Open-access to Scholarly Publishing More Available Than Ever    

Helmholtz Association supports open-access publishing

Open access, the free access to scientific information, is an advanced publication strategy that has been officially promoted by the Helmholtz Association since 2004. To facilitate straightforward funding of scientific publications in open-access journals, the Helmholtz Association is now supporting the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE).

Open access improves the public perception of research results and facilitates working in digital research environments. In 2004, the Helmholtz Association was the first of the large German research organisations to approve recommendations for open-access publishing and is supporting the transformation of scientific publishing towards open access in many ways. Scientists of the Helmholtz Association are increasingly publishing in open-access journals. These journals are often financing free access to their content by publication fees that are covered by the authors' research institutions.

The research centres of the Helmholtz Association have now declared their support of the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE) and their willingness to establish sustainable mechanisms for the payment of reasonable open-access publishing fees. It is of primary concern to the Helmholtz Association that publishing in open-access journals will be as easy for its scientists as in journals with conventional financing. „We would like to press ahead with the change towards a sustainable and innovative system of scholarly communication. Open access is the publication strategy of the future“, says Dr. Rolf Zettl, managing director of the Helmholtz Association.

The international initiative COPE has been started by Harvard University, the MIT and other leading US universities to advance open-access publishing. In October 2011, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has been the first research institution in Germany to sign COPE. The setting-up of a publication fund to finance open-access publishing fees at KIT is an example for the open-access activities of the Helmholtz Centres. With the support of the Helmholtz Open Access Project, the research centres have already entered several open-access contracts with international scientific publishers.

KIT Signs Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE)

KIT signs the international Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE) and now is among the renowned international supporters of open access publishing.

On the occasion of the worldwide Open Access Week, important news are reported by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT): The Presidential Committee of KIT as the first German research institution signed the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE) on October 26. The COPE international initiative was initiated by leading US universities, e.g. Harvard and MIT, and is an important element for supporting open access publishing: By their signature, the participating education and research institutions undertake to establish at their institutions sustainable mechanisms for the complete or partial take-over of open access publication fees. COPE leaves the choice of methods and models of implementation to every institution.

By signing COPE, KIT makes another important step towards supporting sustainable science communication with new types of open access publishing to improve free access to scientific findings. Establishment of new, special open access funds is necessary, as publishing companies charge a fee for the publication and organization of quality assurance, which is to be paid by the authors or their institutions. Although this publication fee ensures the price transparency of the scientific journal market distorted by oligopolies, which has long been demanded by libraries, it also prevents many scientists from publishing in open access journals. Establishment of the special publication fund initiated by COPE will reduce the obstacles to open access publishing in the long term and facilitate the decision of scientists in favor of publishing in a journal of this type.

The decision of the Presidential Committee to join COPE is based on previous fruitful work at KIT, where the ideas of COPE have already been implemented since the beginning of this year. In early 2011, the KIT publication fund was established. It is administrated by the KIT Library and supports publications in peer-reviewed journals with publication fees of less than EUR 2000. Financing is based on funds granted by the German Research Foundation (DFG) that has been providing funding for the establishment of a central, institutional publication fund under a special funding line since 2009.

Based on these previous activities, joining of COPE is aimed at supporting the new infrastructure measures relating to the KIT publication fund and at turning this scheme into a permanent funding structure.

KIT unterzeichnet Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE)

Passend zur weltweiten Open Access Week hat das Präsidium des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT) am 26. Oktober den Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE) unterzeichnet.

Das KIT als erste deutsche Forschungseinrichtung, die COPE unterzeichnet hat, reiht sich damit ein unter die Förderer des zukunftsträchtigen Open-Access-Publikationswegs.

Die internationale Initiative COPE wurde von führenden US-Universitäten wie Harvard und MIT initiiert und ist ein weiterer Baustein für die Förderung des Open-Access-Publizierens: Durch die Unterzeichnung verpflichten sich die teilnehmenden Bildungs- und Forschungseinrichtungen, in ihren Institutionen nachhaltige Mechanismen der vollständigen oder teilweisen Übernahme von Open-Access-Publikationsgebühren einzurichten. Der COPE lässt jeder Einrichtung bei der Wahl der Methoden und Modelle der Umsetzung freie Hand.

Mit der Unterzeichnung geht das KIT einen weiteren, wichtigen Schritt hin zur Förderung einer nachhaltigen Wissenschaftskommunikation, die neue Publikationsformen im Umfeld des Open-Access-Publizierens fördert und so den freien Zugang zu wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen verbessert: Der Aufbau neuer, spezieller Open-Access-Fördertöpfe ist notwendig, da Verlage in der Regel von Autoren beziehungsweise ihren Einrichtungen eine Gebühr für die Publikation und Organisation des Qualitätssicherungsprozesses verlangen.

Diese Publikationsgebühr bringt zwar endlich die von Bibliotheken lang geforderte Preistransparenz in den von Oligopolen verzerrten wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenmarkt, aber sie hält auch viele Wissenschaftler davon ab, in Open Access Journals zu publizieren. Die Einrichtung der vom COPE initiierten speziellen Förderungsfonds baut so langfristig Hemmnisse gegen das Open-Access-Publizieren ab und erleichtert Wissenschaftlern die Entscheidung für die Veröffentlichung in einer Zeitschrift nach diesem Geschäftsmodell.

Der Beitrittsbeschluss des Präsidiums baut auf fruchtbaren Arbeiten am KIT auf, denn hier werden die Ideen des COPE bereits seit Beginn des Jahres in die Tat umgesetzt: Seit 2011 existiert der von der KIT-Bibliothek verwaltete KIT-Publikationsfonds, der Veröffentlichungen in peer-reviewed-Zeitschriften mit Publikationsgebühren von unter 2000 Euro bezuschusst. Die Finanzierung erfolgt aus Mitteln der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, die seit 2009 über eine spezielle Förderlinie finanzielle Mittel für den Aufbau von zentralen, institutionseigenen Publikationsfonds bereitstellt.

Der Beitritt zu COPE soll aufbauend auf diesen praktischen Vorarbeiten auch ein Zeichen setzen, damit die neuen infrastrukturellen Maßnahmen, die mit der Etablierung des KIT-Publikationsfonds verbunden waren, am KIT verstetigt und in eine dauerhafte Förderstruktur überführt werden.

FWF supports an international Open Access initiative

The FWF supports the initiative "The Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity" (COPE) which requires that all scholarly publications should not only be freely available but also financially supported by research institutions and funding agencies.

> www.oacompact.org

Meanwhile, this initiative is supported by 13 Nobelists and a number of highly prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Cornell, Duke, MIT, Columbia, Berkeley, Wellcome Trust or CERN.

In line with this initiative, the FWF funds refereed Open Access publications of all disciplines in journals since 2004 as well as proceedings, collected volumes or books since 2009.

> www.fwf.ac.at/en/public_relations/oai/index.html


Contact
Dr. Falk Reckling

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has joined COPE, the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity.

As a publicly and internationally funded research institution, CERN believes everyone should get access to its results without any financial barrier. The most important tool to implement this vision in the high-energy physics community, which CERN embodies, is the SCOAP3 initiative, through which CERN and partners in over twenty countries are working to convert to open access existing high-quality high-energy physics journals. While waiting for SCOAP3 to be operational CERN and leading publishers in the field (the American Physical Society, Elsevier, SISSA, and Springer) have reached agreements to make the scientific publications from the flagship Large Hadron Collider available open access and under a Creative Common license, as suggested by the publication policy of the CERN Physics Department.

These initiatives do not cover the entire spectrum of the literature produced at CERN, and CERN has a long history of taking further action to encourage a transition to open-access publishing. In particular, recognizing that high-quality scientific publishing has a cost, and scientific journals play a key role in the quality-assurance process, the CERN Scientific Information Service covers reasonable fees that some journals charge in order to make research articles open access. This instrument is only available for articles published in fully open access journals, and not for so called “hybrid” journals, which sell subscriptions and make part of their content available open access against a fee, as the CERN Library has already paid for the services provided by those journals, so these additional open access fees cannot be covered. The possibility for covering open access publishing fees is available  for all research articles spontaneously submitted by members of CERN personnel.

This vision is perfectly in line with the COPE principles, and CERN has therefore joined the increasing list of research institutes and universities committed to advance open access in this way.

CERN Director General Rolf Heuer commented: "CERN is committed to widespread access to, and reuse of, our scientific results. At the same time, we recognize the indispensable quality-assurance role that scientific journals play today. The SCOAP3 Open Access initiative is based on these pillars, which also support our partnership with leading publishers to publish open access, and under Creative Common licenses, the results of the LHC. We welcome every open access initiative that improves access, and fosters reuse, while recognizing the role of scientific publishing.  Our synergy with COPE reflects this shared vision."

In addition, CERN also fosters open access by contributing to the sponsorship of the open-access journal Physical Review Special Topics – Accelerators and Beams as well as underwriting part of the running costs of arXiv, and supporting Creative Commons.  CERN participates in building tools for open access such as INSPIRE, a large-scale disciplinary repository for high-energy physics and the related open source digital library software Invenio. CERN is also coordinating a consortium of libraries, publishers and funding agencies, SOAP, in a large-scale study to identify the demand for and provision of open access and its main drivers and barriers.

SFU joins open access publishing group

Burnaby, B.C., Canada, October 21, 2010 — Today Simon Fraser University joins 12 other leading post-secondary institutions as a signatory to the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE). Open access makes scholarly and other content freely available online to all users, without barriers, such as subscriptions or pay-per-view/use costs. Signatories to this Compact agree to support new business models for the publication of open access journals. Specifically, the Compact commits each signatory to developing ways of underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds.

Since February 2010, the SFU Library has operated an Open Access Fund. The Fund meets COPE requirements by covering many author-side fees for SFU researchers who publish in open access journals that charge such fees. The third such fund in Canada, SFU’s Open Access Fund has covered 22 articles to date. The SFU fund is part of a set of SFU-based programs that support open access. The Library hosts the SFU institutional repository where the digital scholarly output of the university is collected and maintained. The Library partners with the SFU-based Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, along with Stanford University and the University of British Columbia to develop and maintain the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) suite of software – Open Journal Systems (OJS), Open Conference Systems (OCS), Open Harvester Systems (OHS) and soon Open Monograph Press (OMP). The Library also hosts over 250 journals using OJS with many having adopted an open access publishing model.

Dr Mario Pinto, Vice President for Research, articulates the philosophy underlying SFU’s commitment as follows: “SFU is a recognized leader in the use of innovative technologies and initiatives that enhance and simplify access to scholarly knowledge. We were one of the first Canadian universities to embrace open access publishing. By making the results of research freely available, we stand to gain the maximum benefit from publicly-funded research investment by facilitating the transfer of knowledge and stimulating creative thought.” Simon Fraser University consistently ranks among the top research universities in Canada in terms of sponsored research income, publication rates and impact factors. In 2010, SFU placed fourth in Canada and 66 out of 6000 higher education institutes from across the globe in the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities.

The original COPE members include Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of California at Berkeley. More recent signatories include Duke University and the University of Michigan. Simon Fraser University is the third Canadian member of COPE, along with the University of Ottawa and University of Calgary.

We urge other thought leaders from throughout the academic, funding, and policy worlds to lend their support to this important effort by adding their names and their organization's endorsement to the Compact. To add your support, contact COPE through the web site.

The Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity states a commitment to provide equitable support for an alternative business model for scholarly journals, in which universities and funders pay directly for publisher services rather than for access to articles, enabling access to be freely available to anyone. Open-access journals have already proved their efficacy, but to provide a sustainable business model for such journals, universities need to do their part in committing to their success, as signified by the Compact.

Individual Supporters

Affiliations are presented for identification purposes only. (Nobelists are marked by a medal icon.)

• Mario Capecchi, Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology, University of Utah School of Medicine 
• Robert Curl, University Professor Emeritus, Rice University 
  
• Edmond H. Fischer, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, University of Washington 
  
• Alfred Gilman, Chief Scientific Officer, The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas 
• Paul Greengard, Vincent Astor Professor, Rockefeller University 
• Dudley Herschbach, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science, Harvard University 
  
• Roald Hoffmann, Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor Emeritus of Humane Letters, Cornell University 
  
• Robert Horvitz, David H. Koch Professor of Biology, MIT 
  
• Steven Hyman, Provost, Harvard University
• Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC
• Roger Kornberg, Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor in Medicine, Stanford University 
• Peter Lange, Provost, Duke University
• Kary Mullis, Chief Scientific Officer, Altermune, LLC 
• Stanley Prusiner, Professor of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco 
• Stuart Shieber, Welch Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University
• Peter Suber, Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University
• Jack W. Szostak, Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School 
• John Wilbanks, Vice President of Science, Creative Commons
• John Willinsky, Khosla Family Professor, Stanford University
• Rolf Zinkernagel, Professor of Experimental Immunology, University of Zurich 
• ...add your support

Organizational Supporters

• BioMed Central
• Creative Commons
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)
• Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
• Wellcome Trust
• ...add your organization's support

In 2005, the Wellcome Trust became the first research funder in the world to introduce a policy that requires the published outputs of the research it funds to be made freely available.  As part of this policy, we provide our funded researchers with additional funding to cover the costs of open access publishing.

In line with the requirements set out in the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, our funding can be used to cover the publication costs in full open access journals — such as those published by the Public Library of Science and BioMed Central — as well as those levied by "hybrid" journals, which make individual articles available on an open access basis.

As such, the Trust welcomes the work being done through the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity initiative to help develop a sustainable and stable source of funding for publishers who choose to provide an open access option.

We are grateful to Wellcome for their longstanding and deep support of open access, including COPE.

Scholarly works available for free online

Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 18, 2010 — The University of Calgary joins 11 other prestigious post-secondary institutions in making scholarly works more accessible by offering free online content as a signatory to the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE).

Open access makes scholarly and other content freely available online to all users, without barriers, such as subscriptions or pay-per-view/use costs. Signatories to the compact commit to supporting new business models for the publication of open access journals.

The original COPE members include Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of California at Berkeley. More recent signers include the University of Ottawa. The University of Calgary is the second Canadian member of COPE.

Journals are the most well-known proponents of the open access movement and there are now more than 5,500 open access journals worldwide. These journals cover their costs in a variety of ways, such as levying fees on the author side of journal production.

The compact commits each signatory to developing ways of underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by its faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds.

Since mid-2008, the U of C's Libraries and Cultural Resources has operated the Open Access Authors Fund. The fund meets COPE requirements by covering many author-side fees for U of C researchers who publish in open access journals that charge such fees. The first such fund in Canada and the sixth in the world, the Open Access Authors Fund has covered 135 articles to date.

The U of C fund is part of a suite of programs that support open access through the Centre for Scholarly Communication. The centre also includes: DSpace, an institutional repository that collects and makes available the digital scholarly output of the university; the national CFI-funded Synergies project; and the University of Calgary Press. The U of C press has several open access journals under its imprint and will be releasing its first open access monograph during Open Access Week 2010.

[Reproduced from the Duke University announcement]

Duke Joins Compact for Open Access to Scholarly Journals

DURHAM, N.C., October 3, 2010 — Duke University has joined a group of leading research institutions in signing a Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE). The goal of the compact is to make it easier for researchers to publish their work in open-access scholarly journals, where it would be freely available online.

As part of its commitment to COPE, Duke has created a special fund to help pay for article processing fees. Beginning this month, any Duke faculty member, post-doctoral researcher, graduate or professional student whose article is accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed, open-access journal can apply to have associated article processing fees reimbursed. The fund, which will be administered by the Libraries' Office of Scholarly Communications, is supported by the Duke University Libraries and the Office of the Provost.

Open-access journals make published research available for free to anyone who has access to the Internet, not just those who can afford a subscription or have access to an institutional subscription. Some open-access journals charge authors an article-processing fee for reviewing, editing, producing and distributing their work, because those costs are not otherwise recovered through subscriptions. COPE aims to encourage open access by supporting Duke authors who find the fees an obstacle to publication.

According to Provost Peter Lange, the aims of COPE are in keeping with Duke's continued emphasis on knowledge in the service of society. "By establishing this fund, we hope to support the university's commitment to promoting openness as an important value in scholarship," Lange said. "Increased open access means more opportunities for the research of our faculty and researchers to reach a wide audience and have a meaningful impact on the world."

Lange noted this is the latest in a series of efforts Duke has made to support open access as an institutional priority. In March, the university's Academic Council adopted an open access policy that applies to all Duke faculty.

Kevin L. Smith, scholarly communications officer with Duke University Libraries, said the goal of COPE is not to subsidize any particular publication or researcher, but rather "to remove potential barriers to publishing in open access venues. The idea is to prevent publication side-fees from inhibiting authors who see open access to their work as a benefit."

Moreover, Smith hopes the university's commitment will raise awareness of the growing body of open-access journals in all disciplines. With the advent of online publishing, open access has emerged as an alternative to the traditional fee- and subscription-based model of scholarly publishing.

"Several open-access journals, such as those in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) family, have quickly grown in influence and now demonstrate high impact factors in their fields," Smith noted.

Duke is one of 11 institutions so far to join the COPE initiative. Others include Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California at Berkeley, University of Ottawa, Columbia University, the University of Michigan, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Universitat de Barcelona.

The Duke University Libraries have created a website with more information about the COPE program, including the kinds of fees covered, eligibility requirements and instructions on how authors can apply for reimbursement. For more information, visit http://library.duke.edu/openaccess/cope.html.