the European Union has also been developing policies in these areas.
In your opinion, in what specific areas can and should the European Union best contribute to improving the circulation of knowledge, and specifically access to and preservation of scientific information (including both publications and data)?
Policy formulation at European level on access and preservation issues:
agree strongly
Co-ordinating existing initiatives in EU Member States:
agree strongly
Supporting the development of a European network of repositories: (online archives)
no opinion
Encourage universities, libraries, funding bodies, etc., to implement specific actions:
agree strongly
Comments
Raising awareness for open licensing is the most important aspect. Focussing on repositories as the primary infrastructural tool might not be a good thing. It is more important to establish shared practices of publishing research, data and metadata. Fostering open web standards of the Linked Open Data community is a promising way to go.
Access to digital scientific information (including open access): scientific publications
Do you agree with the following statement: "there is NO problem with access to scientific publications in Europe"?
disagree strongly
How would you rate the importance of the following potential barriers to access to scientific publications?
Insufficient national/regional strategies/policies on access to scientific publications
very important
High prices of articles/journal subscriptions
very important
Limited or reduced library budgets
very important
Different Value Added Tax (VAT) rates for online media and printed material
no opinion
Lack of awareness and interest within the research community on access and open access
important
No incentive system in place encouraging and rewarding practices that enhance access
very important
Comments
In the online era, there is no reason that research should be inaccessible to any potential user, even if publications were sold at no profit. As the rate and amount of publications are rapidly expanding, the current predominant model – via journals subscriptions – is hardly sustainable and not working effectively. There are no clear and consistent correlations between price, quality and impact.
Do you think that publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be available free of charge to readers on the internet (i.e. open access mode)?
agree strongly
Do you think that open access can increase access to and dissemination of scientific publications?
agree strongly
Do you think that open access to scientific publications can co-exist with the traditional scientific publication system?
disagree
Gold Road/Green Road
Open access to scientific publications can be achieved in different ways, in particular through researchers self-archiving in repositories ("green open access") and through publication in open access journals for a fee ("gold open access").
Which of the following different modes should public research policy facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications available in open access? Please rate the following options from 1 to 4 (1 = first choice; 4 = last choice):
Open access publishing (author-pays model/"gold open access") 1
A combination of self-archiving and open access publishing 2
Self-archiving ("green open access") 3
Funded conversion of traditional subscription-based journals to open access journals 4
Comments
"Author pays" is a deeply misleading term. Most OA journals charge no fees at all, and in many cases, fees will be paid by the author's funder or employer or sometimes waived on grounds of economic hardship. "Article processing charges" is more accurate. Mandating Libre OA provides opportunities for reuse. Overlay journals are missing here. These combine journal publishing and repository deposit.
In the case of self-archiving ("green open access"), what embargo period (period of time during which publication is not yet open access) is desirable?
18 months
disagree strongly
12 months
disagree strongly
9 months
disagree strongly
6 months
disagree
Other embargo period/comments
There is no need for any OA embargo period at all. But if the only way that a Green OA mandate can be agreed is if embargoes are allowed, then (1) they should not exceed 6 months, (2) deposit should be required at the time of acceptance anyway, (3) embargoed deposits can be made Closed Access, and (4) the repositories' "email eprint request" button can allow authors to fulfill researcher needs.
Access to digital scientific information (including open access): research data
Do you agree with the following statement: "generally speaking, there is NO access problem to research data in Europe"?
disagree strongly
How would you rate the importance of the following potential barriers to enhancing access to research data?
Insufficient national/regional strategies/policies on access to research data
very important
Lack of funding to develop and maintain the necessary data infrastructures
important
Insufficient credit given to researchers making research data available/lack of incentives
very important
Lack of mandates to deposit research data
very important
Lack of data management requirements in research projects
very important
Confidentiality/privacy issues
not very important
Comments
Incentives for publishing data must be created, e.g. by making data publications citeable, by giving them scientific reward functions and by integrating them into research publications. There are specifics for many research fields, which legal regulations should take into account (e.g. concerning data with implications for patient privacy or endangered species).
Do you think that research data that is publicly available and that results from PUBLIC funding should, as a matter of principle, be available for re-use and free of charge on the internet?
agree strongly
Comments
Making publicly funded data openly available will foster innovation. It fosters scientific discourse & progress, so large cost savings can be expected. As OA to research data provides transparency, it facilitates the detection of scientific fraud. Explicit dedication of data behind published science into the public domain e.g. via CC0 is strongly recommended, as per http://pantonprinciples.org/
Do you think that research data that is publicly available and that results from PARTLY PUBLIC AND PARTLY PRIVATE funding should, as a matter of principle, be available for re-use and free of charge on the internet?
agree strongly
Comments
For simplicity and enforceability, it is better not to distinguish between different degrees of public funding and to follow instead the example of most funding agencies, i.e. to apply their open access and open data policies to research they fund "in whole or in part".
Preservation
Do you agree with the following statement: "Generally speaking, the issue of preservation of scientific information is at present sufficiently addressed"?
disagree
Do you agree with the following statements regarding potential barriers to enhancing preservation of scientific information in the digital age?
It is not always clear which scientific information should be preserved
agree
It is not always clear who is responsible for preserving scientific information (research organisations, libraries, governments?)
agree strongly
There is no harmonised approach to legal deposit (legal requirement that copies of publications be submitted to a repository, usually a library)
agree strongly
Funding for preservation is inadequate
agree
The quality and interoperability of repositories need to be further developed
agree
Comments
Preservation has technical aspects (standards, storage media, file formats) as well as legal (licensing) and editorial ones (what to preserve). What needs preservation is the published version of record, along with supplementary materials. Repositories do not and cannot provide long-term preservation. Libre OA solves the licensing problems & open standards the technical problems of preservation.
Comments
Please provide any further comments or inputs in the space below
Generally, the EU should seek to develop a scholarly communication infrastructure based on open access to, open licensing of and open standards for both publications & data, in short: an infrastructure that conforms to http://www.opendefinition.org. This would maximize transparency, efficiency & innovation. The Linked Open Data approach should be seriously considered. Exceptions from a general open access & open data mandate should be possible but require public justification for each publication. If such an opt-out is possible, no general embargo period for OA or OD is necessary.
