The Budapest Open Access Initiative

Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 09:30:12 -0500 From: Peter Suber <peters(a)earlham.edu> The Budapest Open Access Initiative http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ Today marks the official launch of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), the most important FOS initiative in a long time. This is the public statement and plan of action that emerged from the conference in Budapest I attended in early December (and described briefly in FOSN for 12/5/01). Between the conference and today, the participants have been drafting the statement and a few other documents to accompany it. I'm very pleased with the result and very proud to have played a role in it. Let me give you a quick tour. The drafters of BOAI represent many perspectives on FOS, many different nations, and many different FOS initiatives. The experience around the table came from university research, libraries, philanthropy, and non-profit and for-profit publishing. You can find the individual drafters and their affiliations at the bottom of the main document, so I won't repeat them here. The first point to make, though, is that while disagreements were plentiful, we all saw that agreements were more basic than disagreements. This diverse group agreed on a common plan to achieve FOS. The initiative endorses the goal of "open access", the term used by BOAI for what I tend to call free online access. BOAI calls for open access to peer-reviewed research articles in all academic fields and the preprints that might precede them. It can easily and naturally be extended to all digital content that its authors consent to disseminate without payment. BOAI endorses two strategies to achieve open access, and supports experiments with other strategies that might prove effective. The first strategy is what Stevan Harnad calls self-archiving. Authors put preprints in institutional or disciplinary archives that comply with the protocols of the Open Archives Initiative. When their articles are published in peer-reviewed journals, they also archive either the refereed postprint or a list of corrigenda (differences between the preprint and the postprint), depending on the journal's permission policies. The second strategy is to launch a new generation of journals committed to provide open access to all their contents. The two strategies are not only compatible; they are complementary. Putting them together creates synergy and the acceleration of parallel processing. Both strategies are sustainable in the long term. We know this because providing open access costs much less than traditional forms of dissemination and much less than the money currently spent on journal subscriptions. The only problem is the transition from here to there. The BOAI is especially promising because it understands this and mobilizes the financial resources to help make the transition possible. George Soros' Open Society Institute (OSI), which convened the original meeting in Budapest, is committing one million dollars a year for three years to BOAI, and recruiting other foundations to add their support to the cause. What makes BOAI special is the way it embraces different approaches and combines principle, strategy, tested means to the desired end, and cash. I'm especially pleased with the BOAI's friendliness toward the many players in the landscape and its focus on constructive steps toward the goal. The BOAI doesn't demand that existing journals change their prices or their access policies. We hope they will, and we will even help pay the costs of converting to a different business model for journals willing to change. But if not, we'll just pursue our goal without their participation. BOAI doesn't call for boycotts of any kind of literature, any kind of journal, or any kind of publisher. It doesn't call for violations of copyright or even for changes in copyright law. It doesn't demand, and needn't wait for, any changes from publishers, markets, or legislation. Scientists and scholars have all the means within their grasp. The BOAI calls on scientists and scholars to take up these means and use them, and it invites the cooperation of all those disposed to help. My considered judgment is that the primary obstacle faced by BOAI,and the FOS movement in general, is misunderstanding. Most of the objections we hear (about copyright, about quality and peer review, about financing...) are based on misunderstanding. That's good news insofar as it means that most resistance will melt away when our ends and means are properly understood. But of course it's bad news if our efforts to date have not done more to clarify our ends and means. The BOAI is taking steps to disarm as many objections as possible with a detailed FAQ. Not everyone will read it, of course. But for those who do, it will answer 95% of the questions, objections, and anxieties that similar initiatives have provoked in the past. Of course, FAQ's don't change the world, and we have other tools for changing the world. But if our primary obstacle really is misunderstanding, then the FAQ is one of our most potent tools. HOW YOU CAN HELP. You can help the BOAI by signing it, persuading your institution to sign it, and spreading the word about it. A signature indicates a pledge of assistance and participation. If you [or your institution] are willing to self-archive your own papers, or submit them to open-access journals, help launch new open-access journals [or archives], or any of a number of things listed at the site, then you [or your institution] should sign. Signatures don't call on others to act, but demonstrate that someone is acting. The growing list of signatures is a measure of our strength. If you have questions about BOAI, send them to me (peters [at] earlham.edu) and I'll try to answer them in the newsletter or the discussion forum. BOAI Home page http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ What you can do to help http://www.soros.org/openaccess/help.shtml (Separate sections for reseearchers, universities, libraries, journals, foundations, professional societies, governments,and citizens.) FAQ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm (The FAQ and the list of ways you can help, above, will remain open to revision.) See who has signed http://www.soros.org/openaccess/view.cfm Sign it yourself http://www.soros.org/openaccess/sign.shtml Open Society Institute http://www.osi.hu/infoprogram/ * Postscript. I like the term "open access" and will start to use it more often in the newsletter. It's not perfect, however. It's short but not self-explanatory. We decided that this was better than a long phrase that contained all the needed nuances. ("Free online access" is more self-explanatory but still falls short; a truly self-explanatory phrase would be very long.) The BOAI defines the term explicitly, which frees it to trade off perspicuity for brevity. If the term and its definition can spread, then we'll have a useful new tool for discussing FOS issues. --Now all we need is a short term for the body of literature to which this applies. * PPS. The term "open access" is already spreading in this context. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) supports both free and affordable scholarly journals, and has now flagged the free ones on its web list with a bright yellow "Open Access" icon. SPARC is an institutional signatory of the BOAI, and SPARC's director, Rick Johnson, is one of the BOAI drafters. http://www.arl.org/sparc/core/index.asp?page=c0 * PPPS. I expected to have no news accounts of BOAI to cite until the next issue. But here are a few that just came out as I prepare to click SEND. Declan Butler, Soros Offers Access to Science Papers (for Nature) http://makeashorterlink.com/?U21535A6 Ivan Noble, Boost for Research Paper Access (for BBC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1818000/1818652.stm Michael Smith, Soros Backs Academic Rebels (for UPI) http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=12022002-031227-9710r [Alexander Grimwade, Open Societies Need Open Access (The Scientist) http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2002/feb/comm_020218.html ] [Denis Delbecq, L'abordage des revvues scientifiques (Liberation, Paris) http://www.liberation.com/quotidien/semaine/020214-050019088SCIE.html ] [http://slashdot.org/] More to come! NOTE: A complete archive of the ongoing discussion of providing free access to the refereed journal literature online is available at the American Scientist September Forum (98 & 99 & 00 & 01): http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/september98-forum.html or http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/index.html You may join the list at the amsci site. Discussion can be posted to: september98-forum(a)amsci-forum.amsci.org