Open Access 1

Running Head: THE OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT

The Open Access Movement: History, Initiatives, and Future Implications

Robyn Ward

Emporia State University

LI866XO: Copyright
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The Open Access Movement: History, Initiatives, and Future Implications

Open Access (OA) is the free, immediate and unrestricted online availability of

scientific research primarily published in peer-reviewed journals. The Budapest Open

Access Initiative (2002) summarizes it best:

By "open access" to this literature, we mean its free availability on the

public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute,
print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for
indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful
purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those
inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint
on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this
domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work
and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited (¶7).

Events, initiatives and key players will be discussed and presented in this paper in order

to understand the history and future of the Open Access Movement. The implications of

Open Access will be addressed regarding current publishing structures including

copyright and licensing issues, traditions of academic research and publication, and

public access to information. It is also worth recognizing that Open Access will play a

greater role in the publication of other digital works as well.

Why and How Open Access Came to Be

A meeting of the Open Society Institute (OSI) was convened in Budapest during

December 2001. The purpose of the meeting was to initiate an international effort in

making research articles in all of academia freely available over the Internet. A number of

organizations and individuals representing researchers, libraries, publishers, journals, and

universities attended the conference. Two communities that could gain significantly from

OA were identified during the conference: (1) readers, or the public and (2) authors. OA

gives readers the opportunity to access information to create new knowledge. OA

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provides authors the opportunity for greater visibility through this increased readership

and provides a way to enhance and build upon the current research that is being done. In

order to foster these two communities needs, participants in Budapest identified two

distinct strategies that would facilitate the single goal of accomplishing open access of

peer-reviewed journal literature. These strategies are self-archiving and the creation and

support of open-access journals (Open Society Institute, 2008). Self-archiving relates to

building institutional digital repositories where researchers can deposit manuscripts

accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Open Access Publishing will support

the creation of new open access journals and get the commitment of existing journals to

provide openness to their archives and current literature. Out of the Budapest Open

Access Initiative came other initiatives and commitments to access such as the Bethesda

Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access

to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003).

The Open Society Institute (OSI), instigator of the Budapest Initiative, is a private

operating and grant-making foundation, which takes great effort to influence public

policy making and to promote democracy and human rights. The Open Access Initiative

focuses on providing access to “content, tools, and networks to disseminate knowledge

and communications resources” (Open Society Institute, 2008).

Advocates for Open Access recognize that OA isn’t costless or exactly free. There

are and will continue to be barriers to information, but organizations such as OSI are

trying to break down these barriers. Barriers to OA are censorship or filtering, language,

handicap access, and network connectivity or the digital divide (Suber, 2007, ¶15).
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Journal Publishing

The first publication of scholarship in journals started in 1665 with the Journal

des sçavans in Paris and the Philosophical Transactions in London. From this time

forward journal publication steadily increased through the centuries. There have been two

distinct historical events that changed journal publication. The first being increased

federal funding for research after World War II and secondly the Internet in the mid

1990’s. (Willinsky, 2006, pp. 13-14). Regardless of format the philosophy of publication

and distribution of research has remained the same since 1665:

“…academic authors have strived to publish and disseminate the results of their
work for two main reasons – to advance intellectual progress in their subject and
to establish rights over any intellectual advances they themselves have brought
about” (Ramalho Correia & Teixeira, 2005, p. 13).

OA literature is made available to the public without the “expectation of payment”

or in other words is “royalty-free” (Suber, 2007, ¶7). Authors are not paid to write articles

for journals. This has been the case since the mid 1600’s. Publishing research in a journal

is about name recognition and career advancement. Since scholars do not earn money

from the articles published in journals the argument for OA is strong. Why not make

these findings immediately available for use to a broader audience? And how can this be

done? It was seemingly impossible in the print world even if authors wanted to provide

free access to their writings, but now with the Internet and technology certain barriers

have been lifted.

Research for a Price

There would be many that would say that libraries are facing a “serials crisis” of

sorts (Correia & Teixeira, 2005, p. 14) that “threatens the basic access principle critical to

the production of research and scholarship” (Willinsky, 2006, p. 18). The increased costs
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of journals have paralyzed libraries. A 2004 study by the Association of Research

Libraries (ARL) indicated that from 1986-2003 member libraries had increased journal

budgets by 260%, but the average library’s collection of titles decreased by the end of

2003 (Willinsky, 2005, p. 24). There are now efforts to alleviate costs and find ways to

make this information accessible. Major publishers such as Elsevier do make stipulations

in their licensing that allows for authors to deposit articles in an institutional repository or

for an author to post on his or her website. Other sources for making publication available

are through wikis, blogs, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, and listservs, just to name a few.

Two ways for open access journals to be delivered to the public will be discussed in this

paper. These are: (1) Institutional Repositories or archives and (2) OA Publishing.

An example of an e-print archive is ArXiv.org, which is a digital repository for

physics, mathematics, chemistry, computer science, quantitative biology and statistics

research funded and operated by Cornell University. Peter Suber (2007) argues that every

university “in the world” should have its own open access “and a policy to encourage or

require its faculty members to deposit their research output in the repository”(¶ 23).

Suber was also given the charge to create a model for policies in OA institutional

repositories for universities and colleges. The policies attempted to cover OA journals,

university presses, theses and dissertations, and promotion and tenure criteria. He

identifies and talks about three key principles: "(1) Universities should provide open

access to their research output, (2) Universities should not limit the freedom of faculty to

submit their work to the journals of their choice, and (3) Universities should continue to

bear the costs of peer review, to assure its survival, while recognizing that the forms and

venues of peer review are changing" (Suber, 2008, ¶4). Most recently we are beginning to
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see this development of mandated deposit of work into institutional repositories in the

United States with Harvard’s move toward Open Access with an initiative that mandates

faculty to deposit pre-print research accepted for publication into the institutional

repository (Guterman, 2008, p. A14). Another important development in this area is the

National Institutes of Health (NIH) mandate passed into law that makes NIH the “first

U.S. federal agency required to make the results of its funded research freely accessible

online to the public” (English & Joseph, 2008, p. 82).

Open Access Publishing offers peer-review, copyright acknowledgment, and

economic viability. A few examples of OA journal publishers are the Public Library of

Science (PLoS) and BioMed Central. The Directory of Open Access Journals "aims to

increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals

thereby promoting their increased usage and impact" (Lunds University Libraries, 2008,

¶1). Opposition to Open Access makes the argument that OA journals are not free

because the financial responsibility falls upon the author to pay to have the article

published in an Open Access journal. This is only one model for providing access to OA

literature. A counter argument to this is that in actuality the costs of publication fall on the

researcher’s institution or professional society (Suber, 2007, ¶12).

Licensing and Copyright

Under Open Access, journal articles are made available by the consent of the

copyright holder or through the public domain, because of this, right holders do not give

up rights nor are there sticky copyright issues to deal with, such as infringement for

example. There are increasingly a number of licensing options for copyright holders to

give their consent to Open Access. Creative Commons and Open Content Licenses are
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excellent examples of authors managing their own levels of access and control of content

that they create. With the implementation of the NIH Open Access Policy the Association

of Research Libraries (ARL) has provided information regarding the implications of the

NIH policy on institutions as grantees. ARL, the Scholarly Publishing & Academic

Resources Coalition (SPARC), and Science Commons recently released a white paper

“Complying with the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy: Copyright

Considerations and Options” written by Michael W. Carroll of Villanova University law

school. The white paper can be found on the SPARC web site at

www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/nih/copyright.html. The purpose of the paper is to provide

administrators, legal council, and librarians the background of the policy; it’s legal

context and then offers six alternative copyright management options to help institutions

“assure they reserve the necessary rights for articles to be made available in PubMed

Central” (Free, 2008, p.194).

Open Access publishing and archiving is on the rise and there are key players

weighing in on policies and issues that will directly effect scholarly publishing and how

libraries and institutions will more and more play a large part in both of these arenas.

These key players in the library community are identified below. Of course this not is an

exhaustive list by any means.

Proponents of Open Access

A number of groups have emerged out the movement. One of the notables is the

Open Access Working Group (OAWG) associated with Scholarly Publishing & Academic

Resources Coalition (SPARC). The main concern for organizing was to "build a

framework for collective advocacy of open access to research" (SPARC, 2007, ¶1).
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OAWG is a politically active group involved in a number of actions regarding open

access. OAWG is also made up of key organizations that aid in open access initiatives,

including AALL (American Association of Law Libraries), ALA (American Library

Association), AAHSL (American Association of Health Sciences Libraries), ACRL

(Association of College & Research Libraries), ARL (Association of Research Libraries),

Creative Commons, GWLA (Greater Western Library Alliance), MLA (Medical Library

Association), Open Society Institute, Public Knowledge, PLoS (Public Library of

Science), SPARC, SLA (Special Libraries Association), and Students for Free Culture.

Each of these groups is a heavy advocate of OA and have there own initiatives and

policies that they back.

Opposition

Rudy Baum (2004) an open critic of Open Access addresses the truths and myths

surrounding the Open Access movement. Baum recognizes that scientific, technical and

medical (STM) literature is supported by public funding, but doesn’t necessarily agree

that this publicly funded literature should be freely available to the public (¶3). Baum

also recognizes that libraries are negatively affected by the increased cost of journals and

admits hat libraries can barely keep up financially to provide access to journals. But he

argues that this situation should not be the impetus for changing the publishing model for

scientific, technical, and medical journals. To him this seems unfounded and costs are not

free. "It's human nature to want something for nothing. Unfortunately, excellence rarely

comes without a price. Perhaps that's the most dangerous myth being fostered by the

open-access movement: that access to high-quality STM literature can be had on the

cheap" (¶10). As expressed earlier there have been no claims by OA of being free. There
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are costs especially for those in developing countries, the poor, those with disabilities,

and language barriers. There are huge costs for those that are affected by these roadblocks

to information.

There are a number of myths surrounding Open Access that should be addressed

here. Open Access now, an inactive but resourceful e-newsletter published by BioMed

Central addresses a number of these myths surrounding the movement. Listed are a

number of these myths:

“The cost of providing Open Access will reduce funding for research; access is
not a problem; the public can get any article they want from the public library via
ILL; patients would be confused if they were to have free access to the peer-
reviewed medical literature on the web; Open Access threatens scientific integrity
by charging authors; poor countries already have access to the biomedical
literature; traditionally published content is more accessible than Open Access
content as it is available in print; a high quality journal such as Nature would
need to charge authors £10,000-£30,000 in order to move to an Open Access
model; and publishers would need to take copyright to protect the integrity of
scientific articles” (Weitzman, 2004).

Advocates for Open Access have proven these arguments to be unfounded. Further

discussion of answers to these myths can be found in Open Access now.

Future of Open Access

The movement for Open Access in scholarly literature has made great strides over

the last decade. Vehicles such as institutional archiving and OA journal publishing are

becoming more prominent in the nature of scholarly publication. As these take root and

spread, policies and standards will also be set to help guide institutions, libraries, scholars

and publishers in providing research as soon as possible to as many people as possible.

With Harvard’s OA initiative and NIH’s initiative these will be great leads and examples

of other institutions to follow suite.

According to Suber (2007) OA doesn’t have to be limited to scholarly journals.

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He admits that it is more difficult to convince authors of royalty-producing content to

provide open access to their works and he questions why music, movies, monographs,

images, and software shouldn’t be made available through Open Access (¶7). These

authors have a stake in losing revenue from their work. They would have to be convinced

that OA has benefits that “exceed the value of their royalties” or that “OA will trigger a

net increase in sales” (Suber, 2007, ¶7). As Open Access for journals proves itself to be a

positive benefit to all involved OA will spread to these other forms as well.

Conclusion

Open Access is a relatively new movement that can change the nature of

publishing. We can be on the cusp of a great paradigm shift regarding access to scholarly

information. Even with all of this, Open Access isn’t a threat to traditional publishing

practices. There will always be a market for current publishing structures. It should be

viewed more as a companion to traditional publishing. Publishers and authors are held

harmless with Open Access. But it will continue to be a struggle to convince others of the

benefits of OA archiving and publishing. There is great work ahead for proponents of

Open Access.

The movement for Open Access scholarly literature is making great progress in

accomplishing its goal of providing free, immediate and unrestricted access to publicly

funded scholarly literature. There are still a number of social, economical, geographical,

technological barriers that must be overcome to actually provide completely “free” access

to all. There are for profit and not for profit organizations trying to alleviate these barriers

as seen by the Open Society Institute.

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Open Access is considered by many to be a human right. Open Access takes into

consideration the rights of authors and creators. It does not take away rights of authors,

but promotes and values copyright. It can even be argued that Open Access has been a

catalyst for taking back control of authors’ rights and giving them back to the author by

providing different models for copyright licensing.

The future for Open Access can go beyond just the publication of peer-reviewed

scholarly journals. With the success of the movement hopefully we will begin to see

progress and movement with other media as well.

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Bibliography

Baum, R. (2004). The open-access myth. Chemical & Engineering News, 82(8), 3.

Rudy Baum is a critic of open access. As editor-in-chief of Chemical &

Engineering News, he took the opportunity to discuss open access and his

perception of the movement. He agrees that scientific, technical and medical

literature is supported by public funding, but argues that this doesn't necessarily

mean that it should be freely accessible. He discusses that the increased cost of

journals and the matter that libraries can barely keep up financially to provide

access to journals shouldn't be the impetus for changing the publishing model for

STM journals. To him it seems unfounded and costs are not free. His views seem

typical of many publishers and those deeply involved in the proprietary

publication of journals.

Budapest Open Access Initiative. (2002, February 14). Budapest open access initiative.

Retrieved April 5, 2008, from http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml.

The Budapest Open Access Initiative came about from a gathering of individuals

and institutions in association with the Open Society Institute. A meeting in 2001

was held in Budapest to discuss open access of scholarly literature. "The old

tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their

research in scholarly journals without payment, for the sake of inquiry and

knowledge." (¶1). It is the first initiative in response to open access and

spearheads the movement forward. The initiative and website is completely

focused in gaining more supporters in the movement and signing on to the

initiative that spells out goals and objectives for the movement. This is an integral
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resource on the subject

English, R., & Joseph, H. (2008). The NIH mandate: An open access landmark. College

& Research Libraries News, 69(2), 82-85.

With the passing of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (H.R. 2764),

Public Law 110-161, 110th Congress (1st Session) researchers are required to

submit their final version of articles to PubMed Central, National Library of

Medicine's online archive of biomedical literature upon acceptance in peer-

reviewed journals. The article gives a brief history of the initiative and articulates

three goals of the NIH initiative: (1) increased access, (2) acceleration of

scientific discovery, and (3) the creation of a permanent archive of research

results. The authors were very conscious of the opposition to open access and

warned that this small victory for open access will not deter publishers to taking a

stand and marketing against open access.

Free, D. (2008). NIH public access policy compliance resources. College & Research

Libraries News, 69(4), 194.

David Free is the editor-in-chief of C&RL News. With the most recent NIH

initiative passing into law libraries and institutions will need policies and

directions on how to make research available to BioMed Central and get

information regarding the implications for copyright. He breaks down the

resources available that are all free and accessible.

Guterman, L. (2008). Celebrations and tough questions follow Harvard's move to open

access. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(25), A14.

Ms. Guterman is a senior reporter at the Chronicle who writes about science
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research, publishing and ethics. Her report on Harvard's Arts and Sciences

faculty's decision to provide the university with copies of their published articles

and to give permission to post in a repository for free was balanced and provided

insight into where opponents and proponents of open access stand on the issue.

She interviewed key players in the open access movement such as Peter Suber

one of the biggest advocates for open access. With the passing of this initiative,

under a license signed between a faculty member and a publisher "any copyright

assignment to a journal must include an addendum that reserves the university's

right to post a copy in its repository" (¶4). This is good news for open access and

advocates hope that Harvard has led the way for institutions to make similar open

access/institutional repository initiatives.

Lunds University Libraries. (2008). Directory of open access journals. Retrieved April

7, 2008, from http://www.doaj.org/.

According to the introduction of the website, "the aim of the Directory of Open

Access Journals is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access

scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and

impact" (¶1). Discussion regarding a platform on which to make open access

journals available was discussed at the First Nordic Conference on Scholarly

Communication in Lund/Copenhagen. A number of "musts" were articulated by

the participants of the conference that were identified as extremely important

when creating a directory of open access journals These "musts" included: a way

to monitor quality control, i.e. peer-review, scientific and scholarly subjects from

academic, government, commercial, and non-profit private sources, submissions

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of articles would be accepted in all languages, and all papers must be full text

accessible. The Directory is thriving with around 3300 journals in the directory.

Open Society Institute. (2008). Open access initiative. Retrieved April 5, 2008, from

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/information/focus/access/grants/open_access.

The Open Society Institute is a private operating and grant-making foundation. It

aims to influence public policy making and to promote democracy and human

rights with social, economic, and legal reform. The Open Access Initiative falls

under the Information Program Initiative, which is focused on providing access to

"content, tools, and networks to disseminate knowledge and communications

resources.

Ramalho Correia, A., & Teixeira, J. (2005). Reforming scholarly publishing and

knowledge communication: From the advent of the scholarly journal to the

challenges of 0pen access. Information Services & Use, 25, 13-21.

The authors discuss self-archiving and its "pivotal" role in scholarly

communication. They present initiatives in a number of countries that have

established self-archiving with the creation of Open Access digital institutional

repositories. The article is well written and researched and gives excellent insight

into the development of institutional repositories.

SPARC. (2007). Open access working group (SPARC). Retrieved April 5, 2008, from

http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/oawg.html.

The Open Access Working Group was instituted by SPARC (The Scholarly

Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) at a meeting held in Fall 2003. The

impetus for organizing was to "build a framework for collective advocacy of open
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access to research" (¶1). The website gives goals, objectives, actions,

contributing/participating institutions, and updates on activities in which the

OAWG is involved.

Suber, P. (2007, June 19). Open access overview: Focusing on open access to peer-

reviewed research articles and their preprints. Retrieved April 7, 2008, from

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm.

Peter Suber is an authoritative voice and advocate for open access. This web page

provides a basic, thorough introduction to OA. Currently the movement of open

access focuses on peer-reviewed research articles, but boundaries shouldn't be set

of OA to just these. The author makes the argument that monographs, digital

content, music, images, multi-media, and software should be included in this as

well. Suber also dispels myths and misconceptions surrounding OA and makes

good solid arguments against these.

Suber, P. (2008, April). Three principles for university open access policies (SPARC).

SPARC The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition. Retrieved

April 5, 2008, from http://www.arl.org/sparc/advocacy/three-principles-for-

univ.html.

This is an OA position statement written by Peter Suber of Earlham University in

response to a workshop the author attended hosted by Harvard's Berkman Center

for Internet and Society. The model he presents is an attempt to create policies for

universities on OA repositories. The policies cover OA journals, university

presses, theses and dissertations, and criteria for promotion and tenure. He

identifies and talks about three key principles: "(1) Universities should provide
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open access to their research output, (2) Universities should not limit the freedom

of faculty to submit their work to the journals of their choice, and (3) Universities

should continue to bear the costs of peer review, to assure its survival, while

recognizing that the forms and venues of peer review are changing" (¶4). Suber

elaborates on each of these principles and gives good solid suggestions for

implementing these policies and is encouraged that it will succeed with time.

Weitzman, J. (2004). (Mis)Leading open access myths. Open Access now: Campaigning

for freedom of research information. Retrieved April 10, 2008, from

http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/inquiry/myths/?myth=all.

Open Access now was a newsletter/website started by BioMed Central in 2003 to

provide information and to "raise awareness" about Open Access. It is no longer

published but the archive still exists and holds good information on the topic. Part

of the newsletter dispels a number of myths surrounding OA brought up by

publishers presenting their case to the House of Commons Science and

Technology Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publications in Winter 2004. The

newsletter does a good job at addressing each myth that arose during the hearing

and coming to the defense for Open Access.

Willinsky, J. (2006). The access principle: The case for open access to research and

scholarship. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

John Willinsky is Pacific Press Professor of Literacy and Technology and Director

of the Public Knowledge Project at the University of British Columbia. In the

book Willinsky argues that scholarly publishing relies upon “right to know” and

“right to be known” (human rights and vanities) (p.21). In his own words "this
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book is concerned with the value and viability of opening access to knowledge,

and by that increasing access and improving access to the journal literature,

largely through the use of the Internet" (p.27). The Access Principle is a

tremendous resource in learning about OA. The author gives great insight into

many of the issues associated with OA such as copyright, economics, research,

human rights, public access to knowledge, and publishing.