OECD Report on Scientific Publishing

(Via STL-Q) The OECD has posted its report on Scientific Publishing.

Governments would boost innovation and get a better return on their investment in publicly funded research if they made research findings more widely available, according to a new OECD report on the scientific publishing industry.

The increasing online availability of research data is changing research practices and the growing trend of making primary data sources directly accessible is changing the business models of the scientific publishing industry, the report finds.

Findings of the report include:

• Scientific publishing embraced on-line distribution early with an estimated 75% of published scholarly journals already available online, and three major business models depending on digital delivery are emerging:
  • The so-called "Big Deal", where institutional and other subscribers pay for access to an online digital content aggregation of journal titles through licensing arrangements.
  • Open access publishing, where authors and/or their employing or funding organisations pay some or all of the costs of publication.
  • Open access archives and repositories, where organisations support institutional repositories and/or subjects.
• Change is being driven by: users needing to access increasing volumes of research data and information, new ICT applications and development of digital content and digital access technologies, and greater cost transparency and competition in publishing and distribution of information.
• In the immediate future there is likely to be a period of experimentation around various versions of open access publishing, including "author pays" and the emergence of a range of hybrids.

Among its recommendations are that:

• Governments should increase access to findings from publicly funded research to maximise social returns on public investments.
• This principle was underlined in the 2004 OECD Science Ministerial's Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding which recognised that open access to, and unrestricted use of, data promotes scientific progress and facilitates the training of researchers.
• Coordinated efforts at national and international levels are needed to broaden access to data from publicly funded research and contribute to the advancement of scientific research and innovation.

The Economist offered a commentary today as well, in a piece called The Paperless Library:

Free access to scientific results is changing research practices

IT USED to be so straightforward. A team of researchers working together in the laboratory would submit the results of their research to a journal. A journal editor would then remove the authors' names and affiliations from the paper and send it to their peers for review. Depending on the comments received, the editor would accept the paper for publication or decline it. Copyright rested with the journal publisher, and researchers seeking knowledge of the results would have to subscribe to the journal.

No longer. The internet - and pressure from funding agencies, who are questioning why commercial publishers are making money from government-funded research by restricting access to it - is making free access to scientific results a reality. This week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a report describing the far-reaching consequences of this. The report, by John Houghton of Victoria University in Australia and Graham Vickery of the OECD, makes heavy reading for publishers who have, so far, made handsome profits. But it goes further than that. It signals a change in what has, until now, been a key element of scientific endeavour.

Posted by Tom on September 23, 2005