Openness Talking Points
Adapted from University of Florida Open Access Elevator Pitch- Isabel Silver, July 19, 2011 and Federal Access Mandate Talking Points Florida State University, March 2015
Revised for TTU- Camille Thomas on May 5, 2016
Revised for COD--Denise Cote October, 2017
Blog: Tag: OA
OAW 2014: http://www.codlrc.org/OAW
Open Access scholarly literature is
- Free
- Unrestricted
- Online
In other words, it is
- Free of charge to readers
- Unrestricted in terms of copyright, for the most part; it is necessary to ascribe attribution.
- Because it is online, it is available at any time, anywhere in the world, to anyone who has access to the internet. It is scholarly literature that is freely and permanently available
There are two totally different types of open access: Self-archiving and publishing in open access journals. (Most common misunderstanding of open access is that there is only one way to do it) Self-archiving is actually included in advanced permissions for a majority of journals now. (Some allow pre-prints and others allow post-prints.)
You can still publish whenever, wherever, whatever and however you want and support open access. (Self-archiving in an OA repository is supported by all major publishers and many others.)
Open access to publications is about removing barriers, and protecting quality filters. (Peer review is protected and essential to academic scholarship, open access included). Quality is different than prestige. Quality of a journal comes from the editorial board, the reviewers and the submitted articles. Prestige comes over time. (Open Access does not mean lesser quality.)
Open Access scholarly research is proven to have substantial increases in citation impact. (35% to 300% depending on the discipline. From Swan, A. “Open Access Citation Advantage” Feb. (2010) URI - http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/18516.)
Not all open access journals charge author fees. In fact, a majority do not. Also, more funders and universities are finding ways to cover fees for an author who wishes to have their research openly accessible. (53% do NOT charge article processing fees to authors . From “The Facts about Open Access”, 2005)
Open Access makes plagiarism easier to detect since the articles are freely available.
Federal Funder Mandates
Background: In February 2013 the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a policy memorandum directing federal agencies to develop plans to make the publications and data resulting from federally funded research freely available to the public.
Many agencies are requiring the inclusion of data management plans in grant applications. Policy requirements depend on the agency.
In order to comply with a public access mandate, you must deposit a version of your research article in an open access repository. Additionally, many federal funding agencies are now requiring data management plans as part of the proposal process. One aspect of a data management plan is determining the preservation and access of your research data.
Policies apply to new funding and not retroactively to past publications or data.