July 2014 No.16 NEWSLETTER OF FEMS
FEDERATION OF EUROPEAN MICROBIOLOGICAL SOCIETIES
Is Open Access advancing scientific research? Open Access, according to the dictionary, means ‘availability to all: open access to scientific and technological information.’ The University College London adds to that, that it aims to offer equitable access to research outputs for researchers across the globe and any research that has been funded by a grant is likely to be subject to an Open Access mandate. Open access is an upcoming model in scientific research for some years now, and evaluation of what it offers is in place. To answer the question if open access is advancing scientific research however, one must first look at the scientific research itself.
From the Editorial Team We enjoyed interviewing three scientists and publishers, looking at the consequences and opportunities they believe Open Access offers from both the scientists’ and the publishers’ point of view. Open Access is more than just a business model, it influences the way we communicate, value and pay for scientifical research. This Focus issue reflects only a selection of all stakeholders – what about societies that derive income from publishing? Or librarians with their budgets or microbiologists wanting to publish or apply their research in society? As a reader of this issue of Focus, what is YOUR opinion on Open Access? Please let us know by sending an email to fems@fems-microbiology.org. We are looking forward to your comments! Stefano Donadio & Carianne Buurmeijer, Editors
“Whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that all ingenious people might be informed thereof.” Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
What is the aim of scientific research? Violeta Ribarska: ”The aim of scientific research is to advance our knowledge and development in all areas. It can benefit everyone, but key to this is that research findings are communicated widely and effectively. Publishing plays a crucial role in this process however its aims are even wider. Publishing research findings ensures a record of the progress of science is maintained in perpetuity. It also provides a method
for establishing the validity, impact and novelty of research through the process of peer review. Many would argue that publishing plays a central role in professional progression within academia as well, but I would say that this is an additional benefit, rather than one of the core goals. As long as publishing continues to fulfil its main goals, the process and the industry can and should be expected to change to reflect our technological and economic development. For example,
Access the full interviews This Focus issue contains interactive contents. By scanning the QR code, you will get fast access to the three interviews with your tablet or smartphone. When you scan a QR code, the interview will appear on your screen immediately. To scan QR Codes, you need a QR scanner App on your mobile device, which you can download for free. You can also get access to the interview by copying the hyperlink in your browser.
Open Access has been seen by many as a disruptive model to publishing, but we shouldn’t forget that changes in technology and copyright law have contributed even more significantly to the evolution of the industry. As a new economic model, Open Access solves some problems and creates others, just like any previous models have done in the past. For example, making research findings more easily available is certainly a very positive outcome, but the inequality of Open Access viability across subjects and geographical regions remains an obstacle. I don’t think anybody questions the benefits of wide access to research and innovation - the challenge is to find a model that works across disciplines and borders.”
Bavoil questions the t predatory Open Access
Read the full interview: www.fems-microbiology.org/VR
Violeta Ribarska is a Senior Journal Publishing Manager at Wiley working on both subscription and Open Access journals within the fields of microbiology, biochemistry, cell and molecular biology. Wiley is a global provider of content-enabled solutions that improve outcomes in research, education, and professional practice. http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id302197.html www.wileyopenaccess.com
Other experts on open access Patrik Bavoil: ”The public pays for the research through taxes so it should have free access to the science that it pays for and researchers benefit greatly from having their publications as a medium to interact with one another but also from having feedback from the public.” Randy Schekman: “I think the commercial publishers are simply going to have to adjust to that (Open Access) and are going to have to find a way of doing that consistent with their commercial interest.”
An accusation that occurs in the media every now and then is that the Open Access model leaves room for so-called predatory publishing. A new journal arises, offers researchers guaranteed or fast Open Access publishing, demands a pricy fee to be paid and then publishes without peer-reviewing. But is that a fact? And if so, how can one distinguish the good guys from the bad guys? Patrik Bavoil: “I think there are more fly-by-night publishers that are taking the Open Access format than there are in the traditional publishing world, but I think some of the traditional journals are catching up, basically, they are becoming more and more profit-driven. (…) I am thinking of a paper that stated that water has a memory that in my mind was published for the purpose of advertising, to make noise, not for the purpose of serious science. This
is not sound science by any stretch of the imagination and these types of papers will be refuted in time. But there are also many serious journals that do a very good job of publishing science. (…) I get emails almost daily from open access journals calling for papers. I suppose I throw them all away. I have also been asked to join editorial boards on a daily basis, it seems, for some journals I have never heard of, and I throw these all away too. Researchers know where the good
threat of publishers
FEMS Journals accessed worldwide • Highly online publication • Rapid Open Access option • Gold page, submissions or colour charges • No Profits go back to science via our grants • and conferences in Thomson-Reuters’ • High-ranking Journal Citation Reports
Pathogens and Disease Pathogens and Disease publishes outstanding primary research on hypothesis- and discovery-driven studies on pathogens, host-pathogen interactions, host response to infection and their molecular and cellular correlates. www.pathogensanddisease.com
www.fems-microbiology.org/journals
Should scientific papers be free for everyone to read? Patrik Bavoil: “Yes, just to give you two examples: climate problems and global warming and all that: this is something that is a global problem that everybody worldwide should have access to the science about this. And infectious diseases are a global problem. Many of the infectious diseases we deal with in so-called developed countries are problems that appear first in developing countries that
Open Access means access for everyone journals are. Authors know where to publish if they want to have a valuable publication. The public doesn’t know that so we need to educate the public into what is sound science and what is not. This is a problem for funding institutions to address and maybe societies like FEMS and ASM should also spend some effort, more effort in educating the public about what represents a good publication of sound science.” Read the full interview: www.fems-microbiology.org/PB
can neither afford research for it, nor pay for library subscriptions. Somebody in a developing country should not be blocked from a research paper on that basis. I don’t know who can decide who should and who should not have access to a scientific paper. Of course you should trust them but we need to educate them and as scientists we do a poor job to promote our science and this is more of a problem now than it has ever been. I just think the public should have access to the research and the scientists should do a better job educating people but at the same time the general media have a great responsibility in this. If a popular talk show host makes uninformed comments on an imaginary relation between vaccines and autism, serious harm can be done to vaccination programs and in turn to those who will not be vaccinated. So maybe we should educate talk show hosts first! We and the funding institutions have a responsibility to educate the public.”
Other experts on accessibility for all Patrik Bavoil has been a microbiology researcher for about thirty years. He is Professor & Chair, Department of Microbial Pathogenesis at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Dentistry and he is the Chief Editor of Pathogens and Disease, a journal of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies. http://www.dental.umaryland.edu/ dentaldepts/micropath/
Violeta Ribarska: “Scientific articles cannot be fully free – someone has to pay somewhere along the line for the process to take place.” Randy Schekman: “Practicing physicians would not have access to the same literature unless they are affiliated to some large institution that can afford the site license for the literature. So, why should it be that I’m the only one as a scientist that can look at the primary literature of a disease relevant to my family?”
Other experts on evaluating papers Patrik Bavoil: “As researchers we’ve all been the victim of poor peer review.” Violeta Ribarska: “The value of an article depends largely on who is reading it and how relevant it is to their own work.” Patrik Bavoil: “I don’t know that Open Access has per se offered the development of new methods for differentiating the bad science from the good science. It’s not a problem specifically with Open Access; the problem is in traditional publishing as well.”
“We are drowning in information and starving for knowledge.” – Rutherford D. Rogers
It is said that each minute, somewhere in the world, a new paper is being published. With o0pen Access, the public gains access to more publications than ever before. Some Open Access journals will publish more of the submitted papers (PLOS for instance), causing the amount of publications to increase even more. Combine that with digitalization and the ever ongoing pressure to publish and you may ask yourself: how can I ever find the article I need, and how can I tell if it is a high quality article? Metrics of a journal tell you something about the journal itself. Metrics that count downloads or citations of the paper itself, tell you something about popularity, but still, not about quality. So in the end, it all comes down to reading.
Randy Schekman revealing the best way to evaluate papers
Randy Schekman: “The problem is practical. When you’re evaluating candidates for faculty positions or fellowships reading hundreds of publications you can’t possibly read them all. That’s the problem. So, here’s a proposal that many of us are trying to push, which, I can tell you, works in a certain context. And that is each candidate should be asked to draft what we call an impact statement. Which is, say, a 250 word brief comment on the most important work that they published, not of a particular paper, but of all that they’ve done the most important, putting it in context for a larger group of people who understand biomedical science. So if you had a well crafted statement, anyone in a professional committee could look at a bunch of them and say: oh well, this looks interesting, or that looks mediocre. That would be a preliminary evaluation, just to
see who’s done something that looks really interesting. Then the application can be looked at in greater depth by looking at the letters of recommendation and people who actually know the area of research and who commented on the candidate. Then, you could look at the publications and actually study to some extent what’s in the publications and see what’s being said. But unfortunately people are lazy, and I’ve seen this on other times, they sit around and say: well look at this, he’s got three Nature papers. They don’t know what was in the papers, but they can tell you they were Nature papers. (…) I can tell you there is a major effort at my institution and indeed through the DORA statement, the declaration of research assessment, there’s a major effort to educate. Committees, universities - not just in the first world but all over the world - are ac-
Randy Schekman is a Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at UC Berkeley since 1976 and Chief Editor of eLife since the start of the journal in 2012. He investigates protein secretion and yeast. His discovery of the secretory pathway in yeast led to his receiving a Nobel Prize in 2013. Randy Schekman was a senior editor at Molecular Biology of the Cell and the Journal of Cell Biology and The Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, Chief Editor of the PNAS (Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences). eLife is an open access journal sponsored by the Wellcome trust, Howard Hughes and Max Pluck. http://elifesciences.org/
tually evaluating scholarship for what it actually is.” Listen to the full interview: www.fems-microbiology.org/RS The FEMS Focus is published by FEMS Delftechpark 37A 2628 XJ Delft The Netherlands Tel: +31 15 269 39 20 Email: fems@fems-microbiology.org www.fems-microbiology.org FEMS is a registered charity (no 1072117) and also a company limited by guarantee (no. 3565643) ©2014 Federation of European Microbiological Societies Design: Zak Princic Production: Ilumina.si