Open access to scholarly publications
Introduction
Openness is a part of responsible research. Openness is one of the core values of science and research. The objective of immediate open access to researched information is to improve the quality of science and increase its social impact. The policy for open access to scholarly publications was created to serve these primary objectives of research.
This policy is a powerful statement in favour of openness in the Finnish research community for the next five years.
The objective of the policy is to guarantee that the research community and those applying research information in practice have access to researched information in a way that has never before been possible. The policy of open access to scholarly publications defines the principles, objectives and actions. By committing and promoting these the research community in Finland can achieve equal access to researched information. The current culture of publishing does not treat parties equally and the costs are not distributed fairly. At the same time, many research organisations can no longer afford to pay for access to key scholarly publications.
This policy is applicable in all research fields and in diverse research organisations. The efforts of independent organisations to increase open access are supported through the policy’s actions and principles.
Freedom of the researcher
This policy is a result of collaboration within the Finnish research community, constituting a shared view of the direction open access to scholarly publications should take. Its goal is to achieve open access in a way that supports and increases the researcher’s freedom and opportunities to share researched information. The researcher’s duty is to conduct research of the best possible quality. Researchers should primarily be able to choose a publication channel that best suits their work. The research community should guarantee the incentives and structures for open scholarly publishing in a way that supports the work and equality of researchers. This policy guarantees that Finnish researchers will be competitive in the international arena and ensures that they will not be faced with contradictory requirements between career rewards and open access.
International transformation
Fundamentally, this policy aligns with the international developments and existing policies. In particular, the recommendations of the Open Science Policy Platform, the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), the Competitiveness Council’s decision in 2016 that all scientific publications should be openly accessible by 2020, the OA2020 Initiative, the European Commission’s objectives for open access, and Plan S for research funders (2019) are shaping the future of open access on the international stage.
With this policy, the key research organisations located in Finland are making a commitment to promoting open access to research in Europe and aiming to be at the forefront of promoting open access.
The development of open access is closely connected with a wider transformation taking place in research, which is changing funding structures and roles in the scientific publishing field as well as the way researchers are rewarded. The principles and objectives of this policy on open access to scholarly publications both reflect and further this transformation. This policy can only be applied if the operating culture of the research community is transformed at the same time. For this reason, this policy refers to other policies and recommendations and emphasises the close connections between them.
Risks and threats
This policy involves identified risks. Researchers in different research fields have been worried about the lack of high-quality openly accessible publication channels and about the unrealistic timetables. These concerns are understandable.
In particular, the unwillingness of large international publishers to negotiate reasonably priced agreements for achieving immediate open access is a real threat. Likewise, the publishing costs paid by the research organisations, when acquiring material, should not increase to an extent that the cost weakens the financial position of the organisations, leaving them unable to afford other means of supporting open access.
During the transition phase, there is also a risk that the overall costs will increase and researchers will have fewer opportunities to publish their research in their preferred channel. It may also become more difficult to determine overall costs if the payment of fees is left to individual researchers – as a result, actual costs could increase unnoticed. Increasing costs could reduce equal opportunities for researchers to publish their work with open access. At the same time, changing structures call for a major dialogue on the direction and responsibilities of funding, also in the case of Finnish publications.
Collaboration and trust
At the core of the policy work is our trust that the common direction and joint actions will provide the best opportunity to achieve immediate open access for scholarly publications for the benefit of the research community and the society at large. We are not alone, as an increasing number of international actors and governments are setting open access as a key objective in their science policy. It is difficult to promote this important issue without ambitious goals.
The national strategic principles and objectives for open scholarly publishing have been formulated through collaboration between the Open Science National Steering Group in Finland and the Open Scholarly Publishing Expert Panel. In the case of journal and conference publications, two broad and open rounds of comments in February and May 2019 added significant input to the drafts of the policy and giving it a research community voice. These strategic principles and objectives will determine the shared direction of shared open scholarly publishing for the Finnish research community.
Structure of the policy
This policy is composed of principles and policy components, which determine objectives and actions. The principles define the general terms under which open scholarly publication should be sought. They consist of important principles for the research community that must be adhered to in the effort to achieve open access. The objectives are more time-dependent goals, which involve concrete actions. Objectives and their associated actions will respond to a changing international environment more readily than the principles.
Implementation and follow-up
The Open Science Coordination at the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) is responsible for following up on the implementation of the national policy for open access to scholarly publications. The Coordination is responsible for supporting and promoting continuous dialogue on how to achieve the objectives as well as for keeping the policy up to date. The policy will be reviewed in 2022.
During this policy period, the Ministry of Education and Culture will monitor the implementation of open access to scholarly publications through the National Research Information Hub. Every research organisation will provide information on its own publications at their chosen frequency, but no less often than once a year, to the VIRTA Publication Information Service when the Ministry of Education and Culture collects information on publications.
Many of the actions proposed in the policy build on existing work. In other words, the policy is strongly based on earlier solutions and shared responsibilities. However, it is also forward-looking as it includes actions that should be taken with a view to the future. For this reason, the many actions are recorded to start in 2020.
The policy period is 2020–2025. During this time the objective of the policy will be sought in stages by furthering the various actions, all the while taking into account the special characteristics of the different types of publications.
Strategic principles and the associated responsibilities
Principle 1: Cost management
The total cost for scholarly publications will not exceed the current overall cost when transitioning to open access. The estimate of overall costs reflects all present costs and the total volume of research.
Ensuring the realisation and monitoring of the principle:
- Review of the initial situation: During 2020 the Finnish National Library will conduct an assessment in cooperation with the research organisations to estimate the overall cost of open access to scholarly publications for the research organisations. Additionally, the Finnish National Library will estimate the cost of open access for Finnish scientific publishers. The review will account for the costs of open access that have already been incurred.
- Continuous monitoring: The Finnish National Library will annually monitor the overall costs of access to scholarly publications and changes in the cost structure in cooperation with the research organisations.
Principle 2: Equal opportunity to publish
All researchers have an equal opportunity to publish their research through open access, regardless of field of research, funding basis, or career stage.
Ensuring the realisation and monitoring of the principle:
- Review of the initial situation: During 2020, the Open Science Coordination will review the specific challenges related to equal opportunities.
- Continuous monitoring: The Open Science Coordination will monitor developments in equal opportunities in cooperation with the research organisations, and will initiate dialogue on ways to increase equal opportunities.
Principle 3: Independent assessment
When assessing scholarly publications, the quality and openness of individual research publications are considered independently.
Ensuring the realisation and monitoring of the principle:
- Review of the initial situation: During 2020, there will be a review on how open access to publications is currently taken into account in the systems for assessing researchers at higher education institutions and other research organisations.
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Continuous monitoring: Coordination of a regular review of how open access to publications is taken into account in the systems for evaluating researchers at higher education institutions and research organisations.
- a) The Publication Forum will monitor the open access publication channels and impact of open access on the average level of quality of the publication channels.
- b) The Responsible Evaluation of Researchers recommendation defines in more detail the importance of open of research practices in researcher assessment.Publications-footnote-1
Principle 4: Dynamic assessment
The assessment of researchers and research takes into account new and changing forms of publishing reflecting open science.
Ensuring the realisation and monitoring of the principle:
- Review of the initial situation: During 2020, a review will be conducted of how new forms of open scholarly publishing are taken into account in the systems for evaluating researchers and research at higher education institutions and other research organisations.
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Continuous monitoring: There will be regular reviews of how new forms of open scholarly publishing are taken into account in the systems for evaluating researchers and research at higher education institutions and research organisations.
- a) Research organisations and research funders commit to taking open access into account in their evaluations. The Responsible Evaluation of Researchers recommendation defines research outputs, including data and research methods, open access and evaluation in more detail. More details on open access to research material are outlined in a separate policy.
Policy component for open access to journal and conference articles
Policy component for open access to journal and conference articles
The policy will take effect on 1 January 2020. The strategic objectives call for immediate implementation of the actions. However, the planned achievement date for several objectives is in 2022 or later.
Definitions
The policy for journal articles and conference publications concerns Finnish and international peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and conference publications (Ministry of Education and Culture publication type classification A, excluding A3), which are sent to a publisher for consideration on or after 1 January 2022, and
- in which all the authors work at or are affiliated with a Finnish research organisation1 or the authors are funded by a Finnish research funder2
or
- in which the corresponding author3 works at or is affiliated with a Finnish research organisation or is funded by a Finnish research funder4.
In this policy, “researcher” refers to a researcher employed or affiliated with a Finnish research organisation or one conducting research funded by a Finnish research funder.
“Immediate open access” refers to the publishing of a peer-reviewed5 version of an article as an open access document in the publisher’s channel or using a repository route provided by the researcher’s/research organisation without any embargoes placed by the publisher. Immediate open access does not directly address the rights to reuse research data in publications, as these are defined separately.
Objectives and the required actions
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Objective 1: New scientific articles and conference publications will be immediately openly accessible.
No later than 2022, all new scientific articles and conference publications will be immediately openly accessible.3
Actions required to achieve the objective:
- FinELib magazines have the right to publish all articles open or parallel at the time of publication.. By 2022, the scientific journal agreements of FinELib must include the right to publish all articles with open access or make them openly accessible via a repository route at the time of publishing.
- Immediate openness in direct contract negotiations. The research organisations will strive to achieve immediate open access in direct agreement negotiations with the publishers that are not included in the agreements concluded by FinELib.
- Approval of reasonable fees for openness. The research organisations may accept reasonable fees that guarantee open access to individual articles when a separate agreement has not been reached with the publisher.
- Research organisations alllow for parallel publishing. The research organisations will enable a repository route through their own open access repositories or those maintained by another party, with the aim of achieving immediate open access in cases where an article cannot be published with open access in the publisher’s channels at a reasonable cost.Publications-footnote-8
- Open access training and support. The research organisations will offer their researchers training and support concerning open access to scholarly publications, ensuring that researchers can easily gain information on publication channels that fulfil the criteria of immediate open access in the fields of research that are essential for each research organisation.
- Management creates conditions for open access. The management of the research organisations and of the research groups will create opportunities for open access to scholarly publications taking into consideration the nature of each organisation.
- Prioritisation of publication channels enabling open access. Researchers will prioritisePublications-footnote-9 sending research to publication channels that enable immediate open access (including open scholarly publishing channels and open access repositories).
- Research funders allow costs to be included in funding. The research funders will enable the costs of open access to be included in funding.
- Definition of measures of reasonableness of article fees. Coordinated by the Open Science Coordination, the research organisations and research funders will determine benchmarks to evaluate how reasonable Article Processing Charges (APC) are. International examples (e.g. Plan S) will be followed when determining the benchmarks.
- Create an operating model for the development of new and new types of open publication channels. The research organisations and funders will create a joint operating model for participating in the development of new and novel open publication channels and supporting the conversion of existing channels into open ones in a sustainable way, as well as helping existing open channels become more established.
Objective 2: The total cost of scholarly publication channels and individual publications is transparent and publicly available
The total cost of scholarly publication channels and individual publications is transparent and publicly available
Actions required to achieve the objective:
- FinELib will publish the scientific journal agreements concluded with publishers including their total cost.. FinELib will publish the scientific journal agreements concluded with publishers including their total cost.Publications-footnote-10
- The Ministry of Education and Culture will continue to collect cost data. The Ministry of Education and Culture will continue to collect cost data on the material directly ordered by the research organisations.
- FinELib will record journal agreements in the international ESAC agreement registry. FinELib will record journal agreements in the international ESACPublications-footnote-11 agreement registry
- The terms of the contract allow the publication of price information. The research organisations will aim for contractual terms that enable them to publish cost data.
- APC data for Finland are included in the OpenAPC. By 2022, the research organisations and FinELib will make sure that the APC data for Finland are included in the OpenAPCPublications-footnote-12.
- The total cost of scholarly publications domiciled in Finland is transparent and publicly available. The total cost of scholarly publications domiciled in Finland is transparent and publicly available.
Objective 3: CC-licence to all new research publications to protect researcher’s rights
By 2022, a CC-licence is applied to all new research publications to provide open access and to protect researcher’s rights.
Actions required to achieve the objective:
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FinELib’s scientific journal agreements include the right to publish all articles open. By 2022, the scientific journal agreements by FinELib must include the right to publish all articles with open access under a Creative Commons (CC) licence.
- a) If a repository route is used as the means for enabling open access, a CC licence that guarantees open access should also be used.
- It is recommended that metadata are made open under a CC0 licence. To ensure the transfer of publication data, it is recommended that metadata are made open under a CC0 licence.
- TSV will coordinate training on licences for researchers and research support services. Federation for Finnish Learned Societies will coordinate training on licences for researchers and research support services in cooperation with the Finnish Association for Scholarly Publishing, the Finnish CC Group and the research organisations.Publications-footnote-13
- Research organisations provide training and support for open licences. The research organisations will offer their researchers training and support for open licences. In addition, they will ensure that researchers can easily gain information on the various licences offered by publication channels in the fields of research that are essential for each research organisation.
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Researchers will prioritise sending research to publication channels that enable a CC licence. Researchers will prioritisePublications-footnote-14 sending research to publication channels that enable a CC licence.
- a) A CC BY licence is recommended as the primary option.
Objective 4: National publication model for immediate open access
The research community creates a jointly funded publishing model that enables immediate open access to research articles published in Finland.
Actions required to achieve the objective:
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The Federation for Finnish Learned Societies will facilitate the creation of a jointly funded and sustainable publishing model. By 2020, The Federation for Finnish Learned Societies will facilitate the creation of a jointly funded and sustainable publishing model.
- a) The Federation for Finnish Learned Societies is responsible for developing and maintaining the Journal.fi service, which is intended for editing and publishing scientific journals, with resources provided by the Ministry of Education and Culture.
- The research organisations and funders will commit to equal treatment with regard to the language of publishing when evaluating researchers. The research organisations and funders will commit to equal treatment with regard to the language of publishing when evaluating researchers.
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Finnish scholarly pub-lishers will ensure the data in their publications in preserved through sustainable means. By 2022, Finnish scholarly publishers will ensure the data in their publications in preserved through sustainable means.
- a) The publishers may outsource the arrangements for data preservation to another trusted operator.
Glossary
Open access: The publication in its entirety is available on the Internet free of charge and without restrictions to read, print and copy at least for non-commercial use.
CC licence: The Creative Commons licence is an international licence standard that allows authors to share some of their copyrights and to provide the freedoms of their choice to those using, watching or experiencing their work. More information is available at: https://creativecommons.fi.
Embargo: A restriction under which material can be freely used only after a set waiting period, for example once a publication has been released.
FinElib: A consortium of Finnish universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutions and public libraries. Its mission is to secure and improve the availability of electronic resources.
Right to reuse research data: Right to reuse research data – The right to copy and redistribute an output and to use it as part of new work, provided that the original source is referenced in line with good scientific practice. The reuse of research data refers to the utilisation of material complied by someone else for another purpose. When data is reused, the methods are often different from those used by the original researchers. Reuse is often also referred to with the term “secondary analysis”.
Publication: A research output published in a publication channel.
Publication consideration: An evaluation and decision made by a publication channel on whether a draft is accepted for publication.
Publication channel: The means by which a publication reaches its readers. To enter this channel, the publication must receive a publishing decision from the owner of the publication channel.
Collection of information on publications: The collection of information on Finnish scholarly publications in accordance with the definitions of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The Ministry of Education and Culture uses the information for steering higher education institutions and preparing scientific policies.
Conference publication: A publication based on a presentation held at a science conference.
Data preservation: Ensuring that scholarly publications and their metadata remain available, readable, understandable and usable far into the future
Pre-print: Non peer-reviewed draft publication stored in a publicly accessible database.
Repository route: The storing of a publication or a draft accepted for publishing in an open access repository that is independent of the original publisher.
Scientific journal agreement: An agreement on providing electronic resources for the Finnish scientific community negotiated by FinElib, a consortium of Finnish universities, research institutions and public libraries.
National Research Information Hub: The National Research Information Hub compiles and distributes information on research conducted in Finland, including information on publications, research material, research infrastructures, researchers and research projects. CSC –The IT Center for Science (CSC) is building the National Research Information Hub commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Culture. More information: research.fi.
Research output: An individual and identifiable expression that conveys information on conducted research and its findings.
Research community: The Finnish research community consists of:
- Individual Finnish and foreign researchers and doctoral students affiliated with the aforementioned research organisations, and grant researchers affiliated with research organisations or funded by a Finnish research funder
- Research organisations such as universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions, including their research teams
- Research funders that specialise in funding research, including the Academy of Finland, Business Finland and numerous private foundations and funds
- Service providers, including CSC, that develop the infrastructure for open science
- Learned societies
- Learned academies
- Learned libraries, archives and service providers
- learned publishers
Sources
- cOAlition S (2019): Plan S.
- Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)
- EUE (2016): Competitiveness Council’s declaration that all scientific papers should be freely available by 2020..
- European Commission (2018): Open Science Policy Platform recommendations.
- European Commission (2018): Commission Recommendation (EU) 2018/790 of 25 April 2018 on access to and preservation of scientific information.
- OA2020-Initiative
- Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (2018): Agreeing on authorship – Recommendation for research publications..
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