APPENDIX 96
Memorandum from the University of Oxford
1. What impact do publishers' current policies
on pricing and provision of scientific journals, particularly
"big deal schemes", have on libraries and the teaching
and research communities they serve?
(a) From the perspective of library budgets,
significantly higher than average year-on-year-inflationary price
increases have: (i) squeezed acquisitions budgets generally to
the point where their purchasing power has fallen in roughly inverse
proportion to the continuing growth in the availability of the
published material; (ii) produced damaging short and long-term
effects on monograph spending, as libraries have switched funds
to absorb increases in journal costs; (iii) led to regular journals
cancellation exercises, in an effort to contain costs within the
available funds; and (iv) restricted the general availability
of, and access to, the results of publicly-funded research, through
a concentration of expenditure on `big deals' with the leading
journals publishers, based on `bundling' of journals, multi-year
agreements, and punitive cancellation clauses.
(b) However, the quality of scientific publications
must be maintained and should be paid for, if that ensures the
enhancement of quality. Any steps that would affect the profitability
of journals must be considered with great care. A balance needs
to be struck between profitability and the actual infrastructure
cost of journals that guarantees continuing quality.
(c ) In the case of UK-based learned societies,
the income from scientific publishing is channelled back into
the support of science. It is important to protect the work of
learned societies through their journals as they add to the scientific
reputation of the UK. Any measures that might be introduced as
a result of this inquiry should not have the unintended consequence
of cutting off this important source of revenue for the learned
societies, thus adversely affecting UK science.
(d) Publishers may deny access to back issues
once an electronic subscription has been cancelled. Back issues
are vital to scientific research and teaching. At present, users
too frequently are denied a viable choice: if they want access
to the back issues they must continue to pay for a subscription
that they otherwise do not want, or they can cancel the subscription
but lose access to the back issues that their work, whether research
or teaching, requires. Action should be taken in this regard.
(e) The "big deals" approach of
some commercial publishers has affected the scientific publications
market, with the balance of expenditure tending to move towards
the larger publisher "bundles" and away from the smaller
publisher titles, and with libraries finding it financially disadvantageous
to cancel lesser-used journals within the bundled titles.
2. What action should Government, academic
institutions and publishers be taking to promote a competitive
market in scientific publications?
(a) The existing regulatory system must ensure
that true price competition takes place and that monopolies do
not emerge among the large commercial publishers of scientific
journals. The Government should accordingly take steps to ascertain:
(i) whether some aspects of current publisher licensing policies
and conditions represent a restraint of trade; (ii) whether the
increasing market consolidation of scientific publications is
in the public interest; and (iii) whether true competition might
not be better promoted by enabling multiple, rather than single,
sources of supply. Scientific variety and competition between
journals is essential to further the quality of scientific publications.
(b) The terms of reference of the inquiry
do not look at the international dimension. Scientific publication
is an international endeavour; any unilateral steps taken by the
UK are unlikely to alter significantly this publication market's
current structure. In light of the international scope of scientific
publishing, the Government should press for the European Union
to examine the practices of commercial publishers in terms of
e-provision, including such issues as the legality of bundling
systems and cancellation charges.
(c ) Within the UK the market is too small
to be able to exercise effective pressure on the commercial publishers,
and the higher education sector should cooperate internationally
in negotiating with the commercial publishers. The Government
should provide financial help to organize such an international
negotiating body.
(d) The Government should give universities
"special status", exempting them from VAT on electronic
provision.
(e) Copyright is a key issue. Existing copyright
law sits uncomfortably with the needs of science for the rapid
and free dissemination of information. Academics should be encouraged
by their institutions to retain copyright whenever possible, to
be fully informed about their rights when negotiating the assignment
of copyright, and to promote healthy competition by placing copies
of their publications in institutional repositories and/or publicly-accessible
websites.
(f) To promote the free dissemination of
research, the Government should examine the following options
regarding copyright.
(i) Copyright for published publicly funded
research could be retained by the institution in which the research
was done, not the publisher.
(ii) Copyright for published publicly funded
research could be retained by the author or authors, rather than
the publisher.
(iii) Copyright for published publicly funded
research could be retained by the funding body, such as a research
council, rather than the publisher.
(iv) Copyright could be removed altogether
from published publicly funded research (such a proposal is currently
in a bill before Congress in the United States).
(g) Some journal publishers have in fact
already moved away from insisting on assignment of copyright.
The remainder should develop business models and licence terms
which encourage, rather than restrict, the widest possible dissemination
of publicly-funded scientific research.
3. WHAT
ARE THE
CONSEQUENCES OF
INCREASING NUMBERS
OF OPEN-ACCESS
JOURNALS, FOR
EXAMPLE FOR
THE OPERATION
OF THE
RESEARCH ASSESSMENT
EXERCISE AND
OTHER SELECTION
PROCESSES? SHOULD
THE GOVERNMENT
SUPPORT SUCH
A TREND
AND, IF
SO, HOW?
(a) The growth of open-access journals has
undoubtedly sharpened the element of genuine competition in the
journals market, and has helped to stimulate a growing awareness
within institutions of the value of retaining at least some control
of locally-generated IPR; and has contributed to the more effective
exploitation of the power of electronic networks for accessing
publicly-funded research information.
(b) The overall objective must be to create
an environment in which the scientific quality of publications
is maintained and enhanced and access to published output maximised.
This is not likely to be achieved by favouring one publication
model to the exclusion of others. There should be a level playing
field in which open-access journals can compete in terms of reputation
and quality with other journals.
(c ) At this juncture, open-access publications
face the challenge of establishing credentials in terms of status
and impact. The way to do that is a commitment to peer review.
Whether the current financial arrangements supporting open-access
publishing are viable in the longer term, and whether they are
able to resource the level of administrative support for peer
review remains to be seen.
(d) For RAE purposes, some staff will wish
to submit papers published in the very highest impact-rated journals,
others may wish to support the open-access movement by choosing
to publish in journals which have not yet achieved a high impact
rating. However, in the RAE it is, once again, the quality of
the science in the paper that is most important.
(e) It would not be appropriate for universities
and research institutions to give special preference to publication
in open-access journals as a consideration in tenure or recognition
of distinction exercises considerations. It is the quality of
the science in a publication that is essential.
(f) Systematic open access could be a great
benefit. To work well, however, it requires a change in the flow
of money: instead of money flowing to publishers (and in the case
of learned societies back to the community) via libraries and
journal subscriptions, it has to flow through publication charges
or subsidies of the publication process. The dangers are:
(i) If publication charges are too high,
a lot of research will be published directly on the internet,
without peer-review. Peer review is essential to the integrity
of the biological, mathematical and physical sciences and should
not be undermined.
(ii) A move towards publication charges could
have a serious impact upon (1) those scientific disciplines that
do not have access to significant research grants and (2) upon
the early stages in an academic career. If publishing in an open-access
system were to be paid for from research grants, then mathematical
research, for example, which is conducted largely without the
support of research grants, would be at a great disadvantage.
In addition, young researchers, lacking the necessary research
grant income, would also find it difficult to publish precisely
at the point in their career when a steady stream of publications
is most important. In the current stringent economic environment,
it would be difficult for the HE sector to adequately subsidize
an open-access system. Financial barriers to access published
research should not be replaced by financial barriers to publication.
(iii) One of the biggest dangers of present,
apparently "free", journals is that they will collapse
if individuals move on, or if the institution providing the effective
subsidy ceases to exist.
(g) Retention of copyright by authors in
conventional commercial journals has the potential to provide
efficient access to published science without requiring a wholesale
shift to open-access journals. There are two stages in the dissemination
of published science: effective means of searching the literature
and gaining access to works of interest. Current web-based search
facilities are efficient, while retention of copyright would allow
direct access from authors or institutional repositories.
4. How effectively are the Legal Deposit
Libraries making available non-print scientific publications to
the research community, and what steps should they be taking in
this respect?
(a) It is too early to judge how effective
the Legal Deposit Libraries might be in helping to promote access
to non-print scientific publications—the legislation extending
the legal deposit arrangements to include such material on a non-voluntary
basis is too recent, and the Advisory Panel which will regulate
the permitted use(s) of the material has not yet been formally
established by government.
(b) The operation of the voluntary scheme
(introduced in 2000), is enabling the Legal Deposit Libraries
to gain at least some experience of many of the practical issues
associated with the management of non-print materials, and the
Libraries will continue to work, both severally and collectively,
towards making these materials as widely available as the regulations
will permit once they are introduced. But the Legal Deposit Libraries
are already aware that their efforts will be constrained by the
lack of additional resources, by technical considerations, and
by the likely resistance of some publishers to the widest possible
dissemination of the material they deposit. The delicate balance
between the public interest (which the Libraries seek to serve)
and the commercial considerations of some publishers will be a
difficult one for the Secretary of State to strike when introducing
regulations governing the use and availability of the non-print
materials received under the new legislation.
(c ) If electronic publishing, whether commercial
or open-access, replaces paper publishing, then the arrangements
for archiving definitive versions of scientific papers, and ensuring
perpetual availability, will have to be addressed, perhaps through
the Legal Deposit libraries. These Libraries could play a key
role in enhancing the security of the e-provision system, providing
electronic repositories that can assure access, in cases where
the publisher is unable to provide access (for example, if the
e-publisher were to go bankrupt and cease trading). The Government
should recognize the additional cost of supporting this ever-increasing
national archive.
5. What impact will trends in academic journal
publishing have on the risks of scientific fraud and malpractice?
(a) In theory, and intuitively, the advent
of electronic journal publishing, and the availability of electronic
journal articles on computer networks, makes it that much easier
to infringe copyright laws, to plagiarise other people's work,
and to make unauthorised changes to published material. There
is, however, no empirical evidence to show that such malpractice
is on the increase. Moreover, both unauthorised changes and plagiarism
are in some senses more easy to detect in the computer age. IT
also facilitates the establishment of an audit trail (through
self-archiving or e-repositories of raw data, etc...).
(b) In many areas of science, the replication
of experiments and high quality peer review are an effective means
of self-regulation and the detection of fraud. In certain subject
areas the scientific system may be less effective, for instance
in the case of clinical trials in the medical sciences, which
are difficult to replicate.
February 2004
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