Open Access


Public more concerned about quality than access


Sense about Science aims to help the public understand scientifi c results. Siân


Harris asked Leonor Sierra of the organisation about how important open access is to the general public


One of the frequent arguments in the open- access debate is the need for public access to research results. The case seems compelling, especially when it comes to health information. But how much call is there from the public for access to scholarly journals? Leonor Sierra, international science and policy manager of the organisation Sense about Science, which helps the public to understand scientifi c results, says the answer is not much.


‘Open access is not an issue that we get a lot of


enquiries about. The more pressing requests that we get are about high-quality information such as lay summaries of papers, which make research more accessible to the public,’ she said. She sees providing public access to such summaries – and awareness of how to interpret the research behind them – as more key to public understanding than access to individual journal articles. ‘The public are not going to try to replicate the research in a paper,’ she said, noting that often scientifi c papers are so specialised that they are hard even for other scientists in different disciplines to gain much insight from.


The real issue that she sees as important for the


public is a good peer review system, so that the public can start to make value judgements about the information that they are given. She noted that a large part of Sense about Science’s work is with intermediaries such as healthcare workers, journalists, teachers and patient groups, helping them to communicate scientifi c results in such a way that the public can see how the conclusions were reached. There are no surprises about which areas of science the public are most interested in though. ‘We tend to be asked most about issues like health and climate change,’ commented Sierra.


www.researchinformation.info


FEATURE Anticipating OA growth


Jason Wilde of Nature Publishing Group reveals some of the challenges of the open-access publishing model for journals with high rejection rates


consequence of new technologies, and we have strived to fulfi l the opportunities that technology and experimental business models have provided. One major principle has dominated our thinking: one size does not fi t all. Journals with lower costs (and lower paid circulations) are well suited to OA business models, with affordable article processing charges (APCs). Here OA can be both fi nancially sustainable, and potentially offer authors the benefi ts of wider visibility. NPG has been actively expanding its activities in these areas. We’ve launched seven new OA journals in 2010 and 2011. We’ve also introduced OA options on 35 of our academic and society journals since 2009. In 2011, we launched Scientifi c Reports to provide an OA, multidisciplinary home for technically sound original research. This journal has got off to a great start,


W


publishing 29 OA articles from its launch on 14 June to 4 July, a mean approaching two papers per business day. Of the 74 NPG journals that publish original research, 62 per cent offer an OA option. Of our academic and society journals, 83 per cent offer an OA option or are OA journals, and our remaining society titles are considering an OA option this year. Our self-archiving policy has been in place


since 2005, and is compatible with all funder mandates for public access. We also introduced our Manuscript Deposition Service in 2008, and since then have deposited thousands of manuscripts in PubMed Central and UK PubMed Central. We have seen little impact of self-archiving on our journals, which may be partly explained by their wide readership and high impact. We have reduced the site licence list price on several titles as the balance shifts towards OA publication, and will continue to be responsible in this regard. How to adjust prices


e see open access as a growing part of NPG’s business. We have embraced the OA debate as a natural


and provide predictable, fair pricing to customers remains a challenge. For several years, NPG has


been considering how to offer a Nature-branded OA option. This is particularly challenging due to the low acceptance rates and the resulting high cost per manuscript. Nature Communications overcomes


these challenges. It has a higher acceptance rate than other Nature titles. Along with digital-only publication, this reduces the costs per manuscript published, enabling an author charge of $5,000. Nature Communications has demonstrated


strong growth. The journal published 150 articles in 2010, and in the fi rst six months of 2011 has already exceeded it. Nearly half of the papers published in Nature Communications to date are OA. Cell Death & Disease, an OA title that we launched in January 2010, was accepted for inclusion in Web of Science, the Journal Citation Report and PubMed within six months of launch. The journal has published over 170 articles to end of June 2011. Molecular Systems Biology was our fi rst OA


title, launched in 2005 in partnership with the European Molecular Biology Organization. The journal is well established in its fi eld and continues to attract excellent articles. We see the percentage of OA growing over the next decade, with a range of different models. In terms of OA data, NPG continues to


watch with interest projects like Dryad UK. We remain committed to asking authors to make data available when they publish with us, and supplementary information is not subject to subscription barriers. We’re also committed to making our articles, and underlying data, more discoverable and usable for text and data mining. In our view, linked data is central to this.


Jason Wilde is business development director of Nature Publishing Group. Among his responsibilities, Jason oversees publishing activities for Nature Communications and Scientifi c Reports


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