THE RIGHT TO RESEARCH THE STUDENT GUIDE TO OPENING ACCESS TO SCHOLARSHIP RESEARCH IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF EDUCATION. www.arl.org/sparc/students THE RIGHT TO RESEARCH 1 You know fi rsthand that students are expected to cite articles from scholarly journals when they write research papers. You’ve probably used journal articles in your coursework. You’ve probably also encountered journal articles that you wanted to read — potentially important articles — but couldn’t get access to. It doesn’t have to be this way. OPEN ACCESS — the principle that research should be accessible online, for free, immediately after publication — is improving the way scholarly information is shared. www.arl.org/sparc/students THE RIGHT TO RESEARCH 3 You’re not able to access some of the articles you want to read online because many scholarly journals are available only to subscribers. Journal subscriptions — especially in science, technology, and medicine — can cost thousands of dollars each year, and some cost more than $20,000.1 Your library pays for many of these subscriptions (with support in part from your tuition) and some universities actually spend millions of dollars annually on journals — but they still can’t afford access to everything their students and faculty need. There’s an alternative to the closed, subscription access model: Open Access. Open Access is free, unrestricted access on the Internet to the same type of high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship that is available by subscription. Authors can make their articles openly accessible by publishing in an open-access journal or posting copies of their articles on an open Web site or repository after they’ve been published in a traditional journal. With Open Access, the costs of publishing an article are covered by other sources — with sponsorships, publication fees, advertising, or a wide variety of possible combinations — so that everyone in the world can read the latest research online without paying an access fee. That’s why so many researchers, libraries, and universities support Open Access, and why more authors and journals continue to make the switch. (See “Open Access in Operation,” p. 7). Students — who read, rely on, and write for scholarly publications — have the power to change the way research is exchanged. 1 The 2008 annual subscription price for the journal Brain Research is $21,744. Get behind to improve access to research — and make your life and work as a student easier. Yes. While open-access journals don’t rely on subscription income, they do need revenue to operate. The 3,000 peer-reviewed journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org) thrive on a variety of different revenue models, including: endowment, sponsorship, advertising, author publication fees, donations, membership, university- or department-sponsorship, and others. CAN OPEN-ACCESS JOURNALS SURVIVE WITHOUT SUBSCRIPTION INCOME? KNOWLEDGE SHARE EXPLORE PUBLISHING CO DATA INTELLECTUAL ACADEMICS DISCOVERY KNOWLED CURIOSITY STATISTICS JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NE SEARCHABLE JOURNAL PUBLIC DOMAIN OPEN AUTHOR A RESEARCHERS LIBRARIANS EXPERIMENTAL BRAIN RESEA COMMUNITIES CONTENT ACCESS IDEA TRUTH COLLEGE PUBLISHED BIOCHIMICA ET BIOPHYSICA ACTA $15,5 SUBSCRIPTION RESEARCHERS LIBRARIANS ACCESS CHARTS ARCHIVES POLICIES ASSESSMENT IMMED EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY $10,117.87 UN READERS OBTAIN INVENTION INFORMATION PROFES UNIVERSITY INVESTIGATION LITERATURE INTERNE FREE INSTITUTIONAL GRAPHS ADVOCATES CITATIO ADVOCATES VERIFICATION DEBATE ANALYSIS OPINIO COMPARE WATER, AIR, AND SOIL POLLUTION $8,921.11 D INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY KNOWLEDGE SHARE EXPLO DOMAIN METHODS IN ENZYMOLOGY $8,919 ACADEM SEARCH ACCESS IDEA TRUTH COLLEGE IMMEDIATE MATE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL M BRAINSTORM UNRESTRICTED AVAILABILITY FRE ACCESSIBLE ONLINE IMPACT INFORMATION PROFES ANALYSIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICA INTERNET SHARING ARCHIVING POLICIES INSTITUTIONA STUDY PROOF GROWTH ANALYSIS COMMENTS ME JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE $16,859.67 BO TOPICS ACADEMICS DEBATE ANALYSIS INTELLECT KNOWLEDGE SHARE EXPLORE PUBLISHING COMMU CURIOSITY STATISTICS AUTHOR SOURCE SCI ACADEMIC SEARC COLLEGE IMMED PUBLISHED DIGITAL A ONCOGENE $7,665 RE EXPLORE PUBLISH ACCESSIBLE JOURNA ONLINE INFORMATION P UNIVERSITY LITERATURE ACC MONEY INVENTION AVA ASSESSMENT IMMEDIATE BIOTECHNOLOGY & BIOE BRAINSTORM ONLINE POLICIES ASSES www.arl.org/sparc/students THE RIGHT TO RESEARCH 5 Why do subscriptions cost so much? The authors of journal articles, including researchers like your professors and many graduate students, aren’t paid by publishers for the articles they write. They contribute their papers for free (and sometimes pay) to advance the state of scholarship in their fi elds and to make a name for themselves as scholars and scientists. What’s more, these scholars also freely contribute their time to review and often edit other articles before they’re published. While some journals (particularly those published by scholarly societies and other non-profi t entities) charge fair prices for access, the highest subscription costs pay instead for some commercial publishers’ 30% profi t margins. 2008 annual journal subscription prices, provided by SPARC member libraries. MMUNITIES CONTENT CURIOSITY GE SHARE EXPLORE PUBLISHING UROLOGY $21,582.26 PRINCIPLES ADMINISTRATORS SUBSCRIPTION ARCH $7,902 SOURCE SCIENTIFIC IMMEDIATE MATERIAL ARTICLES 588.89 DIGITAL ADMINISTRATORS SIBLE ONLINE IMPACT SUSPICION DIATE JOURNALIST BRAINSTORM NRESTRICTED AVAILABILITY FREE SSIONAL INQUIRY THEORY INDEX ET BIOPOLYMERS $7,712 SHARING N ANALYSIS BOOK TECHNOLOGY ON ABSTRACT FACTS INSPECTION DATA INTELLECTUAL ACADEMICS ORE STATISTICS JOURNAL PUBLIC MIC AUTHOR SOURCE SCIENTIFIC ERIAL SCHOLARLY INFORMATION ETHODS IN ENGINEERING $8,844 EE READERS OBTAIN LIBRARIANS SSIONAL INQUIRY THEORY INDEX AL RESEARCH $8,073 LITERATURE L GRAPHS ADVOCATES CITATION EDICAL PRINCIPLES SEARCHABLE OOK TECHNOLOGY VERIFICATION TUAL INVESTIGATION DISCOVERY NITIES GENE $9,545.32 CONTENT JOURNAL PUBLIC DOMAIN OPEN ENTIFIC COMMUNITIES CONTENT CH ACCESS IDEA TRUTH ARTICLE IATE MATERIAL ARTICLES TRUTH ADMINISTRATORS SUBSCRIPTION SEARCHERS LIBRARIANS PUBLIC HING CURIOSITY DOMAIN OBTAIN AL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS $7,587 PROFESSIONAL INQUIRY THEORY CESSIBLE TRUTH ONLINE IMPACT AILABILITY PROOF CHARTS FACT JOURNALIST INQUIRY THEORIES ENGINEERING $6,163 EXPERIMENT CHARTS ARCHIVES INVESTIGATE SSMENT IMMEDIATE STUDY INDEX < 6 THE RIGHT TO RESEARCH www.arl.org/sparc/students SCHOOLWORK IS EASIER It’s a familiar story: You’re writing a paper for class and you need to cite articles from peer-reviewed journals. Eventually, you fi nd an article that looks good — maybe via a search engine, a footnote from another source, or a reference in an index. You search the Web for the full text, but you can’t get past the abstract. You look on your library’s Web site but they don’t have a subscription. You’re stuck. Maybe that article would have been a major source for your work — you’ll never know. You don’t have access. Open Access changes that. No more worrying about whether you’re on the campus network or if your library has a subscription. If you’re online, you have access, period — anywhere in the world. EVERYONE HAS ACCESS Open Access isn’t just for students and academics. With Open Access, everyone can read the latest research. Think of how important that could be to: • A patient looking for information on a treatment his or her doctor has ordered or on a trial of a drug that could treat a disease… • A small business startup researching the latest related technological developments… • Any one of us interested in better understanding global warming. Just as the Internet has democratized information, Open Access will promote sharing knowledge for the public good. Any subject you might think of — anything at all — you can look it up on Google or Yahoo! and learn about it. Open Access adds a massive inventory of reliable, scholarly sources to that free global library — quality ensured by the process of peer review. WHAT DOES OPEN ACCESS DO FOR STUDENTS? No more worrying about whether you’re on the campus network or if your library has a subscription. If you’re online, you have access, period. Open Access puts research instantly at the fi ngertips of anyone who cares to read. Researchers can fi nd and access any relevant work from anywhere in the world with no price barrier. That means science and discovery will advance faster. www.arl.org/sparc/students THE RIGHT TO RESEARCH 7 RESEARCH IS ADVANCED Conducting research is expensive. No researcher wants to waste time and money conducting a study if they know it has been attempted elsewhere. But, duplication of effort is all-too-possible when researchers can’t effectively communicate with one another and make results known to others in their fi eld and beyond. Consider, also, how much faster discovery can happen with open access to all available research. Researchers on the World Health Organization’s pandemic fl u taskforce said exactly this. How could they effectively research and fi ght this virus without access to available data? 1 Open Access puts research instantly at the fi ngertips of anyone who cares to read. Researchers can fi nd and access any relevant work from anywhere in the world with no price barrier. That means science and discovery will advance faster. 1 Branswell, Helen. (September 26, 2006) “Experts urge WHO to get countries on side for routine H5N1 virus sharing.” Canadian Press. BETTER VISIBILITY FOR YOUR SCHOLARSHIP You may be thinking of going into academia. If so, you’ll be writing publishable papers someday — if you aren’t already. Maybe you’re the editor of a student journal. When you choose Open Access, you make your work available to anyone who might search for your topic. That means more readers, more recognition, and more impact for your ideas. In fact, recent studies have shown that open- access articles are cited by other authors more frequently than comparable articles that aren’t openly available.2 2 Eysenbach, G. (May 16, 2006). “Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles,” PLoS Biology Vol. 4, No. 5. Open Access adds a massive inventory of reliable, scholarly sources to that free global library — quality ensured by the process of peer review. IN OPERATION Here are just a few examples of the thousands of outlets that provide open access to research: • arXiv (launched in 1991) • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1995) • AgEcon Search (1997) • Public Library of Science (2000) • BMC Cell Biology (2000) • Directory of Open Access Journals (2002) • Repository 66.org Repository Maps mashup (2007) 8 THE RIGHT TO RESEARCH www.arl.org/sparc/students USE OPEN-ACCESS RESEARCH There are 3,000 peer-reviewed open-access journals currently in publication. Find and use the open- access journals and archives in your fi eld. Visit the SPARC Students Web site for places to start. SHARE YOUR WORK Writing an article for a journal? Working on your thesis or dissertation? Are you the editor of a student journal? Gain more exposure for your work and ideas — learn how to make your work open- access at the SPARC Students site. SHOW YOUR SUPPORT Tell the world you want Open Access to research. Visit the SPARC Students Web site for information about buttons, stickers, adding us on your favorite social networking site, and other ways to show your support. TAKE ACTION Take action for Open Access on your campus. Check out the student action kit at the SPARC Students site for ideas. Learn how to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, organize an event on campus, pass a resolution in your student government, or ask your student organization to support Open Access. GET IN THE LOOP Join the SPARC email discussion network to share views with other students and get all the news you need on Open Access from SPARC. WHAT CAN I DO TO SUPPORT OPEN ACCESS? For more information about the topics in this brochure, to learn more about how Open Access affects you, or to see a showcase of student leaders taking action on Open Access, visit the SPARC Students site at http://www.arl.org/sparc/students. Talk to your librarian. Let him or her know that you’re interested in fi nding out more about Open Access and scholarly communication. Librarians are the best source of information on journals and are strong supporters of Open Access.