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Open access to scholarly publications, Policy component for open access to journal and conference articles, Open education and educational resources, open access to scholarly publications. National policy and executive plan by the higher education and research community for 2021–2025: Policy component for open access to theses

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.
• 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.
• 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

The combination "en":"Lehtiartikkelit" already exists for page "Lehtiartikkelien osalinjaus/en" therefore no additional interlanguage annotation was created.

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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Type	DocumentType:Policy
Name (fi)	Tutkimusjulkaisujen avoin saatavuus
Name (sv)	Öppen tillgång till forskningspublikationer
Name (en)	Open access to scholarly publications
Description (fi)	Tutkimusjulkaisujen avoimen saatavuuden linjauksen tavoitteena on taata tutkimusyhteisölle ja tutkimustiedon soveltajille pääsy tutkittuun tietoon tavalla, joka ei ole koskaan ennen ollut mahdollista. Linjaus määrittelee periaatteet, tavoitteet ja toimenpiteet, joihin sitoutumalla ja joita edistämällä tutkimusyhteisö Suomessa voi saavuttaa tasavertaisen pääsyn tutkitun tiedon äärelle. Linjaus koostuu yhteisistä periaatteista ja osalinjauksista, joissa määritellään tavoitteita ja toimepiteitä. Periaatteissa määritellään yleiset ehdot tutkimusjulkaisujen avoimen saatavuuden tavoittelulle. Ne sanoittavat tutkimusyhteisölle tärkeitä periaatteita, joista on pidettävä kiinni avoimuuden saavuttamiseksi.
Description (sv)	Målet med denna policy är att garantera att forskningssamfundet och de som tillämpar forskning har tillgång till forskningsbaserad kunskap på ett sätt som aldrig tidigare varit möjligt. Policyn för öppen tillgång till vetenskapliga publikationer fastställer principer, mål och åtgärder. Genom att förbinda sig till och främja dessa kan forskarsamfundet i Finland uppnå en jämlik tillgång till forskningsbaserad information. Policyn består av gemensamma principer och delpolicyer. Målen och åtgärderna fastställs i delpolicyerna. I principerna fastställs de allmänna villkoren för strävan efter öppen tillgång till forskningspublikationer. De uttrycker viktiga principerna som forskningssamfundet bör hålla fast vid för att uppnå öppenhet.
Description (en)	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. 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.
Field	Domain:ScholarlyPublications
Validity start	2020
Validity End	2025
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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.

Opening up education or Open Education means extending access to and participation in education to larger audiences and target groups by lowering barriers to education and increasing accessibility, unrestrictedness, offering and learner-centeredness. It diversifies the possibilities of teaching, learning and building, joint development and sharing of knowledge and combines the pathways of formal and nonformal learning. Although open education is often carried out using digital technologies, open education is not the same as digital education or digitalisation of educational resources.

In this policy, culture of open scholarship refers to the working environment and methods of science and research.

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.

In this policy, services are understood as activities that an organisation uses to promote and make the culture of open scholarship possible.

Publikationen kan i sin helhet laddas ner via Internet och läsas, skrivas ut och kopieras i minst icke-kommersiellt syfte utan begränsningar eller avgifter.