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Open Access to Professional Information
This IMS Presidential Address was given by Jim Pitman at JSM in Salt Lake
City.
In the Science–Technology–Medicine publishing world there has been rapid
growth over the last 20 years, with a market growth rate of about 8 per cent
per year in the 1990s, and astonishingly high profit margins: over 30 per
cent. Worldwide, the Science–Technology market is worth around US $4 billion
per year. There is a strong trend towards consolidation, with aggressive
entry into the market of private equity houses. For example, in 2003,
Candover and Cinven acquired Kluwer Academic for 600 million Euros, and
BertelsmannSpringer for 1.1 billion Euros. The resulting consolidation, now
called “Springer”, headed by Derk Haank (former Elsevier CEO), publishes
over 1,000 journals and 5,000 book titles, and the revenue approaches a
billion Euros per year. Earlier this year, Wiley acquired Blackwell for
$1.08 billion.
So a few large publishers (Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Elsevier, Taylor &
Francis) now take more than half the total market revenues. The rest is
divided between a large number of smaller publishers: societies, university
presses, and so on.
The transition from paper to electronic format has been a windfall for
established publishers. Authors now submit in close to production format,
there are decreased production and distribution costs, more sales to
libraries rather than individuals—and yet no price reduction.
There has also been a shift in responsibilities, as publishers take over
archiving responsibility from libraries: subscribers don’t get copies but
pay for licenses to view; publishers control access and linking systems,
which tend to trap the user in the publisher’s website.
There is a trend towards databases, with the journal becoming less important
as a unit than when it was a physical volume. These databases include
publisher silos like ScienceDirect and SpringerLink; full-text database
aggregators (EBSCO, ProQuest, etc.); portals for abstracting and indexing
(ISI Web of Science, MathSciNet, ACM Guide, CIS); and content hosts
(Ingenta/Vista, Project Euclid).
Scholarly Communication Crisis
The term “crisis” became popular with librarians a few years ago. Better
terms would be “struggle” or “war”: we can expect this to continue for
decades. But what does this struggle involve?
- Loss of access to the scholarly research literature, as the rising
costs of journal subscriptions exceed institutional library budgets.
- Loss of library funds for books due to explosive increase in the
journal and database sectors.
- “Big Deals” (SpringerLink, ScienceDirect, etc.), which are good for big
publishers and big library administrators, and a force behind mergers in the
publication industry, but bad for small publishers, small libraries and the
academic community, because they reduce academic control over journal
selection, amplify inequalities between institutions/countries, and shut out
the broader community.
Most librarians think the current system is dysfunctional and unsustainable.
To quote Carol Kaesuk Yoon (‘Soaring Prices Spur a Revolt
in Scientific Publishing’, New York Times, December 8, 1998): “In fact,
researchers say, academia is a paradise for publishers. First the public
pays for most scientific research through, for example, the National Science
Foundation. Then universities pay the salaries of scientists who do
virtually all the writing, reviewing and editing. Universities sometimes
even provide free office space to journals. Finally, authors typically sign
over their copyright to publishers, who can sometimes bring in many millions
of dollars a year in subscriptions for a single high-priced
journal—subscriptions paid by university libraries supported by tax
dollars and tuition.”
Encouraging signs
There are some encouraging signs, however. There are free and open source
software and licenses (e.g. the GNU Project, LaTeX, R Project for
Statistical Computing, Creative Commons, and many others); StatLib open data
and software; free electronic journals (including, since 1996, the journals
EJP and ECP now supported by IMS/Bernoulli); PubMed; Public Library of
Science; open content collaboration such as Wikipedia; and the Google
Scholar index.
Of particular interest to IMS members is arXiv.org: created in 1991 by Paul
Ginsparg, and now at Cornell, arXiv is a successful eprint service in
physics, mathematics, non-linear science, computer science, quantitative
biology, and now, statistics (arXiv/stat opened April 2007, supported by IMS
and Bernoulli Society). ArXiv demonstrates the separation in electronic
media of two functions of “publication” (making public): first,
communication and archiving, and second, peer review and certification. The
‘Physics culture’ is now permeating to other fields, with authors depositing
on arXiv at time of journal submission and with no discernible loss of
journal subscriptions on account of arXiv. Almost all publishers now
tolerate arXiv-
ing; authors can insist on it. Currently, arXiv offers
alerts, search, and indexing; long-term, IMS plans to promote arXiv/stat as
a community-supported repository with associated services (integration with
CIS, author name authority, departmental listings, etc.)
Business models
There are now two competing business models: the traditional Gated Access
model, supported by library subscriptions; and the Open Access model,
supported by some combination of author fees, sponsorship and advertising.
IMS has adopted a mixed model: by assisting authors to post their work on
arXiv while still retaining journal subscriptions, by allowing all journal
content to become open after a suitable delay, and by supporting a mixed
portfolio of gated and open journals.
Open Access
The international Open Access (OA) movement now supports the availability of
electronic content free of charges and restrictions. Supporting
organizations include arXiv, PubMed, PLoS (Public Library of Science), and
Creative Commons, which promotes the use of licenses suitable for OA
publishing. Such licenses are compatible with copyright, peer review,
revenue, print, preservation, prestige, career advancement, and indexing.
Open access increases the impact of scholarly work by making it accessible
to the widest possible audience; it facilitates knowledge transfer between
different educational levels, or countries, or subjects; it takes full
advantage of the internet for search, access, navigation and organization;
and it allows small and medium-sized publishers to compete with
multinational corporations.
There is significant institutional support for OA from major libraries, NIH,
the British Government, Wellcome Trust, Max Planck Society and others; but
also significant institutional opposition from, for example, the Association
of American Publishers and the UK Royal Society.
Open Access Attitudes
Attitudes towards OA vary widely. Harold Varmus (PLoS) believes OA is so
important that scholarly societies should not support their activities by
gated access. In contrast, John Ewing (AMS) holds that OA is a fad which
distracts us from the real issues: Big Deals by avaricious publishers,
hoarding of the historical archive, faulty application of usage statistics,
and version control for electronic publications. While I agree these are
important issues, I regard OA as an ideal, like freedom, which I hope can
rally the academic community to protect its knowledge base from commercial
control.
In more practical terms, OA achieves society missions with minimal
overheads, is attractive to most authors, and encourages cooperation between
societies. A typical scholarly society must balance two imperatives: to
achieve its mission of broad dissemination of professional knowledge, and to
stay financially viable. Following the success of commercial publishers,
many societies have overbalanced towards restriction/commercialization of
their knowledge base.
Raym Crow, writing for the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition, has recognized structural constraints which limit societies’
performance and explain why commercial publishers largely own the market: a
low tolerance of risk, lack of business expertise, insufficient market
leverage, and under-capitalization. Commercial publishers have exploited
these constraints by the creation of new journals and the acquisition of
society titles (JRSS, Scand. J. Stat, etc.).
Coalitions of scholarly societies and publishing cooperatives offer ways to
work around these constraints. Examples are Project Euclid, JSTOR, and some
recent IMS collaborations.
Many authors prefer their articles to be made available with open access.
But some choose otherwise for various reasons, such as the prestige of
restricted outlets, or a desire to get full credit for work while partially
withholding it to maintain some advantage in research competition. This
attitude was encapsulated for me in a fragment of conversation I heard last
year passing by a Berkeley coffee shop. One academic, confidingly, to
another: “You know, I really don’t like sharing my best ideas with the
broader community”. I rather prefer Thomas Jefferson’s attitude to ideas:
“He who receives ideas from me, receives instruction himself without
lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without
darkening me.”
Many of you may know the story about Richard Stallman and the printer
program, which led to the GNU Project and copyleft software licenses. (The
story can be found in Wikipedia, thanks to the GNU Free Documentation
License.) A similar incident led to my own commitment to create open access
electronic outlets for expository material in probability and statistics.
To describe the incident I should first provide a little background. By age
20, I had learned the asymptotic distribution of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov
statistic from reading my father’s monograph on statistical inference. Since
then I have worked on analytic and combinatorial models whose asymptotics
are described by functional limit theorems featuring a Brownian bridge in
the limit, and on the distribution of various functionals of the Brownian
bridge. A few years ago I was invited by editors of Wiley’s Encyclopedia of
Statistical Sciences to revise and expand the entry on Brownian bridge. As
the intention was to create an online version of the encyclopedia, I
inquired what, if any, rights I might retain to publicly post an electronic
version of the article. The answer was none, not even the right to post the
article on arXiv or on my own homepage.
I was sufficiently shocked by this that I emailed about 70 senior
probabilists and statisticians, asking whether they supported this kind of
commercial control of professional information, and if not whether they
would support the creation of an open access outlet for expository articles
in probability and statistics. I got about 50 replies by return email
indicating strong support for an open access alternative. IMS and the
Bernoulli Society then quickly supported creation of the pair of open access
journals Probability Surveys and Statistics Surveys.
Much work remains to be done to create an open access equivalent of Wiley’s
Encyclopedia. But suitable open linking infrastructure for online
encyclopedias can already be seen in place in Wikipedia, MathWorld and
PlanetMath, and it seems only a matter of time before such functionality is
available with all entries validated by scholarly societies.
IMS’s role in promoting OA
In addition to the five IMS copyedited subscription journals (Annals of
Statistics, Annals of Probability, Annals of Applied Statistics, Annals of
Applied Probability, and Statistical Science), we have five Open Access
journals, jointly with the Bernoulli Society: Electronic Journal of
Probability, Electronic Communications in Probability, Probability Surveys,
Electronic Journal of Statistics, and Statistics Surveys. We also have four
more affiliated and co-sponsored publications: CIS, JCGS, Bernoulli, and
ALEA, and of course, this Bulletin is available OA electronically.
Recent IMS Initiatives
IMS has created cooperative publishing agreements with various
partners—the Bernoulli Society, StatLib, l’Institut Henri Poincaré,
APS-INFORMS. IMS seeks further such cooperation through a new framework for
Affiliated and Supported Journals and Societies. For details, see the IMS
website, or contact the IMS Exec.
IMS–Bernoulli cooperation: This includes our joint membership agreement;
next year’s 7th World Congress in Probability and Statistics (Singapore,
July 14–19, 2008); the production and marketing by IMS of the journal
Bernoulli (editorial control remains with the Bernoulli Society); the
co-publication of the five OA journals listed above, including the
newly-launched Electronic Journal of Statistics and Statistics Surveys.
IMS–StatLib cooperation: By agreement with the Carnegie Mellon Statistics
Department, IMS will use StatLib as a repository of OA supplementary
materials associated with IMS journals, such as data, graphics, software,
documentation, or additional proofs or appendices. This will be subject to
technical data standards and review by editors and referees. The electronic
medium allows authors the option to present much more than is possible in
the traditional journal article format. The first supplementary material is
associated with the launch of a new IMS Journal, The Annals of Applied
Statistics (AOAS).
IMS–Institut Henri Poincaré cooperation: The journal Annales de l’Institut
Henri Poincaré (B) Probabilités et Statistiques is currently produced by
contract with Elsevier, but is switching to IMS production starting in 2008.
This is a fine example of cooperation between professional organizations to
reduce the influence of commercial publishers.
IMS–APS–INFORMS cooperation: APS–INFORMS is the Applied Probability Society
of INFORMS, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management
Sciences. IMS–APS–INFORMS have a joint membership agreement, and a new
agreement to develop an OA electronic journal in the area of applied
probability and operations research, whose focus will be on serving the
interests of APS members and the broader applied probability community. This
is an exciting development: a small society seeking recognition and
community support through OA publishing, with assistance from IMS.
IMS’s Future Plans
In future, we plan to collaborate to develop further OA journals, and to
provide OA to more publication types, such as biographies, bibliographies,
reviews, images, celebrations and memorials, collected works, glossary and
encyclopedia entries, interactive graphics, and teaching materials.
We also plan to organize and index such content to create and maintain a
high quality OA web of professional information in statistical science. We
hope to engage society members as contributors and curators, and distribute
the maintenance problem over numerous societies with a common web
infrastructure.
To achieve this, we need technical and administrative resources, for which
we have launched the IMS Open Access Fund. This is a new IMS fund to which
individuals and organizations can donate, dedicated to the support of
existing and new OA ventures which further the IMS mission. We also need
human resources: volunteers to help guide development, especially those with
expertise in software development, and volunteers for editorial service.
Conclusion
The academic community is engaged in a struggle to create and protect an
open environment for scholarly communication.
As researchers and administrators—by your choice of publication outlets,
by your choice of data formats and software systems (open or proprietary),
by how you support the editorial system of peer review, by how you direct
your professional societies—your actions affect the system of access to
professional information in our field.
So I encourage you to consider the effect of these actions as you make them,
and I invite you to join IMS in building a coalition of professional
organizations committed to open access to professional information in
statistical science.
How can you promote OA?
Readers:
- Join professional societies like IMS which work to provide you and others
with open access to high quality scholarly information, and provide further
services as membership benefits.
- Encourage your librarians to subscribe to journals published by societies
supporting OA.
- Encourage your departments and universities to support OA publication.
Acknowledge the value of high quality OA publications in promotion cases
Authors:
- Preferably submit your articles to society-run journals with copyright
agreements which allow self-archiving of final versions on arXiv; open
access to publisher version, at least after some delay; and re-use of
content in derivative works
Wherever you submit…
- post a copy on arXiv at the time of submission,
- don’t sign restrictive copyright agreements: amend them to retain the right
to post the final version of your work on arXiv or other open access
repository,
- maintain your publication list on your own website (preferably machine
readable e.g. bibtex),
- provide links to full-text whenever possible,
- digitize and post your old work on the web, and look for more stable
repositories than your own website
Editors and Referees:
- Refuse to work for journals with overly restrictive copyright policies.
- Work for society-run journals which promote OA publication
- Work to raise the standard of OA journals to be more attractive to authors
than commercial journals.
- Create alternatives (like the Editorial Board of Elsevier’s Topology, which
resigned en masse in December 2006; the first issue of the London Math
Society’s Journal of Topology is scheduled for January 2008.
Librarians:
- Purchase society-run journal titles and resist Big Deals
- Index OA sources, support OA digital repositories
Department Chairs and Deans:
- Recognize the value of high quality OA publications in personnel review
cases
- Increase the visibility of your departments and schools by encouraging OA
posting of eprints, and encouraging faculty to list their publications
online with links to full text
Higher University Administrators:
- Support creation and maintenance of OA repositories
- Encourage posting of all research in OA repositories
- Install systems for indexing and displaying of your school’s research
output, such as the Duke Faculty Database System
Society Administrators
- Encourage your members to use OA repositories
- Develop open indexes and aggregations to showcase your members’ work
- Find ways to maintain fiscal viability without undue access restrictions to
journal content, as IMS has done.
- Seek efficiencies of scale by cooperating with other societies on OA
publication ventures
Do get in touch if you would
like to help!
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