Open Access in China: A breach in the Great Firewall?

You might not necessarily associate China with Open Access, but it has made rapid progress towards making more of its research publications open. Two powerful public agencies are instigating Open Access into Chinese scholarship - the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). Both signed the Berlin Declaration (2003 & 2004). Just last year Beijing co-hosted the Global Research Council that discussed the GRC Open Access Action Plan.

In the same month Nature reported that CAS and NSFC had announced their Open Access mandate that with immediate effect researchers must deposit their papers into online repositories to make public within 12 months of publication. This appears to be what we would call delayed, Green OA and mirrors the US National Institutes of Health mandate and Hefce's Open Access policy in the UK. The mandates apply to researchers (CAS/NSFC) and graduate students (CAS) and CAS also encourages its researchers to undertake retrospective deposit into institutional repositories (IRs). At the moment IRs are specified for deposit and the NSFC is developing its own IR. China Academic Institutional Repository currently lists thirty-three IRs.

The NFSC has developed a blueprint for progress that includes Gold OA, the NSFC's IR, global agreement on OA in publicly funded research and an ambitious global share portal.

Detail from Figure 1. Targeting of the HBB gene in human cells using CRISPR/Cas9 from Liang P, Xu Y, Zhang X, et al. (2015) CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing in human tripronuclear zygotes, Protein & Cell, DOI 10.1007/s13238-015-0153-5 [Available under Open Access]

There is no Open Access fund similar to the UK Research Councils' block grant to pay article processing charges, but researchers are permitted to use their grants to cover publication costs. This is the same as the position in Canada covered in our previous post.  As in the UK several institutions are members of publisher schemes like Springer/BioMed Central. China's total R&D investment was 1029.4 billion RMB in 2012 and rising [1]; despite the potential for a publishing bonanza, progress on Gold OA has been slow due to concerns over predatory journals and pricing transparency.  So in this respect the UK could be seen as taking the lead on immediate Open Access.

Although China's research output grows exponentially its citation impact is below the world average although it is competitive with other BRIC countries [2]. Overall, the Chinese agencies hope that OA publications will grow in proportion to the rapid growth of research publications and the expansion of the OA market with encouragement from publishing institutions.

China offers great potential for development in OA policy and infrastructure and there are many opportunities for publishers. However there is a strong science bias and humanities and social sciences have not at this stage been included in the mandate. There is great emphasis on bibliometrics but, unlike the UK, China does not have a regular research assessment exercise, as reported recently by Nature.  The current drive is to improve research quality over quantity.  If China succeeds it will be a major partner with the UK promoting Open Access inside and outside the Great Firewall.

1. Development of open access in China: strategies, practices and challenges, Zhang X, Insights 27(1), March 2014
2. Open Access in China: An Overview, Wang D, 1st OASPA Asian Conference, Bangkok, June 3rd 2014

Open Access in Canada: “It’s all about choice”

© Copyright 2014 – Canadian Science Publishing.

“[O]pen access is a worldwide phenomenon. However, the urgency of implementation has greater impetus in some nations because of strong OA mandates from large, centralised funders.” Martin Paul Eve, Open Access and the Humanities, p.5. CC BY-SA 4.0

The OA mandates from large funders that Martin Paul Eve mentions in the quote above no doubt refers, at least in part, to RCUK and Wellcome trust open access mandates that have helped to drive OA in the UK. The pace of change gained even greater urgency after HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) released its open access policy for the next Research Excellence Framework. In many respects the UK can be seen to be leading the way in open access, however there are many international initiatives happening as well. So, over the next couple of weeks we will be sharing some international developments in open access. First up is Canada where there have been recent developments akin to those in the UK with large centralised funders mandating OA for papers resulting from funded research.

In Canada there are three main state sponsored funding bodies:

“The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (“the Agencies”) are federal granting agencies that promote and support research, research training and innovation within Canada. As publicly funded organizations, the Agencies have a fundamental interest in promoting the availability of findings that result from the research they fund, including research publications and data, to the widest possible audience, and at the earliest possible opportunity. Societal advancement is made possible through widespread and barrier-free access to cutting-edge research and knowledge, enabling researchers, scholars, clinicians, policymakers, private sector and not-for-profit organizations and the public to use and build on this knowledge.” Government of Canada, Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications Science.gc.ca*

All grants awarded after May 2015 (and all grants from 1st January 2008 for CIHR funded authors) are required to comply with the harmonised open access policy of the three funders. Grant holders will be required to make peer-reviewed journal articles freely available within 12 months of publication. Authors can choose “green” open access and deposit their accepted manuscript in an online repository, or authors can choose to publish in a journal that offers immediate open access via the “gold” route.

There are similarities between the Canadian funding agencies' OA policy and the RCUK open access policy, but there are divergences as well. One such difference is where RCUK stipulate an embargo of between 6 and 24 months depending on which of the 7 research councils has funded the research, the Canadian OA policy stipulates that only a 12 month embargo is allowed. The two policies differ in their approach to APC payments as well; unlike RCUK who have elected to supply UK institutions with funds to pay for immediate “gold” open access, in the Canadian model the cost of OA publishing can come directly from the grant as an eligible expense.

The Canadian funding agencies' open access policy is predicated on the firm belief that spreading the reach and impact of academic research is beneficial to society, both at home and abroad. Aligning the open access policy of the Agencies with international funding agencies such as RCUK was a principal concern.

“Momentum for open access has been growing as numerous funding agencies and institutions worldwide implement open access policies. The Agencies strongly support open access to research results which promotes the principle of knowledge sharing and mobilization – an essential objective of academia. As research and scholarship become increasingly multi-disciplinary and collaborative, both domestically and internationally, the Agencies are working to facilitate research partnerships by harmonizing domestic policies and aligning with the global movement to open access.” Government of Canada, Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications Science.gc.ca*

The UK is not going it alone, and to paraphrase the Canadian funding agencies, open access is a global movement. Over the next few weeks we will highlight other countries around the world that are actively making commitments to open access.


*Quotations are reproduced from an official work that was published by the Government of Canada. The reproduction has not been produced in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the Government of Canada.

The Repository: helping to feed the impact of research

Over the years, the OARPS team has spent a great deal of time acquiring academic manuscripts and releasing them to the world through the repository.

Much of our current work involves assisting academics with complying with funder open access mandates. For instance, the RCUK mandate states that RCUK funded research papers should be made Open Access either by choosing "Gold" and paying an APC charge, or by choosing "Green" and uploading the accepted manuscript of the final article to Pure (and then the library can transfer the paper to the repository).

Presently, the team focus has incorporated the new HEFCE open access policy for the next REF as well. The HEFCE open access policy states that in order to be eligible, the accepted manuscripts of articles and conference proceedings (with an ISSN) must be deposited in a repository. The HEFCE open access policy does not come into effect until 2016, but we are tying to push the message now so that we are 100% compliant by that point.

With both these cases the result is more content in the repository. But with deposit being imposed from on high the other benefits of depositing can sometimes play second fiddle. In light if this, we have chosen to show some of the usage metrics from a recent article in the repository. We hope this demonstrates that archiving in the repository can greatly benefit the Impact of research.

A great example is The meanings of chimpanzee gestures which received a lot of media attention when it was published. The authors deposited the accepted manuscript for the article into Pure, which then allowed the OARPS team to get the manuscript into the repository.

Here are some of the repository usage stats for the article:

With statistics like this you have to read between the lines a little bit, but one thing they definitely show is that the article received a lot of attention in July (this was when the article was being covered in the media). Crucially, the stats also tell us that the vast majority of those visiting the page ended up downloading the document. This reliably indicates that the majority of people visiting the page did not have access to the publisher version.

So, with the manuscript in the repository a wider range of people, who do not have a subscription to the journal, can read the full article. This means it can be distributed more widely through society, thus widening the reach of the paper and helping to feed the impact of the research.

Charity alliance launches open access fund

An alliance of charities including Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK has launched a fund to make charitably funded research immediately free to access and re-use. The Head of Digital Services at the Wellcome Trust said "This approach helps to ensure that this knowledge can be built upon and used in a manner that maximises health and public benefit."

The Charity Open Access Fund (COAF) will provide single combined block grants to UK research institutions to meet open access article processing charges for peer-reviewed research publications resulting from research funded by one or more of the six partner charities: Arthritis Research UK, Breast Cancer Campaign, the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research and the Wellcome Trust.

The University of St Andrews already receives a block grant to support open access for Wellcome-funded research papers, and this joint fund will make it even easier to comply with these funders' open access policies.

For more information see the COAF frequently asked questions for researchers or contact the University Library's Open Access team.

For details on the existing criteria for Wellcome Trust funded authors, including the policy extension to cover monographs and book chapters from Oct 2014, see our Library web pages.

Why Open Access Really Matters

Wondering why your funder has an open access policy? Trying to decide if that hybrid open access journal is for you? Come and hear the expert view on open access:

‘Why Open Access Really Matters: A Discussion with Professor Stuart Shieber.’ Old Library (School of Psychology), University of St Andrews,
Thursday 5 June, 9.30-10.30 am



Stuart M Shieber is Professor of Computer Science at Harvard and Faculty Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication.

Open Access to research outputs is a way of scholarly publishing which began as a philosophical and moral choice for academic authors, but has become – at least in the UK – an increasingly stringent requirement of research funding by Research Councils, funders like the Wellcome Trust, and now the Funding Councils as they look ahead to the next REF.

Stuart Shieber is Professor of Computer Science at Harvard and Faculty Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication. He is an academic author who has been involved with the Open Access movement for many years, and is an acknowledged expert and blogger on the subject.  Come and hear him give his views and answer questions on the future of Open Access and the development of Harvard’s open access policies in a conversation with University Librarian John MacColl.

Tea and coffee provided.

See the University Events page for more information

Report from BIS inquiry on open access

The UK Government's Business, Innovation and Skills Committee published their report today following an inquiry into open access.

Parliament announced the report, emphasising the role of repositories:
"The Government’s commitment to increasing access to published research findings, and its desire to achieve full open access, are welcome, says the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee in a Report published today.  However, whilst Gold open access is a desirable ultimate goal, focusing on it during the transition to a fully open access world is a mistake, says the Report.

The Report calls on the Government and RCUK to reconsider their preference for Gold open access during the five year transition period, and give due regard to the evidence of the vital role that Green open access and repositories have to play as the UK moves towards full open access."

SPARC Europe welcomed the report with this response, stating that "we expect the research community now broadly to support the recommendations contained in this new report."

Among other things the report recommends that RCUK realigns its policy to match that of HEFCE’s post-2014 REF proposals, which mandates immediate deposit in an institutional repository.

Landmark US directive on open access

On Friday 22 Feb 2013 the White House issued a directive which requires federal agencies with annual research and development budgets of $100 million or more to provide free online access to the results of that research, within a year of publication. It has been described as a watershed moment by Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC and follows closely on the introduction of a new open access bill to the US Congress: Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR).

These two important developments have been praised by open access advocates such as SPARC, Creative Commons and the Association of Research Libraries, and are compared here by Peter Suber. While the directive and FASTR differ on proposed embargo lengths, they both recommend deposit in a repository as the route to open access, rather than the 'Gold' route (publication in OA journals) favoured by the UK government.

The announcement and policy are available from the Obama Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The directive comes after years of campaigning for open access, and a We the People petition 'Require free access over the Internet to scientific journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research' which received over 65000 signatures and this official response.

Guide to open access policies

In advance of worldwide Open Access Week, the Harvard Open Access Project released version 1.0 of a guide to good practices for university open-access policies. The new guide has been compiled by OA and scholarly communication experts Peter Suber and Stuart Shieber and is designed to evolve as new experiences of good practice emerge.

As well as recommendations on drafting, adopting and implementing an OA policy, the guide is full of useful examples and practical suggestions, including strategeies for increasing 'green' open access through repository deposit > Filling the repository

Access the guide here: Good practices for university open-access policies

Massive shift to open access for UK

July 16 was a big day for open access in the UK. The latest SPARC Open Access Newsletter (SOAN) by Peter Suber describes the 'tipping point' for the open access movement.



SOAN #165 (Sep 2, 2012) gives a detailed analysis of 3 major announcements on 16 July 2012 from RCUK, HEFCE and the UK Minister for Universities and Science, including the potential consequences for journals and authors. The newsletter also covers the subsequent release of documents from the European Commission on OA policy. Taken together, these announcements appear to make the transition to open access for scholarly publishing innevitable - at least across Europe.

Discussions are now under way across institutions to decide how to manage the transition, including the costs involved and mechanisms for adapting to new business models from publishers. The UK government has recently announced additional funding for some universities, to 'kick-start' this process.

RCUK welcomes additional investment in Open Access

Wellcome Trust suggests institutional responsibility for open access compliance

Times Higher Education has reported that the Wellcome Trust may require institutions to take more responsibility for ensuring that publications associated with a Wellcome-funded grant are made open access. This may go as far as holding back final installments, or restricting future grants, if research outputs are not openly accessible.

The Wellcome Trust’s grant condition 6(iii) states “All research papers that have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and are supported in whole or in part by the Grant, must be made available from UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) as soon as possible, and in any event within six months of publication, in line with the Trust’s Open Access policy: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Policy/Policy-and-position-statements/WTD002766.htm

The tougher message from the Wellcome Trust coincides with a new draft open access policy from RCUK, with stronger requirements including reduced embargo periods. See the announcement from the Enabling Open Scholarship organisation.

Information about complying with the Wellcome Trust policy for St Andrews author is available on our Library web pages

More on research funders' open access policies

US Research Works Act: threat to open scholarly communication

The Research Works Act seeks to stop organisations from having conditions in their grants that require research outputs to be made open access. At a time when the UK Government are raising their commitment to open access, and increasing recognition of OA mandates from UK funders, the RWA would reverse the NIH Public Access Policy which requires outputs from publicly funded research to be made freely available on the internet. Further explanation in these posts, and updates to follow:

Stop U.S. legislation that would block public access to publicly funded research, Creative Commons blog http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/31184

Trying to roll back the clock on Open Access: Research Works Act introduced, ALA Washington Office blog http://www.districtdispatch.org/2012/01/trying-to-roll-back-the-clock-on-open-access-research-works-act-introduced/

Research bought, then paid for, New York Times opinion pages http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?_r=1

Can AAP Members stay neutral in the row over the Research Works Act?, Richard Poynder ‘Open and Shut?’ blog http://poynder.blogspot.com/2012/01/can-aap-members-stay-neutral-in-row.html “the RWA would be a major setback for the Open Access movement…”

Mendeley's response to RWA and SOPA http://www.mendeley.com/blog/academic-features/on-sharing-research-and-the-value-of-peer-review-mendeleys-response-to-sopa-and-the-research-works-act/ 

New approach to mandating open access

A world-renowned University introduces a new development on the path towards open access, and aims to put pressure on publishers.

Princeton University has introduced a new policy that requires their researchers to retain some rights in their scholarly outputs, rather than assigning all copyright to journal publishers. The aim is to widen access to the University’s research outputs. Under the new policy, Faculty must grant the University a licence to use their publications for non-commercial purposes, including posting online. In order for them to grant this licence, authors would need to ensure there is provision for this in their copyright agreement.

See further comment in The Conversation report , headlined ‘Princeton bans academics from handing all copyright to journal publishers.’

Unlike most institutional mandates on open access, Princeton do not require their academics to post their articles to a University repository – in fact they do not currently have one. Instead they see this as a voluntary but logical extension of their policy, allowing academics to choose where they put their work as appropriate to their discipline.

With the weight of this University’s policy in place, it will be interesting to see if large publishers will bend their policies to fit. There is provision in the policy to obtain a waiver so in practice many copyright transfers will continue as before. However, this kind of mandate plants the idea that open access should be the norm, rather than at the will of publishers.

EPSRC to enforce policy on open access

The Research@StAndrews staff blog recently posted details of the new EPSRC Policy on Access to Research Outputs.
"EPSRC requires authors to comply with this mandate and ensure that all published research articles arising from EPSRC-sponsored research, and which are submitted for publication on or after 1st September 2011, must become available on an Open Access basis through any appropriate route."

The options are:

• “Gold” - publishing directly in a subscription-free open access journal, or paying an open access fee in a 'hybrid' journal
• “Green” - deposition of the peer-reviewed article (as accepted for publication) in an online repository, respecting any embargo period required by the publishing journal

To follow the "Green" option, staff at University of St Andrews can deposit their author accepted version (the version following peer review but without the publisher’s copyediting and formatting) in PURE. Documents will be checked by Library staff and once validated will be stored in Research@StAndrews:Full Text.

EPSRC first agreed this policy in 2009, but are now taking a strong approach to ensure compliance. See the RCUK position statement on Open Access